#this has basically turned into a normal blog by now

[devouring-hive]

god i fucking love yoghurt

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[witchywcmans]

NEEDY. | AKI HAYAKAWA

synopsis ━━ you were in need of a roommate, and aki hayakawa needed a place that wouldn't ask any questions. you went to work during the day, while aki worked late nights. you basically had the apartment to yourself. it was honestly a match made in heaven. but then, you just had to come home one day and catch your roommate in a precarious situation. (aki x f!reader.)

content warnings ━━ voyeurism (just a wee bit), sex-deprived aki 🫶, but also possessive + jealous aki, masturbation, dirty thoughts + wet dreams, fingering, praise, multiple orgasms, classic missionary, unprotected sex, creampie, mutual pining/confession, kinda au (we're not mentioning the gun devil arc), aki has lived to see 26 + reader being a similar age, some religious imagery. nsfw (minors + ageless blogs dni).

word count ━━ 5.1k

song inspiration ━━ dealer, lana del rey / friends, chase atlantic / double fantasy, the weeknd

author's note ━━ hi.....hello.........so this idea has been in my head for a little bit, and I realize roommate aus like this are simply not that original, but god dammit I just needed to get this out of my head. anyway, I lurrrrrv sex deprived aki. shout out to my friend hollis for screaming about this with me hehe 💓

The most words you had ever said to your roommate were on the day you interviewed him before he moved in. You immediately noticed that he was strange, but also shy and seemingly harmless. When you had asked why he needed to move in so quickly, he had said something along the lines of a “toxic environment” with his previous roommates: “Denji and Power are just too noisy and reckless. They’re four years younger than me. I need a place less chaotic.” You had been interested in getting to know more – you were curious, after all, about your potential roomie – but once he mentioned that you’d probably never see him because he worked nights, you were sold.

Aki Hayakawa was your new roommate.

He had never been more excited to finally get away from Denji and Power and the tumultuous mess they had turned his apartment into. He was older now; he needed something for himself, even if it was with a roommate. Being a Public Safety Devil Hunter, he needed a place that didn’t think twice about him, a roommate who didn’t ask questions. That’s what he liked about you: your place was on the right side of the city, and you looked at him like he was normal. The Fox Devil said you weren’t going to be good for him, but Aki tended to ignore them anyway.

You had helped him move into your second bedroom just a week later and he hardly said a word, except to ask you who had formerly occupied this space. You were hesitant to talk about it at first, but you cracked soon enough: “My old best friend lived in here. We had rented this place together, but we … aren’t exactly speaking anymore,” you admitted, setting a box down at his feet. “I came home from work one evening and found my boyfriend cheating on me with her. It had been going on for months, right under my nose.” You looked away when you felt your eyes start to sting with tears, sniffling them away. “Friends come and go, I guess. But I’m thankful you, at least, worked out to rent this space.”

“Well,” he sighed, opening up the box as you turned back to him. He smirked. “I promise I won’t sleep with your boyfriend.”

You had laughed, and what a pretty sound it was. After move-in day, Aki was true to his word that you almost never saw him. You worked a normal 9 to 5, while Aki … well, you had no idea what Aki did. You assumed he was a security guard or something with the hours he worked and how he was always wearing a suit and tie. He was working all the time, even weekends. Sometimes, you would catch him coming home as you were leaving for work, or on Sunday morning as you ate breakfast in the kitchen. He would be too tired to talk, simply waving at you before retiring to his room.

It was almost like living alone … except for notes he’d sometimes leave you on the stove or the bathroom. Or the weekend mornings, when he’d get you a coffee and leave it out for you before going to his room. Or the once-in-a-blue-moon nights when you’d stumble in the early hours of the morning after drinking in the city with some friends, standing out on the deck with Aki as he smoked a cigarette. Nights like those, you could’ve sworn Fate was trying to get you two to see each other, because you would be arriving home at just the right hour and Aki would be getting off work early. And you would find him on the deck in his suit and tie, cigarette hanging from his lips, hair pulled up in his classic topknot. He would find you leaning against the railing in nothing but a short dress, the glitter on your lids making your eyes sparkle even more, and – god, you were just so pretty.

After that night, he started dreaming about you. He dreamed about how your lips would feel against his, what it would be like to have you sleep next to him and rest your head on his chest. He was consumed by thoughts of you under him, how you tasted, the way you’d tremble if he kissed that sensitive part of your neck you told him about one late night on the deck. His need for you was insatiable. In his line of work, there wasn’t much time for dating, let alone sex. He hadn’t been thinking about it that much, especially when he’d been housing Denji and Power, but now … he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Naked. Underneath him. On top. God dammit, he’d have you any way you wanted.

It made him wish he had acted on his instincts that night on the deck: pushing you against the sliding door, his lips crashing onto yours, hiking your skirt up that just barely covered your thighs and using his non-dominant hand (the one that didn’t shake) to feel how wet you were. But alas, Aki Hayakawa was a gentleman. 

You two had been living together for a year. He hardly knew you, but also knew you like nobody else did. He knew how you took your coffee – black with two sugars. He knew the brand of toilet paper you liked. He knew that you liked to hang your coats in the closet on the right side. He knew you drooled in your sleep, and what TV shows made you laugh, and how much your water bill was each month.

He was acting out in ways that were unlike him. If he came home from work and saw you had a guy over, he made his presence known. When you were at the office, sometimes he would go to your room just to smell your perfume, and other times he would steal your panties. (He always gave them back, feeling too shameful. But he did keep one underneath his pillow.) Some nights, he would pretend to leave for work early and you would retire to your room for the night, and then he would hear the familiar sound of your vibrator and – fuck, he had to go to work hard. Again. 

You were taking up too much space in his head. He was becoming distracted at work, thinking about what you were doing during these late hours. Maybe the Fox Devil was right: you weren’t good for him.

But he wasn’t moving out any time soon.

It was a Thursday after work and you were completely exhausted. After attending endless meetings and having to argue with coworkers all day, you left work early and were grateful to have a night alone with some leftovers from the night before. You had completely forgotten Aki telling you earlier in the week that he had this Thursday and Friday off, your mind preoccupied with work responsibilities. Sighing as soon as you walked through the door, you set your bag down and shuffled out of your shoes. You shut the door softly, at peace with the silence. You didn’t even have the energy to get out of your work clothes; you simply padded your feet to the fridge, plucking your leftovers out. It was only when you reached up to the microwave that you noticed the apartment wasn’t as silent as you assumed.

Sounds emanated from another room.

You got on your tip-toes, not wanting to make much noise if there was an intruder, and felt for the pocket knife you always kept on your person. Passing by your bedroom first, you popped your head inside. Empty. Hadn’t been touched since you left this morning. The bathroom was next, and you held your breath as the sounds got even more noticeable. You peeked into the bathroom and … clear. Linen closet: clear. Coat closet: clear. But the sounds only became more clear as you got closer to the end of the hall, Aki’s room, and –

You stopped in front of Aki’s bedroom, the door cracked just enough that you didn’t need to pop your head in to see what was happening. Aki was home, for once, and you … you were watching him through the crack in the door. But how could you not? You knew where the sounds were coming from now, because Aki was the one making them.

His dark hair swept in front of his eyes as he sat back against his pillows. He wore a white t-shirt, while his boxers bagged around his ankles. Grunts slipped from his mouth – that pretty, pretty mouth you'd seen wrapped around a cigarette. And his hand … his hand wrapped around his cock, pumping furiously – desperately – with a pair of your panties enveloping the head. The same red lace panties you thought you’d lost months ago. 

You almost considered walking away, making noise in the kitchen so he would know you were home, but then –

Then, your name left his mouth in a whimper.

He was stroking himself even faster, muttering your name into the silent room with your panties wrapped so nicely around his cock. He was thinking about you, wanting so desperately cum in your panties, wondering if you thought about him when you used your vibrator. You were frozen in place, completely fixated on him as he leaned back against his headboard, his face finally exposed so you could see the way his jaw went slack, the way he moaned out your name. And – oh my god, you should leave –

But you couldn’t. And deep down, you knew there was a dirty part of you that always wanted to see this. Ever since that night on the deck, when you were wearing your favorite dress and all that glitter, and you noticed that he was looking at you in a way a platonic roommate definitely shouldn’t. You had started to think about him late nights when you were alone with your toy. You brought home dates, wanting him to see, giggling when you recognized his jealous expression. You tried to wake up earlier, just to see him when he stumbled through the door. Once, you even did his laundry to smell the nicotine on his jacket. 

The two of you simply couldn’t help yourselves.

And when you watched him finally reach his peak, spilling into your forgotten red lace panties, you realized just how wet the ones you were wearing had become. You watched him grunt as he came, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat off his brow. And when he muttered under his breath a soft, “Fuck,” you couldn’t help the short gasp that left your lips.

Aki stalled. Oh, shit. You hadn’t been quiet enough. He sat up more in his bed, pulling his boxers up, and you whipped your back against the wall. You cupped your hand over your mouth, praying he wouldn’t come out and see. But he was whispering, “Who’s there?” And you only had enough time to move ten feet down the hall before you heard the creak of his soles on the old floorboards.

“Fuck,” he muttered, louder this time.

Your back went straight, and after what felt like an eternity, you slowly turned to face him. “Aki,” you put your hands up in surrender, “I didn’t see anything –”

“Oh, what the fuck,” he shook his head at himself, quickly walking back into his bedroom. You were stunned, not knowing what to do, as he continued talking to himself in the room: “Stupid fucking idiot not closing the fucking door. What the fuck? What the fuck? My worst fucking nightmare. Fuck, why do these pants always get caught around my ankles? I need to get out of here. Stay at Denji’s for the night. Fuck, fuck, fuck –”

He emerged from his bedroom, now wearing jeans, his favorite Converse, and a leather jacket. He tried to pass you without looking, whispering obscenities under his breath, but then you were tugging on his jacket, lips pressed together.

Aki paused, cheeks red with both embarrassment and anger at himself, but you didn’t let go of his sleeve. He noticed the redness of your face as well, the black of your pupils almost covering your entire eye, and were you … were you aroused?

Swallowing hard, your voice was but a mere whisper when you asked, “How long have you had those?”

He knew what you were referring to. It didn’t take an idiot. Your stares were locked, and despite his shame, he wouldn’t turn away. “A while,” he mumbled.

“How long is ‘a while?’”

“Months, okay?” His eyes narrowed and his voice took on a new tone. “Now, can you let go of my jacket so I can leave and save us both the embarrassment –”

“Months,” you repeated, licking the corners of your lips. His eyes were made of blue fire as he stared down at you, and even with your office attire on, you felt utterly naked beneath his gaze. “I’ve … I’ve been thinking about you for months too.”

Aki took a moment to process your words, and your grip hesitantly released on his sleeve. But he wasn’t – he couldn’t – let you get away so easily. His breath was shaky as he placed both of his hands on the wall behind you, pinning you to it. So many times had you two passed each other in this hallway, so many words left unsaid. And now, he was pressing you against it.

“You’ve been thinking about me … for months,” he thought out loud, leaning in a little and nosing your hair. Your scent was intoxicating. That perfume … he could cum in his pants just from smelling it. “For months, you’ve been bringing guys to the apartment to … to what? Make me jealous?” He chuckled under his breath. It took him so long to put it together. “For months, you’ve been touching yourself right before I leave so I go to work fucking hard.” His nose traveled down to your neck, grazing that spot you told him about, and you shuddered. “You’ve been putting me through the wringer and I didn’t even have a clue.”

“You’re … you’re not so innocent.” You tried to keep yourself together, but it was difficult with him pinning you to the wall and – oh, he was already hard in his pants, pressing into you.  “You’ve been stealing my panties so you can masturbate with them.”

Aki hummed quietly, pressing his lips so delicately to your neck, as if his cock wasn’t completely strained in his jeans. “I supposed I have,” he whispered against your skin, “for months.”

“Since that night on the deck,” you croaked out, hands balling into fists as he licked a stripe up your neck. If he didn’t stop, you’d surely moan. “But I didn’t say anything – didn’t think about saying anything – because … because we’re roommates.”

“We are roommates,” he said, lifting his head from your neck, his lips hovering so close to yours. “And if we’re just stating facts here, I’ve needed to kiss you since that night.”

You didn’t wait for him. Immediately leaning in, your lips pressed onto his in a hungry kiss. His mouth molded to yours, and he tasted exactly like you thought: like black coffee, cigarettes, those raspberry pastries he always kept in the kitchen. His tongue, slipping into your mouth, tangled with yours in a way that you had only dreamed about. Your hands released from their fists, instead reaching up to twist in his t-shirt, bringing him even closer to you. He’d hardly touched you and you were completely, utterly soaked. 

As if hearing your thoughts, his lips broke from yours for just a moment to beg, “I need to touch you.”

“Please,” you whispered back, and his mouth was back on yours.

He dragged one hand down from the wall (his shaky hand, believe it or not), still pressing you against it, and worked on unzipping your trousers. You nuzzled your nose against his as he kissed you deeply, slipping his hand in your pants, past the waistband of your panties and – you were exactly as he dreamed you’d be. Absolutely wet. Just as needy for him as he was for you. “Fuck,” he muttered into the kiss, spreading your soaked folds with two long fingers. 

Your lips tore away from his, a trail of spit following, because you simply had to release the moan you’d been holding in for so long. Despite loving the way your mouth fitted against his, he was glad for it, wanting to see your face when he started rubbing your sensitive clit. And fuck, was it the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Your fists on his t-shirt went loose as your body felt like it was made of liquid, angling into his. Your lips pursed, soft whimpers filtering out as he rubbed you in those tight circles.

“So fucking wet f’me,” he mumbled, grazing his lips over yours. “Dreamed about this for months. Fuck, I’ve gotten hard just thinking about this pussy.”

He finally dipped a single finger inside you, and your hips immediately jerked against his hand. Aki let out a shuddering breath when he felt how much you were squeezing just one finger, pumping it in and out of you slowly. “Please,” you whispered, despite his thoughts, “I can take more. I promise.”

You didn’t need to ask him twice. He shoved two fingers inside you, curling them against that spot that had your hips instantly bucking. “Fuck, Aki,” you whined as he plunged those fingers in and out of you, using his thumb to rub your clit. 

“Yeah?” He breathed. 

“Kiss me.”

Aki moaned from your words alone, kissing you hard while fucking you with his long fingers. He was practically drunk on you: your scent wrapped around him, you tasted like citrus, and the way bucked into his hand … god, he needed to fuck you. So bad. And if you didn’t want that, then he needed to jerk himself off immediately or else he was going to explode in his pants. The last thing he needed was another embarrassing moment tonight.

It only took seconds to have you sighing into the kiss, squeezing his fingers like a vice as you came. His thumb on your clit was relentless, taking you over that lovely peak, as you mewled and cried into his mouth. It was almost religious, the way you moaned, and Aki had never felt closer to God than in this moment.

When the adrenaline subsided, he slowly removed his fingers from you and broke the kiss. You watched him intensely as he brought the fingers covered in your slick to his mouth, tasting you. Your lips fell open slightly, eyes going wide while his own closed, savoring the taste. What the actual fuck, you thought to yourself. How the fuck have we been living under the same roof and it took this long for me to see that?

Without missing a beat, you pushed yourself off the wall, winding your arms around his neck and latching your legs to his waist. He lifted you as if you were made of air, kissing you so that you could taste yourself. Before you could even perceive how much time had passed, you were on his bed, blouse disheveled and trousers undone. Even your hair hadn’t left the updo you put it in every weekday. Your eyes flickered to the right and you giggled to yourself. He had finally shut the door.

His eyes remained on you as he shrugged off his jacket, and then his pants. He was back in the same outfit you saw him in earlier, when your panties had been wrapped around his cock like a birthday present. He hesitated before finally pulling off his shirt, and you saw the scars lining parts of his chest. Definitely not a security guard, you thought to yourself but decided not to ask about it now. You reached up as he stood between your legs, brushing your fingers over the scars, and then dragged them down his abdomen. His frame was thin, but he was more built than you believed, always hiding himself under those oversized button-ups.

He wrapped his hand around your wrist as you touched him so gracefully. “Do you want to …?” His voice was so soft, the question hanging off the edge of his tongue.

And then, you smiled up at him, looking like an angel. “Yes, Aki,” you whispered.

He felt like a kid in a candy store. The only thing – the one person – he’d been dreaming about and looked at him as if he weren’t a machine, or a gun with the trigger pulled, was lying before him and liked him. For months, they’d both said. His dominant hand was shaking as he started unbuttoning your blouse, and when you noticed (though you had observed this the day he moved in), you grabbed his hand and placed it on your cheek. With his left hand and your right, you worked together to undo the buttons until your chest was exposed for him. 

Moonlight streamed through his bedroom, the only light source in a seemingly dark area.  City lights reflected on you as you pulled your hair free from the updo, those pretty strands fanning on his sheets. His sheets. Because you were in his bed. The blinking lights from corporate buildings outside your little apartment created a halo around your head and – fuck, you really were something religious. For so long, Aki thought only hell existed. I mean, all the Devils were here, contracted to them. But seeing you splayed out so heavenly for him on his bed, he knew then that Angels had to exist too. 

He took his time taking your pants off, watching the way you bit your lip when the cold air of his room hit your soaked panties. Your eyes glanced up to his boxers, seeing the indent of his long, thick cock, and your mouth went dry. His fingers hooked on the waistband of your panties, slowly dragging down and throwing them off to the side, hoping you’d forget about them so he could pocket another pair. With you exposed and bare on his bed, he really took a moment to admire you: the way your cheeks flushed, how the halo around your head flickered, the way your arousal seeped out of your pretty pussy and your nipples peaked. He just had to touch you; it would kill him if he didn’t. Leaning down, he began peppering kisses on your neck, your collarbone, before finally latching his lips around one of those sensitive nipples. Your breath stuttered at the sensation, and he used his left hand to palm your other breast, twisting the nipple between two fingers. You writhed under him, and he couldn’t help but grind his clothed cock against you, groaning and swirling his tongue around your nipple in tandem. Locking your legs around his waist, you held him to you so he was forced to keep grinding against you. It felt too good, and he wasn’t even inside you yet.

He tugged on your nipple and released it, breathing heavily as his eyes met yours. “If you don’t let me go, I’m definitely going to cum before I’m even inside you.”

“Poor Aki,” you giggled, letting your legs fall back on the bed. “Would that really be so bad?”

His eyes were burning into yours, serious as a heart attack. “I’ve been fucking my hand to the thought of you for what feels like forever,” he whispered, pressing a light kiss to the valley between your breasts. “I don’t want to ruin this moment.”

Aki moved up so that his lips were hovering over yours again, and he could really see the sparkle of your irises in the moonlight. You reached in between your bodies and gingerly massaged his bulge, feeling how much he’d already soaked his boxers with precum. “You couldn’t ruin anything even if you tried,” you replied, your voice light and airy. “I’m on the pill. I’m ready when you are.”

“Shit,” he groaned at your mention of being on the pill, trembling as you massaged him. This had to be another one of his dreams. Just the thought of being inside you without the barrier of a condom … he was so close to completely exploding. He didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve you, after all the hell he’d witnessed and brought forth into this world. But he couldn’t help himself. He needed to have you, roommates be damned.

He stood up, needing to get away from your gentle hand. You sat up a little to help him tug down his boxers, careful of that shaky hand of his, and his cock sprang free, dripping precum on the floor. Aki, ever the gentleman, laid you back down on his bed with ease, holding your stare as he spread your legs wide for him. He breathed, praying to whatever god placed you in front of him that he wouldn’t cum prematurely. He couldn't remember the last time he had sex, but he was so desperate for you that all he cared about was not tainting this moment, this dream. 

Aki grasped his cock, giving it a few hard pumps and grunting, before positioning himself at your entrance. You both seemed to hold your breath as he finally slid in, just an inch at first, and the two of you seemed to release that shaky, nervous breath. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned, burying himself further in your tight warmth, bracing his elbows beside your head. 

“Keep going,” you begged. “It’ll fit, Aki. Promise.”

You were going to kill him, he was sure of it. Aki had felt the way you squeezed his fingers, but it was nothing compared to pleasure of being inside you, feeling how tight you really were. So much better than his hand. Once he was fully seated inside you, he opened his eyes just to look into yours. Your lips pursed, legs wrapping around his waist once again, and you slowly nodded for him to continue. His cock twitched.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered, sliding out of you before slamming back in. You cried out, carding your fingers in his hair, and he molded his face in the crook of your neck to muffle his own whimpers. You just felt so, so good – so good that he could cry. To think that his bed had once been so cold, so lonely, but now you were occupying the space, trembling underneath him as his cock slipped in and out of you. 

Your moans were like gospel. For so long, Aki had been used to loud noise: to Denji’s complaints, to Power’s shouting, to the Devils’ in his ear. But now, it was just you two on the altar of your apartment, silent except for your heavy breaths mingling and the sound of car horns outside. You were wet and slick like holy water, taking him so nicely despite his size, and god – it was like you were made for him and he was made for you. 

You tugged on his hair, needing him so badly even though he was already yours to begin with. He really would have you any way you wanted. All you had to do was ask.

Aki was already so close to release, but he needed you to cum with him. As he fucked into you harder, deeper, his cock curving against that spot that made your eyes roll back, he reached in between you two and found that swollen bundle of nerves in the apex of your thighs. “Aki,” you whined, tears pricking at your eyes as he rubbed your clit. He could die happily now that he heard your voice like that in his ear, knowing it was him that made it happen.

“Yes?” He said, breathless, placing sloppy kisses on your jaw. You clung to him, melting into him like ice cream on a hot summer’s day. “I’m so close. Are you close, angel?”

You whimpered at the nickname. “Almost.”

“Almost?” He fingers went a little faster. “Let’s get you there.”

As his two fingers rubbed tight, small circles on your clit, he angled his cock inside of you so that he could brush your G-spot with every thrust. You were now clutching onto him with all the strength you had left, entwining your body with his and feeling his muscles flex against your stomach. He was so deep now and you were so close and oh my god, Aki Hayakawa had you like putty in his hands.

And it was like he knew it without you even saying it. Because as your walls started to clench around him, he whispered into your ear. “Cum for me, angel. Please, please, need to cum with you.”

Your body convulsed, going tight around his cock as you came. Tears streamed down your cheeks and you called out his name, spurring him to fuck into you faster, reaching his own peak in the middle of yours. He groaned deep into your neck, hips stuttering as he spilled himself inside of you. You kept your legs around his waist, not wanting to miss a drop, and arched yourself against him, coming down from the high of your intense orgasm. Aki was still rubbing your clit slowly, whispering praises into your skin like, “Did so good me … So pretty … Could listen to you cum for hours.”

You two laid like that for a while, feeling his cock soften inside you, panting heavily against each other. Once he finally pulled out of you, your combined releases dripping down your thighs, you laid beside each other on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The silence was comforting, until he whispered, “Please, tell me that wasn’t all a dream.”

Turning your head, you smiled at him. “Do you feel this?” You pinched his arm.

Aki flinched. “Ow.”

“Definitely not a dream,” you chuckled.

[merthosus]

Blank minds

@selfishlittlebeing asked:

Hi! So basically I just read every single one shot on this blog. And I am obsessed with your work. And I gotta admit that, “Wounded nights” did things to me.🧍🏼‍♀️

I’m not sure if I am requesting or smth (if you’d like to write this I wouldn’t protest, but feel free to just ponder on this with me). But like… I can’t get the image of touch starved Five out of my head. Bcs…damn. Him holding the reader in his arms like that (WN)… but can you imagine HIM having a vulnerable moment because of all that stuff with the Commission and apocalypses, just the trauma package yk. And after all those years…just Five being vulnerable with someone and touch starved.🥲 I am making myself feel depressed with all this. Wanna be depressed with me?🎀

Summary: After Luthers wedding, most of the siblings already gone to bed. You didn't feel like drinking, but loved to watch the others drown their sorrows into liquor and just have fun. Just as you were about to fall into a deep sleep, a knock on your door pulls you out of your slumber.

Thank you for your lovely request! Also, here a sexy poster from Five I fell in love with! With every purchase you automatically support me :) https://amzn.to/3yGK6Fm

“Since everything will be dust soon anyway, you won't mind if I just lie down here for a while, will you?”

You're up to your nose under your eiderdown, with only the sound of collapsing buildings coming through your window. It may sound crazy to others, but for you, it's been part of everyday life for a week. Counting every second, spending the last time with your family and savoring it. There is nothing more precious than time. Money has no value anymore, but the ticking hands of the grandfather clock do have.

Your thoughts hover over your head like gray clouds. Since the first day you slept in that hotel bed, falling asleep felt like hell. You tried a lot to finally fall asleep normally again. But every time you closed your eyes, you were met with nightmares, worse than you could ever have imagined. You were sure that this couldn't be the end, it simply couldn't be.

Like every night, you try to push the thoughts aside, to repress them as if they had never been there. But a loud and uneven knocking jolts you out of your sleep like a thunderstorm. You startle awake and clutch at the sheets of your bed. “Yes!” you shout, but it sounded more like a question than an encouragement. You watch every movement, sharper than Diego's blades. As Five stumbles in, you let out a breath you didn't even released you were holding. 

“You scared me,” you mumble. "I scared you, so please, why should anyone be scared of me?" he says to himself. Any blind person would have recognized that Five had probably had a little too much to drink at Luther's wedding. Five doesn't finish the sentence and drops his head down as he continues to mumble to himself. After he fell back against the door, you gave him a worried look. “Thanks for closing the door, but I think you have a concussion now,” I smirk to myself. Five starts to giggle. “The world is coming to an end,” he says, and pushes away from the door again.

You look out of the window that separated you from the crumbling outside world. Instead of bright sunshine, dark red fire dazzles your eyes, bricks fly off buildings and trees uproot themselves. “No, really?” you ask him sarcastically as you turn back to him. You suppress your horror as he suddenly stands right in front of you. He holds on to the edge of your bed. You think about how he managed to approach you so quietly, the alcohol in his blood must be enough to put a chimpanzee down.

“Since everything will be dust soon anyway, you won't mind if I just lie down here for a while, will you?” he asks as he tries to climb onto the bed. “Five, eh?” you ask as you hold him down so he doesn't slide off. He awkwardly pushes himself over your legs, which elicits a small squeak from your mouth. “You're really rough, Five,” you complain, but you just couldn't help the smile on your face.

You had never seen Five so shameless. Five, who is usually so strong and independent, asks you if he can lie down with you for a moment. As you think about it for a moment, you briefly doubt your sanity. Was this a fever dream? But Five's careless hand movement presses your torso so hard into the mattress beneath you that you're sure it would have shaken you awake. “I've never seen you so awkward,” you squeeze your words out of the pain. “I'm sorry, but your bed is sooo soft,” he lulls to himself. You shake your head and stifle the comment that the beds here were all the same.

“Five, why are you really here?” you ask him. He lies down on his stomach and presses his head into your pillow. He mumbles his words into the fabric so that you can only guess what he's saying. “I don't understand a word, you stupid…” you grumble to yourself as you grab a tuft of his hair and push his head to the side. 

Five groans softly as you move his head, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused. You wait for him to speak, but it seems like he’s struggling to find the right words. He’s always been the one with the sharp tongue, the quick wit, and seeing him like this—vulnerable and slightly lost—pulls at something deep inside you.

“I didn’t want to be alone,” he finally mutters, his voice slurred but honest. “I’ve been alone for so long... and I guess I’m tired of it.” His words are a confession, raw and unguarded, much like the state he's in now. You’ve seen Five in many situations—fighting, strategizing, leading—but this is different. This is Five without his armor, without the walls he usually keeps so firmly in place.

You feel a pang in your chest, a mix of sadness and empathy. You’ve always known there was more to him than the ruthless time-traveling assassin he often portrayed himself to be. But hearing him admit his loneliness is something else entirely. "I understand you, Five," you say. He smiles and sightly closes his eyes. "I didn't want to be alone too, so I am happy that you are here now, I would've preferred sober Five, but this is also ok", you smile at him. 

You let your body fall back into your pillows, Five, who was still lying on his stomach, watching you. You put your head to one side and just look at him motionlessly. “Promise you won't tell anyone about the following?” he asks you. You don't understand exactly what he means. “I hardly think I have enough time left to tell anyone anything,” you say, with an unintentional sweep of sadness. “Promise” he whispers to you, while looking at you with begging eyes. Not only the pungent smell of alcohol, but also his seriousness to fly in your face. “I won't tell anyone,” you promise. Without warning, Five starts to move again. He pushed your arm up and curled up on your chest, like a cat looking for warmth.

Seeing five like this was new and made you very afraid to admit it to yourself. He cared so much about maintaining his strong, unbreakable personality that his current behavior frightened you. Despite the unfamiliar feeling of five so close to you, you almost automatically put your arms around his slender torso. His fingers slide onto the sides of your torso, clutching on it as if it was a matter of life or death.

"Five, what's wrong?", you ask him. "I am fucking scared", he lulls. His confession hangs in the air, heavy with the weight of his vulnerability. You can feel your heart rate quicken, the tension in the room shifting as you process his words. It’s a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Five’s mind, and the openness is both unsettling and intimate.

“Scared of what exactly?” you ask gently. “Everything,” he replies, his voice barely above a whisper. “The end of it all… the not knowing". The tremor in his voice sends a shiver down your spine, and you can't help but tighten your hold on him. You want to reassure him, to tell him that everything will be okay, but the truth is you’re scared too. The world outside is crumbling, and the future feels uncertain for both of you. 

He shifts slightly, looking up at you with his tired eyes. “I don’t want to let anyone down. Not you, not the others. I’ve messed up so many times already.” His voice is tinged with a mix of regret and fear, and you can see the conflict waging within him. “If we lose, at least we'll lose together,” you say. It didn't really sound encouraging, but you couldn't think of anything better. “Do you think you'll regret this tomorrow?” you whisper without looking at him. 

Five’s grip on your chest tightens just a little, and you can feel the slight shivering in his body as he processes your words. The silence that follows feels heavy, filled with the weight of the world outside and the vulnerability between you. “No,” he finally murmurs, his voice soft but resolute. “I won’t regret this. I might not remember every detail of tonight, but I’ll remember the way it felt to finally....", you wait for him to end his sentence. 

"feel you", he says, so quietly that you almost missed it.. There is a silence in the room, your body is no longer able to move. Your brain needs some time to process his words. “I went too far, I'm sorry I…” he tries to apologize. He pushes away from your body and leans on his arms. But before he can finish his sentence and move away from you completely, you put your hands around his face and crash your lips into his. 

The moment your lips meet Five’s, time seems to suspend itself. The world outside, with its crumbling chaos, fades into the background, leaving just the two of you in this small, intimate bubble. His initial shock quickly melts away, and he responds with a tentative but heartfelt kiss. His lips are soft and warm, and the urgency in his movements gradually transforms into something more tender and searching.

As you pull away slightly, you can see the surprise in his eyes, mingled with a hint of relief and something deeper that he might not fully understand himself. You’re both breathing heavily, the gravity of the moment settling in. “I didn’t want to...,” Five starts to say, but you place a finger gently over his lips, silencing him. “Don’t,” you whisper, your voice barely more than a breath.

“You don’t have to apologize. Not now. Not ever.” Five’s expression softens, and he looks at you with a mixture of awe and vulnerability. “I’ve been so caught up in trying to control everything, in fighting against the end, that I forgot about what really matters. I didn’t realize... I didn’t realize how much I needed this, how much I needed you.”

Feel free to tell me in the comments, what you think :)

[jiskblr]

Tumblr Rules for Redditors

Hello, fellow redditors! Many people are trying to tell you rules about how to Tumblr properly. Many of them are wrong, or assholes, or both. I am also an asshole but I’m going to not be one for a minute to give you some advice:

“Reblog this or you’re a bad person” and any variation on that is a violation of intergalactic law. Don’t do it. Also, refuse to comply if someone else does it.

Generally, people can see what you reblog, but cannot see what you ‘like’. A like may seem like an upvote, but it is much less significant than one, since it doesn’t affect visibility in the slightest. A like will be visible both to the OP of the thread, and to the person whose reblog you put the like on. Like promiscuously! It feels good to get likes and there’s no downside. (Unless you are a space alien AKA influencer.) There’s a setting for like visibility, but it’s still somewhat hard to find even if it’s turned on.

Tumblr nominally has the ability to browse global tags (e.g. seeing the entire site’s posts and reblogs tagged #superwholock or #reddit exodus) and to search the site for things. No one uses them and they don’t really work.

You are probably less surprised by this than denizens of literally any other website on the internet, but there’s mostly no algorithm here. Chronological order only. This now defaults to being on, but you can and should turn it off. (If you’re using the search or global tags, they might have an algorithm, but if they do, it doesn’t work. We don’t know because we don’t use them, because they mostly don’t work either.)

Anyone can have absolutely any conversation in the notes of your post that they like. This is how the website works. You are allowed to complain about it, but don’t expect anyone to humor you. I think it’s possible to make posts unrebloggable and disable replies, but this is essentially refusing to use Tumblr. If you want to do that... go ahead, I guess?

Many people have ‘DNI’ lists in their blog descriptions. This means ‘do not interact’ and indicates that they don’t want you to message them, reblog from them, reblog any posts they are OP of, or even, sometimes, ‘like’ their posts. It is good manners to respect these, if you know they exist, but in normal use you probably won’t look at blog descriptions very often so it is entirely okay to violate them by accident. (When the lists get very long, it becomes impractical to check whether you violate them. Generally, just skip it. You probably don’t want to interact with those people anyway.)

Notes on posts you start will go to you no matter how many intervening hops there are on the reblog chain. If you get a post with an enormous amount of notes, this can get overwhelming. Whatever the current incarnation of Xkit (basically RES for Tumblr except we’ve switched names and maintainers seven times) is, will have a setting to deal with this. If that’s insufficient, the suggested course of action is to reblog your OP to your own blog so that you have a copy for posterity’s sake, and then delete the OP. This silences the notes.

If you and another user both follow each other, you are ‘mutuals’. This makes it much easier to have conversations with each other, which is ordinarily sort of hard since everything is purely chronological. Frequently your mutuals are your friends; if not yet true, they may become your friends.

When you reblog things, you can write words both in the word part and in the tags, Modern tumblr norms are to write long rambling tags in full sentences rather than put words in the main body. Unlike some other norms, violating this one and putting your response in the body of the reblog is not particularly rude. The worst it does is make a reblog chain long. Probably don’t reblog things and just say “This.”, though.

Tags can be subjected to peer review, by which we mean someone copy-pastes your tags and/or screenshots them and adds them to the main body of their reblog. Generally this is a compliment. The alternative is to say “#prev tags”, and this makes everyone hate you because it’s hard to find which tags were ‘prev’. Please just peer review properly if they’re good.

If you want to search your blog, consider Siikr. Don’t overuse it, it’s one guy’s project.

Be verbose! This ain’t Twitter, no character limit. (Not even the really large character limit of a reddit comment.) Write a 3000-word story in a single reblog if you want, that sounds awesome. Use ‘read more’ if you do, though. Posts can be very long, one of our oldest memes is about this.

Infinite scroll is the default, but you can turn it off. Actually, check all the settings, many of them will improve your experience.

On queues: Go nuts. Some people put everything in the queue, some people almost nothing. Some queue specific aestheticposting (personally I do #too smol) and post other things normally. Most people who queue a lot add a queue-specific tag like #the mighty queue or #this queue shall pass, or at least I notice them more than poasters with untagged queues.

You know how Reddit lets you buy Gold and people go 'thanks for the gold kind stranger'? On tumblr we spend money on Tumblr Blaze, and it is considered the PvP section of Tumblr. Though sometimes people actually use it to spread posts they like, such as people attempting to evangelize Christianity (no, really, that happened a lot) or the, I hope, actually-kind stranger who blazed this OP. You can turn off PvP with one of the many settings.

Everybody be excellent to each other!

[stealingyourbones]

*slowly shuffles a wooden box of finger bones towards you* so I have two ideas for you

So, what if ghosts like, really screw with video technology, so it all kind of looks corrupted at all times- so when Danny starts recording like a blog of daily like in amity park (maybe as a way to cope with Trauma) and he posts it, maybe people outside of amity could think it’s all just like, an ARG or analog horror- if you want to go with dc/dp here, tim could be trying to solve a nonexistent mystery

For idea two, do you know ab the mystery flesh pit? If you don’t it’s basically an unreality where a gigantic super organism is turned into a National park and it’s then shit down when the organism basically coughs in its sleep and destroys a lot of stuff-( also be warned, there is a lot of body horror involved in this, so if anyone’s sensitive to it maybe don’t look at any content!) so maybe Giant Danny is taking a nap and some villains find the GIANT GHOST TAKING A SLEEP and decide to hook him up to be used as like, a battery or Lazerus pit (if you go the route of his blood being lazerus water) and the heroes get involved trying to figure out what’s happening

oh man that would be so fun. Danny just takes a little school project 10 minute documentary of the town and doesn't think too much of it when he submits it to Youtube so he can send it to his teacher.

A week later and every ARG/Analog Horror nerd on the planet has heard about this brilliantly well produced video called "Amity Park"

Now knowing this, He decides to have some fun. He takes ominous shots of mundane Amity life and splices them between the more normal scenes of himself and his friends having fun and hanging out.

He amps up the uncanny level. Throughout all of his videos, he starts to tell a slightly dramatized version of his life, not the Phantom stuff, but his life as a Fenton.

The whole world watches in awe and delight as this refreshingly new Analog Horror channel posts nearly twice a week with some of the most stunning CGI that they've ever seen. I mean 'c'mon, Sentient food. A child living in the house of two mad scientists who casually mention dismembering and destroying ghosts at the dinner table. An honest to god crazy scientist lab with a massive portal to this 'Ghost Zone' just in their basement?! Yeah, whoever made this has an absolutely incredible imagination. (Some people are even dissing it since this GZ really just feels like a warped version of The Backrooms but it's fine, it's unique enough that it makes up for it.)

------

I am a hoe for any and every topic that Wendigoon talks about in his videos so I very much so know about the Mystery Flesh Pit. (Video is linked but be warned; Benji isn't joking when they say that it's a LOT of body horror.)

I'd like to propose that Danny isn't even on earth, he's on a different planet that has collected his blood and harnessed his core for energy on a massive scale, helping create and produce items that benefit their world greatly.

To Danny, Their mining, harvesting, and energy draining efforts are the equivalent to bacteria moving around his body. He's so massive that this civilization isnt impacting him in the slightest.

The JL get called because this strange planet superorganism is now moving and it's causing the destruction of an entire civilization.

They fly over to the planet and they notice something very very wrong with the shape of the planet.

First and foremost, the two eyes spanning the equivalent width of Texas that stares up at their ship is new.

[marvelfanfics1]

 could you write a fic where Peter or Loki are caregivers and they have littles that no one knows about and they have some relation to the team and are at the tower one day not knowing their caregiver was going to be there the team doesn’t know they’re a little or that Peter or Loki are caregivers? Plz and Thx

Not So Secret Anymore

Pairing: daddy!peter x little!romanoff!reader

Warnings: age regression, reader has social anxiety (just projecting here), sorry for any spelling mistakes!

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You and Peter had been texting each other for a while now, getting close quickly by the fact that you both were in the agere community.

The way you found each other was just because you had messaged him over tumblr, telling him how comforting his blog was for you whenever you were in littlespace and now he was your caregiver over screen.

You haven't met each other yet but face timed a lot, still getting comfortable with each other. Peter never presses you into meeting him, knowing how hard it is for you given your social anxiety, so he'll wait until you feel up to it.

It's funny how you both share something so deep yet never have you told him you're Natasha Romanoff's adopted daughter and Peter never told you he is spider-man for obvious reasons.

It seems the universe had other plans for you both though.

You have just gotten back from Starbucks, getting something for your mom and yourself. Today was a rather anxious day for you because you will be becoming kind of a part of the avengers. You won't be participating on the missions, more stay at the compound to plan said missions and monitor them safely far away, helping over comms.

After the security let you in you instantly bee-lined for your mom's office, knocking on the door before entering, seeing her seated at her desk. She smiles when you enter the room, pushing the stack of papers to the side and waves you over.

You walk over to hand her the cup of hot coffee, chuckling at her groan of relief.

"You're my savior." She hums, taking a sip and notices you tapping your finger repeatedly against your own cup of cocoa. "You nervous?"

"Is it so obvious?" You ask and she mocks your tapping a bit more aggressively and you shake your head laughing. "Yeah, ok, you got me. I'm just scared to mess up..."

"I get it, really. But making mistakes is normal, it makes you do better for the next time. Just go with your gut feeling and you'll see what happens. Besides the others have a lot of experience and know when to listen to instructions." She assures you, getting up from her seat to stand right in front of you, placing her free hand on your shoulder to give it a gentle squeeze. "You'll do amazing, I just know it."

"Thank you, mom." You smile at her.

"Alright, then let's go. It's time to make official to the others." She says making her way towards the door, waiting for you to follow.

Swallowing the lump in your throat you follow after her, walking out of her office and towards the meeting room where everyone else was already waiting for you both.

As you stand before the door you hesitate, taking a few deep breaths. You just couldn't help being nervous, standing in front of people even if most of them basically watched you grow up by Natasha's care was still scarring you.

"You ready, sweetheart?" Natasha asks, making sure you really want to do this.

Taking a deep breath you nod with a small smile, your grip tightening a little on your cup as the door slides open.

Everyone in the room stops talking and turns to face you both. Your attention instantly fell on the slightly curled brown haired boy who's back was still facing you. When he did turn around your eyes widen, instantly recognizing the boy as your caregiver.

His eyes widen as well, neither of them saying anything. To your relief Natasha starts talking.

"So, most of you already know my daughter..." As she did the introduction for you your eyes never left Peter's, subtly shaking your head for him not to say anything about you both already knowing each other.

He presses his lips to a thin line, his gaze already telling you 'we'll talk about this later'.

After you and your position got discussed everyone left to do their own thing. You speed walk to your room, feeling someone following after you with a few feet distance.

You walk into your room without closing the door, standing in the middle of it. Peter quietly snuck into your room as well, looking out the hallway if anyone saw him before quickly shutting and locking your door.

You spun around as he approaches you. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" He stresses but before you could answer him he pulls you into a hug. This is the first time you ever meet each other in person and a feeling of comfort and happiness rushes through you.

He pulls away, cradling your face in his hands.

"I-I live here. You already know by now who my mom is a-and today is supposed to be my first day working with or for the avengers." You explain, trying to stay big as the urge to slip came the second you saw his face since you normally regress when you're face timing.

"Hell, you could tell me anything and everything about your littlespace but that you're Black Widow's daughter never seemed interesting enough?" He laughs, squeezing your arms a little form excitement.

You shrug, giggling. "And you never found it interesting to tell me you are a part of the team?" Suddenly you realize something.

You know everyone on the team, except for the mysterious newcomer with the red mask you have only seen on tv or the news paper.

"You- You're spiderman?!" You squeal and Peter put a hand over your mouth.

"Shh, don't want anyone knowing I'm in here right, little one?" You practically melt in his hold when he uses the pet name you love so much. He retracts his hand, smiling at you. "You're even cuter in person."

You quickly wrap your arms around his neck, burying your face in it. Peter immediately wraps his around you to pull you closer, enjoying to finally have you in his arms after months of texts, calls and promises of cuddles. He only let go when you pull away, grinning at him.

"I would have made our first meet more special just so you know." He declares and you shake your head.

"Is alweady special enough..." You whisper, tears building up in your eyes.

He frowns at your tears, wiping away the ones that slip. "You don't have to cry. Daddy's here now..."

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Taglist

For everything:

@my-river-lilly @pauntedblacknails @fanfictioniseverything @devilslilbabysblog @buckymydarlingangel @hallecarey1 @daybreakwinter @loveshineslikethesky @wandaslittlewhore @vase-of-lilies @white-wolf1940 @simpingbutch @mischiefsemimanaged @alina02 @teddybearsgrr @doozywoozy @angelbabydoll28 @glxwingrxse @lilymurphy03 @veryvaughnny @lokigirlszendaya @youngstarfishdinosaur @little--baby--bear @minideathgoddess @rach2602 @aagn360 @gh0stgurl @flourishandblotts-inc @fluffyblanketgecko @lovelyy-moonlight @yoruse @kissforvoid

[dadsbongos]

Hi!!! Hope you’re doing well - I just want to take a moment to gush before I ask something, because I’ve really enjoyed your blog since finding it:

1: your writing is SO good I’ve reread your dunmesh fics several times now & just eat them up every reread. I’m stoked you also have funger content & can’t wait to eat those up

2: your blog’s aesthetic is just 🤌🤌 chefs kiss

3: your chilchuck’s wife fic - I’m convinced you are the chilchuck expert you characterized him so well (& the bit in the 3some fic when he choked the reader ? gulp)

OKAY on the with the actual question: I was wondering if you have any chil thoughts for the chilfuckers? Maybe some sfw / nsfw?

thank youuu :] i'm so glad to provide for the dungeon community with both meshi and funger <3 and also extra glad to make the chilchuck people proud, he's my fav lil man

i have so many chilthoughts bc i am a verified chilfucker i need that middle aged man

nsfw chilthoughts 

MEAN mean man

Likes to make his partners huff and whine, especially if they start haughty or mouthy

Facefucking, especially, for the mouthy ones. Wants to shut you up and make you drool

Lately the thought of Chilchuck fist-fucking a bigger race has been making me sweat… like yeah lil man, get up in that thang… I need to write it. Maybe some dwarven wench who keeps mocking Chil, or an ogre that feels its appropriate to pick n lift him up while working

Schrodinger’s breeder kink - sometimes its all he’s thinking about and sometimes the thought is entirely uninteresting

Touched on it a BIT in my body swap fic but i think Chil has a really sensitive neck and likes being held there (maybe not choked, but grabbed and stroked for sure)

Has a secret goon for younger partners but doesn’t like admitting to it, the taboo of it makes him all hot especially since he knows most other races can’t tell. Like a VERY poorly kept secret that could ruin his distinguished reputation

i also have chilchuck fic ideas that i haven’t fleshed out, but thought it’d be a shame if they sat in my ‘puter unseen:

Idea 1: Reader is a young elf, only about 72, and against all odds began dating Chilchuck. On his 30th birthday, it's brought to attention that you’ll be in your 90s when he dies. Leading to a spiral wherein you’re just trying to live in blissful ignorance to your races’ lifespan difference, and Chilchuck assumes you’re mature enough to handle his death, move on, and remember him fondly… lol… anyway. When Chilchuck dies you study how to maintain your own mana without a dungeon and practice minor healing spells until you can do a full revival, which fails on Chil, so you have to turn to dark magic. Basically rewinding his life until he’s the same age as when you two met and he’s upset you brought him back because YOU could get in major trouble and that’s when you confess you didn’t tell anyone when he died bc you knew you’d bring him back -- and you’re a nutcase that keeps doing this every time he dies despite knowing he wants to die peacefully. Omg loving someone so much you need them at all costs even ruining their perception of you… 

Idea 2: Chilchuck helping a 20-ish(+?) y/o half-foot negotiate a contract for themself and he thinks they’re soooooo cute so they get together, and he’s kinda nervous to bring them around cuz you’re crazy young compared to him. Not even a child to speak of GASP. The party doesn’t notice at ALL cuz they have no idea about anything about half-foot aging and customs -- but his daughters look at him sideways lmao

and this is literally not even a full fic idea but i have a note from my chilchuck master doc for you lol

im so normal about him

[fromfiction]

hii!

idk if you knew this, but "soulbond" and "plural identity" are vv harmful terms

:( theyre pro endo (endogenic, aka a "system" without trauma) and endos scientifically cant exist. /info

basically, systems like ourself stem from childhood trauma. before the ages of 9-12, your brain is physically unable to create a solid identity. normally, by that age, what we call "facets" or "fragments" of identity will either:

- fuse together, creative your identity (which is ever-changing but now has a "root"); or

- disappear for any reason

but when someone goes through extreme trauma before that age, those facets are unable to develop properly and instead become identities. this results in DID/OSDD/USD, which are the only ways plurality can exist.

soulbonding is (and correct me if im wrong) the practice of creating a spiritual connection with someone or something, or bringing their soul/spirit into your body. this is similar to introjecting (having an alter form based on a real person, fictional character, etc.) but alters cannot be made intentionally as they form at the brain's subconscious and not the conscious. therefore, it isn't possible and soulbonding is purely misinformation.

likewise, "plural identity" is equally harmful if not even more so because it implies that one can just "identify" as a system or as having fragmented identity, which in turn mutes the people like me whove been through horrible things and had to suffer for it our whole life. if plurality was an identity, then 100% of real systems would identify as singlet because it really isnt fun.

please remove those from your blog... /nm /lh

I am begging you to at least think about what you're doing and saying when you come to a person and ask them to negate and deny their entire personhood and entire lived existence to make you comfortable and to conform to your worldview.

This is what you are doing when you come to a spiritual plural or a spiritual fictionkin and say "stop using those words, because I don't believe in those things".

When you say "DID/OSDD/USD, are the only ways plurality can exist" to someone who has lived the past 30 years of their life as a spiritual plural system you are saying "you don't exist, and I want you to deny your own existence for my comfort."

You are literally coming to me and telling me my soul doesn't exist.

You don't think that's a fucked up thing to say to someone, even if you believe it?

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

Hiii<3 I don't know if this was ever ask before but I wanted to know how would tenjiku react to rindou gf who is like the good girl type and looks kinda weak but is actually a very good sword(wo)man? Thank you in advance if you did answer this!

Also I just wanna say how I love you and your blog<3 One of the best things out there. Thank you for feeding us such good post. You're literally cooking 5 star michelin frfr

Aww thanks!!! Glad to know you like them! And no I don't think I have done this, so here are tenjiku's reactions to Rindou's girlfriend being weak/ good and then finding out she's secretly great with a sword!

Ran- The first one to find out about this and honestly it doesn't change much for him. He starts off being mildly interested in Rindou's girlfriend, mainly by teasing her and Rindou to see her reaction (Rindou's annoyed blush is always funny too). But after finding out about her being good with swords he becomes very interested and tries to tease her even more. Also wonders if she would be good with a baton too, may even try to spar with her.

Kakucho- He's very friendly and supportive at first, understands Rindou's girlfriend is probably just nervous around a bunch of gang members. So he tries to be overly friendly to help her relax. Get's so excited after he finds out about the sword stuff though, asks to see a demonstration.

Izana- Doesn't really care in the beginning, she's just some girl that Rindou's dating. As long as she doesn't give away tenjiku secrets and treats him respectfully then he's unbothered by her. However the sword ability peaks his interest, starts actually talking to her after finding out and making more of an effort. He respects her more because of her abilities.

Mochi- Polite at first, introducing himself and making sure Rindou's girlfriend is ok. He doesn't really think much of her, she seems nice but is very quiet so Mochi keeps his distance a bit in case he's scaring her or something. Laughs when he first finds out about her abilities, turns out he had judged her completely wrong. Wants to see her in action but is also a little worried about her.

Shion- She's basically his new best friend, he doesn't really care if she's weak or not, she isn't a gang member anyway. He's more just enthusiastic about having someone new to talk to, someone he can tell all his feats to (while also making some things sound better then they were). He doesn't think that highly of her but enjoys the company. Not much changes after finding out either (though this may change if he actually saw her in a fight).

Mucho- Raises an eyebrow when he first meets Rindou's girlfriend but says nothing. He just kinda avoids her, doesn't see much of a reason to get involved and assumes she'll be annoying or rely on him for protection if the gang gets attacked while she's here. Actually finds out while doing a background check on her. Still doesn't get that involved with her but will smile at her sometimes if their eyes meet.

Sanzu- Doesn't care at all about Rindou or this girl, he just nods when Rindou first introduces her then he avoids her. Becomes very interested when he finds out about her skills though, since he also has sword skills. Doesn't actually say anything to her but pays more attention to her and watches her sometimes.

Koko- He's so concerned about this girl. He's not sure Rindou would make a good boyfriend and now she's hanging around their gang too? Doesn't Rindou know it's dangerous? He's just worried about her safety and thinks this isn't a great environment for a girl to be in. He relaxes a bit after finding out but is still a bit on edge. Normally tries to keep an eye on her when anything violent is going on so he can help if she gets into trouble.

Kisaki- Completely dismisses her, she doesn't seem useful to him right now so why care about her, besides he has other plans to focus on. He does get more interested after finding out about her abilities though, wondering if she could be useful for something in his plan.

Hanma- He's so amused by her presence, tenjiku is already an interesting place but she certainly livens things up. Wonders if Rindou would fight him if he got too close to his girl. After finding out he wonders if she'll fight him instead, the idea makes him excited.

[rockstarhaechan]

hiii, hope you are doing well <3

can i req some winwin but definitely not fluffy, love your blog btw

conversations | winwin ˚ ೀ｡˚

♡ pairing: bsf!winwin x bsf!reader

♡ warnings: smut (minors dni), rough winwin, mention of the rest of nct, alcohol, fingering, cum eating, jealous winwin, pet names

♡ note: i hope this is what you asked for, since you wanted no fluff heh. but i’m doing well, thank you for asking hope you’re doing well too!

you’ve been invited to a party that nct organized, winwin being your best friend casually filling up your glass with a little too much beer for your liking. but you couldn’t care less all you wanted to have was fun tonight.

about two hours in, you were going through the stage of being really tipsy but not quite drunk yet. you’ve been talking to a lot of the guys stopping at jaehyun who has been taking your breathe away, especially tonight. winwin usually never really cared about you talking to the rest of nct, but this time he got really jealous.

“so darling, how are you enjoying the party?” jaehyun smiled widely as his arm was hugging you lower back, his face being really close to yours, so close that you already felt his breath on the surface of your face.

“i’ve been having quite a bit of fun, my glass is just empty” turning to jaehyun with your pounding face as you held your now empty cup in front of his eyes wiggling it a little bit. your hair was falling over your shoulders as you turned your head into winwin’s direction, waving at him innocently.

winwin got mad when he saw you and jaehyun being up close, practically kissing yet lips not even touching. winwin always had a slight crush on you but never told you since he was your best friend for so long now, but it makes him jealous and he doesn’t mind showing you as he slowly walks over to you.

“what happened between you and jaehyun?” he uses the chance to speak to you while jaehyun is filling up your cup with a new drink, winwin being extremely close to you letting your body become weak.

“what do you think happened sicheng?” putting on a little smile as your elbow rested on his shoulder, facing him. he lifted an eyebrow as his tongue poked the inside of his cheek.

“i don’t know pretty, you tell me cause you were clearly flirting with jaehyun” he sounded jealous, oh and how jealous he was. the look on his face was irritating as he pushed his hair back face getting closer to yours.

“are you jealous sicheng? that’s actually kinda cute” it was the tipsy self who said that to him, normally you couldn’t care less what winwin thought about you or how you thought about him cause in the end he was just your best friend and nothing more.

grabbing you hand and dragging you into the bathroom of the house, nails digging into his skin as you held yourself up due to his immense speed. winwin soon found the bathroom, pushing you inside as he closed the door behind him.

“now we can talk about what you did with jaehyun, you basically undressed him with your eyes” he was mad and sad at the same time, wishing it was him who you just flirted with. you stepped closer to him arms softly resting on his shoulders as your fingers play with the back of his hair.

“you know sicheng jaehyun is a really gorgeous person, who wouldn’t flirt with him?” that was enough for winwin as your last word left your lips he kissed you hungrily. you were shocked at first but quickly deepening the kiss one hand traveling down to his chest pushing him against the door slightly.

talking? that was definitely not what you two were doing right now, tongue’s fighting with each other while winwin’s fingers started to play with the hem of your dress slipping under it. the both of you got so distracted with each other that you couldn’t even break the kiss as winwin basically just ripped the dress off of your body while smirking at you.

“you look so fucking pretty, for how long was it waiting to do this god” his hand was cupping your tit as he slowly turned his attention to your nipple, twirling his thumb around your exposed nip, deepening the kiss even more.

it soon clicked in your brain as you noticed what just happened with the two of you carefully touching his chest as your hands moved to his belt but he stopped you from moving further down, pinning both of your hands above your head while whispering into your ear that this is all about you and not him. one of winwin’s hands moved down to your panties, playing with the hem of your waistband hand slowly sneaking into your underwear.

“sicheng, what?” softly smiling as a few moans escaped your lips but he just hushed you attention back to your clit, slowly rubbing on it with small circles as pleasure hit you. you never thought this would happen as winwin and you are only best friends and nothing more but you never knew about what he felt about you, so you just went with the flow.

hips moving against his fingers which are now deeply inside of you as he was hitting your right spot each time. winwin was working pure magic almost letting you cum on the spot just with his fingers. your moans made him smirk and pushing his ego up since he’s doing this to you, and only he is.

“g-gonna cum” you threw your head back in pleasure as you held onto his shoulders, leg wrapped around his waist trying to hold your orgasm back not wanting to give in that quickly it’s like you’re waiting for him to allow you to cum.

“cum around my fingers, wanna taste that sweet juice of yours” as soon as he said that you felt a tight knot in your stomach finally releasing your orgasm and turning into a panting mess. winwin catched you as you rode off your high holding your body upright slowly pulling his fingers out of you.

licking every drop of your juices clean off his fingers as he looked deeply into your eyes, basically grinning at you before he pulled you back into a long kiss so you could taste yourself on his tongue. he broke the kiss quickly handing you your dress, pulling it over your head.

“get dressed babe, don’t want anyone else to see you like this” a small giggle was heard from his lips as you dragged your dress over your shoulders, brushing the dress down straight. you looked into the mirror and almost screamed. your make up? completely ruined. mascara running down your cheeks, lipstick non existent.

“oh god sicheng what have you done, look at me” you cried out while laughing. he turned around to face you again, handing you a small towel with a quick “you still look pretty” before leaving the bathroom. after you freshened up you left the bathroom as well and ran into a confused jaehyun with your glass in his hand.

“oh i could use something stronger, vodka perhaps? thank you” chugging down your glass before signaling jaehyun to get another drink for you. winwin on the other hand was giggling next to you as his arm hugged your waist, giving you a kiss on the cheek.

“why so shy now doll?” his evil grin was not to be overseen, undressing you with his eyes once again. you just knew that this night would change a lot of things, not in bad ways but maybe what happened in the bathroom won’t be the only thing happening between you and winwin tonight.

[emersonfreepress]

help i'm alive

So! Long time, no see. 2023 was a whole goddamn lot lol

I don't have a demo update to share yet, but that's because I had to scrap nearly everything I managed to write during a very, very, very bad stint of writer's block last year. I hadn't even realized it had been a block like that until I went over my work so far last month and realized it was bad -- like, trust me; a slog to read that didn't even sound like me. It's been extremely frustrating but I've finally broken free of that and it's been easy and actually fun to write again for the first time in actual years. I just hate giving updates that have no actual news in them. And I really had nothing to share other than: I deleted thousands of words and feel so much better now 😅

Anyway, little about my demo plans have changed: I'm still putting out the Chapter 3 demos in Choicescript/on Dashingdon and then will be going dark to move things over to Twine. Where I am in the process right now is... feeling like 35% done with the overhauled version of this chapter and 50% done for the next demo update.

As far as asks, I'm... not really sure what to do?? I believe I've read them all (I love you guys), but so much time has passed since getting most of them that I'm not sure if it's, like... still pertinent??? To go back and answer them?? I suppose some of them like character asks could be, but all the nice messages of support -- that feels weird since I've practically ghosted this blog since August! Idk. Y'all tell me what to do with 'em and I'll do it. Maybe I should make a poll.

Uh... that's really all there is to say regarding the game! I've added some personal stuff after the cut, but if you're done here: Thanks for reading and sticking around. It means the world, for real.

So what has occupied my time all this time? Doctor, therapy, money, and friends. And improv! But especially the first two. There was a lot of non-writing related stuff fucking up my ability to focus and write, so hopefully with my mind and body both feeling a lot better, I can get back to being present and active with the game. I didn't realize how physically unwell I was until last year and it's been like... life-long issues I've been treating. It turns out it's not normal to feel exhausted enough to sleep at any given time, at all times, for your whole life! wow!!

I also uninstalled Tumblr from my phone back in February, so you could say I'm sort of generally focused on offline life. (And what an interesting coincidence that my writer's block dissipated shortly after that...) I also just moved!! The last two weekends have been so expensive and stressful -_- But I can't even compare the old place to the new. We're basically paying the same price for idek how much more space. The cats are so happy; which means the house humans get to be happy.

My schedule is finally freed up from constant medical shit (there was a 3-month stretch this winter with multiple doctor appointments literally every fucking week 🙃🙃🙃). My mental health is doing a lot better -- literally incomparably better compared to where I was this time last year. There's live comedy now (which I dabble in, to be clear lol), but I've finally found myself able to like... balance it all. The physical and creative energy that goes into it all, anyway. The lovely thing about improv is that you kinda just show up and do your thing -- it doesn't cut into my writing time so much as it costs energy. Unless I end up in this comedy debate show thing next month, which I am very excited to give up writing time for

So like... Life is life-ing and I'm just vibing. Or something? I'll be around.

Thank you all again so much for your interest, support, patience, and readership <3

[foldingfittedsheets]

I have never had a post-coital headache, but I saw the ask and it made me think...

Orgasming using a vibe hurts my clitoris. It doesn't even touch my clit because it uses airwaves or something to vibrate the air around the clit, not sure. And I don't enjoy vibrators that touch the clit because it just doesn't feel like anything pleasurable? I can't explain it but it doesn't feel good or bad just kinda numbs me.

I'll be getting bottom surgery to nullify my crotch someday, so I guess it doesn't matter much, since I can limp along till then. I'll be tucking the clitoris and the nerve bundle under some skin and tissue and hopefully the padding will help offset the pain (and I could finally use those cute giant wand vibrators with the big buzzy ball), but I'm just asking in case you have ever heard of this and are willing to respond on your blog.

For the record, I don't enjoy using my hands on my clit, doesn't feel good and dysphoric and bothers my asexuality (I don't like touching genitals at all and the wetness feels icky). I grew up using the pressure and squeeze method. Basically ball up a blanket, press it to my pubis, and then do a very prolonged, overpowered kegel and there you go (kinda tiring tho). I didn't even know I had a clit growing up, always assumed it was the urethra because it hurt to touch (turns out it's supposed to be wet, thanks homeschooling for the lack of sex ed).

So I use the vibrator but I hate the vibrator. The moments before the orgasm is just so painful. And I have to immediately turn it off because the continued vibration causes even more pain and makes my muscles clench up in response which makes it very difficult to pull the toy away from my body. When using it with my partner I have to "tap out" and she'll pull it away for me.

I low-key believe the multiple orgasms for clit+pussy based anatomy is a myth because how could it possibly feel good to touch there once the orgasm has happened? Sometimes I can't close my legs completely for minutes. That shit is so sensitive and like swollen? Throbbing? Why?!?

I theoretically like orgasms. I like the quiet feeling after them. But getting there sucks, masturbating is unpleasant (apparently normal people enjoy the whole process, I'm just there for the afterglow), esp when it's a maintenance orgasm and I'm not horny or physically aroused (sometimes I just think that I need to orgasm without really wanting to if that makes sense, weird ace shit).

This ask is longer than I hoped it would be, but there's lots of important context and I honestly don't know why my body is like this, Google is useless (esp nowadays).

Okay there’s a ton to touch on here, but first: vibes are not one size fits all. Everyone’s body’s are different and motors come in different powers and pulses. The “cute” massage wand types are actually some of my least favorite because they just go cataclysmic in power which is way too much for 90% of clits. They just have good marketing.

If possible, you can look for a gentler vibe. Jimmy Jane Form 2 has a pulse setting that’s reallyyyyy light, and puts vibrations on either side of the clit instead of directly on it. But there’s a lot of shapes and sizes that could be gentler than what you’re using now.

If you’re unsure check out a store and try the vibe on the tip of your nose. This is pretty close to how sensitive your clit is and can give you a frame of reference for how much power you actually want. Generally lower rumbles are more expensive but also more pleasant so that’s a cost/benefit you can run.

The other aspect of this is that clitoral tissue is actually massive. There’s a lot of stuff going on under the hood, so to speak.

Clitoral nerves get everywhere! That’s the whole thing with G-spots- you’re still hypothetically applying pressure to nerve endings associated with the clit. I’ve heard anecdotally that they can end up in the anus too but I couldn’t find a source to verify that.

The takeaway from how sprawling all those nerves are is that there’s probably places you might like sensation better that directly on the clit. Most clit havers in my experience found that pretty overwhelming, myself included.

If your main business with your junk has been businesslike and unpleasant to touch it makes sense not messing with it much. If your partner is a person you trust to explore with you can just have them feel around and caress and see if other areas feel stimulating without being as overwhelming.

As for getting so throbby and uncomfortable afterward, and multiple orgasms: In my experience and anecdotally this depends how you get there. When you come fast and hard your body reacts differently than when you edge into an orgasm. You can try changing up your routine to see if this makes a difference for you.

Some people can never do multiple orgasms, it’s rare for me but does happen on occasion, so it’s worth noting that smut has a lot to answer for in terms of how normal they make that. If you can’t get off more than once it is what it is. It’s not a myth but it’s not everyone’s reality.

I hope this was helpful, good luck and as you say, eventually after surgery this will get easier for you!

[wardenparker]

Hummingbird Has Landed, ch 10

Marcus Pike x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

After the debacle of his failed engagement and relocating to Washington to take charge of his task force, newly minted Special Agent Marcus Pike is ready to get back out into the dating pool once more. A slew of bad dates has him feeling a little down, and he takes an old friend up on an invitation to get away and get his head on straight. Imagine his surprise when he finds not only fresh air, but his soulmate as well - hiding in plain sight but in the unlikeliest of places.

Rating: Mature, but this blog is always 18+ Word Count: 12.3k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: occasional mention of American politics, pregnant character, food/alcohol consumption, mentions of clothing/regulated dressing for occasions, mentions of therapy because we believe in self care here, reader is in a previous relationship, love triangle, reader is mentioned as turning 30 during the course of the story, dom/sub dynamics* In-laws (nice ones though!), passing mention of federal agents possessing guns, family dynamics, that one family member that married someone awful, the mystery of Agent Bailey begins to unravel, discussion of life in the public eye, planning for the future, discussion of collaring. Summary: After a rather dramatic birthday, heading to Texas to meet Marcus's family seems like a walk in the park. Notes: I am 100% certain that I have missed errors this week, loves. But alas, ya girl is back to working five days a week and she is SO tired. ✌ Please enjoy the chaos that is the Pike extended family!

Ch1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3 ~ Ch 4 ~ Ch 5 ~ Ch 6 ~ Ch 7 ~ Ch 8 ~ Ch 9

The flight from Washington DC to Dallas is just over three hours long and you had agreed that it would be better to leave early in the morning on Saturday to arrive at his family's compound before lunchtime. The last two weeks have been a dream as you and Marcus spend basically all of your extra time together, sharing dinners after work and alternating beds for overnight stays. He's even come to his first Friday Night Dinner with your family, which makes it all the more appropriate that you're now flying with him to meet his.

Airline points used, Marcus was well aware that on a commercial flight, Agent Bailey would be much more comfortable with First Class and boarding the plane last. Allowing for the rest of the plane to embark so they were not filing past her and you. Now that the flight is closed and you are settled into your seat, he looks over at you with a smile. "Ready for chaos?" He asks playfully, picking up your hand. "My family is....energetic."

“I’m excited,” you assure him. You’re also nervous, but that’s natural. His big family is having their annual springtime get together for the start of baseball season and — according to Marcus — this is the biggest Pike family get together of the year. It’s a week of pickup games with his cousins, big family meals, revisiting old favorite haunts, and catching up on life. It used to be a way to help distract Marcus and his Mom as his Dad started out the new season every year and started traveling, but now it’s just their favorite reason to get together.

“Don’t feel like you have to do anything you don’t feel like.” Marcus insists. “Plenty of times half the cousins or wives and husbands end up in the stands watching and shit talking.”

“Baby if you think I’m not playing at least one game, you’re nuts.” Marcus has been so sweet about reassuring you and making sure you know nothing is expected of you on this trip, but frankly it just sounds like fun. Like the kind of happy chaos that is a complete break from your normal life.

He flashes you a grin. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He admits shamelessly. “After the games, we grill out or eat whatever we threw on the smoker that morning.” He shrugs. “It’s a party the entire time.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” You have been, and you are, and seeing him get excited would make the whole thing worth it even if you weren’t.

“Everyone is excited to meet you.” He promises. “Oh and mom asked if you had any allergies? Food or otherwise?” He shoots you a sheepish grin. “Forgot to ask.”

“Nothing at all. I’ll eat anything you put in front of me and sniff whatever weird Texas plants you guys have got.” A teasing grin counters his embarrassed one. “My brother and I did a campaign stop in Texas; I don’t think there was anything too sniffly in Austin. But I know the state is big.”

“Huge.” He snorts, smirking slightly. “You know what they say. ‘Everything’s bigger in Texas’.” He jokes.

"Oh yeah?" The smirk that forms on your face is immediate and you lean over to nudge his shoulder. "Is that how you grew up so big?"

“Not that big.” He chuckles. “My cousins – the males – are bigger.”

Snorting slightly, you can't help but laugh as you nudge Marcus again. "That sounds painful."

“Shit.” Marcus chokes and shakes his head. “I didn’t mean that.”

"Well good," you're still laughing, juvenile sense of humor on full display even if you're quiet. "Otherwise I'd feel bad for their spouses."

He snorts and leans into press his lips to yours. “I’m the biggest.” He boasts, completely lying and he winks to acknowledge that. Not like him and his cousins have compared…since before puberty.

"Naughty." It's chastising, but you giggle as you steal another kiss as you both settle back in your seats for a short but comfortable flight.

Marcus hums as the flight attendant comes by. “Do you want a mimosa?” He asks softly. “Start our vacation off right?”

"Why not? Let's have a fancy flight." First class is already a bit of an extravagance, and you smile at the flight attendant gratefully. They are well aware of who is on board – Agent Bailey had background checks run on the flight crew as a precaution – and discreetly point out your agent to the gentleman. "And a cup of coffee for the woman in the suit right over there? She'll say she doesn't want anything but I know she'd love a cup right about now."

“Yes madam.” He nods and smiles back at you, finding it refreshing that you aren’t over demanding like some political figures. One asshole really set his teeth on edge last month.

"Thank you so much." The last thing you want to do is make a fuss for the flight crew, and you sit back with Marcus's hand in yours. As nervous as you might be, this is going to be a good week.

“Anywhere you want to see in particular?” Marcus asks, stretching his legs in the extra space the first row gives you. “We don’t have to rent a car. Although I know Agent Bailey will want one of the Secret Service vehicles to follow.

"I want to see whatever you want to show me. Any place you used to hang out when you were growing up, or favorite local places, or even places you've never been that you've always wanted to go." It's his hometown, after all, even if he wasn't born there. Texas is where he became the Marcus that you know and love.

“There’s a band that’s playing Friday night.” Marcus tells you. “At the bar where I used to play.” He chuckles. “It’s my old bandmates.”

"One hundred percent." Your agreement is absolutely instant and there is a giant smile on your face. "No contest. It will be the perfect way to spend our last night in Dallas. Well...last night for now. I know we'll come back plenty of times."

“Awesome.” His grin is wide, happy that you would want to listen to some music and hang out. Potentially meeting old friends. “Then that’s what we’ll do. You’ll like the place.”

"I'll love it." Just like everything else this week, you're looking forward to it because it's something that you'll share with him. It's the early memories of your relationship, as you share the things with each other that made you who you are.

The family compound is exactly that. A compound. Built during the first contract with the Yankees, Pike’s Place as it was fondly referred to, had started out as a way for Marcus’s dad to build the retirement home of his parents’ dreams and ended up being the multi-generational property it is today.

There are more than a half dozen buildings in the property, a large pool and a garden, and even their own personal baseball diamond. It’s like having a resort built specifically for his family. Stuck smack in the middle between a ranch to the south and another large family property to the north, no one would even have any idea that neighbors existed around here if they weren’t told about it.

The main house is a beautiful American Craftsman-style building with a deep front porch and a swing out front, painted bold blue and white against the yellow Texas sun. Matthew and Donna Pike’s house is well-appointed but far bigger than it looks on the outside, and all around it is a stunning garden that they keep together as a shared hobby. The backyard sprawls on endlessly, but for right now you can see more cars than people. It looks like everyone is congregating with Uncle Matt and Aunt Donna.

Marcus’s smile gets visibly wider the closer you get and when the car stops, he’s almost vibrating with joy. He’s not nervous at all, knowing that his entire family will adore you. “Are you ready?” He asks again, not even waiting to the reply before he is shooting out of the car to open the door for you.

“You didn’t tell me you grew up in the cutest place on Earth,” you tease happily, practically giggling at how picturesque it is as you get out of the rental car.

“It’s home.” He looks around the property proudly. “Even when we were living somewhere else because of dad’s job, this was always home.”

“It’s beautiful.” You squeeze into his side and grin back at Agent Bailey as she gets out of the second rental car. “I hope you get to relax a little while we’re down here, too. It’s got to be a hell of a nice change of pace from looking at the inn every day.”

Agent Bailey notes the fence that seems to stretch around the property with approval. “We might be more secure here.”

“Glad to hear it.” Anything that makes her more comfortable is more than okay with you. With as hard as she works, she deserves to be able relax whenever she can.

“Dad installed a fence when he had some fans come up to the house when he was on an away trip.” Marcus explains. They had done one of those ‘where the star athletes live’ things in the Sports Illustrated magazine and someone figured out where it was.” He shakes his head. “Dad was furious, and the compound got an upgrade.”

“Sounds like a solid response to me,” the Secret Service agent agrees as she looks around the property.

“Although, he does open the compound up for youth programs. Training, spending the day with baseball players.” Marcus smiles proudly.

“I love how proud of him you are.” You slip your hand into Marcus’s again and give him a beaming smile. “Time for the chaos, baby. Let’s do it.”

Marcus laughs as the two of you hear the playful shouts from the backyard. The little welcoming barbecue that your father had insisted on was already in full swing. He can’t wait to see how you take all of his cousins and nieces and nephews wearing name tags.

It only takes about a second before someone notices you, letting out a boisterous shout across the yard and garden. “Well, looky what the cat dragged in!”

“Charlie.” Marcus leans in to tell you as every head turns your way. “First cousin from my mom’s side. Can’t believe he’s the first one.”

“Is Charlie not usually this friendly?” You ask under your breath, smiling and waving as more and more heads turn your way.

“Just…unobservant.” Marcus hums, smiling wider when his mother drops her platter of finger foods on a table and rushes forward. “You made it!”

Dr. Donna Pike is a tall woman with a wide smile and honey brown eyes, but right now her most noticeable feature is her long arms which reach out to fold out her only son like a protective mama bird. "Flight was okay?" She asks, smiling at Marcus's nod before she shifts over to hug you in turn.

When she had been told that Marcus had found his soulmate, she had been thrilled. Not because he had to be with his soulmate, she wasn’t narrow minded like that, but because he’s always had so much love to give. She can only hope that you will do well receiving it and return a fraction of it back to him. The others hadn’t seen how pure his heart is. She says your name and squeezes you tight. “How are you? It’s such a delight to meet you.”

"Thank you for having me." Her hands are on your shoulder and it's instantly obvious where Marcus's beaming smile comes from. "I've heard so many wonderful things from Marcus about his family, I'm really excited to meet everyone."

“Well if anyone is too much, or we all are, you just tell us to go away.” She snorts, shooting you a grin. “We are a bit much as a collective.”

"I promise my threshold for much is very high." It has to be, with the kind of people that are always around political figures, but this week is not about you. You do smile again, though, and urge Agent Bailey to come closer than her usual three steps away. "And thank you for understanding that things are not very conventional for me right now. This is Agent Bailey. She's my duty agent and an absolutely superb human."

Donna smiles at the agent, although she doesn’t attempt to hug her. Aware that it might be deemed as threatening. “She is also extremely welcomed.” She nods and offers her hand. “I hope you can relax and have some fun as well, Agent Bailey. We have a comfortable room set up for you at the top of the stairs, just down the hall from them.”

"Thank you, Dr. Pike." Agent Bailey accepts the handshake gratefully. Some people perceive her presence as threatening and that just isn't the case. Especially not here.

“Please, call me Donna.” She insists. “Now, we’ve told the children they are not to ask about your gun, but I do hope that you will change out of your suit into more weather appropriate clothes?” She asks. “Texas is too hot for bespoke all day.”

Agent Bailey actually laughs at that, and you smile when she nods. "I'll be dressed down while I'm here, don't worry about that. Being conspicuous doesn't do much good in protection most of the time."

“Good.” Marcus’s mother smiles. “I’ve also taken the liberty of moving Marcus’s gun safe into your room. For when you are needing to secure it.” She frowns and looks towards Marcus. “Did you bring your own, sweetheart? I didn’t think to ask.”

"Very kind of you, ma'am, but not necessary." Agent Bailey assures her. "I have a portal safe in my luggage. Agent Pike also has his firearm so we'll both be secure and safe that way."

“Told you.” Matthew Pike snakes his arm around his wife and kisses her cheek. “Always overthinking. But I love it.”

"Precautions are good, sweetheart," Donna reminds him, but she smiles.

Marcus and his father could be twins, except for the older man has more pronounced wrinkles from a career spent in the sun. “So this is the gorgeous creature the universe paired you with?” He unwinds his arm from around his own soulmate to pull his son into a bear hug. “Aren’t you a lucky man?”

"I swore I was only going to do this once while we were here." Standing beside Marcus and practically vibrating, you know you probably look silly but you don't care. "Mr. Pike, I am a huge fan and I promise there will be no more fangirling from this point on, but I just wanted to say that once."

There’s a grin that matches his son’s, currently on both of the Pike men’s faces. “Marcus….she has taste.” He teases, winking at you and pulling you in for a hug. “You can fangirl all you like, sweetheart.”

“I’m just very excited to be here,” you admit, laughing as you hug your soulmate’s father in turn. “Marcus…he’s absolutely amazing. I hope you’re as proud of him as he is of both of you.”

“More-so.” Matthew promises, already liking you. “Although, let’s get you settled and a first drink in your hand before we introduce you to everyone else, hm?”

You and Marcus follow his parents through the house and Agent Bailey notes the features of the house with interest but doesn’t interfere. So far, everything is straight forward. She just hopes it stays that way. For your sake.

The tour of the house is easy. A large, open concept main living area is perfect for entertaining, and lines of sight. “Our bedroom is downstairs.” Donna explains. “So you kids will have the top floor to yourselves. Everyone else is staying in the bunkhouse this trip.”

The bunkhouse, as it has been explained to you, is the largest building on the compound which basically amounts to a Pike family motel. Plenty of parking and plenty of rooms to stay in makes it the place that is customarily occupied by Marcus's enormous brood of cousins. "And I'm sure Marcus told you," Matthew glances back at you as the five of you walk together. "But the basement is a game room. Foosball table, game systems, all that kind of thing."

“I was going to show her.” Marcus admits with a shrug. “But she’s bowled in the White House, I doubt our game room would impress her.”

"You are seriously underestimating my love of foosball," you assure Marcus. "I'm terrible at it, but I love it."

“Don’t worry.” Matthew chuckles. “My son excels at pool but cannot figure out a foosball table.”

"Then we can be terrible together," you decide, thankfully garnering a laugh from both Marcus and his parents.

“Which will be a lot of fun.” Marcus chuckles. “When bad weather rolls through, we enjoy the game room and there are people everywhere.” He warns. “One time, we had a checkers tournament, so all the little kids could be involved too.”

The group of you stop in the kitchen for large glasses of sweet tea, and Agent Bailey excuses herself to bring her things upstairs and change into some more civilian-oriented clothes. There are pictures of the family all around the house, but none as prevalent as the pictures of Marcus. His graduations, his triumphs, and some absolutely adorable childhood photos adorn the walls of the house, and you smile at every single one. At one time his wedding picture must have hung on these walls too, or other pictures of him and Lara, and for a moment your heart clenches with regret that he was ever hurt but swells with the knowledge that he’ll never be hurt like that again. The next wedding pictures on these walls will be of you with him, and those will never be coming down.

“Home sweet home.” Marcus hums, watching you take in the space that he had mostly grown up in.

“Ready kids?” Matthew Pike chuckles, opening the sliding kitchen doors to the backyard with great ceremony.

“Don’t worry.” Marcus quickly assures you. “Everyone has had their rabies shots. So they aren’t as feral as they seem.”

For all the teasing, the hugs from his cousins are immediate. They descend on you like a swarm of eager birds, flapping their wings and chattering away as they all introduce themselves and say how happy they are to see Marcus and to meet you.

Marcus smiles at every one of them. Greets them like long lost friends, which they are. They are the friends of his entire childhood and he's happy to introduce you.

A man wearing a name tag that marks him as Uncle Rob holds up two more name tags proudly — one emblazoned Marcus and the other Birdie. “Marcus told us you prefer your nickname,” his father explains with a grin.

“It’s perfect,” you assure them, taking the name tag with a bursting heart. “Absolutely perfect.”

“Uncle Rob is a treasure.” Marcus tells you as he is pulled into a hug and slaps his uncle’s back.

"Uncle Rob is his mother's younger brother," the man clarifies with a happy grin. "Four of the cousins are ours, but I won't quiz you on the family tree just yet."

"I appreciate that." Your laugh of acknowledgement comes easily. "But I've been studying, I promise."

Marcus laughs, knowing how worried you had been over this visit, and it seems as if you are blending in well. He reaches out and squeezes your hip affectionately. “She’s a quick study.”

"Probably mandatory." One of his cousins – her nametag says Selena – teases as she offers you a hug. "Can't imagine the way family debates go when your Mom is the President."

"They're....active." You admit with another laugh. The hug is readily accepted, too. Pikes are apparently very huggy people. "I'm just glad we don't have to come up with opening and closing arguments."

She laughs and nods. “No, but here you might be asked the ERA or RBI stats of anyone you are a ‘fan’ of.” She advises. “So beware.”

"I can absolutely handle stats." For some reason Selena's energy is a lot more calm and reassuring than some of the other cousins, and you feel a little more at ease with her at the moment. "Most of the time I've got those on lock even when nobody's asked."

“How do you take your hotdog?” She asks, narrowing her eyes playfully. “Get it right and we can be friends.”

"It's not gonna be what you want it to be," you laugh, though you do appreciate the way Selena measures her new acquaintances. "I'm from Philly, so pepper hash and spicy mustard."

Her frown is replaced by a smirk and she nods. “You didn’t say ketchup, so you’re good in my book.” She smirks, eyeing Marcus who is huffing and rolling his eyes. “I don’t claim her.” He snorts.

"Too bad," you tease back, looping your arm through his cousin's. "She's delightful and I'm adopting her immediately."

“She’s not housebroken.” He warns, ducking the playful swat she aims towards him.

"Neither is my brother, and we let him into the White House," you snort, laughing even harder when Selena snickers.

Matthew chuckles and he pats his son on the shoulder. “Too late now, son, Selena has charmed her.” He advises.

"I steal hearts," the woman beside you jokes, throwing you an exaggerated wink. "My parents named me after Selena Kyle. It's not my fault."

“Last year you said you were named after Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.” He reminds her with a grin, slapping away her hand again and tapping her chin fondly. “You were lying?” Of course she was, considering she was nine when Selena rose to fame.

"You should keep the Catwoman reference," you advise her with a grin. "Mysterious and nerdy. Very sexy choices."

“See?” Selena smugly grins at Marcus. “Your soulmate has taste.”

Marcus can’t help but grin at that. “So I keep hearing.”

“I have the very best taste.” You agree with that assessment wholeheartedly, leaning back over to Marcus to kiss his cheek.

That makes him laugh quietly and he leans in to hug Selena. “You do. Especially in soulmates.” He teases.

“Oh no.” Pretending to be grossed out, Selena rolls her eyes dramatically but is smiling fully at seeing her cousin happy. “Did you finally find someone as gross as you are when you’re in love?”

“Grosser.” Marcus hums, grinning at you lovingly. “My perfect match.”

“Stop hogging them!” A voice calls out from halfway down the yard, and yet another of Marcus’s smiling cousins can be seen lounging on a picnic table. “We all need to get our annual harassment in, ya know!”

“Oh god.” Marcus hangs his head, even as he laughs. He knows everything is in good fun and he will be harassing them right back.

Thank god for the nametags. You'd be utterly lost without them, even after the flashcards you made for yourself with permission from Marcus to scout his Facebook page for photos of his family. There are just too many of them. The conversations swirl and so do the introductions, but Marcus sticks with you. By the time everyone starts eating the conversation dies down a little and you find yourself at a table with Marcus, his parents, Selena, and her twin sister Harper. Plates of barbecue and cold salads come with fresh glasses of cold sweet tea or cans of soda, and the most relaxed atmosphere of chaos you've been in the middle of in a long time. In your book, this is vastly preferable to a State dinner.

“So what do you think?” Even Agent Bailey has a plate and a drink in her hand, talking to Rodger, one of his dad’s oldest friends. He always comes to these weeks. “She’s gonna relax some?”

"Seems like it." The sight of Agent Bailey socializing is like a miracle to you. A unicorn in real life if ever you saw one. "Any chance your Dad's friend is a beer guy? I found out last week that Agent Bailey brews her own as a hobby and I am endlessly fascinated by all the niche hobbies I keep finding out she has."

Marcus chuckles. “Rodger owns the brewery that supplies the Rangers with the Pike’s Pints.” He explains. “So he’s kind of a renaissance man when it comes to beer.”

"So she has a new best friend?" You laugh, leaning into his side as you eat. "That's fantastic. I hope she has some new ideas to be excited about by the time the week is out."

“My question is this…when does she have time?” He asks, shaking his head. “She’s always with you.”

"I don't think she sleeps." It's a question you've asked yourself plenty of times, but have yet to find an answer. "Apparently she has a dog and a husband and everything? A whole damn life. I'm so glad that doing the job she does hasn't kept her from it."

“Holy shit.” He snorts and looks back at the woman in question with more than slight admiration. “She’s a superhero.”

"She really is." There's no denying that whatsoever.

The meal progresses and his mother smiles at you. “So please, tell me about your inn.” She insists. “Marcus said that you have created a beautiful oasis.”

"It's my happy place." The question – and the description – make you beam. "And...sort of my first child, as well. I bought it from the previous owners a few years ago and my best friend runs the restaurant. It's a beautiful historical property in Alexandria, just outside of DC."

“It sounds like it’s your baby.” She smiles happily and nods. “He has had nothing but praise for it, and you, since his first phone call.”

"He's been wonderfully supportive. I couldn't ask for a more understanding or helpful partner." You do flash him a grin, though, and decide to rat him out to his mother just a tiny bit. "I do think the restaurant is at least half the reason he spends so much time there, though. It's amazing."

“He has always led with his stomach.” Donna snorts, shooting you a conspiratorial grin. “When he was a teen, he was always starving.” She intones dramatically.

"Isn't that how all teenage boys are made?" The laugh you share isn't at his expense, just shared amusement, and you pick up your sandwich again. "At least, my brother was always that way. I swear he ate six meals a day from ages twelve to twenty."

Marcus laughs and Donna rolls her eyes. “Marcus still sometimes eats six meals a day.” She snorts. “At least that’s the way it sounds when he calls. Always snacking.”

“That’s probably my fault these days,” you admit with a guilty grin. “I’m a snacker. Maybe that’s just another fun little quirk in the broad scheme of things.”

“I just have to run more.” Marcus chuckles, picking up a pickle spear and biting it in half. “So I can still beat everyone here stealing second.”

“We’ll see.” Selena narrows her eyes at him in challenge. “I’ve been training.”

“Oh you have, have you?” Marcus snorts and winks at his cousin. “Twenty bucks says I steal more bases than you.”

“Fine,” Selena shrugs, smirking as she leans back in her seat. “I’ll be out there stealing more hearts, anyway.”

“I’ve already got the heart I want.” Marcus informs her, picking up your hand and kissing the back of it dramatically.

“I love you, too.” Over the weeks, the promise has become stronger between the two of you and little daydreams about the future don’t seem so far off anymore — though you haven’t really planned anything beyond agreeing that you want to be together.

"See?" He smirks towards Selena with a fluttering of his lashes. "She loves me, so I am complete."

“You’re completely gross and I’m very happy for you,” Selena teases back. “You’ll have the picturesque wedding you always dreamed of, and a million kids, and make an east coast version of Pike Place.”

"Ohhhhh." He tilts his head curiously as he looks back at you. "Modern day Kennedy Compound?" He suggests. "Our version of Hyannis Port at the inn?"

“That’s a lot bigger than a little colonial cottage at the back of the grounds,” you remind him, but the idea makes your chest swell with absolute love. “But I think if we build at the back of the property we could do a bigger house and get away with it. People wouldn’t even be able to tell the two are connected.”

He smiles at the idea. "We will have to find out who owns the property adjoining yours." He hums. "Expand."

“So you’re already talking about a family, then?” His father, obviously enamored of the thought, smiles broadly. His son has always been a family man, even when that definition just meant his best friends were his cousins.

"We are planning out a lot of things." Marcus admits with a grin, unable to contain the happiness at the idea. "Not sure when that's going to happen, but we are on the same page."

“Maybe sometime before we’re too old and gray to travel all the way to DC?” Matthew jokes, although he’s only half joking.

You groan quietly and Marcus smirks as he looks at you expectantly. "Told you." He laughs. "You said your parents would be first, but I knew it was going to be mine."

“I’m still shocked my Dad didn’t bring it up at dinner last night,” you admit. You had been absolutely certain that your folks would use Friday night dinner as a chance to interview you about your intentions as a couple.

"I'm sure he wanted to." He laughs. "But we've classified that as Need To Know." He jokes.

“That may be the only way to survive with them.” Still, you can’t help but let the smile grow on your face. “By their standards, we’re taking positively forever.”

"I guess that means we should just run off to Vegas and get married." Marcus teases with a wink. "Really mess with their expectations."

“We would have four parents very upset with us,” you remind him. Every time you joke about getting married or have a little daydream it just sounds better and better, but you would never push him to elope. His family means to much to him, just like yours does to you.

"Yes they would." Donna points her fork at him playfully. "I don't care how you get married, I just want to be there."

“Yes ma’am.” That gets an instant agreement from you — not at all ready to set the precedence of going against your future mother-in-law about something like this.

"Good." She smiles in approval and smirks at her husband. "We will clear our schedules whenever they decide on a date."

"Well," you laugh, leaning into Marcus's side. "I guess you were right about not needing to worry over their approval."

“The fact that I love you is all my parents ever need to know.” He smiles and Matthew nods. “Marcus has a good head on his shoulders and a heart of gold. With you being his soulmate, you have to be the same.”

For dinner on your second night in Texas, Marcus promises to take care of everything and disappears with a grin on his face while his mother and Selena take you on a long walk around the large gardens of the compound. Anticipating a little girl talk and some bonding with his family, you had readily agreed.

“So how are you liking Texas, Birdie?” Donna asks curiously as the three of you stroll in the warm morning. You have been a dream to have visit and it’s obvious that you adore Marcus, so she has loved you being here. She just wants to make sure the feeling is mutual.

“It’s beautiful.” It’s not too hot yet, being the beginning of April, and walking around the compound is a nice way to settle in and work off the big breakfast everyone had this morning. “I’ve only been here once before and this is far less stressful.”

“I am sure the campaign trail was never relaxing.” She sympathizes softly. “Although, if you have to take up the trail again, we can offer you a respite from the questions and prying wherever we can.” With being her baby’s soulmate, she will be just as protective over you.

“I’m sure when re-election comes, I’ll be volunteering to come to Texas again just to be able to see my in-laws.” The thought is actually relaxing, to be able to take respite with such kind people, but the in-laws part excites you a bit.

“In-laws.” She beams when you say that. “Now I promise I won’t insist that you call me ‘mother’ or anything, but I hope that we can be friends.”

“Let’s start with Donna and Birdie and go from there,” you suggest, smiling just as broadly as she is. “I absolutely want us to be friends. Marcus loves you all so much and I know it means the world to him.”

“He is our only child, and we want him to be happy.” She promises. “But that doesn’t mean smothering him or not letting him live his life.” She laughs. “Matthew almost had a heart attack when he came home one break to find Marcus with shoulder length hair and an earring. But he never said a word.”

“Oh, please tell me you have pictures of that.” Marcus had told you about his long hair phase, but claimed no photos remained. You’ve been hoping that his parents have one tucked away somewhere.

Donna grins. “I have them all.” She promises. “Snuck them up to the attic before he could burn them.”

“He looks like the nerdiest member of Nirvana,” Selena snorts, giggling with the jovial malice only family can truly master.

“He was…too polite to really pull off the grunge look.” Donna admits, smiling at Selena’s almost evil outlook.

“He’s such a sweetheart.” There are hearts in your eyes when you say it and you don’t care to hide them one bit. “It’s—he’s better than I could have dreamed of for myself. Truly.”

“I have to confess….” Donna looks out over the gardens and sighs. “I have been so very worried about Marcus. He’s is such a loving man. He always has been, from the time he was a baby. But when he called me to say he had discovered his soulmate…” she looks back at you. “I was so very afraid that you wouldn’t understand his heart.”

“How do you mean?” She obvious cares for her son very deeply, and you do want to make sure that the relationship you have with her is honest. No misunderstandings if you can help it — which means asking for clarification. “Because he’s so giving and quick to jump in headfirst?”

“Yes….and no.” She admits. “Marcus is….well, he’s a caretaker. A fixer. You have a problem, he comes up with a solution. You feel tired and down, he will take some of your burden and try to cheer you up.” She sighs softly. “Oftentimes, so many women have been conditioned to be strong, independent, so they view that as misogyny or finding them helpless. It’s insulting to them and they resent him for it.”

“They don’t understand that offering care is his way of being supportive. It’s not that he doesn’t think they can do it themselves, it’s that he views being helpful as a romantic gesture as much as anything else.” You nod, understanding that entirely. “I think the hardest part for Marcus and me right now is that we’re both like that a lot of the time. Which means we’re constantly doing little fixes or giving little gifts or making little gestures. We’re still finding the balance.”

“That makes me feel better.” She admits with a smile. “You understand his need in doing it.”

“He wants me to know I don’t have to do it alone,” you acknowledge, offering her a smile as you walk. “And I want to make sure he knows the same.”

“You two truly are soulmates.” She chuckles. “And I have never been more happy to say those words.”

“Just as happy as I am to hear them, I promise you.” Stopping in your steady tracks, you touch her arm gently and offer her a slightly more serious look. “A lot of people interpreted the things I said on the campaign trail to mean that I’m against soulmates, but I’m absolutely not. I just don’t think anyone should be discriminated against for who they love. Anyone, and unfortunately a lot of people still believe only soulmates should be able to get married.”

“Those people…in my most professional opinion…” Donna snorts. “Are assholes.”

“Agreed.” You nod your head but Selena snorts at her aunts phrasing as the three of you start walking again.

“Do you have any specific plans while you are here?” Donna asks, curious if you had wanted to spend the entire time at the compound.

“I want to see whatever Marcus wants to show me.” It seems like an easy answer, but honestly you’re just here to meet his family and spent time with your soulmate. Anything more is a bonus. “Or anything you guys have in mind. I just…” you shrug in admission. “I never take vacations. So I’m reminding myself not to worry about work and trying to relax.”

“A workaholic.” She smirks slightly. “Something I’m very well-versed in.” She teases.

"Can't exactly stop yourself from taking work home with you when you live at work," you admit with a grin.

“As long as it’s work you love, I don’t see a problem with it.” Donna tells you.

"I really do." They already know that, of course, from how much and how proudly you talk about the inn. But still, you're beaming. "Marcus suggested we look at building our house on the property since I already own it, and I think it's only going to be a little while before we start in on that plan."

Building something together is something that Donna highly approves of. She nods. “Word of advice?” She offers with a smirk. “Have a general contractor negotiate any and all disagreements.”

"Noted," you agree instantly, knowing that Marcus's parents have a whole lifetime of experience in this particular area.

“It will solve a lot of arguments.” She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Over tile size!”

When Selena snorts out a laugh you have to suppose it's a family joke or at least and a family story, and you laugh too. "It's always something small, isn't it?"

“Yep.” She shakes her head and laughs. “One fight was about if the dishwasher should be on the left or right side of the sink.” She huffs. “Matthew rarely loaded the dishwasher, but thought that it continuously unfair to live in a right handed world as a leftie.” She rolls her eyes again, although it’s more amusement than annoyance.

Small things always seem large when they're under the microscope, and you can see how those things could get out of hand. But fortunately, from what you and Marcus have talked about so far, you're mostly on the same page right from the start. "I can see us tussling over little things pretty easily, but I think it will all turn out pretty well in the end. It's definitely a solid way to work through our skills in compromise and communication, though."

“Marcus knows how to communicate.” She promises. “He’s good at it, and if he’s not, I’ll give you free sessions.” She jokes, knowing the last thing any couple would want is to have an in-law involved.

"You'll be glad to hear that I have an excellent therapist to help me handle stressors and any manner of other unexpected event in my life that I need extra help in processing." The importance of simply having an impartial third party is not lost on you, but having a professionally trained and educated one is all the more important when possible stressors could include death threats sent to your family members.

“Very glad.” She nods and reaches out to pat your hand gently. “You are under a lot of pressure. That is obvious.”

"When we get back I have a meeting at the White House." Though you shudder for dramatic emphasis, it is unnerving. Those meetings about social outreach and the image of the First Family had gone well for Junie and Alex but since you're fairly certain what your mother will ask of you, you're dreading it.

“If you ever want to talk, just to vent, you can call me.” Donna offers softly. “Not in a professional capacity, although anything you say would be kept between us.”

"I really appreciate that." It's not something she has to offer. Not at all. But you're so grateful that your soulmate's parents have so far turned out to be wonderful people.

“Of course.” You might not take her up on the offer, but she wanted to extend it.

"And I hope you know you're always welcome in DC. Anytime, no hesitations." You swing back to grin at Selena on your other side. "You too. We could use another partner in crime."

“I am absolutely going to come visit.” Donna promised, and Selena nods eagerly. “Me too! I want to see this inn.”

"If you want to come and stay there, I'll have a word with the owner," you joke, and throw in a wink.

“And the food.” Donna insists. “Marcus has raved about your best friend, Sydney.”

"She's an absolute goddess." You promise them both. Building up your friends and loved ones is always easy for you. "Just the most talented chef you could possibly imagine. And an amazing person, to boot."

“She has to be.” Selena isn’t joking this time. “Marcus doesn’t waste time on people who aren’t amazing.” Now she gives a small, preening grin. “Which is why he loves me so much.” She jokes.

“I know what it is.” After about one full day of hanging out with Selena, you’ve narrowed down why it is that you are so comfortable with her, and it makes you laugh endlessly. “You’re exactly halfway between my best friend and my brother. Who are two of my top three favourite people in the world, despite the crap I give my little brother on a daily basis.”

“That sounds like a high compliment if I’ve ever heard one.” She laughs. “I’m the little sister Marcus never wished he had.”

“He loves all of you like siblings.” Even if he hadn’t said so explicitly, it’s easy to tell.

“We grew up together.” She agrees. “Even if we lived apart, summers together were important. Holidays spent driving each other and our parents crazy.” There’s a fond smile on her face. “Hopefully our kids will experience the same things.”

“I hope so, too.” The idea head settled into your bones and made you sunny with daydreams. “My siblings’ kids, too. The biggest family we can possibly make for them, since we never had any cousins growing up.”

“Pikes tend to assimilate the families that join them.” Donna shoots you a grin. “They are like the Borg.”

“That’s how we collected friends when I was a kid,” you laugh. The Pikes are definitely not like the Borg — they all feel far too much for that and you adore it. “Make friends with one of the three of us and suddenly you were just another family member.”

“That sounds familiar.” Selena snorts. “We love having people around. The more the merrier.”

“Absolutely.” The morning sun has hit the top of the sky but it’s not too hot, just making you stop warding off the crisp breeze as it disappears into a mellow midday.

“If you don’t mind me asking…” Selena hesitates. “There was some talk about you dating a Congressman?”

There it is. You were wondering how long it would take someone to ask the very fair question. At least it’s Selena and not Cousin Terry’s wife Hannah who seems to distrust you purely for being the daughter of a politician. Which…is also fair…just not a stereotype that applies to you personally. “I was. For almost a year. I was still seeing him when Marcus and I met, but…” you shrug your shoulders a little, with honesty in the sheepishness. “I fell in love with Marcus so fast, and so deeply. Even if he hadn’t turned out to be my soulmate, I still would have ended things with my ex.”

“I didn’t want to pry, I just hadn’t seen anything about a break up and wanted to know if you were ‘public’ yet.” Selena reassures you. “There’s already been a message in the family chat about not posting while we are here on social media. So we don’t potentially ‘out’ your relationship.”

“It will be out by Easter.” Breathing a sigh of relief isn’t subtle, so you swallow it down and simply tighten your smile into an affirmative. “He’s coming to the Easter Egg Roll at the White House with me. After that, just…try to be conscious of people asking about family photos? If you’ve got ones with Marcus and me in them, we’ll just ask everyone to keep them private. You know, friends only.”

“We are used to that.” She nods and sends you a smile. “We’ve got your back. Don’t worry. No one here is going to judge you. Besides Hannah.” She snorts. “And let’s be honest, she’s a bitch.” Donna chokes out a laugh, quickly smothered, and swats at Selena’s butt from behind you. “Selena!” She scolds, obviously still trying not to laugh.

“Oh.” This time the relief whooshes out of you, but you end up laughing. “So it’s not just me?”

“Hannah is…the least comfortable with the easy, familial closeness of our family.” Donna snorts. “When she first started coming, there was an…accusation.” She hums delicately.

“What could poss—” As soon as your mind spins on it for long enough to actually ask the question, your mouth falls open in horror. “Oh my god! That’s—obviously, obviously I don’t think that. Please know that I have never ever thought that.”

“You don’t think I’m sleeping with Terry?” Selena snorts. “Thank God!”

“No, I definitely do not think you’re sleeping with your first cousin,” you laugh but still shudder.

“Apparently, Hannah doesn’t believe men and women can be friends. Not even relatives.” Selena shrugs. “So if it seems like all the female cousins keep their distance from Terry, it’s not because he’s a pervert. He’s actually amazing. His soulmate is just fucking nuts.”

“Got it.” Even though you flash a thumbs up in acknowledgment, all you can think of is how glad you are that Marcus didn’t stay with Vanessa. She would have hated this for the exact same reason. Probably been Hannah’s only ally.

“Hannah isn’t all bad.” Donna adds, trying to soften it some. “Just….a little…set in her ways. But honestly, this is the only time of year they come. They rarely join other holidays.” She looks over at you. “And pleased don’t think that we expect you to come for every holiday, but we will invite you.”

“We’ll come as often as we can.” You can promise that easily, though you know sometimes he’ll have to work and you’ll have to be at official events with your family. “It…will be easier once my mother is out of office.”

“I understand.” Donna is well aware of the demands of public figures. She had to be seen at a certain number of games and it was her own personal mission to attend the post seasons games any time Matthews’s teams made it. “Just know that we want what is best for you.”

“And that is so much more appreciated than you could know.” Maybe she does. Maybe she understands every bit of it. But because you appreciate the honesty of the words from your soulmate’s mother so much more than you expected to, you leave the phrasing as it is. No stumbling or correcting.

Donna winks at you and links her arm through yours. “You and I are going to be good friends.” She predicts with a happy smile. Marcus is over the moon in love with you and from what she could see, you are much the same. There is nothing more than Donna could ever wish for her baby, to find a smart, loving, good person – and you fit that bill perfectly.

Most of the day is spent in the massive pool down by the bunkhouse, with a little day drinking and a whole lot of horsing around and even a little heckling when some of the cousins got into a competition over best diving form — which quickly degraded into silliest dive. Now it’s sunset, and you’ve thrown a shirt and shorts over your dried out swimsuit for Marcus’s surprise.

“Hey babe.” Marcus finds you again, smiling at the relaxed smile on your face and he hands you a new drink. “You look like you’ve had a good time.”

"Well howdy stranger!" A slight affectation in your voice is just to make him laugh, and you grin when it succeeds. "Where have you been all day? Did you have fun with your Dad?" Matthew Pike had disappeared after breakfast along with his son, and when you had remarked on it to Donna during your walk, she had just said not to worry.

“Of course.” He grins, unable to stop himself as he moves over to caress your neck. “I was taking care of a few things for tonight. Why? Did you miss me?”

"Every second." And you don't care who knows it either. You sit up in your chair and stretch a little more to kiss him, catching the fresh scent of the bodywash he favors as it mixes with his bergamot and musk cologne. He's fresh and clean and it makes you wonder what he's been up to as much as it makes you want to drag him up to his bedroom.

“Good.” He smirks against your lips and offers you his hand as he steps out of your sphere. “Come on.”

"Ooo, is it surprise time?" The look of delight on your face is undisguised as you readily take his hand to pop up from your seat. "I'm all yours."

“Yes you are.” He beams about that fact as he pulls you closer. “Say goodnight to everyone, Birdie.” He hums quietly. “We probably won’t see them again tonight.”

"Good night everybody!" You wave immediately, wrapping your arm around Marcus's waist and barely sparing a backward glance in favor of grinning up at him.

“Damn.” He whistles as he guides you away from the pool and over to the truck. He’s already talked to agent Bailey and cleared things with her, so he just nods as the two of you pass by.

“Damn what?” You pose, laughing a little as you wonder if he’s amused at how quickly you’re ready to leave just about anyone behind to spend time with him.

“I could be a kidnapper and you would just go willingly.” He teases, reaching out and tugging on your ear gently.

“You’d be the best looking kidnapper around and Agent Bailey would have a hell of a time bringing me home,” you tease, hopping into the pickup when he opens the passenger door for you.

“Yep, you have Stockholm Syndrome.” He teases, leaning in to steal one more kiss before he closes the door and hurries around the hood.

Once he’s back in the cab beside you, you flash him a grin. “Belle got a library, I got the softest dom in the whole world and awesome in-laws. I’m okay with it.”

“Softest dom?” He snorts, tilting his head while he tries, and fails to look offended. “I’m a hard dom.” He protests.

"How hard you fuck me when we get going is not what I mean," you clarify, settling into the corner of the seat as he starts to drive the two of you across the compound. "You have the softest heart in the world and I feel very lucky to be the one you've decided to give it to."

“I know.” He promises. “I was teasing. I want you to be happy, healthy and loved. That’s all I want.”

"I am. All three, absolutely." Leaning against his shoulder on the drive, you hum slightly and end up sounding a little sheepish as you look out the window. "I missed you today. Even though we weren't apart too long."

He chuckles slightly and lifts your hand to press a kiss to your knuckles and scrapes his teeth over the delicate skin. “I’ll show you how hard of a dom I am.” He teases. “I’ll put a collar on you.”

Not expected that reaction from him, you make a remarkably incoherent noise of interest and surprise before turning your head to look at him. "Don't tempt me with a good time, Pike."

He had been joking, but the way you react has him pausing. “Is that something you’re interested in?” He keeps the question casual, not wanting to seem like he’s pushing or judging, he’s doing neither.

"I always thought it sounded kind of sexy," you admit, wondering if he was just joking and not serious at all. "I mean it's not like...like something mandatory for me to be happy in a relationship, obviously. If--if you're not into that and at all and you were just joking—"

“Baby.” Marcus squeezes your hand. “Anything you are interested in is something we can talk about. If it’s an absolute no, then I’ll explain why. But I think it sounds kind of sexy too. Collars don’t have to be spiked dog collars where I pull you around on a leash and make you bark.” He snorts.

"A lot of day collars just look like cute little necklaces." Alright, you may or may not have done a little looking into it a few years ago with the guy you were seeing at the time. He was long gone now, but the idea had remained in your head. It was not something Sam would have gone for so it had never been brought up to him.

His brow ticks up, noting your interests and he hums. “They do.” He agrees. “Something sexy about being claimed, isn’t there?”

"Absolutely." He turns left at a pair of apple trees on the western part of the compound and keeps going, while you continue to snuggle next to him like a contented house cat. "I mean...I'm wearing a Pike family nametag. That's about as claimed as it gets."

“Not quite.” Marcus chuckles. “There’s definitely more claiming that can be done.”

"Is that a promise?" You tease, grin growing a little wider when he turns toward a tree line up ahead.

“Absolutely.” He follows the less worn paths through the trees, although it’s obvious from the tire marks through the grass road that someone has been there recently.

"So can I have a hint about where we're going?" This isn't a part of the property that you've been to yet and it's beautifully woodsy in a distinctly Southwestern way that you're finding fantastic.

“You’ll see.” The tree line gives way to clearing and Marcus smiles as the pond comes into view. “Right now.”

The little clearing in the trees is picture perfect. It looks more like a movie set than real life, the tree-lined pond ringed with fairy lights sitting side-by-side with a red and white checked gingham blanket and large picnic basket, and a small cooler to boot. "Baby," you sigh out the endearment excitedly. He knows you love surprises -- your family told him so -- but you weren't expecting anything. That, of course, it was makes surprises so wonderful.

“Now you know what I’ve been doing all day.” He tells you as the truck pulls to a stop close to the picnic sight. “Wanted to make this perfect.”

"It's gorgeous!" You breathe, practically squeaking with excitement as you turn to snuggle into his side as soon as he parks the truck. "Is this your old make out spot? Because if it is? It's an awesome choice."

“Maybe a few times?” Marcus shrugs his shoulders and gives you a boyish grin. “Not too many times.”

"Could make it one more." The exaggerated wink you aim at him makes both of you laugh. "If you wanted to, I mean."

“That was my evil plan.” Marcus admits without any remorse. “Bring you out here, woo you, make out with you.”

"Pretty good plan." Right about now he could undo your seatbelt and haul you into his lap in the truck and you wouldn't protest even for a second. "It's absolutely gorgeous, baby."

“Wanted to give you a special night.” He’s explains, unlatching his seatbelt so he can open the door and walk around to help you out.

“Every night with you is special.” As soon as you’re out of the truck you press in to kiss him, enjoying the lingering warmth of the early evening.

“So you’d rather go have dinner with everyone else than have a romantic picnic by the pond?” Marcus asks, reaching for the door handle. “We can go back…”

“Ohhhhh no.” You shake your head immediately. “We’re staying right here. In our perfect little oasis.”

“I thought you would say that.” Marcus chuckles as he takes your hand to guide you over to the blanket. “I brought wine, but we don’t have to drink anything stronger than lemonade.”

“Wine sounds nice.” You’ve been moderate in your drinking today, having two cups of water for every alcoholic beverage and making sure to eat, so you’re not worried about being too inebriated. “And very romantic, but I don’t ever doubt that from you.”

“Well. I know that it might not be the fanciest, but I wanted to make an effort.” He grins at your praise and both of you sit down on the checkered spread.

“You’re perfect level of fancy for me.” Once you sit down here starts to unpack things, and you fidget slightly on the blanket. “But…Speaking of���of that? I wondered if I could talk to you about an idea that I had.” The actual thought has been rolling around in your head for a while for uncomfortable reasons, but now that it’s Marcus it’s actually a nice thing you don’t mind dreaming about a little.

“Speaking of fancy….” He chuckles. “Alright. I’ll pour out the wine. You pitch me your idea and we will strategize.” He jokes as he opens the top to the wicker basket and produces two, picnic friendly wine glasses and sets them down to retrieve the wine from the cooler.

“Unless you had something else you wanted to talk about?” Maybe that’s what this beautiful picnic is and you’ve usurped the purpose of the night by jumping the gun, you can’t be sure.

“I’m wanting to talk about whatever you want, my love.” He promises as he uses the corkscrew to open the bottle.

“Very accommodating of you.” But that’s Marcus and you know it. Instead you focus on opening up the containers he’s packed away that are holding your dinner. “Do you remember I told you that my mother wants the three of us kids to all do…sort of…family publicity type stuff? Like Junie getting a dog and being willing to be public about it?”

“Yes.” He nods and pours out the wine into each glass. “You didn’t sound terribly enthusiastic about it, although you tried to put on a good front.”

“I’m not terribly enthusiastic about it.” You can admit that, especially to him. “Which is why I’m not sure if this idea is selfish or not.”

“Honey….” Marcus hands you the wine and takes the container with the cheese from you to open. “You are not a politician, you don’t seek the spotlight. Sharing yourself with the public in a way you need isn’t selfish.” He’s pretty much guessed that it has to be some idea about your relationship, and he’s okay with that.

“It’s selfish because it’s something I’m asking you to do with me.” The wine glass is cold in your hand, a soothing and grounding change from the warm day. Although now that the sun’s down it will be cool sooner rather than later. “Because I’m more comfortable and more confident with you beside me in that spotlight.”

“Whatever you need.” Marcus promises. “Undercover work was never exactly fun for me, and I’m out as a UA now that the picture of us dancing was posted in the papers.”

“I feel like I ought to apologize.” The wine he chose is fruity and dry, much more complex than you would but for yourself despite his claim that it’s not fancy.

“No, sweetheart, please don’t.” Marcus shakes his head. “I was aware pictures would be taken. It was my own choice. And I don’t regret it for a second.”

“I didn’t know art crimes required undercover work. Though I suppose it makes perfect sense now that I think about it.” And you’re definitely stalling, but you push it further by assembling a charcuterie bite from the containers around you.

“It’s rare, but I only took the last assignment where I went undercover was because I needed to get away after things ended with Teresa.” He explains.

"Well, you'll have nothing like that reason ever again." The idea of Marcus with a broken heart is too much to stomach, and the coping mechanism of assembling the perfect charcuterie bite for him now pushing the thought out of your mind.

“I know.” It’s freeing to know that you two are very much in the same pages. Despite the fact that being soulmates does guarantee happiness, you and him will do everything to make sure that your story is a good one.

"So...the thing I wanted to talk to you about..." Enough stalling. Time to be an adult. "Is not because I want to push you, or rush you, or anything like that. But...because I keep thinking about it and thinking that getting ahead of the curve is the only way to really control it, and controlling it will be so much less stressful and make half as much work in the long run."

You’re cute when you’re flustered, Marcus leans back on the blanket, completely relaxed as he takes a sip of his wine. “So are we talking televised wedding? Or just pictures?” He asks.

"We are not broadcasting the wedding." That's the point at which you draw the line, you already know that. It's too much. Too invasive even for a family in the public eye. "I was thinking more like...letting photos be released along the way. Like sharing engagement photos, or photos of dresses that I don't pick. Things like that?"

“I’m perfectly fine with that.” It’s an easy agreement, one that has him lifting a brow. “That was all?”

"Even if that includes sharing photos of your bachelor party or sitting down with a reporter yourself?" The fact that he's willing to agree to it so easily is utterly shocking to you, and you feel like you have to do your due diligence and double check. "Or even share part of the proposal?"

“Whatever you feel comfortable with.” Marcus agrees. “It’s like the family days at the parks or when mom and dad would have interviews.”

Sometimes you really do forget that he already has a frame of reference for all of this. That he understands being a family in the spotlight. You take a sip of your wine and build him another bite from the charcuterie containers, offering it to him with a grateful smile. "I love you. Completely. I really hope you know how grateful I am for you."

“Why don’t we plan to have photos released from our engagement, you and I can sit down with a reporter about the expectations of soulmates and politics. There can be a website for all this with links to charities or causes that you want to champion or bring to light?”

"I don't understand how you get even more perfect." When he takes the cracker from your hand you run a finger under his jaw and end up feeling heat in your cheeks all over again. "When we get back I'll talk to Mom and whoever from her team is supposed to be coordinating my media stuff. And..." That same hand of yours squeezes his knee gently. "This is not me trying to rush you into anything. I'm sure we'll get enthusiastic and rush all on our own."

“Us?” He feigns surprise and smirks slightly. “Maybe we will, maybe we will surprise ourselves.” He turns and kisses the palm of your hand. “But I doubt it.”

"I doubt it, too." It's a kiss from his lips that you want most, and lean forward to steal it without shame. "But I love that we're on the same page so easily."

“So after that birthday….um, debacle…” he makes a face. “Are you totally opposed to the idea of a surprise proposal or what?”

"As long as it's you proposing, a surprise is fine." Debacle is the right word, and you roll your eyes slightly. "I actually do love surprises. Mom told you that."

“You might have changed your mind.” The sun is setting and right on cue, the fairy lights that he had spent the majority of the day stringing around the pond come on.

The way you coo at the change in lighting is full of delight, and you lean into his side on the blanket with nothing short of delight on your face. "See this is why I love surprises. For things like this."

“I was hoping you would like it.” Marcus grins as you stare in loving awe of the lights as they play off the water and the sunset.

"You know...the back of the property at the inn has a little pond like this." You lean back against him and enjoy the view around you. "There's nothing around it really, so I haven't thought about putting a garden there or anything. But...it could be in the backyard of our house if we wanted it to."

“I think we could do that.” Marcus smirks and reaches out to touch the rim of his glass against yours. “Our own little escape.”

"And it's far enough back from the inn to soothe your very sweet concern over historically matching buildings." Which you love, but you don't want him to get so hung up on it that he ends up sacrificing another aspect of the house he might truly love.

“You have something else in mind?” He asks, wondering if you want something different for how you raise your children and where you live.

"I don't really know a hell of a lot about architectural styles," you admit. "I just don't want us to miss out on our dream house because we got stuck on making the buildings match. We can set our house back enough that it will have its own space."

“Any house that has you and our family in it is my dream house.” He promises, smiling at you happily.

"I love you, too." In a way that makes you feel like your heart is going to swell right out of your chest, but in the absolute best possible way.

“I know you do.” Marcus murmurs softly, wondering how he got so lucky with you. “I am a lucky man.”

Leaning back lets you kiss him, just a soft thing but tender and full of desire and promise before you pull back and smile at him softly. "I guess we're both lucky, then."

“Oh!” Marcus pulls out his phone, forgetting that he had programmed it and opens it up to the music app to start playing music. “Forgot that part.” He huffs. “Too eager to pour wine.”

You know even on the first song that it's a playlist of love songs. There is nothing more supremely on point for Marcus than a night like this, with all of the magic that he's infused into this beautiful little dinner. "I don't know how, but you keep making it better every second."

“That’s high praise.” He hums, putting together a bite for you and holding it out for you to eat. “I’ve enjoyed having you to spoil.”

“And you’re about the only person in the world I’ll ever let do it.” The admission comes with a laugh, and you place another soft kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for suggesting this trip, love.”

“I’m glad you got to come.” He admits with a smile as you take the offered bite and groan at the taste. “I know it was hard to take off last minute and I appreciate it. Next time we will have it planned better.”

“It’s less that it’s hard and more that I get very determined about being hands on,” you admit. “Malachi can run that place in his sleep during the day, and my managers are great. I just…always worry.”

“It’s your baby.” Marcus acknowledges easily. “It’s like a case for me. My team is incredibly proficient at their jobs, but if there is a stake out or some kind of op to be run, I like being there.”

“I’m grateful you understand.” Others hadn’t, and so the fact that Marcus is supportive of your need for work as well as your need for a family is very much appreciated. “And Sydney was joking about sending care packages to your stake outs if you wanted them, so I think your team is about to be very happy, too.”

“If she did, she would become an unofficial member of the team.” Marcus snorts. “They wouldn’t be happy with pizza anymore.”

“I’d have even more FBI agents on my doorstep,” you giggle at the image. “There’s already three of you, we’ll need to designate a dining room or something.”

“The Fed Room.” Marcus snorts, grinning at the idea. “It would never be empty.”

“Syd may have thrown a tiny bit of a fit when I told her I don’t want her to cater any of our wedding stuff,” you admit, cringing slightly as Marcus starts to open another round of containers from the picnic basket. “But she’s my best friend and will be my maid of honor. I want her there by my side, not stuck in the kitchen.”

“How about she can cater the engagement party?” Marcus suggests. “That way she’s involved but it’s not taking over her enjoying your wedding day.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about an engagement party.” The compromise makes you turn up your chin to look at him with wide, starry eyes. “It’s perfect. Just like you, love.”

“We have to have a party.” Marcus teases, kissing your nose. “The press can have the story of my proposal and the engagement party. That’s also a good way to keep our actual engagement to ourselves.”

“I’m so fucking glad you’re with me on this.” The honest laugh is stifled but full of relief as you lounge with him in the blanket. “I would never think of any of this and I’d just end up stressed out or going along with whatever anybody else planned to avoid having to think about it.”

“I will fix anything you ever ask me to.” Marcus promises. “But if you ever don’t like something, you never have to worry about me being upset by that.”

“And the same goes for you,” you promise him, with the same measure of seriousness in your eyes and honesty in your voice. “I hope you know that.”

“I know.” He picks up a grape to pop into his mouth. “You and I are very communicative.”

“I feel like I should apologize.” Your voice lowers slightly, the unsureness seeping through it.

“Why?” Marcus frowns slightly, not liking that comment at all. You have nothing to apologize for. He loves that the two of you are talking and planning your lives together.

“Past relationships…have not been as okay with my tendency to talk everything out at length.” It’s not something that you really ever planned on bringing up, since Marcus likes to dream and plan and plot like you do. But maybe it’s good that he knows, since it has slipped out without you meaning to. “I always felt like I was bothering them with it. And ended up apologizing a lot.”

He frowns even more, reaching out after he sets down to his wine glass and pulls you close. “Sweetheart, I want to talk things out. Even if it’s as mundane as brunch locations or if the entryway table should be moved.” He promises. “Please never feel like you should apologize. I want to hear everything you have to say.”

“You might regret saying that when I get going about the logistics of booking rooms for large parties.” It’s a decent attempt at a joke, even if it’s wry, and you lean into Marcus’s comforting warmth with a sigh. “I’m still getting used to the idea that you are as straight forward and wholeheartedly enthusiastic about this entire relationship as I am. It seems surreal but it’s too wonderful to be a dream, so I’m just doing my best to process the whole thing.”

“You process however you need to.” He kisses your forehead. “I’ll be right here to reassure you again. You’re my partner, my lover, and my friend.” He murmurs. “The most important person in the universe to me.”

______

Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon   @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury @lizzie-cakes @for-a-longlongtime @vabeachazn @purplerain04 @weho2kcmo @madnessofadaydreamer

HHL: @haileymorelikestupid @anoverwhelmingdin @storiesofthefandomlovers @missladym1981 @babeincolor @angelofsmalldeath-codeine

My Masterlist!

[mars-ipan]

mars mars oh how i love u so.

popato and i came to this grand undeniable revelation (hc) that hajimes awakening that he was VERY MUCH A BOYKISSER (positive) was nagito leaning over him in the prologue of sdr2, and throughout the whole game he’s actually in bisexual denial, continues to be in bisexual denial and as soon as nagito comes out of the nwp coma hes mentally like “FUUUUCCCCKKKKKK.” and we talked and explained it to eachother way better in dms but i need your formal opinion NOW mars bcs i love ur hcs and think ab them always pls and ty <3

oh kelper oh kelper this is an incredible idea

you know the drill. big ass spoilery rant under the cut

considering hajime’s incredible levels of emotional obliviousness/repression i feel like his family never really talked about feelings much growing up. so he probably never really got much of an education on sex ed beyond like basic birds and bees stuff. he probably knows gay people exist and MAYBE knows about bisexuality, but he likes girls. he’s Normal. right

and then he passes out on the beach and there’s… a voice?? he opens his eyes. wavy-curly shoulder length hair…. long eyelashes that catch the light… pretty face… soft voice— and then he blinks the sun from his eyes and oh shit that’s a guy. that’s a Dude! not a pretty girl. um. okay. it’s fine. some guys look a little bit like girls and he was dazed so he got confused. it’s fine! it’s fine. ignore that he still feels kinda fuzzy around this guy.

speaking of which this guy is really nice actually :) he’s sweet. and yeah he teases hajime a bit but like he’s helpful, and he keeps hajime calm. yay!! hajime must just really want to be friends with him. yeah. he wants to get to know him a little better

and then komaeda turns out to be Fucked Up but hajime still… wants to get to know him better. he has an excuse to feel nervous around him now at least, but… the nervousness has this weird, buzzy undercurrent to it. he finds himself worrying about komaeda, left alone in the old building. he doesn’t like that he worries. when he goes to bring him food he’s so nervous, and seeing komaeda there, tied up on the ground, smiling up at him and joking and and asking him to hand-feed him— he has to get out of there, his heart feels like it’s gonna pound out of his chest. so he sets the food down and runs. he thinks about it that night (canon in the manga). that buzzy feeling comes back. he chalks it up to anxiety.

this continues throughout the game. when nagito’s sick hajime worries and worries and worries (and questions why he worries), and when he goes to see him after he’s recovered from his emergency state and nagito says that he can’t stand being around hajime, that hajime’s face is jeopardizing his recovery, two things combine in hajime’s brain. 1- his stupid idiot dumbass obliviousness. 2- his denial of his own feelings for nagito (thank you to one of my confessions blog anons (i wanna say it was hca but i do not remember) for presenting me with this idea). hajime falls for the liar disease because he Cannot Handle The Truth. he runs away and he has no time to process All That bc he immediately witnesses a murder afterwards

chapter 4. hajime continues to fear nagito and continues to crave his companionship. assuming he does his FTEs this is most likely the chapter in which the final FTE occurs. nagito shares his diagnosis, hajime is bewildered. he doesn’t know how to respond. nagito must trust him deeply to share that, but… he could die at any time? even if they survive the killing game? knowing his time with nagito is suddenly so fickle horrifies him. and then nagito says all he’s wanted is somebody’s love. hajime’s breath hitches— surely he doesn’t mean- he’s not- hajime likes girls, this doesn’t pertain to him, he—

nagito takes it all back. says he made it all up. hajime is hurt. how dare he pretend to trust hajime like that— even if he was originally telling the truth (hajime knows nagito’s a bad liar, and he knows which of his statements sounds more like a lie), the fact that he’d take it back shows him all he needs to know. nagito asks if hajime will kill him now. hajime asks his final question and turns to leave.

hajime hears the word “aishiteru,” even if nagito seems to change the subject of his sentence to hajime’s hope instead of him. or, in english, he hears the phrase “i am truly in love with the hope sleeping inside of you.” he hears nagito tell him not to forget this. he can’t do this. hajime walks away.

then, later, maybe even the next day, hajime is surprised to see nagito appear before him. but nagito just seems… bitter. nagito confirms all of hajime’s worst fears, then rubs as much salt in the wound as he can. it hurts, and of course it would, but hearing the words from nagito’s mouth, from the person who’s been praising him from the start, from the boy who woke him up on the beach… it fucking stings. so much so that not even chiaki’s kind words can cheer him up. before the class trial, nagito tells hajime “i know you don’t matter, so why do i still care about you?” hearing that makes it hurt worse, for some reason.

and then nagito dies. after one big grand show, he dies, and his death is gruesome and violent and filled with anger. whoever did this to him must have hated him. hajime can’t bear to stomach the thought that one of his friends would mutilate him like this. it breaks his heart when he realizes that anger came from nagito himself. he doesn’t know how to process nagito’s death, he’s too conflicted. thankfully, he isn’t given much time to.

when the survivors wake up from the neo world program, the first thing hajime does after getting his bearings is walk up to nagito’s pod and check on him. his vitals are normal, somehow, but he’s in a deep coma. hajime sits there for a while, slumped, processing what all he’s been through and what all he’s going to have to do. the other survivors are doing the same with their closest ones. souda walks up behind hajime and puts a hand on his shoulder, reaching out to comfort his best friend. hajime gives him a weak smile before looking back down into nagito’s pod. he sees the hand, turns back to souda, and tells him he has an idea for a project once they get the main island facilities up and running.

i’ve mentioned this before, but i think nagito was the last person to wake up by a long shot. like… it took him 6 months to a year post-nwp to wake up. he was in a DEEP fucking coma. in this time, hajime and souda work on their project— building nagito’s prosthetic arm. it won’t be perfect until they’re able to test it on him, but hajime wants to have it as close to done as possible— when nagito wakes up, he can surprise him with it. towards the beginning, souda jokes that he’s acting like a housewife waiting for her husband to return from war— hajime yells at him, but the joke sticks in his mind for some reason. hajime, with a brain now much older and smarter (and co-inhabited by a walking encyclopedia that likes to give him unsolicited advice), does some introspecting and some talking with friends and eventually realizes that Oh Yeah He Totally Is Bisexual And Has Feelings For Nagito Huh. Oh Fuck.

but it’s Fine. he can be Normal about this. nagito will never have to know because hajime is Normal and Respectful and he can be normal around the guy who looks a bit like a pretty girl. for now he’ll just focus on waking him up. return the favor, as it were.

eventually nagito wakes up, and hajime is Decidedly Not Normal but he’s trying his best. he’s trying SO hard in fact that he fails to notice that nagito, once he has recovered physically enough to properly communicate and mentally enough to want to communicate, is also being Decidedly Not Normal. they go on with their bullshit for a little while etc etc.

[olderthannetfic]

I don't even think this is the type of thing you would normally get Asks about, but at this point I genuinely can't think of anyone better to come to and ask for their opinion.

I don't know if any of your followers have seen this situation as it's been occurring, but this massively popular mobile game that's been blowing up recently (called Love and Deep Space) has incurred a lot of drama and discourse as of a few days ago.

So LADS is an otome game, with a visibly femme/female protagonist who romances the male love interests. And a few days ago, the dev team behind LADS introduced this rule to all of their official groups and servers like Facebook and Discord: "Absolutely no BL materials are allowed to be posted or discussed in official spaces"

So, naturally, quite a few people are upset about what is basically a "no gays allowed" rule being forced onto the fandom. Because the "no BL" rules includes the posting of ANY queer content with "official" #LADS tags. Which for platforms like Twitter is absolutely unreasonable. They're stating that fanart of M/M ships can't be posted with any tags for the source material? It's ridiculous.

There's been people trying to defend it, saying things like "oh it's because of CN censorship laws" despite the fact that LADS isn't a CN game and the company isn't a CN company. Or "they only banned queer stuff in their official Discord and official Facebook group and for the official LADS tags on socmed!" even though that is still censorship and erasure of queer content (and somehow the fact that it's officially sanctioned makes it okay?)

But the worst part is the fact that there’s been an EXPLOSION of aggressive homophobia within the fanbase. It's as if all the cishet women who play the game were just waiting for their chance to go mask off, because the second those "no BL" rules were put in place the rampant harrassment and bullying started. People are getting attacked for M/M ship fanart, people are getting attacked for having male self-inserts or male MC or OC designs, and several artists have already been harrassed into deleting all of their artwork and leaving the fandom.

There's now a LOUD number of fans screeching that otome games "are only for girls" and that anyone even slightly queer or masc-leaning "doesn't belong in otome fandoms" and "needs to go play something else"

I've seen baseless accusations that "men want to force us to play as a gay male MC!" and "gay men are demanding that LADS turn the female MC male!" when absolutely no one anywhere has ever said anything close to that.

I have tried telling these fans that queer people, including queer men, have ALWAYS played otome games, that gay men and queer people have ALWAYS been a part of the otome community from the very beginning, but anyone who deviates even slightly from the new majority of "no gay shit allowed, otome is for straight women only and everyone else kys" gets immediately shouted down and harrassed/attacked. I know a lot of people have deleted the game and have stopped playing because of both the official "no gays" rule and also the extremely toxic and homophobic fanbase.

I was wondering if you knew about any resources (blogs, articles, anything) talking about the history of queer people playing otome/dating sim games, or even if you happen to know anything anecdotal about it yourself. Because we've ALWAYS been here, otome games have never been JUST for cishet women. I'm also just wondering what your/your followers' thoughts are about this whole mess in general.

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Oof. I don't play many games of that sort, so I don't know a ton about their history, but there has often been pointless beef between the more self inserty types and the more m/m shipping types.

I don't think you need evidence that people besides cishet women consume media X. It should be self-evident from being a human who lives in the world. These people are denying it because they don't want it to be true, not because they do or don't have evidence.

"LOL, you're a homophobe in 2024? Criiiinge!" is the only appropriate type of response to these idiots. Facts won't help.