#this opens up a colossal can of worms

[perversionsofjustice]

You ever do a captcha wrong and then have to rethink your entire existence

[sirazaroff]

How do you think velvet is handleing everything in vacco right now

She’s having a great time 🥰

[a-chaotically-small-lunta]

Tropes game <3

I love when a Giant looms over a tiny. Seeing their head crane back, especially if they stumble backwards. That look of awe and fear on their face as they take in the colossal size difference?? *chefs kiss*

Alrighty I’m not the best with analyzing things but let’s go.

Looming over someone is a very intimidating thing, it’s a simple form of showing off power to another person. In a way it’s saying “I’m in charge.” G/t is usually about the power dynamic and how each party responds to it.

With that in mind, a giant looming over a tiny is 10x more showing off their power. The giant is in complete control of the situation whether they know it or not. The tiny though, definitely knows it.

Now there are many different ways to see this. Depending on whether or not you like being in the tiny’s position or the giant’s position can change what it means.

For the giant’s position, remember it’s a display of power. In a sense it’s the want to be in power or have control over a situation without much fuss from others. Yeah a tiny can squirm and try to run if you were planning on grabbing them, but in the end they are still under your control. You have the option to let them have a say, but only if you want them to.

For the tiny’s position, it’s the sense of knowing you have no power. That you are completely out of control, and with this simple act, it’s just a little reminder to you. The reminder that they are in control, that they can do anything they want with you. There’s another point but I’ll get to that in a second.

So what does that mean? Well perhaps, for the giant POV, there is a need to be in power. To have someone else know you are in power without having them question you or even try to act out against you. This could be a response to never having that and craving it in just a simple way. To just have control over something with no questions or even just a simple look to tell someone that you’re the one in charge here and they need to know it.

For the tiny POV, there’s two things. The first one is giving up power. It could be a hidden desire to have responsibilities taken away but not forever. Just for a moment, so you can rest and not stress about everything. The second is being truly seen. Being seen for all of you. Maybe a part of you wants so badly to be seen but it scares you cause you don’t know how others will react or reply. There’s the thought that if you are seen you’ll get hurt and that terrifies you. But this doesn’t stop you from wanting to be seen. A giant looming over you can take you all in at once, and can show that they care to see you. They are so close to you and they need to be in order to see you. The need to have someone close and see you for you. It’s both terrifying but can be almost relieving in a way. But to have someone so close can feel like a danger to who you are. You want to open up, but perhaps that got you hurt in the past or you’re scared of being hurt cause you’ve seen others get hurt or heard it was possible to be hurt. This doesn’t stop your want to be seen but rather makes you yearn for it, but you know that once you do get what you want, there’s no going back. Your stuck and now the power is not in your hands.

In a similar vein as a looming giant, you want to see people. You want to get to know them and know all of them. You want to get close but you can’t get to close too fast so you hover just out of range so you can dip if things get bad. You want to learn about others cause you care about everyone. Everyone should be seen and you want to give that to others. Part of you knows that getting close so fast can frighten people away, but that’s just who you are. You love knowing people and want to get close to learn about them. It’s not always about having power over someone, but rather wanting to show someone you are interested in them. Whether you have good or bad intentions is up to you and that’s a whole other can if worms.

Looming may be initially about power dynamics, as most of g/t interactions are, but this one is more about being seen. Being seen or seeing someone for who they are. This can be terrifying for the one being seen cause they are vulnerable and the person seeing has the power to hurt them if they wanted but during the “looming” stage neither side knows what will happen afterwards. But both sides might secretly want this. The want to be seen without having to explain yourself hundreds of time, the want to get close to someone without hurting them in the process, and just SEEING someone. The looming aspect shows the power possible and shows off that once the tiny is seen it’s all up to the giant to decide what happens. Once you open yourself to someone or have someone open up to you, it’s all now up to them/you to decide what happens next. They are already close so the damage can be instant if they wanted it to be. Perhaps you’ve been hurt before by being seen, and this was probably when you went out of your way to be seen. There’s that desire to be seen but not wanting to do all the work cause it didn’t work at last time, but that’s only a theory about one of the reasons why this would be a loved trope. Another would be having been ignored for so long that it felt like no one could see you. You felt invisible but when someone looms over you, looking at you, making sure they are all you can see, shows in an extreme way a version of being seen/seeing you. It shows they care enough to get close and know you.

In short it’s wanting to be known and seen at once without much hassle but being terrified of actually being known.

There’s also the aftermath of looming where the giant makes a decision, but I’ll just stick to the looming part of the situation.

I’m not a psychologist and I haven’t been in a psychology class since 2018 sooooo yeah, take this with a grain of salt I guess.

[autisticsupervillain]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters...

Corvus vs Chris Redfield!

Conditions:

No restrictions.

Scenario:

Corvus's attempts to purge the ancient Kingdom of Hermes of the Vile Blood pandemic accidentally teleports the entire Kingdom into the present day, unleashing the Vile Blood disease onto the unsuspecting Resident Evil universe. The BSAA dispatches a fully armed Chris Redfield into the Kingdom, believing this to be a bioterrorist attack. Chris sees the half-human, half-crow Corvus while gunning his way through the overtaken Kingdom and presumes him to be a B.O.W., opening fire on sight.

Analysis: Corvus

The beautiful, prosperous kingdom of Hermes was the largest and most powerful in all the land. So advanced was its knowledge of science and medicine that it was among the last of the lands to fall to the supernatural plague that had swept the world. Yet fall it still did. Humanity seemed to be on the verge of extinction, with this shining bastion of power simply representing it's last candle.

Until the brilliant scientist Emerald, inventor of the art of alchemy, brought forth her greatest discovery. Vile Blood, as the blood of the infected was named, could be used to sythesize a cure, dubbed Pure Blood. The world had seemingly been saved and alchemy advanced as a science at a completely unprecedented rate in order to completely contain and eliminate the Vile Blood disease. But that proved to be the Great Mistake that would doom mankind forever.

When mixed with Pure Blood, Vile Blood would begin to adapt and mutate. Even completely incinerating corpses would no longer kill the pathogen within, and it would soon demonstrate the ability to completely overtake the mind. The soldiers of Hermes, still sentient even in their mutated state, would turn against the crown, butchering and infecting all they could find. Even infected blood, on its own, could come to life and pull itself back together into a humanoid form to keep spreading the plague. With a newfound regenerative ability on the scale, Hermes quickly fell dowm to its last legs again.

Before she would completely give in to despair and abandon mankind, Emerald would make one final breakthrough. She noticed that no matter how much the Vile Blood mutated, it could not infect certain animals. Crows in particular seemed completely immune. In one last attempt to save mankind, Emerald would attempt to combine humans and animals together to create a subspecies that would be completely immune to the Vile Blood pandemic. She had exactly one success, a half-crow, half-human. The last hope of Hermes: Corvus.

As the strongest warrior in the land of Hermes, Corvus was tasked by the last survivors of the royal family to wipe out the Vile Blood plague. In his quest to discover a cure and defend the last vestiges of civilization, Corvus would end up slaughtering a good chunk of the kingdom he was made to save. A remarkable feat when considering that the infected still retain all the skills and sentience they had in life, to the point that many can be heard sobbing over their hellish situation. He's defeated the Fool's God, a giant stone statue filled to the brim with thousands of Vile Blood infested corpses, and even killed it in one hit, fought his way through entire cities of infected soldiers, and even bested the greatest warriors Hermes has to offer. When Varg, the greatest warrior Thymesia had ever seen, and Urg, the royal family's personal assassin and one of the last standing members of the royal family itself, attempted a coup, Corvus was able to fight and defeat them both. He even bested the Sound of the Abyss, a colossal infected worm whose burrowing underground shook the entirety of the Royal Library. As the Library is absolutely massive, easily the size of an entire city block by itself, that burrowing would be creating at least a Magnitude 4.5 earthquake to shake it. To generate that much distructive energy, you'd need up to 84 tons of TNT.

Source:

Corvus is fast enough to dodge arrows, is a master swordsman, can rip through people with his talon claws, and, with easily his most dangerous ability, can drain your life force with Plague Weapons. Designed to bypass the remarkable regenerative ability of the infected, Plague Weapons are glowing green mystical weapons that Corvus creates by copying his opponents weaponry. He can create hammers, swords, bows, javelins, and even shields. He can even copy parts of his foe's biology, imitating the writhing tendrils coming out of Mutated Odur's back and fighting with his own. This does, however, require that he get his hands on you with his claws to copy your weaponry.

Even so, you'll be hard pressed to put Corvus down before he can. He can survive get stabbed straight through the chest and simply just get right back up. His regenerative ability is absurd and he's completely immune to the Vile Blood plague on top of that, to the point of wading through thigh high oceans of Vile Blood without getting infected. When an infected Vard stabbed him through the chest and completely shattered his spine, the worst Corvus got was amnesia out of it.

Ultimately, Corvus would prove to be Emerald's greatest creation, outright surpassing his creator in the realm of alchemy, creating a concoction that would destroy Vile Blood forever. Through the shattered land of Hermes would immediately descend into chaos and war as the survivors fought amongst themselves to rebuil civilization, Corvus has ensured the species will live to see another day. The people of Hermes felt something they hadn't in generations that day. Hope.

Analysis: Chris Redfield

It all began in the year 1998. Mysterious disappearances and murders have begun to occur near the outskirts of Raccoon City, within the forest area surrounding the mysterious Spencer Mansion. After the initial search team goes missing, the RCPD dispatches the best officers they have. S.T.A.R.S. The Special Tactics and Rescue Service lead by the best and brightest that the police force has to offer. Unfortunately for them, it was a trap.

Albert Wesker, Captain of S.T.A.R.S., turned out to be a corporate plant and mad scientist working for Umbrella, a local pharmaceutical cumpany that specialized in black market bio-weapons. Wesker had decided to sacrifice his team to test out the effectiveness of Umbrella's latest creation, the T-Virus. The first of many zombie plagues in Umbrella's aresenal.

Few would survive that fateful night in the Spencer Mansion. Those that did would go on to become the most badass zombie killers in gaming history. Including the man, the myth, the boulder puncher himself, Chris Redfield. After surviving the Spencer Mansion, Chris would go on to join the international BSAA, the Bio-Terrorism Security Assessment Alliance, to hunt down Umbrella and all those like them all around the world.

Chris comes decked out with all the best weaponry the BSAA can afford. Including his trusty Nine-Oh-Nine assault rifle, his nigh unbreakable combat knife, the ungodly hand canon known as the Magnum, and the ironically named Albert-01. This silenced handgun was specifically design to kill powerful Bio-Organic Weapons, such as when Ethan Winters used Chris's to kill the E-001, or Eveline as she prefers, the world's first E-Type bioweapon and the person responsible for the Louisiana Outbreak. Which is especially impressive when considering that Eveline was powerful enough to cause earthquakes felt well beyond the bounds of the Baker Estate, likely a magnitude 4 on the Richter Scale. To generate an Earthquake that powerful, an ordinary human would need roughly 15 tons of TNT.

Source:

But Chris has far more than just guns at his disposal. He carries a gas mask to protect him from airborne pathogens, a wrist monitor to monitor his current condition, and a wide variety of herbs. Chris is something of an expert in the field applications of herbal medicine, able to combine herbs in a bunch of different ways on the fly to help him in combat. These herbs can heal him in combat, cure poisons, and even increae Chris's physical strength and durability for a brief time.

But all that pales in comparison to the star of Chris's arsenal. The Tyrant killer itself, the RPG. This bad boy is powerful to obliterate nearly every B.O.W. in the series, from the very first Tyrant in the franchise, to that baskstabbing bastard Wesker himself. That had to be satisfying. Especially given that even the lava of the volcano they were fighting in couldn't kill Wesker, but the old reliable Rocker Launcher sure could! Well, two of them technically, but whatever.

Speaking of Wesker, Chris has beaten some pretty tough foes and BOWs over the years. From brilliant mad scientists like Alexia Ashford and Albert Wesker, to nigh unstoppable supper zombies like the Tyrants, Chris has seen it all. He can even go blow for blow against Leon Kennedy, the dude who saved the president's daughter from a superhuman cult by himself. Leon is badass enough to backflip through walls of laser beams and fast enough to dodge arrows.

Despite all of this, though, Chris is not perfect. As it turns out, stopping the zombie apocalypse every other week is not good for your mental health, and Chris has suffered from bouts with depression and PTSD. Likely relating to the fact that most of the men in his command keep getting killed. From the Spencer Mansion to the Baker Estate, it never seems to end well for the poor saps Chris is trying to keep alive. It says a lot that Village was one of his better showings and that's the game where the protagonist dies.

Still, no matter how many scars it leaves in his soul, Chris Redfield will always come back to stop this week's zombie outbreak. Even with Umbrella long dead, Chris will keep killing BOWs until the day he dies. And good fucking luck with that.

Throwdown Theme:

Throwdown Breakdown:

This is an interesting one, as both characters are strongest where the other is weakest.

Corvus is considerably stronger (84 tons vs 15 tons) and both are roughly equal in speed, being able to both dodge arrows, but what truly sets them apart is ranged combat vs melee combat.

Chris is a lot better off at a distance. His ranged weaponry is too fast for Corvus to dodge, while Corvus's isn't. Chris can dodge arrows, Corvus can't dodge bullets. While Corvus could hypothetically copy Chris's guns, he'd need to get his claws on him in melee combat to do that and Chris is more experienced in a gun fight even then. Moreover, Corvus's biggest advantages (namely the stat gap and the Plague Weapons) are mitigated at range as both would require them to hit Chris at all. Redfield has a lot more room to avoid getting hit at a distance and Corvus has less Plague Weapons that work at a distance.

Corvus, meanwhile, dominates in close quarters. He has a wider variety of Plague Weapons up close, even his standard saber outranges Chris's combat knife, and hitting Chris with a plague weapon would mitigate the usefulness of his herbs. Herbs have never helped Chris heal from magically getting his life force drained out of him and that's on top of Corvus being 5x stronger than Eveline was. Combine that with the healing factor and a level of skill comparable to if not greater than Redfield's and poor Chris is fucked.

So Corvus's biggest advantages are being stronger, having a healing factor, and melee combat. Pity that those are exactly the same advantages a BOW has over Chris. This isn't Redfield's first rodeo in this kind of situation. His first response to most BOWs is guns because he knows he can't challenge them physically. Redfield has put down people with far more impressive healing factors from a distance and he has ways of putting down people far, far stronger than him. Namely, his beloved Rocket Laucher, which is both too fast for Corvus to react to and powerful to heavily injure him, if not blow him to pieces.

Take Chris's final fight with Wesker, for instance. Wesker was far stronger than Redfield in every way at that point, tossing him around like a doll in every encounter prior. But the rockets? Not only were they enough to kill Wesker outright, but even when he did survive them, he struggled to just hold them back. If the rockets can put down Wesker, they can deal with Corvus.

Chris's first response is going to be gunfire and Corvus doesn't have any real way of closing that distance. If Corvus gets his hands on Redfield, he's a dead man, sure. But Redfield knows first exactly why he should not let that happen.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Chris Redfield!

[spidermilkshake]

Ancardia's Unusual Animals--The Kraken

Classification: Beast (arthropod)

Habitat: Deep ocean, concentrated around continental shelf zones.

            The Kraken is one of the most feared and revered oceanic predators, as well as one of the largest. It isn’t the apex predator, however, especially not as a much smaller juvenile. These unusual crustaceans have traded out a jointed tail and lower body for a membranous, tough, multi-branched back half, its structure supported partially by water and partially by an internal fibrous pseudo-skeleton made up of struts and discs that produce a very flexible result. Each of these “tentacles” is capable of prehensile grasping as well as a whipping motion which both intimidates parasites and intruders away from itself and provides swimming propulsion. For more delicate movements, kraken possess a soft-tissue water siphon coincidentally very similar to the siphon of a cephalopod, and it can also be found “walking” along rocky, cold seafloors in the outer shallows’ faint sunlight using its front pair of powerful claws, especially while foraging and feeding. Its front end very strongly resembles a black-colored lobster with long paired feelers, large, reflective eyes that give the kraken great clarity of vision, and high, pointed ridges along the back of its shells.

            Kraken begin life after hatching from small eggs hidden gravelbeds and sandy bottoms on the ocean shelf by their parents. These eggs number up to 10,000 per pair of kraken, though most of the eggs will be discovered and eaten by a variety of bottom-dwelling fish, crustaceans, and other creatures before they have any chance to hatch. Of the roughly 1,000 tiny kraken that hatch per clutch, very few of those survive to adulthood; a freshly-hatched kraken is only slightly larger than a human baby and has a soft carapace that needs days to harden, and their natural predators include a wide variety of shark species, seals and sea lions, orca whales and some other predaceous tooth whales, conger eels, gajah-mina (“fish-elephants”) and giant sea-worms. Kraken juveniles grow quickly, and molt eight times in their first year to reach a size similar to that of a large shark or dolphin—at which point they lose many of their hatching predators. Once larger than a human, young kraken are generally only susceptible to attack from orcas, livayatan, gajah-mina and large sharks.

            Kraken take roughly fifteen years to reach adulthood, and continue growing slowly throughout their lives. The average adult kraken measures 14 meters from head to the end of the tentacles, and weighs in excess of 18 tons. Some particularly venerable kraken have measured in at more than 20 meters. Kraken do not have a known natural lifespan—most kraken live between 20 and 90 years, and most of all ages in this range suffer premature mortality from their main predators. It is believes that kraken are like some other low-metabolism sea beasts, and can live as long as their food supply and space supports them. Due to its massive size, there are a select few animals which can hunt kraken adults: The Sperm Whale, which hunts these odd crustaceans at certain times of year or in the absence of giant and colossal squid shoals, and the Livayatan, which is the Ancardian oceans’ apex predator. Kraken themselves are primarily carnivorous, though do opportunistically consume kelps in certain times of abundance. As hatchlings, they root around for sea-worms, krill, and small bottom-dwelling crabs and fishes; as juveniles they scale up to hunting larger bottom-feeders such as skates, smaller rays, flounder and invertebrates like spider crabs and sea urchins. As adults, kraken hunt a variety of animals, but seem to prefer hard-shelled creatures: Giant clams and abalone are favorites, which the kraken crushes open with its powerful claws, but it also pursues deep-water swimmers like oarfish, slower-moving squid, giant dragonfish and larger rays and carpet sharks. Kraken are also surprisingly docile regarding swimmers and divers as adults—it is the human-sized juveniles which respond most defensively to human-sized creatures approaching them—and most kraken ignore creatures of a human-like size and shape unless attacked by one. The violent reputation of kraken is owed to the behavior of some individuals after being disoriented by electrical storms at sea and forced to surface—several reports of kraken latching onto ships and boats and capsizing or breaking holes in them are the result of the kraken misidentifying ships as pieces of floating driftwood and flotsam, and clinging to it to avoid being further battered by waves during storm swells.

[caranelguild]

March 25, 2IY 1

Our adventurers have had enough of sepulchres, and certainly enough of spiders - poison courses through their systems and, for Arlex and Zilybar, results in some embarrassing discomfort. They leave the cliff behind and travel towards the sprawling ruin of the tlixacta'in city.

At first, it is as recorded in the journal of Locke Ullmark: broken foundations and toppled walls, overgrown and grown through by the forest. The only relics easily found are the clay plates familiar to Brindi and the university. She collects a few for herself.

Then a haze grows up ahead, and soon the gang is on the edge of an expansive cloudbank of mushroom spores that limit visibility of the rest of the city! Brindi has already fashioned a gas mask and pulls it out to find the source of the spores. Arlex follows behind.

Zilybar is the most reluctant to risk breathing the fungus, but ultimately follows the gang when everyone and the animals head inside. He does his best to stay above the bank, leaping from ruin to ruin.

Soon, they discover they are walking towards a colossal mushroom the size of a cathedral. Beneath its spreading head grow hundreds of other white mushrooms of various sizes.

Brindi tries to eat a chunk of the mumshroom's great stem, but her stomach rejects it.

Then the party is moving on, observing that the mushrooms around them are home to a species of blue inchworm or caterpillar. When Zilybar leans in to get a closer look, one of these worms exhales a tendril of fragrant smoke, as of herbal tobacco.

Soon, our adventurers are beyond the spores, and can see what must be the city center ahead. Arlex runs towards the large, buttressed building that dominates the space - missing its roof but otherwise intact - and as she enters the square before it, she finds herself crunching over thousands of scattered bug-people bits. Carapace and brittle limbs lie everywhere, entirely covering the ground.

The cathedral draws everyone's attention, and they head towards it. The doors open, and reveal a large entry chamber with multiple doors leading from it. Ahead is a double-door sealed with fungus that must lead down the aisle of the great building's sanctuary.

Zilybar and Arlex clear the seal, and air hisses out from the cracks. The doors are thrown open, and our party faces two alert, at-arms bug guards!

Arlex doesn't hesitate, even though everyone else wishes she did, and leaps forward, hacking the four hands off of one guard.

Only when that bug teeters forward and topples onto Arlex without reacting does our party recognize that the two guards are far from alive. Perfectly preserved, yes - down to the frills on their colourful garb - but absent any signs of life.

As lights are brought forward, the entire sanctuary is discovered to be populated by these preserved insect people. They fill the pews - all richly dressed, all completely still, like wax figures.

Our adventurers move down the central aisle and approach a great magic circle inscribed into the stone of the sanctuary's center. Filaments like those dangling from the statuary doors have been braided and inset into the design, and bug folk in robes stand at particular points of the huge rune.

Another bug person stands facing the magic circle in the elevated pulpit box.

Brindi steps into the magic circle -

and she dies, collapsing to the stonework -

and there is a dry rustling, as every tlixacta'in in the church comes to life -

and Brindi is suddenly rising into the air above the circle, her eyes glowing in a colour beyond the spectrum. She recites seven words, and drops to her feet, alive and crackling with new, fiendish magic.

Pandemonium ensues. Bug folk are panicking in the pews, screeching and clicking in their language, rushing every which way. Arlex is caught among them, sulking away from the others ever since being criticized for chopping the hands off the guard -

who screeches louder than any other from back up the aisle.

But Brindi had put on her translation device almost as quickly as Arlex had attacked the guard, and begins conversing with the person in the pulpit box.

She learns that the tlixacta'in gathered here to avoid death from the "Thronegod", and are under the impression that they only just, in the last instant, recited the final phrase of a great preservation spell. The person Brindi is speaking to is referred to as the "Earthlord", and is delighted to learn that the spell actually worked - they outlasted the Thronegod and xer followers!

Together, Brindi and the Earthlord calm the host. Brindi leads her companions to the steps of the cathedral while the Earthlord gives a speech to xer congregation, explaining the situation. Injured are sent out to our adventurers per Brindi's request, but Arlex refuses to redeem her actions by assisting with the magical healing.

So Roy and the archaeologist do the work, even reattaching the guard's amputated hands.

A steward of some kind is shortly sent out to bring our adventurers to guest quarters, but xe is brought up short by the sight outside the cathedral: the death field, and the ruins beyond.

[an-abnormality-named-nick]

I had been watching some videos on deep ocean fact and games that take place in the deep ocean when my brain conjured up the image of a pair of glowing red eyes staring at a manned exploratory vessel. This thought then began to expand on itself, making a sort of eldritch being before having the idea to connect it to the lore of my maladaptive dream world. A story began to form from this thought.

This I shall tell to you now in as short a form as my mind can make it.

Our story begins on a world not unlike our own, with a sky of blue and trees of green. The people of this world were known as Spectralights and had just passed the 1.0 mark on the Kardashev scale, having harnessed all of their worlds power sources. The idea of interstellar travel floated in their world leaders minds all the same, wishing to reach worlds that would take decades to travel too. The scientists of the world had been tasked with figuring out how to shorten the distance, and they soon did. They discovered using an array of quantum computers, that worm holes could be created that reached all they way across the void of space onto other planets, but there was a problem.

Upon the first field test to open a worm hole, two detrimental limitation appeared before them instead. The first problem appeared immediately as a massive pressure wave erupted from the worm hole generator, nearly collapsing the building it was held in. The second problem was found after the dust settled. although the intended exit point was meant to be a spot of desert 3 miles north of them, the other side of the wormhole was instead a research facility located 2 miles southeast. The scientists redid the simulations and immediately realized their mistakes. the pressure wave wasn't predicted due to the quantum computers simulating the machine in a vacuum, and from what the scientists could gather, the wormhole could only connect locations that were at least 70% similar to each other. this left only two viable location types form wormhole construction; the vacuum of space orbiting the planet, and the deep ocean. Space is well... space and you can find a lot of locations that are within the 70% similar range. The deep ocean on the other hand has the location benefit and would solve the pressure wave issue just by the waters shear weight, plus it be accessed easier because you don't need to escape the planets atmosphere just to build there.

The scientists announced their plans to the there world leaders and were met with unwavering support from the leaders along side as well as a offer to test an innovation from another research group. The scientists were given a massive research vessel capable of travelling in even the most extreme environments, allowing for them to begin their trek into the deep sea immediately.

The Spectralights are a people whos creativity and ingenuity reaches far beyond ours, allowing for them to make technological advances in areas we only just stepped foot in. Their physiology is also similar to that of humans with them having mostly humanoid frames. This is needed to understand the design of the deep sea research and construction vessel used by the spectralights to create their doorway to other worlds. Its scale is on par with that of a oceanic oil rig here on earth, allowing it to easily traverse the sea floor due to not needing to be buoyant. Its structuring gives it an eerily living look, mimicking the spectralights, and by proxy, human anatomy. the colossal vessel streamlined hull designs gives off the appearance of a massive metal cloak. it is covered with sensors connected to floodlights that act not only as passive deterrents toward ocean life that would otherwise try to examine and possibly damage the vessel but also a way to allow the vessels operator to observe their surroundings without needing to constantly turn and look. The vessels unorthodox design is actually intended to make the operators job easier, as the operator pilots the vessel like the mechs from Pacific rim.

Three other vessels were sent along side the scientists group to help in construction and so, after many tiring months of work, they had finally built the wormhole generator at the bottom of the ocean. The scientists watched in anticipation as the wormhole generator began to activate. The vessels all sat in kneeling positions as a precaution as the pressure wave very well could topple the vessels if they were to stand straight up. finally, the wormhole opened and for a short moment the pressure wave created a bubble of empty space on both ends before collapsing, creating a wave of energy so strong that the hull of every vessel threatened to fall apart. The hull held though and they scientists celebrated for days on end. meanwhile, on the other side of the wormhole, the pressure wave traveled up out and across the oceans of a strange planet much like the world we saw before. if you could have heard it, you would hear *Bloop*.

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[wintthebest]

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[ahtsumu]

how the haikyuu boys fall in love

oikawa falls in love like a tsunami’s last breath. the first time he realises he loves you, he thinks the earth beneath his feet has fractured. terrified, he recedes from your life, pulls back from your outstretched hands, withdraws from your longing gaze, hoping that his feelings will, too. instead, they surge forward with a roar, swell to monstrous heights, foaming viciously at the crest. and soon, the colossal wave collapses against the shore, unable to fight any longer. when his words finally flood out, that roar of the tsunami arrives in the end as a whisper–– “i love you.” and everything is washed anew.

iwaizumi falls in love like a tree branch under snow. his feelings accumulate crystal by crystal: a touch here, a smile there, a picture at 2 am followed by “i saw this and thought of you” and a reply of “go to sleep, idiot” seconds later. you worm your way into his heart so slowly he doesn’t notice it at first, doesn’t notice the thick layer of snow on the caving wooden limb, doesn’t notice that one more fleeting brush against his fingers will tip the scale–– until the branch finally snaps. and when he opens his eyes to a world bedazzled by snow, the only face he can see is yours.

kuroo falls in love like honey on pancakes. with him, there’s no sudden realisation, no flashbulb moment of his adoration, because he’s been happily fixed in a golden state of mind ever since the day you met. every day, his name sounds sweeter out your mouth. every day, he wakes up with sugar on his lips. it’s slow, how his love for you grows, but it’s steady. and now, as you kiss every knuckle on his hand to pull him back down to earth, he can only let out a soft, amused exhale through his nose. his half-lidded gaze focuses on your decadent features. “i’m here,” he purrs. 

kenma falls in love like eyelids after dark. very rarely do the gears in his head stop spinning; he’s lived his entire life on alert, taking in and apart details to survive. but with you… there’s no need to take in and apart the way your lips feel against his, the scent of your hair in his nose, your shallow breath against his neck. it all feels so safe. with you, he’s home–– he can finally rest. so even when light drains out from the sky, even when the world is at its worst, at the feeling of your body curling up to his, the gears in his head grind to a halt. and he lets his heart beat instead.

bokuto falls in love like a fledgeling from its nest. he knows it’s reckless––  ridiculously reckless–– to have so much faith in wings not yet fully formed, but there’s something about you that makes him want to soar. maybe it’s that you remind him of a cloudless blue sky or a valley that stretches from both ends of the earth or an ocean that glitters beneath the sun. maybe it’s that your name is a call to adventure. and at that moment, he realises that birds don’t fly when they’re ready–– they fly when they’re called to. so he steps to the edge, spreads his arms out, and leaps, your name a prayer on his lips.

akaashi falls in love like silence between friends. it comes over him naturally, instinctively, right as he thinks that he could do nothing next to you forever and still be satisfied. the feeling wraps his shoulders like a blanket and, with a twitch of his lips, he pulls it closer around himself. his eyes dart over to your figure, wondering if you know–– if you’d known this whole time. and then when you catch his gaze, when you ask “like what you see?” with a smirk on your face, he feels the fabric stretch around his shoulders as if to fit a second body. his reply comes to him like second nature, like instinct. “no, i love it.”

atsumu falls in love like skydiving from a plane. he’s meticulous, guarded, the most untrusting of fate. so he fights to gain the upper hand: he picks his parachute, his pilot, the day with the best weather–– everything is in his control. and when you come in full view, he finally thinks the dropzone is perfect. only then does he throw all caution to the wind, diving head first, eyes closed all the way down. an awesome wave of euphoria washes over him, lasting even when he realises he’s landed right in your arms, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, pupils wild with excitement. he wants to freefall into you again. so he does.

osamu falls in love like night over the city. it’s as inevitable as the cycle of the sun and moon and when it happens, he’s still the same–– yet everything is different. beside you, he feels the air change and all else fade into the background. beside you, the hum of the world turns into a steady beat, a pulse awfully similar to the one in his chest. and he flickers to life, a mosaic of light, when you touch him. he doesn’t usually look like this, you think as you draw circles on the back of his hand, trying to pinpoint what about him has changed. smiling softly, he knows that you’ll figure it out soon. or... he could say it now.

kita falls in love like a seed into the ground. he doesn’t feel it when it’s sowed, nor when it takes root beneath the soil, but he sure feels when it sprouts. its stem crawls around his legs and up his trunk, keeping him safely fixed to earth. it grows with every “good morning” and “i’ll save you a seat”, it grows when you prance over with a joke on your lips and two coffees in your hands. it grows when he sees you with your eyes closed, head tilted towards the sky like a sunflower, and realises that you are all he’s ever wanted. your head turns. your eyes meet. and as spring does with the cherry trees, he blooms.

ushijima falls in love like a comet past the sun. as he hurtles by, your radiance melts his icy exterior into the glimmering cloud in his wake. every inch of his body is on fire. he feels the power in the pull of your orbit. feels you could utterly ruin him. feels he’d be okay with it, too. but you don’t. instead, he thinks himself made of anti-gravity as you trace constellations into his skin. he sees stars collide when you kiss. and when he remembers how a comet can spend thousands of years without passing the sun in its orbit, he looks at you asleep in his arms and holds you just a little tighter to his chest.

tendou falls in love like confetti on new year’s eve. this moment has spent all year in the making. ten, from the day you pummelled into his life. nine, the time that slowed when he saw you smile. eight, when you changed each other’s names in your phones. seven, that time he dragged you out to a party. six, how you retaliated by taking him to a play. five, your shoulders touch during said play. four, his fingers wrap around yours during the finale. three, you hold hands all the way home. two, he walks you to the door. one, you stop. zero, he leans in. and the world explodes in full colour.

kageyama falls in love like a fawn upright for the first time. it’s all new–– the butterflies in his stomach, the sluggishness of his tongue in his mouth, the short-circuiting of his brain when you’re around. he stumbles and trips and topples over navigating through the tingling in his body. “are you okay?” you ask, peering into his eyes. his cheeks burn as he nods, unable to form words. he thinks he’ll be fine, though, until you place a hand on his shoulder. the touch sends another flood of electricity through his nerves. “you sure? you look like you’re about to hurl.” and he resolves that he will do something about this.

tsukishima falls in love like a chest in resignation. he didn’t believe in softer emotions–– or at least, that’s what he told himself. and he held out for so long. but then you came along with your dumb sparkly eyes and your stupid smart mouth and infuriatingly sweet smile. even with the argument still fresh on his mind, he still adores you to death. especially right now, as he struggles to breathe knowing that he might lose you. fine, he thinks, no more running. he picks up his phone and sends the message that’s been sitting in his notes. and finally, he lets out a sigh. you win. he’s never been happier to lose.

sakusa falls in love like the last leaf before winter. just as a tree holds onto its foliage for dear life, he is stubborn in refusing to fall. still, even he is powerless against nature. as autumn goes, winter arrives in your form. he thinks you are the strangest cold–– the kind that soothes instead of stings, the kind that kindles fires and bakes chocolate chip cookies, the kind that turns his cheeks red without a touch but with a smile. but he likes it. so when winter knocks at his door and asks if he’s “ready to go?” he, the last leaf on the tree, finally flutters down to the ground.

[ammonitetheseaserpent]

Wake up, new fic just dropped! This one details the beginning of my Eye For Seven Eyes AU, which you can find here: https://ammonitetheseawing.tumblr.com/post/669924303571173376/slams-a-huge-roll-of-paper-covered-with-writing

Trigger warnings: Implied torture, out-of-body experience (kinda) (just in case), implied trauma.

Here we go!

Self-Sabotage: Outsider’s Perspective

—

It happened so fast.

It felt like it dragged on for a million years.

It happened all at once.

It happened one agonizing step at a time.

It happened.

Agony.

All agony.

It lashed through every muscle, every nerve, every fiber of her being.

It opened her mouth in a scream she couldn’t hear herself release.

It fragmented

Her mind

Until her mind

Her body

Was no longer hers

But someone

Else’s

Silence.

…

What is a soul?

It was a question she’d asked herself many times, yet could never quite find a definitive answer to.

Could it be the thing that compels a person to leave an impact beyond their lifespan? Or does it create morality? Does it stay in a different realm or get reborn into a different body when the original one ceases to contain it?

Marcy supposes she’ll have all the time in the world to contemplate this aspect of one’s being that people call a soul.

Because now, that aspect is all she has.

She isn’t entirely sure yet what that means, exactly, but if there’s one thing she knows, it’s that she’s a shadow of herself.

Not unlike the figure next to her, regarding her with a small, soulless grin.

Fixing her with 10 glowing eyes, from a face that was once her own.

Marcy shakes herself, mind still reeling faintly. The last thing she remembers is seeing three figures - two newts and a large, unmistakable one (don’t think about him) - leave the space she was in, trailing silence behind them.

Then a voice had cut through the haze. She’d snapped her gaze up in the direction it had come from, finding a figure that was… her, but not her. Something - the Core, her mind supplies - had turned her head at an unnatural angle to grin at Marcy with all her teeth.

That was when, almost on instinct, she’d looked down at her hands and discovered she could see right through them.

Which explained a few things.

Like, how she was still here when her body had been inhabited by a foreign entity.

She’d honestly be fascinated if it weren’t so existentially unsettling.

Where am I, anyway?

Marcy begins scouring the dark, foreboding space around her, searching for something to jog her memory further. A coral-carved throne, a colossal, mechanical sphere with many arms that vaguely remind her of a villain from a superhero movie-

Her metaphorical heart sinks as she fully registers her surroundings, and recalls the context behind them.

This was the same room where her fate had been sealed.

The same room where he had turned his head and refused to watch as a sinister helmet had descended from-

Nope. Do not think about that right now.

Or ever. That works, too.

Steeling herself, Marcy weighs her options.

Option number one: Get help.

As she ponders this carefully, a recent memory comes into focus - Olivia and Yunan. They’d been there, standing as rigid as blocks of ice, when she’d first regained consciousness. They’d looked right at her, but hadn’t seemed to… see her.

That could be a minor obstacle.

A sudden jolt runs through her. Her friends - could she find a way to contact them?

After a brief moment, Marcy shakes her head, mentally crossing that option off her list. Anne would be on Earth by now - and, well… Frog knew that place came with its own can of worms.

Not to mention the fact that she seems to pass through anything she tries to touch, so…

Interdimensional travel? Out of the question.

As is Sasha - the last time Marcy had seen her, she’d been completely incapacitated, stunned after being thrown against a wall by a tyrant’s tail. She (and Captain Grime) could be anywhere in Amphibia by now.

Besides, even if she did, hypothetically, manage to track one of them down, she can’t exactly guarantee they’d be… thrilled to see her.

So, for now, she’ll just… stick close to the Core. Keep an eye on it. Make sure it doesn’t, like, overestimate her body’s resilience and break all her bones or something.

That seems like a sensible plan of action.

[jordankennedy]

what are your fav tma quotes?

okay these are not romantic or anything like that my favorite quotes are the ones that are either very harrowingly worded or very entertainingly descriptive of something freaky

“It’s hard to really describe the sound that came from the bedroom. The closest I could come would be to say it sounded like… an egg being dropped onto a stone floor; a sort of wet, cracking thump. Then silence. Harriet was no longer making any noise at all.” (06)

“I began to pray again for protection, not for the place this time, but for me. As I did, I felt… something answer me. And yet, I cannot stress this enough: what answered was not God. It wasn’t Him. Something else answered my call for protection.” (19)

“I mean, I only did it for a few months, but you kill enough things that don’t want to be killed and you start to look at a person’s head and wonder where you’d need to place the bolt gun.” (30)

“It feels odd to consider the fact that you will no longer exist some day, but you didn’t exist for billions of years before your birth, so, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to conclude that you will not exist afterwards in much the same way. I try to see life as a pleasant holiday from non-existence.” (36)

“Even the bulb seemed to be covered with [ants], causing the light in the room to be covered with twitching shadow. The house itself didn’t look much better. Wherever there was a gap in the ants I could see that same oily rot, and I couldn’t escape the idea that the building was somehow sick.” (55)

“Humans have existed for the smallest sliver of a fraction of a moment in the existence of the universe, and we will be extinguished just as widely. And when we are at last gone forever into the quiet emptiness of death, there will be nothing left but the cold universe. And nothing shall mark our passing because there is nothing to do so.” (57)

“He told me he had come from the concentration camps, that there were many among the Boers that shared his state, and that he longed to touch me with all that we had visited upon them. He talked of disease, putrefaction and the writhing creatures of filth. He breathlessly talked of his revelation. Then he died, as did the man who came to bury him.” (68)

“He looks at me, his face impassive… if I even see a face. He tells me that I look terrible. I try to focus, but his body shifts and undulates like so much else when I try to focus. I tell him I haven’t slept, and he nods and tells me that’s ok. He is lying, and it makes me very afraid.” (74)

“Ah… I hate explaining jokes, but, um… Imagine you’re, um… a butcher, and one day an injured little lamb walks into your workshop, and strides right into one of the mincing machines, but when you go up to it, knife in hand, it shakes it’s head and tells you “I’m not stupid”. Do you get why that’s funny?” (89)

“I don’t know if it’s the most painful thing that can happen to the human body, but… beyond a certain point trying to quantify and measure pain, it becomes pointless. That point is being struck by lightning.” (91)

“She’d discuss her dissections with me, I think just to watch me squirm a bit, and talk about how hungry she always got at the smell of preserved brain. Apparently, it’s exactly like tinned tuna.” (94)

“When he was in school, he lost a friend to something like me. His friend was named Ryan, but those in power simply called him schizophrenic. I don’t know if he was, but it doesn’t matter. He was so dreadfully afraid his world wasn’t real that to make it so was almost nothing.” (101)

“And I wonder if there might not be consciousnesses out there so far beyond our comprehension that we could not properly recognize them as such. Minds so strange and colossal that we would never know they were minds at all. Perhaps, out there in the endless vast, they would not notice or recognize us in return. And I wish that I could convince myself that ignorance was the same thing as safety. But then, how many weeds have you unthinkingly stepped on in your lifetime?” (106)

“The passenger is there, though she is, as always, stationary. Dry dirt trickles between her teeth as she smiles mirthlessly, seeing the Archivist has returned. She is relaxed, suspended from a dozen broken handrails and shattered, jagged seats. They cut her flesh, but she does not bleed. There is no pain in her eyes. There is nothing except the certainty of her fate.” (120)

“Before him rises an incinerator door, the glowing light of the flames curling around the cracks. With a wailing shriek, the door opens, and the burning silhouette that stands within is ingrained upon the Archivist’s racing mind. They smoke and sizzle, but still the worms crawl through her charred and pockmarked flesh, her now-singed red dress shifting with the movement beneath it. the exterminator looks to her, then to the Archivist, and it is not certain which he fears more.” (120)

“Every single shriveled ashened face was contorted in a scream of agony, every sharp and jutting jaw cracked and twisted in an expression of horror. Of understanding not just of their death, but the end of everything they knew. It was clear that they had been this way for years, if not decades. Bernadette says she was sure nothing had moved in that dead city for a hundred years. She was mistaken.” (134)

“There are terrible things coming, things that, if we knew of them, would leave us weak and trembling, with shuddering terror at the knowledge that they are coming for all of us. We all made them, and their course is already plotted. You can see them in the numbers, if you only learn how to read them.” (144)

“Perhaps she is no more active than Terminus, simply sitting and reveling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia, as those who hold her in special terror cocoon themselves in red string and theory. Or perhaps I am simply telling you what you need to hear in order to ensure you behave exactly as the Mother wishes you to. Perhaps I have never even seen a beach. Don’t come to Hill Top Road again.” (147)

[mightymorphingayagenda]

cant wait for lethal combination chapter 5! and loved the holiday nessian fic you wrote!

then you shan’t have to wait! and thank you so much, nonnie. the fic they’re talking about and all previous chapters of lethal combo can be found here,  x

���Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.” 

Nesta kept her gaze on the wall of oak opposite her.  

“Is this the part where I tell you to get on your knees for me?” She asked.  

Humourless. 

And she could practically feel the feral rage radiating from him. Bleeding through the grate to her left like he were trying to smoke her out.  

“This is the part where you-“ 

“Shhh.” 

A lean shadow, a head of auburn hair, muted in the darkness like the decayed verdure of autumn, barely distinguishable through the latticed window no bigger than her hand.  

She’d made Eris wait almost a day.  

In Nesta’s experience teenage girls understood psychological warfare better than any CIA types she’d met. And rule one in the handbook was never call him back right away.  

Eris might as well have been a cute boy from home room, the advice stood fast.  

She’d also chosen the time and place for their meeting, giving no concessions in authority. Picking the church as unlike her he’d inherited both the egregious wealth of his family and their faith. Irish Catholic. Meaning he’d find himself here every Sunday evening regardless, and providing not only the guise of normality, but the cosy anonymity of a confessional.  

The only people who did secrecy better than assassins, were the Catholics.  

It was perfect really, the perfect plan. Undistracted Nesta had been able to work it out pretty quickly after Cassian had left. Leaving her all those hours between four in the morning and her meeting the following evening with nothing to do but hate him.  

Avoiding returning to the bed he’d screwed her in. Glaring at his jacket which still hung beside her front door over a bottle of vodka.  

It was a blow to her pride to be sure. The closest thing to rejection she’d ever received from a man. Whatsmore, some gooey part of her she’d pushed down had been upset.  

Too worked up to sleep she’d spent hours tucked into her armchair and entertaining plucking his teeth from his mouth like the petals of a rose. He loves me, he loves me not. Because worse than revealing himself to be a complete ass as most men did, Cassian had done so subsequent to fucking her better than she could have dreamed. And she’d had that dream. Multiple times.  

Wet dreams that couldn’t hold a candle to the way he’d had her dripping down to her knees, begging for his cock, trembling on legs he’d thrown over his shoulder to lick out her cunt like it was the reason he got out of bed in the morning. The man had spoilt her rotten.  

Nesta knew she probably shouldn’t have been thinking about sex in a church. Her mother was likely burning with a fury hotter than the flames that surrounded her down below, but she couldn’t help it. Because while she hated the sinner- ever bronze buffed, tattooed inch of him - god did she love the sin.  

“The adult is going to talk,” she said quietly. “If you want to throw a tantrum you can do it on your own time because as of this moment, I’m officially off the clock.”  

Eris’ silence said he knew better than to interrupt her. Perhaps he was smarter than she was about to give him credit for.  

“In fact I stopped working for you as of the moment you chose to question my methods and profess concerns that I may have jeopardised our venture because I lack the professionalism to keep my legs shut,” she said.  

“So if you want Helion Day neutralised, you’re going to have to find someone else to do the job. Though I seriously doubt you’ll be able to.” 

Cue phase two of the plan.  

Because she may have hated Cassian, but she wanted the monopoly on causing him emotional anguish.  

Like hell some other pro was going to put a bullet between Helion’s eyes and devastate his bodyguard. Making that man cry was Nesta’s prerogative. 

“I have made it clear to anyone in my field you might attempt to solicit that you are a impertinent, trust fund brat, who insists on micromanaging the work of other’s despite your incompetence in an attempt to feel important beyond the breeding mummy lied and told you made you special.” 

“I wasn’t aware you also specialised in character assassination.” 

Eris’ voice was charred with a sweetness like wealth; earthy and rich it reminded Nesta of muscovado sugar.  

He was right. She was being unprofessional. But she was tired and hungover and out of a gorgeous lay so fuck him.  

“My specialities are no longer any of your business, Mr Vanserra,” she replied. “My displeasure however, should be of great concern to you.”  

“Is that a threat?” 

“I wouldn’t do you the courtesy of warning you if I intended to kill you.” 

Eris said nothing.  

“You can consider it incentive if it helps you sleep at night though,” Nesta continued.  “To do as you’re told.” 

She gave him strict instructions.  Wait five minutes then leave. Never contact me.  Forget we were ever in correspondence in the first place.   

“Murder is cheap, Mr Vanserra. You don’t want to learn the cost of disobeying me. It’s not the kind of thing daddy’s wallet can cover.” 

She emerged from the confessional, slim shades obscuring her eyes and the deep bruises beneath. Her heels clipping against the stone floor as she made her way toward the station of votive candles at the back of the church.  

Each glowing stick a prayer for a lost loved one. Matches and and a few unlit offerings still available.  

She lit herself a cigarette on a flame.  

And Nesta couldn’t have missed the fresco above those colossal doors of oak and rustic gold flake even through the plumes of smoke that curled upwards as she stalked lazily down the isle:  a depiction of the Heavenly Father himself.  

She didn’t bother flicking a glance behind her to the confessional.  

Who’s your daddy, now?  

- 

She’d collapsed face down into already rumpled sheets.  

They’d smelled like sex and heaven and she’d smelt like cigarettes and a church and that was all she knew before the exhaustion caught up with her, the world went black, and she was waking up in exactly the same position . Vex’s fluffy tail swishing against her ear. The tickling sensation plucking her from the bliss of pure nothingness.  

Nesta groaned a little as she rolled over and pulled herself to sit up. Pleased to find she’d had the energy to take off her clothes. Unlike her makeup.  

“Damn it,”  she hissed as she saw the smudged mascara on the pillow.  

Not that the sheets didn’t need washing anyway… 

“Ugh,” she huffed, dropping flat onto her back again.  

She’d been awake less then seven seconds and a man had already ruined her day. Just thinking about him…  

“Ugh,” she said again, louder.  Like she was angry with the ceiling for not acknowledging her the first time. 

Vex meowed, his little head nudging at her bare arm. As though he were trying to coax her bra strap back up to a respectable position on her shoulder.  

“Hi, baby,” she grumbled, picking him up for a cuddle. “You hungry?” 

He meowed again.  

Padding down to the kitchen she’d made them both breakfast (technically lunch, she’d slept in till almost one) and carrying her plate of fruit back upstairs to draw a bubble bath he winded between her ankles, catching her attention as he hissed at something in the living room.  

“What?” she inquired, looking down at him before tilting her head to follow his own.  

Cassian’s jacket.  

Uhg.  

Now she was thinking about him again.  

Childish, dumb, insecure little prick. How he’d had the fucking nerve to call her a coward was truly a mystery.  

He was so crippled by that fear of not being good enough he’d immediately presumed she wanted rid of him. Lashing out defensively- God he was infuriating.  

She looked back to Vex who was now staring up at her. “If that thing somehow ends up on the floor,” she said, “you have permission to piss on it”. 

He purred.  

Vex truly was the only boy worth his salt. Something he proved yet again in hopping atop her bathroom counter and guarding her like a fluffy little gargoyle as she sank into the bath.  Opening m the window to let out the smoke of her cigarette so as not to bother him.  The sound of rain slipping something comforting through the January chill, twirls of smoke and steam visible in fatigued plumes.  

Another lethal habit she’d picked up from Aunt Ripleigh.  

The thought gave her an unpleasant feeling in her heart. Like a worm writhing in the rotted meat of an apple.  

Ripleigh wasn’t actually her aunt. But Nesta avoided her much like she did the rest of her family and that was what really counted. Besides, spilling blood together arguably made for a closer bond than just sharing it.  

Like Nesta said, not really her aunt.  

Aunt Ripleigh – initials AR, an homage to the assassin’s preferred weapon the AR-47, American hybrid of the Russian Автома́т Кала́шников, A.K.A the AK-47.  

Some mothers left their little girls pearls, or scrapbooks packed with baby pictures and the lingering scent of their perfume. Angelina Archeron had left her’s a Mafia assassin’s cell number.  

Of course Nesta hadn’t known that.  

Not until she’d found herself with her hands caked in something dark and sticky, her boyfriend’s skin stuffed beneath the lip of her nails and a taste in her mouth like hot rust.  

She’d been seventeen the first time she’d killed a man.  

Not a man. A boy.  

A few months her senior, Thomas been a child just like her.  

Her first crush. Her first boyfriend, her first love, and her first.  

Nesta had known Thomas was using her for sex.  Just as she’d been using him for his money, and wasn’t that what love was? Finding the gratification of your needs in someone else? In Thomas’s case he’d needed to get his dick wet.  In Nesta’s…it was more than embarrassing but half the time all she’d needed was a hot meal.  

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d called him in the dead of the night to hook up in his Porsche so she could sleep there instead of at home, where the windows screamed freezing air from their shattered mouths and the electricity bill was rarely paid.  

But one night Nesta hadn’t felt like earning his kindness. And so he hadn’t offered it. 

Instead he’d held her wrists, ripped at her shirt, forced his hands into her jeans. Pushed up against the bonnet of that Porsche by a lake in woods she’d torn through his face, her nails splitting through the waterline beneath his eyes as she’d kicked and screamed, blood pouring, his hand on her neck, throwing her head against the wing mirror. Heat spilling heavy down her jaw and neck from somewhere which had smelt like lose change.  

She remembers blood in her eyes and the taste of soft, smooth skin and a kind of rubbery strength between her teeth as she’d bit down hard until something had popped or burst or split with a squirt or a tear. She remembers spitting out whatever of Thomas’s ear she’d torn off between her teeth and something swinging into her lower ribs so hard one broke. She remembers the sounds that had been both of them and then at some point just her. 

Her screaming.  

Her sticky, disgusting face, stinging with every horribly wet sob and shriek. The shrieks that hadn’t choked to shaky breaths until she’d pulled herself to sit back against the wheel of the car. Clutching at her ribs which had only hurt so much worse when she’d thrown up right next to her boyfriend’s body.  What looked like a pint of blood glowing in the dust. His face…his head.  

It’d looked like a Halloween prop. Like dark jam. Like a brutalised seventeen year old dead in the dirt.  

And sometime after noticing one of his teeth in the dust, Nesta had realised how fucked she was.  

It wasn’t much of an achievement when you considered Grafton, Vermont had a population short of seven-hundred: but the Mandrays had been quite possibly the most well connected and well off people in its less than seven-hundred square miles.  And despite keeping Nesta’s name out of their sneering mouths through referring to her almost exclusively as “that white-trash bitch”, that population short of seven hundred didn’t give a shit about her.  

Didn’t give a shit she’d been top of her class with a place at Georgetown. Because Nesta could never have afforded to accept it.   

And it certainly didn’t matter she was a pageant queen when everyone knew the petty cash prizes were the only thing that paid the rent on their shitty one bedroom. Especially with things barely breaking even.  In spite of Feyre’s making use of their father’s rifle and sourcing for the butcher any chance she could.  

A too skinny child in the woods with a gun and blood in her braids.  

Nesta’s efforts to keep food on the table had always seemed to pale in comparison to that. But she’d never felt bad about it. Wouldn’t bother hating herself when everybody else was already doing that for her.  

Nesta Archeron was the cheap fuck that nice Mandray boy was messing around with. The gold digger with the dead commie mom and daddy issues. 

No one would have ever believed he’d tried to rape her.  

And she’d had no money for a decent lawyer- she hadn’t even had anyone to call. Not her dad, not a fourteen-year old Feyre nor Elain, sixteen and the last person she’d ever want wrapped up in something like this.  

Nesta had been desperate and vulnerable and jaded for as long as she could remember but she’d never felt as terrified and broken as she had in that moment. Crying alone and hugging herself tightly, she’d just wanted her mom. As cold and neglectful and dead as the woman was.  

“три три два пять семь девять пять шесть три восемь” 

 Her mother’s last words.  

 Ten numbers.  

 Nesta had somehow gotten to her feet, only realising Thomas had broken a few of her fingers when she’d tried opening the car door.  All but collapsing inside once she’d managed as she’d fumbled for her phone.  

 “три три два пять семь девять пять шесть три восемь” she’d repeated to herself, voice hoarse and wet and cracking as she’d dialled.  

 Ten numbers. Ten numbers. Ten numbers.  

 Like a phone number.  

 No doubt concussed Nesta had deemed it logical enough.  Her mother’s dying breath a kind of atonement for leaving her children with nothing in the whole word but a father that could watch his girls starve and go into the woods with his hunting rifle and whore themselves out like they meant nothing.  

 A life-line in the deep waters opaque with clouds of blood.  

 “Здравствуйте.” 

Those three syllables had been like a punch to the gut.  

Nesta had made a noise that might have sounded like “mom?” or the creaking of a damn as it ached under duress. She’d obviously known it wasn’t her mother, but she hadn’t heard a woman speak Russia since- hadn’t heard Russian at all in years.  

“Who is this?”  

Trying to pull herself together Nesta had taken a breath that had rattled, dripping wet and slightly wheezing. Everything was going to be okay. She’d been right. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Of all the phone numbers in the world what was the likelihood that the voice on the end of this one spoke her mother’s native tongue?   

“I’m- I’m Angelina Archeron daughter. She gave me this number I don’t know what to do I-” 

The specifics aren’t as clear after that. Like a jigsaw left out in the rain or soaked in fresh hot blood, the pieces, the details, they’d melted to mush.  

 A mess she’d held in her hands and wondered what the fuck to do with.  

What do you do with a dead body and the knew found knowledge your mother was a boyevik for the Russian Mafia? What do you do with her retirement package which contained nothing but the contact for an assassin working for the New York arm.  

Nesta had only known what she wasn’t going to do.  

Go down for murder.  

Aunt Ripleigh had told her what to do over the phone, instructing her on how to deal with her injuries and Thomas’ pulp of a body.  How to explain the state of her face and ribs and fingers and head. What to do with his car and how to speak and sit and and react when then police came asking questions about Thomas’ disappearance. How to get away with it.  

 Nesta had followed each direction flawlessly.  Consoled in finally having a definitive plan. Even a plan that started with “buy meat cleaver, trash bag, battery powered blender and bucket, with cash from dead boyfriend’s wallet.” Even a plan that got progressively worse from that point on.  

 Filleting chunks of a body that had once been inside her. Hauling a trash bag of boyfriend smoothie to the river with broken fingers.  The thick slop sinking almost immediately just as Aunt Ripleigh had said it would. Before she’d told Nesta to burn the bones and roast marshmallows over them.  

 “If it had not been you it would have been next girl,” Ripleigh had said. “And she might not have had your fight.”  

 “You mean she might not have been disturbed enough to kill her boyfriend?” 

 “Killer instincts, Anastasia. Is not disturbed, is talent,” Aunt Ripleigh had said. “Cannot be taught but what can be taught you learn quick. No whining. Like very good puppy with very sharp teeth.” 

 “Woof,” Nesta had said dryly. 

 “Stray puppy though, no? Is why you have no manners.”

 “You offering to adopt me?” 

 “I have pet already. And my husband is funnier than you.” 

Nesta’s compromised rib had punished her for finding that funny.  

 “But you ever want job, you call me.” 

 Needless to say that was not the last time she’d called Aunt Ripleigh.  

 Three weeks later and four months shy of getting her high school diploma Nesta had turned eighteen and moved to New York in order to “pursue modelling”.  

In reality she was doing coffee runs with a dash more arsenic than normal and luring prosecutors to hotel rooms they’d never leave. A personal assistant of sorts to Aunt Ripleigh.  

She had kept the mafia, the Bratva, at an arms length whenever she’d been able. Paying off the shitty house she’d left her sisters in with one less mouth to feed and not wanting their address in any files accessible to people with skill sets like her’s.  

And while working with Ripleigh had been a mortiferous riot, two gals shattering the glass ceiling in their industry and slitting throats with the shards; Nesta had developed expensive taste from the fringes of high criminal society. She’d cared less about the art of killing than she had about the art she could hang up in a penthouse apartment if she were in private practice.  Her lust for comfort winning out after two years or so at which point she’d gone freelance. Assisting in a few heists before getting in with a crowd of Nazi hunters for a bit, all the while keeping in touch with her mentor.  

Until Feyre had moved to the city.  

 Then she’d given up on the more dangerous antics,  selling out for safer and even more lucrative bets like CEOs and cutting ties with Aunt Ripleigh. Terrified if not a little paranoid of something happening to her sister. Which had been shit.  Because Nesta hadn’t had any other friends. Like, at all.  

 At eighteen Feyre was still as bitter and proud as she’d been when Nesta had left. As Nesta herself still was.  

 Elain had tried bridging her sisters’ relationship once she’d moved to New York but she’d had better success career-wise. Working at a florists before eventually graduating to a self employed wedding planner. 

 Nesta had kept her thoughts on the psychological tells of a girl jilted at the alter becoming a wedding planner to herself. Mostly because Elain was always brining her cake samples she’d stolen and Nesta wasn’t going to sabotage her supply of free cake.  

 Feyre on the other hand had gone about far less conventional means of making a living. The child was a force to be reckoned with if for nothing but her resourcefulness and almost objectionable will to survive. Fiercely independent and clumsily capable she’d taken a crack at everything while selling her art on the side. It was a piece she’d modelled for that had delivered her to true economic grandeur however.  

 Well, “modelled” maybe wasn’t the word. Her sister had essentially been used as a human stamp. Her naked body detailed with intricately painted swirls then pressed to canvas.  

 The work had been showcased somewhere high brow and had caught the eye of one Mr Rhysand Velaris, thirty-one and the sole inheritor of his late father’s worldly possessions. Among which were several millions of dollars.  

 Half of which now belonged to her sister thanks to a very reckless prenup on his part.  

 Though Nesta had briefly wondered if he’d spent at least that on the engagement ring.  A glittering iceberg that seemed to only glare brighter next to the stark black band tattooed just beneath it, a matching tattoo on Rhysand’s own ring finger. Because of course they’d eloped in Paris and gotten tattoos instead of wedding rings. 

 If Nesta had been closer to her baby sister she imagined she might have felt betrayed on some level. But as things were, Nesta wasn’t entirely sure she would have received an invite even if they’d had a traditional wedding, planned to perfection by Elain. 

 It was probably the worst part of her job. The distance she had to put between herself and everyone she had the potential to care about. A distance she could never close even if she decided to retire right this minute because the damage had already been done.  Nesta had become a liability to their safety the minute she’d moved here and started in this line of work.  

 She took another chocolate from the box she’d snatched from downstairs on second thought. Her supply already dwindling thanks to the rather depression freight train of thought she’d embarked on.   

That and the fact they were really very good.  

Cassian may have been a prick, but she couldn’t deny he had great taste.  

In chocolate, and women, she thought smugly.  Sinking deeper into the basin.  

A heat flushed up her neck that had nothing to do with the bath as she unwillingly remembered how he’d softly coaxed one of these lovely little parcels between her full lips. The drunk hunger in his deep brown eyes and what he’d done next, snapping her lace thong between his teeth-  

Her music stopped. Only to be replaced by a buzzing thrum of her phone.  

Leaning forward Nesta checked the caller ID before swiping across the screen to accept the call and sinking back to her earlier position.  

“I’m not in the mood,” she hummed dismissively, head tipped back against the lip of the tub and eyes closing. She’d known this was coming, better to get it over with.  

“When I supply you with handsome, rich, and eligible men, I do not expect you to break them!” Feyre castigated through the phone, and anyone might guess she were the elder sibling.   

Feyre indeed thought herself wiser and more worldly than both Nesta and Elain, and getting married hadn’t helped diminish her false sense of maturity. Thrusting her character into some weird sarcastic seriousness that mirrored her husband’s demeanour perfectly. It made Nesta cringe so thoroughly she was mildly concerned about getting wrinkles.   

“And I thought we’d grown out of sharing toys, but it seems both our expectations were thwarted.” 

“Humans aren’t toys!” Feyre reminded her. Not that Nesta didn’t already know that. No vibrator had never made her cum as hard as Cassian had.  

“And if you resented me setting you up with Cassian then why did you fuck him ?” Feyre asked. And she said fuck as though it were synonymous to stab or poison.  

“Was it to punish me? Because if so you did a spectacular job. He’s crazier about you than ever and won’t stop moping. The second-hand embarrassment is painful enough without the added agony of how annoying it is.”  

If he likes me so much why was he so eager to assume the worst of me? Nesta thought spitefully. 

It didn’t matter that she technically was lying to him. He didn’t know that.  

“You told me to give him a chance.”  

“And you couldn’t have decided you didn’t like him before having sex with him?” 

Nesta wasn’t surprised Feyre had taken Cassian’s version of things at face value.   

Her husband’s family were unimpeachably wonderful in her eyes. Meanwhile Nesta remained just another reminder of a time Feyre couldn’t have afforded the plane ticket to get to New York, let alone a town house on the upper east side. A cold bitch who hadn’t begged to join the weird cult that was the Velaris family and their innermost circle when Feyre had married Rhysand last year.  

“Oh I’d already worked out he was an ass by that point but I thought he could at least make up for putting me through the date. Not much going on in that head but he quite clearly had it all going on- 

“Ew ew ew!” Feyre interrupted. “One, I need this conversation to steer clear of anything anatomical, and two, do you have to be so horrible?” 

“You’re the one pimping out your friends, I just took you up on the offer.”  

“Ever heard of the third date rule?” 

“Didn’t you marry Rhysand on the third date?” 

Feyre sighed.  

“Cassian’s a good guy, Nes. It takes a lot to come out the other side of what he’s been through a good man and he deserves the world so-” 

“So why did you send him my way?” 

Nesta knew what Feyre thought of her. And if she hadn’t then this conversation would have made it very clear.  

“Because Nesta! You’re twenty-four and already a crazy cat lady! I’m sorry I tried to save you from dying alone and having Vex eat your corpse.” 

Nesta rolled her eyes.  

“Have you ever considered I choose to be alone because I like it?” She asked. 

Feyre sighed again, but it was softer this time, sad more than exasperated.  

“You’re not alone, Nesta,” she said. “You’re lonely.” 

It was annoying enough that she was right, she didn’t have to be so pretentious about it aswell.  

“I’m fine,” Nesta said.  

“You sound just like Cassian,” Feyre grumbled.  

“Well I’ve been smoking.” 

“I’ll be sure to put how funny you were on your headstone when those things kill you.” 

“I’m racing Rhysand to the grave, he has more cigars than I do shoes.” 

“He only smokes them on special occasions.” 

“And how do you know this isn’t a celebratory cigarette on account of you calling me?” 

“Because instead of saying hi you said I’m not in the mood.” 

“Oh so you did hear me?” 

“I hear you, Nesta,” Feyre conceded, disappointment weighing on her words. “Loud and clear. Have a good week.”  

She hung up.  

“You too,” Nesta said into the silence.  

When the silence replied she sank beneath the water. As though she hoped it might act as the cushioned walls of a padded cell meant to protect those who posed a danger to themselves.  

It didn’t. And that unpleasant ache didn’t go away. It never did.  

Worse than the dull pounding in her ears and tightness in her chest as she held her breath.  

But it would be nothing compared to the devastation of seeing Feyre or Elain hurt. The tender ache of keeping them at arms length, knowing they were at least there to brush her fingers against, was worth avoiding spending the rest of her life reaching for someone taken from her.  

Perhaps that was also why she’d wanted so fiercely to dislike Cassian.  

Nesta re-emerged with a gasp, her chest on fire.  

What an unpleasant notion, she thought, running her fingers through her wet hair and  sinking back as she took a slower breath. That she’d been looking for a reason to dislike him even after overcoming the minor detail she was going to kill his friend and client.  An excuse to throw in the towel as soon as she could.  Because it was just easier.  

Easier than accepting she was fundamentally terrified of keeping him around.  

Easier than keeping him around and seeing him get hurt.  

Fuck.  

Her being mad at him had been a cop out.  

Because yes he’d been a petty, insecure idiot;  but hadn’t she told him she was going to fuck and chuck him? Hadn’t she been at typically fast to get in a fight with him? Substantiating his insecurities.  

Nesta might have been furious at his calling her a coward, but he hadn’t actually been wrong. 

She’d let some subliminal fear convince her to sabotage things.  

A subliminal and blissfully irrational fear she realised because, Cassian, a monument of pure muscle, could definitely look after himself. He’d been marine corps for Christ’s sake. Not to mention she’d seen him take down Helion enough times in the ring while still working for Eris and the fact the man literally specialised in keeping people safe for a living! 

Nesta felt a weird and almost unfamiliar lightness in her shoulders. It felt a little like hope. Which was also terrifying.  

But she wasn’t going to the let the fear control her this time.  

 — 

 Cassian had ignored her calls.  

All three.  

Which was fine because she’d been stalking him for the past month. She knew exactly where he’d be that evening and doing things in person meant she could kill him if he kept up the asshole routine.  

Nesta’s platform stiletto boots clipped against the laminate flooring as she emerged from the elevator.  Stalking lazily through the top floor of the Illyria building.   

Even if she killed Cassian he was going to die happy.  She looked good enough to eat. Thick hair fastened back into a high ponytail, the details of her face were subject to full attention. Her eyes appearing almost wider and lashes lavished with a black like her jet thigh-highs and tied coat. Plump lips softly lined and shaded, she looked drop dead fucking gorgeous.  

Though it was what she was wearing under her fastened coat that was the real killer.  

Nesta didn’t uncross her ankles from where they’d flicked over one another as she let herself lean against the doorframe of Cassian’s office.  

It was wide open. No privacy needed when everyone else had gone home around four hours ago. The night detail on Helion allowing Cassian time to catch up on work as he had every night and well into the morning for the past month.   

“All work and no play?”  

Cassian looked up from his desk.  

“I can fix that,” she said.  

He’d never looked more handsome.  

Hair bundled into a dark band, his shirt cuffed at his forearms and a bit of scruff marring his chiselled jaw. A pair of slim reading glasses were pushed up his slightly imperfect nose and it was such a turn on Nesta was glad she was leaning against something.  

He looked a little exhausted in a kind of brooding and adorable way.  

It gave her this awful pining to massage those sculpted shoulders as he let loose a deep, tired sigh, arms folding across that powerful chest causing his white shirt to hiss as he leaned back into his chair. It was a fucking massive bit of furniture. But then it had to be to accommodate him.  

“What are you doing here?”  

Rude.  

Nesta pushed off the doorframe and into his office.  

“You ignored my calls,” she said by way of explanation. Making her way to the bookcase and running her fingers across a row of spines. It was mostly files, but she noticed a few novels as well.  

“You kicked me out of your bed at three in the morning.” 

She turned to find him watching her.  

His words were dismissive and effortlessly confrontational as usual. But there was an edge to his voice. And it wasn’t arousal. Even if his gaze caught on her boots and lingering there for longer than he’d probably care to admit.  

Nesta leaned back against the bookshelf, inspecting her manicure with an eye roll.  

“You’re still upset about that?”  

“Not at all,” he said with a smirk. Reclining back against the chair a little further, hips rolling and arms casually folding. Too casually. The dangerous grace of it speaking to the emotion that no doubt roiled beneath his bronze skin. Belied by that bullshit cockiness which grated her to the bone. “It seems I dodged a bullet.” 

“Oh really?” 

“The whole hot but mean cliché is one thing, but crazy hookup who stalks me-“ 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she sneered.   

She’d seen hints of this before. The rugged and crude act meant to cover up the insecurity she’d also been treated to.  

“Oh I’m sorry. I forgot you can’t ever admit what it is you want.” 

“You don’t have a clue what I want.” 

“I have several, Nesta.” He looked her up and down pointedly. 

The way he said her name. Even like this it made her weak in the knees while her fingers itched to choke him.  

It was all very conflicting.  

“Oddly confident in your last performance for someone so insecure,” she quipped lazily.  

Cassian rose his brows with a mean a laugh.   

“What do I have to be insecure about?” He said. “I didn’t hide behind a half-ass lie to throw someone out of my bed. And I’m pretty sure even your neighbours can attest to how good of a time I gave you,” he smirked again.  “You’re not a good enough liar for the way you moaned my name to have been an act.” 

The white hot fist in her stomach folded in on itself as it melted to a stickiness despite the misguided insult. She certainly hadn’t been putting it on Saturday. Every sound he’d drawn from her dripping with sincerity. Every moan and whimper well deserved.   

“You’re right,” she said.  

Cassian blinked.  

Nesta prowled toward him and hummed, “those, four, orgasms, were about as fake as my emergency.” 

The sultry softness to her voice thickened to something less affected at those last words.  

Cassian scoffed. Though there was something withdrawn and careful to him that hadn’t been there a second ago. Like a snake recoiling in case it needed to strike.  “Your emergency, of course. Which was?” 

“Nothing to do with you.”  

He shook his head, laughing bitterly.   

“Seriously, Nesta? You’ve had two days to come up with something now.”  

“You’re not listening to me,” Nesta slipped atop the corner of the desk, perching there with her long legs crossed over one another. The blade of a stiletto heel close enough to brush up his calf if she wanted to make him shiver.  

But she didn’t. She just wanted him to listen. To understand what she was saying so she didn’t have to say anything more because for fucks sake he was the one who’d acted up and yet she was here putting her pride on the line again.  

“It had nothing, to do with you,” she said slowly.  

A weighted silence settled like snow between them.   

Until Cassian took a blow torch to it.  

“Shit.” 

His head fell into those large hands.   

“Shiiiiiiiit,” he cursed again. “Oh god, how badly have I fucked up?” He groaned, looking up.  So humbled and distraught it was almost comical.  

“Irredeemably.” Her eyes flirted with the notion of a little smile even if her mouth remained unquirked as she propped her hands against the desk behind her and leaned into them to more comfortably watch him suffer.  

“I’d beg you not to tease me but honestly I think it’s the least I deserve- fuck.” 

“Like me teasing you isn’t the highlight of your day.” She rolled her eyes.  

Cassian laughed, pained and almost sheepish, which shouldn’t have been hot but god it made her blush.  

Keep your cool goddamn it. She wanted a little more bang for her buck where grovelling was concerned before she let on how eager she was for things to get back on track.  

“Want to flat out abuse me and make it the highlight of my year?” 

She was struggling to keep the smile off her face even as she said, “I’m not in the habit of rewarding bad behaviour. You’re a man, you get enough of that already.” 

“Nesta,” he took his glasses off, setting them down on the desk beside her thigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “I’m, really, really fucking sorry I’m an idiot.” 

Nesta slid of the desk.  

“Go on,” she instructed.  

“A moron a fool a stupid, stupid son of a bitch.” 

Taking a step forward she was stood between his thighs. Picking up his glasses and pushing them back on his nose. Missing the sight of this hulking, powerhouse of a man in spectacles.  

“I’m sorry.” Cassian was looking up at her with those big brown eyes, and the bastard actually leaned into her palm.  

“Oh for fucks sake how did anyone discipline you as a child with those damn puppy-dog eyes?” She growled softly, furious.  

“They didn’t to be honest,” he admitted with a breathy laugh.  

“I can tell.” 

She slid her hands to his shoulders, fingers curling soft and possessive over the stacked muscle and palms pressed to his upper chest, stepping tighter into him.  

“I guess I’ll just have to do it.”  

Cassian swallowed.  

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, sweetheart,” he tried. Intoxicatingly deep, trying to maintain that arrogant and playful edge in a way that made his words all the hotter. The simmering ache he attempted to push down all but throbbing in his voice.   

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she returned, brows arched. Battling a smirk off her face.  

“Can I ask you to do something for me, then?” 

“If you say please.” 

“Please don’t screw around with me.” 

Nesta faltered.  

Those warm hands came to rest on her lower back, long fingers curling slightly into the fabric and coaxing her that last bit closer so that her thighs brushed against the edge of his chair and her stomach was brushing up against his.  

“I’m really into you,” he admitted.  “You’re smart and you’re beautiful, and at first I thought the whole hard to get thing was an act but woman you are genuinely hard to get and it is, so sexy. But whatever it is that’s holding you back, that made you wait a week to call me, that made you claim all you wanted was a hook up; I’m clearly not cut out to compete,” he confessed. “It got in my head, and that’s on me and me lashing out at you the other night that’s on me too and I’m so, so sorry Nesta. I need to know where I stand with you though. I need to know if you’re actually interested in me. Because I like you. But I’m too old for games.” 

The silence was so thick she could have cut through it with a knife.  

Nesta’s hands fell from his chest slowly.  

“That’s good,” she assured him at last. “Because I’m not a toy.”  

She brought her fingers to the belt of her coat and pulled slow and deliberate.  

Black glazed her figure with a gorgeous intimacy. The dress hugging at what little it concealed with perfection enough to make up for its lake of mercy. Long legs sheathed in those thigh-high boots, the item was short enough that a decent length of her thighs could be seen. Interrupted at the last possible moment by sleek jet as though she’d been dipped in oil of purest night.   

Cassian’s eyes blew out to sticky treacle behind those glasses.  

“I’m human, Cass,” she hummed, tossing her coat onto the desk behind her as she spoke. “Which means I make mistakes.” He swallowed as she sighed softly, her cleavage swelling a little with the motion.  “And that I have needs. Needs you can be the one to fulfill or not.” 

She slipped into his lap, straddling him, knees bent either side of his thighs. The corded strength of which pressed painfully and exhilaratingly apparent against the soft seam of her inner thighs and she was genuinely suffering from some kind of contact high. Every inch of him seizing up subtly, deliciously taught at her touch in an effort not to respond and yet it only revealed just how much she affected him.  

“Nesta-“ 

“Shhhhhh,” she interrupted. Hands cupping that ruggedly handsome face and titling it back to tuck her’s against him slowly. “But I want it to be you,” she purred against his jaw, tracing her nose up the stubbled curve. “Let me show you how bad.” 

“Someone could come back-“ 

“I don’t care,” Nesta murmured against his mouth. “I want you.” 

His eyes fluttered shut. And she felt his cock stir in those immaculately tailored slacks.  

“Nesta-” 

She could feel every muscle that licked up his stomach tremble with a drawn out contraction as she said it again, her hands slipping down to his broad shoulders. 

“I want you,” she purred again.  

He might have tried to breath.  And it might have rubbed up something uncomfortably nice in her lower tummy.  

“Say it,” she whispered, tilting her face so that the tip of her nose brushed up the side of his. Her breath hot on his stubbled Cupid’s bow and hands running down the solid power of his upper body, burning up through his shirt. “Say it, Cassian.” 

His brown eyes like cognac and magnolia were hooded behind his glasses as he conceded.  

“You want me,” he breathed.  

She grazed her mouth against his. Lips parted suggestively and an almost silent, utterly cruel noise escaping her.  

The length of his thick cock pressed up against the seam of her plush sex as he grew to full, hard attention in his slacks. Warm and thrilling even through her panties and their open mouths melted into one another hot and heavy, tongues caressing as his large hands came to her knees and smoothed up her bare thighs covetously. 

“Fuck,” he groaned lazily as her hips began rolling deeply into him, and her hands slid under his shirt. Fingers splayed, she snaked up the cobbled muscle of his stomach, the flesh burnished and warm beneath her touch. His shirt riding up to reveal the gutter of his hips, gruesomely toned and dusted with hair.   

“This is…such a…” he breathed, between the perfect and yearning motions of their jaws, a hand smoothing up her waist in a way that made her shiver.  

“Dream come true?” She hummed, kissing him wanton and unhurried. Dangerously close to becoming a brainless mess with the way his cock rubbed up her core.  

His groan melted to a laugh or maybe it was the other way round.  

“Yes,” he admitted breathlessly. “And a bad, bad…idea.” 

“Well you’ve been a bad, bad boy, Cassian,” she whispered filthily against his ear, before capturing the lobe between her teeth softly.  

She sucked and nibbled oh so gently and he expelled a breath so gravelly and masculine it twisted the hungry knot in her core tighter. 

“Nesta…we-fuck you’re good at that…” he groaned lethargically . “Sweetheart, we can’t…” 

“Why not,” she coed quietly, the sound airy and affectedly filthy.  

“We’re…” he choked as he took in the sight of her cleavage, pushed intimately to his chest and escaping the neckline of her dress like a plume of toothpaste squeezed from the tube. “Fucking hell Nesta we’re in my office.” 

“And I’m saying you could be in me.” 

She rocked her hips against him with a particularly cruel slant.  

The groan that escaped him made something flip in her stomach, tossing about whatever sweet, impossible to describe feeling rushed there at the same time at the way his head fell back against the chair as she worked him over.  The hot friction that rubbed against her sensitive core the cherry on top of the sweet, creamy, decadent sundae.  

“Besides,” she moaned, breathless and sultry. Teeth plunging softly into her plump bottom lip as she continued rolling her hips. Hands rubbing over his shoulders and providing her leverage. “You’re the boss.” 

“I think we both know…that I’m not the boss…right now…” he groaned. Almost pained.  

“Your cock a little much for those slacks?” She hummed, faux sympathy dripping through her mocking pout. 

“I thought you liked a tight fit,” she teased, still pouting but eyes smokey. Her toes curling in her boots as her fingers began work on pulling his shirt apart.  

The buttons popped undone with a sensual and pining tempo and she was moaning quietly into his mouth as she explored the panes and ripples of that powerful upper body. More than thorough in her hands-on assessment.  

Cassian’s own hands were keeping just as busy, massaging and kneading her ass indulgently before smoothing over her rolling hips and eventually coming to her lower back. His thumbs pressing to the small of her back either side of her spine and it made something tight inside her swoon. The touch so hot and the memory it conjured so good. His big hands on her as he fucked her from behind.  

“Nesta,” Cassian groaned deeply, as she began rocking into him tighter, hotter. The impression of his cock lined up just right with her aching core.  

“Hey, baby,” She purred, drunk on the friction that made her whole body throb and hum with pleasure and the tip of her nose brushing the side of his. Hands snaking from his exposed chest to either side of his face and capturing his bruised mouth with her own. Chewing on his bottom lip obscenely, the friction beginning to push her over edge.  

“Fuck you’re incredible,” he groaned huskily once she let up. Kissing back decadently. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed almost mindlessly. “I’m so fucking sorry, Nesta.” 

“You wanna show me how sorry you are?” she purred, sultry and low, mouth parting, forehead still pressed to his and eyes fluttering open to hold his own.   

Cassian nodded, dumb and silent and eager and Jesus it turned her on.  

“Yeah? You wanna make me cum?” She hummed.  

“Yes, yes, please.” 

“Touch me, Cassian,” she whispered against his open mouth. “Make it up to me, make me feel good.” 

Cassian’s hands slid back to her ass and she moaned into the kiss he captured her lips in as he lifted her with a sensual squeeze,  wrapping her long legs tightly round the tapered cut of his waist as he stood.  

The surface of the desk was beneath her before she could work out which way was up and his touch smoothed down her legs to her knees before she could take a a breath in reprieve from kissing him. Her legs splitting either side of his broad hips and his erection, tucked to the side in his slacks and thick and heavy and hard, pushed against the inner seam of her thigh as he pulled that band from her hair. 

“I’m gonna make these gorgeous legs tremble for me,” he pledged against the her jaw, kissing and nipping his way down to where her pulse throbbed for him as he a hand through the loose locks.  

And he began suckling at that sensitive spot just as a calloused hand slipped between her thighs.  

“Mmmmm,” Nesta moaned smugly, gripping at his biceps still sheathed in the sleeves of his shirt as Cassian’s thumb ran up the seam of her dripping cunt through her panties. The lace a flimsy veil between her swollen clit and his hot touch.  

“Fuck I’ve missed you,” he moaned into her neck, her head rolling back as he snapped her panties and began stroking his fingers through her soft folds possessively. “Missed those little sounds and your mouth and this pretty neck and perfect pussy.” 

“Then cut out the all bark no bite bullshit and prove it,” she breathed.  

“Yes ma’am,” he murmured thickly, the pad of his thumb coming to her clit and she moaned as he circled the sensitive bundle of nerves expertly. Her nails pressing into his shoulders, a few through the hiss of his shirt but the others carving crescents into the bronze muscle and tattoos like the meat of an apple.   

His forefinger began teasing at her tight entrance and Nesta’s breath caught.  

“Tease me and you’ll fucking regret it,” she warned thickly, and he pushed the digit inside.  

The intrusion was far from the thick, eight inches she craved, but when he curled his finger against a sensitive, swollen spot deep inside her Nesta keened aloud.  

“You look so fucking good like this,” Cassian breathed, husky and bestial as he crooked his finger inside her over and over.  

“More,” she demanded. 

It probably wasn’t clear if she was demanding more dirty praise or physical attention but Cassian was a good boy and covered all his bases. A second finger pushing inside her that second.   

She gasped as the snug walls of her cunt stretched to accommodate the two of them as he waxed lyrical about how hard her moaning got him.  Their foreheads level and those deep brown eyes lathering her with his earnest attention.  

“You’re dripping down my knuckles like a fucking peach,” Cassian told her as he thrust inside her over and over, the only thing more obscene than her facial expression and the breathless sounds she was making being the quite, wet noises his fingers illicited.  

He hadn’t let up on her clit, and at the exact moment he decided to start curling those two fingers together, he increased the speed and pressure with which he rubbed at her most responsive spot with his thumb.  

“Cassian,” Nesta moaned, her fingers running up the nape of his neck and delving into his hair, still pulled into that bun.  

“That’s it, that’s so fucking hot, baby, I want your cum dripping down my wrist,” he growled softly. Her nails sliding down his scalp.  

“You’re so fucking needy,” she got out, which only served to utterly delight him. His thumb working at her from an oh so subtly more intense angle that had a familiar buzzing low inside her threatening to pluck her apart at the seams.  

“Oh my god fuck,” she moaned. “Uhhu, that’s it, just like that oh my god.” 

“You gonna cum, Nesta? You gonna cum on my desk- Jesus I’m gonna be thinking about you moaning, long legs spread for me while you moan so fucking dirty for my fingers every time I’m sat at this fucking desk now, you know that?”  

His words sent her over the edge.  

Silently she threw her head back as her orgasm licked up every frayed nerve in her body. It was hard. And Cassian kept on working those thick fingers inside her and over her sensitive clit throughout.  

Fucking her dirty and skilled. Prolonging her twitching and bone melting pleasure.  

Until she was snaking her hands from where they’d wound through his fastened hair, and pushing him off her at the shoulders.  Falling back on her forearms with a shaky exhale, thighs still trembling subtly.  

Cassian smirked. And brought his fingers to his mouth. Licking up the length of the calloused, sticky digits. Eyes on her’s from behind those obnoxiously sexy reading glasses she had half a mind to slap off his face.  

“You taste even better than I remember,” he purred.  

“Then get on your knees.” 

Her voice was shaky but he didn’t even throw her another of those antagonistic and gorgeous smirks, just sank down. All six foot whatever, two hundred and something ridiculous pounds of muscle. Knelt on the floor between her legs.  

“Is initiative encouraged of am I to be strictly obedient?” There was that smirk.  

“You can use your brain,” she permitted. Still out of it. But still dying for him to touch her again.  “If only because I need to be convinced you have one.”  

His chuckle felt like fucking heaven between her thighs. His stubbled jaw rubbing up against her aching cunt as he kissed her like he meant it. Open mouthed and his tongue then slipping out to lavish her dripping slit before he began playing with her clit with the tip.  

Nesta moaned, chewing down on her lip once she located the dignity to quieten down so she could keep it that way.  

Her previous orgasm should have taken the edge off, but it had only reminded her already whetted appetite what there was to gorge on. Leaving her pining for more and disastrously sensitive.  

“Mmmm,” Cassian moaned deeply- though honestly it was closer to a growl which was hot- and brought those large hands to her thighs. Holding her open for him stoking the bruise-blue flame that writhed in her core and allowing him better access to her pussy.  

“Oh god right there,” Nesta keened. His nose brushing up against her clit as he licked up her snug entrance, teasing his tongue inside.  

He threw her legs over his stacked shoulders and obeyed, working his tongue inside her with shameful enthusiasm only emphasised by the noises he was making. Seriously he was putting her to shame.  

In fact if she hadn’t been rapidly approaching another orgasm she might have thought he was have more fun than her.  

Hands no longer occupied with gripping her black-clad thighs they came to her hips and waist. Coaxing her to slant forward at an angle that granted him an even more advantageous angle from which to eat her out.  

She moaned, manicured nails almost clawing into his desk behind her. “Mhmm mhmm uh,” she gasped sharply at the sudden relocation of his tongue. Cassian capturing her clit in his mouth and sucking on the sensitive bud as he flicked his tongue up and down.  

“Fuck, yes yes yes yes,” she was utterly breathless. “Oh god, oh fuck, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum,” she whined.  

Cassian fucking groaned and it was like he’d pulled at the knot in her stomach with his teeth.  

The muscles in her lower stomach twitching as she came, the cushiony walls of her cunt pulsing tight and the only thing grounding her to reality.  

Though she was just lucid enough to know Cassian was lapping up the nectar between her legs with audible and pleased snarls of pure, masculine satisfaction.  

Nesta couldn’t say how long it took her to stop seizing, just that she was completely drunk on pleasure by the time her body allowed her to at least try and think. She failed completely. Wasted on her orgasm, on Cassian.  

“Come ‘ere,” she said, breathless and doped up. Eyes barely fluttering open, heavy lidded and probably glazing over with unabashed appreciation as Cassian did as he was told. Rising to stand before her, thick arms winding round her waist snuggly and pulling her to him tight.  

His sheathed erection pushed to her sticky inner thigh and his powerful upper body, chiselled and broad and comforting, warm and hard and dusted with dark hair, pushed to her’s.  

His sharp jaw, like her thighs, was slightly sticky, and his mouth looked even more abused than it from the attention of her teeth. But the best part- better than his mid-sex blush or the way he was breathing all deep and powerful and hungry for her, were his glasses. They were slightly fogged up at the edges.  

“Apology accepted?” He asked huskily, like he was already sure of the answer. Like he didn’t care because no matter what she said he was going to have her screaming for him till they were both sick of each other.  

“Apology accepted,” Nesta confirmed. Splayed hands smoothing up his broad chest as she captured his lips in a wanton kiss.  

“That still leaves your punishment though,” she whispered.  

Cassian’s dark brows had barely risen before she’d pushed him back and he was falling into the chair again. Breathing deep and thrumming with a desire that destabilised him as he watched her slip a stiletto heel beneath her panties on the floor and flick them up into her hand. Prowling toward him and climbing into his lap. Hoping it wasn’t obvious that her legs felt like liquid.  

“Hold these,” she demanded, feeding the bundle of lace into his mouth, his groan muffled by the fabric and her hands making quick and embarrassingly eager work of removing his unfastened shirt. All but tearing it off his sculpted arms that must have been as thick as her thighs- his body was ridiculous.  

She griped his wrists before he could start doing something like feeling her up and brought them behind his head. Elbows out and biceps flexed, his hands meeting in the middle at the nape of his neck.  

Cassian kissed and nipped at her fingers as she plucked her panties from his mouth with one hand, holding his wrists with the other.  

He licked at his lips as though chasing the taste of her lingerie, eyes on her’s from behind his glasses.  

She wasn’t gentle knotting the lace round his wrists.  

“Oh,” he grinned, trying to move his arms.  

He couldn’t of course, the physics working against him and rendering it so his only way out would be pulling until the lace snapped for a second time this evening. Still, it was a fucking gorgeous sight watching him try. Biceps and broad chest flexing.  

Tied up and at her mercy she was dripping wet for him and slipped her tongue into his mouth as a little reward for how fucking hot he looked like this. Kissing him obscene and wet.  

“Safe word?” She murmured into his mouth.  

“Harder,” Cassian grinned. No doubt referencing her answer to the very same question the other night.  

Nesta bit his bottom lip, puncturing the bruised cushion subtly and she tasted blood on her teeth and his tongue.  

“Safe word,” she insisted once more against his lips, fingers winding through his hair with a drawn out and yearning pull.  

“Amren,” he groaned`. Then added, “don’t ask.” 

“Yeah we’re done talking,” she informed him dismissively. Unbuckling his belt and pulling it through the loops of his slacks with a swift tug.  

Cassian’s hips jumped beneath her and she unfastened the button slung low on his hips, pulling the zip of his fly down. Parted lips close to brushing.  

“Down boy,” she purred.  

“Bit late for that,” he breathed raggedly, jaw feathering as she slid her hand into his boxers.  

“God you’re adorable,” Nesta pouted, freeing his thick cock. Obnoxiously engorged and a dribble of pearlescence spilling from the uncut tip.  

“Now be a good boy and don’t you dare cum until I say,” she warned.  

And sank down on thick inch after inch of his hot, rigid shaft.  

Nesta couldn’t help the arch that slipped through her spine as he filled her up, the stretch so acute it had her eyes rolling back with a flutter of her thick lashes.  

“Oh my god,” she moaned breathlessly, hands splayed against his powerful chest. Thighs straddling his, her walls hugged him vice like and- Jesus, he rubbed up that deep spot inside her perfectly. 

“Nesta,” Cassian groaned beneath her. “You’re so… fucking tight.” 

Nesta rolled her head to the side in tandem with her hips, growing accustomed to the sheer size of him and eliciting a raw sound from the man before she removed his reading glasses. Fitting them over the bridge of her own petite nose.  

“No backseat driving now, sweetheart,” she purred a little shakily.  

She rose onto her knees only to sink back down again with a filthy twist of her hips. Repeating the motion again and again. Gliding up and down his cock with a tight and slippery friction that had her stomach flexing and his gaze heavy lidded. Encouraging, low noises escaping from deep in his chest that she wanted to bottle up and get drunk on.  

“Uhh,” she keened, dirty and blissful, hands on his stacked shoulders. “Uhhu.” 

“Oh fuck,” Cassian breathed huskily. “Mmhhm…that’s it…fucking ride me baby” 

Nesta felt a familiar heat fan at her core as she drank him up. Every perfect, delicious inch there for her to use.  

“Cassian,” she moaned. The sound tasting like sex in her mouth.  

She fluttered around him again on an upwards twist of her hips, his cock pushing in and out of her snug cherry with a delicious wet sound. Just audible above her filthy moans.   

Riding him was like sucking on a hard candy, that intense sweetness at the centre burning ever closer. And he kept running that damn mouth.  Gravelly and deep, lavishing her body with sickly sweet and dirty compliments.  

“Fuck that’s it gorgeous, just like that sweet thing fucking hell you’re fucking perfect.” 

Powerful and dripping with raw fucking desire his body rolled upwards into her, slick with sweat and chiselled sinew.  His cock burying deeper inside her. The sounds he was making just to top it off causing a tight fuzziness to tremble in her upper thighs.   

“Oh my god,” Nesta moaned, hands coming to his face and lips brushing his as so she moaned a hot, “I’m gonna cum,” into his mouth.  

Cassian groaned. Kissing her hard and deep.  

“Cassian,” she keened.  

She began bouncing deeper in his lap. Up and down up and down. His cock thrusting inside her hard and rubbing at her g spot just right while her clit grazed the coarse hair at his rugged hips. There was a bead of sweat gliding down the chiselled muscle that carved his broad torso, washboard abs flexing as he resisted release and Nesta felt the pressure between her thighs reach a fever pitch.  

Grunting he bucked violently beneath her once, twice, and she was undone.   

Nesta might have made a noise this time. Airy and hot and open mouthed against his neck as she buried her hands into his hair.  

He was so tense beneath her, like pure marble soaked in the heat of the sun. Trying not spill inside her as her walls flexed with every hot wave of pleasure.  

And once it passed his breathing was as ragged as her own.  

“You did so good,” Nesta whispered at last against his ear. Voice wrecked like she were experiencing a sugar crash. Nibbling at the lobe. Tasting salt on her lips and eyes fluttering shut at the heady scent of his aftershave.  

“Does that mean I get a reward?” he managed.  

“Something like that,” she hummed, repositioning herself so that her back was to his chest.  

“Nesta please. Just untie me, sweetheart,” Cassian whispered against her ear. Voice trembling like he’d shot up something good.  

Nesta only chuckled, head knocked back so she could hold his eyes as she rolled her hips. Teasing, tormenting.  

“The second you get your hands on these,” she brought her hands to her tits, giving them a soft squeeze and biting her lip, “you’ll be cumming and out of commission.”  

Cassian growled, watching her feel herself up as she rolled her hips in leisurely circles.  Sensual and dirty. The length of his hard shaft, thick and velvet smooth beneath her.  

“Fuck,” he moaned huskily. Nose buried at her throat and lips working against her pulse point with the assistance of his tongue and teeth. Just as slow and through as her hips. 

She gasped softly, grinding deeper.  

“You know how good I can make it for you,” he purred.  

“Mmmm,” she moaned quietly in agreement.  

“Let me take care of you.” 

“Cassian.” 

“You make my name sound so sexy,” he grazed his stubbled jaw against the bruise he’d worked into her throat, the sensitive skin blushing warm at the contact as he moved his mouth to another location and started kissing and nibbling there.  “Untie me, baby, and I’ll give you everything you want.” 

Nesta smiled.  

“Or I could keep you tied up and just take it.” 

Cassian growled against her neck as she tilted her hips forward allowing his cock to spring up, and sank down on him again.  

She moaned, loud and keening. Hands snaking through his hair behind her as she rocked herself up and down slowly. There wasn’t a lot of friction, but for now it was enough just to revel in how good Cassian’s cock felt. That last orgasm having finally takes the edge off.  

“Fuck that’s it grind for me,” he moaned. His breath was hot against her neck and she could feel his heart beat. Feel every deep sound reverberate through his chest as she moved.   

His cock rubbed up against her g spot, colours and stars bleeding behind her eyes like fireworks.  

“Cassian,” she whimpered lowly.  

It was so good.  

Hands fumbling distractedly she brought her fingers to untie him.  And he deemed it all the permission he needed. Tearing himself free with a growl.  Capturing her mouth in a slow and wanton kiss as those big hands came to rove her body, taking his time to pull her apart.  

His touch hot and calloused, Nesta moaned into his mouth as he ran up her stomach, her hips, her thighs, her tits. Massaging and glazing every inch of her with a rough heat that made her feel like she was going to explode. Her body a champagne flute dangerously close to shattering at the frequency of his hot groans and growls.  

“Right there, oh right fucking there baby,”  She moaned quietly against his lips, one of his hands rubbing her hip and guiding her motions while the other palmed at her breast.  

“Yeah? You like that?” He dipped his head to pull down the straps of her bra and dress down with his teeth until her cleavage spilt from the cups. Pebbled nipples tight and rosy in the dim light, peaking over the balcony of her bra.  

“Mmmmm,” he murmured against her throat, exploiting the sensitive spot as he made his way back up to her face and watched her plump tits sway. A hand running from her hip down her thigh and back up again to slip between her legs to stroke her clit. 

Nesta whined softly.  

“Cassian…more…” 

She kissed him sluggish and distracted. The two of them humming and moaning every so often until he started caressing her clit tighter and her sounds grew more frantic.  

“Fuck uhhu, uhhu just like that,” she panted quietly into his mouth. “Oh god uhh, uhhh more…more…more more Cassian fuck me.” 

She was on her feet before she could complain that his hands were no longer between her thighs. Pushed up against the edge of his desk, hands falling splayed against the surface to stop herself falling across the wood and legs split apart.   

“Oh!” 

“Good girl,” he grunted deeply. “Moan for me.” 

His calloused fingers came to her clit, coaxing her closer to the edge as the other gripped her hip.  

“That’s it, that’s my girl such a good girl baby.” 

Mouth caught open as though on a fish hook Nesta started seeing black splodges, the puddles flaring in her vision on every one of his thrusts. Deep and dirty and filling her till she was so impossibly full she spilt over.  

“Fuck fuck just like that oh my god you’re so fucking tight, cum on my cock, cum on my cock, uh, uh, uh.”  

Cassian finished inside her with a guttural sound as she came. Pumping her full one last time with a brutal snap of his hips.  

She was vaguely aware of his ragged breathing against her ear. Somewhat sure her forearms had fallen flat against his desk and her head hung forward. Hair falling over her face and back arched as her tight sex twitched and fluttered around him.  

Coming back to her senses took longer than she’d ever admit.  

“Is that cctv?” Nesta asked eventually, head tipped back and resting on his shoulder. Eyes flicking in gesture to the tiny little camera in the opposite corner of the ceiling.  

“Don’t worry,” Cassian breathed. “It’s switched off.” 

She turned her gaze to him.  

“Shame.” 

He let out an exhausted and reverent sound that might have been a laugh. And just as exhausted, once he’d pulled out, he fell back into the chair behind him. Trousers pulled back up but unbuttoned.  

Nesta followed in fatigued suit, working her dress back down over her hips and sinking to the floor, back against the desk. She probably shouldn’t have worn black… but the impending bill and judgement from her dry cleaner would be worth it.  

“Friday night. Pick me up at eight,” she breathed.  

Cassian grinned.  

“You like Italian?”  

Nesta rolled her eyes from behind the reading glasses askew on her nose, but nodded none the less. She was sort of screwed if she didn’t. Cassian’s adopted family were Italian on his father’s side. The cuisine was going to be pretty commonplace if they kept seeing each other she imagined.  

“What are you thinking about?” He hummed, watching her.  

Nesta smiled. Then crawled toward him across the floor. “How I still have that table cloth you call a dinner jacket at my place.”  

 “Was that plan b?” He laughed, snaking an arm round her waist as she climbed into his lap. “Hold my jacket hostage till I agreed to go out with you again?”  

“No,” she glared at him softly, nestling into the crease of his shoulder. “Though I had thought about wearing it tonight. Just your jacket and a pair of heels.” 

Cassian licked his lips as though contemplating the sight and liking what he imagined very much. “Next time,” he hummed distractedly. Less promise more pleading. “This was…,” his free hand roved down her side, the black fabric glued to her figure. “And these…,” his touch made her melt as he ran down her thigh and platform boot, her legs flicked over one another.  

“Lethal,” he whispered.  

Nesta scoffed. “You’re telling me. My toes are killing me.”  

Cassian hummed sympathetically, fitting a heel in his hand and guiding the shoe off her foot. Nesta groaned softly and he did the same with the other boot.  

“That bad?” He chuckled, starting to massage her.  

“Worth it though,” she sighed, nuzzling into his shoulder.  

  Cassian held the door open for Nesta to emerge out onto the street first. The cool night air whipping lazily at her hair. 

Their second date had been incredible.  

He’d taken her to Gnocco in the East Village. Proper Italian food, fairy lights, and intimate little corners perfect for flirting over too many glasses of wine and playing footsie beneath the table. Not to mention casual enough to see Nesta Archeron fitted out in heels, a snug black top, and a jaw dropping pair of jeans.  

Tactically quiet and effortlessly biting as ever, she’d been armed with passionate reviews on the podcasts she’d listened to or books she’d read that week. Asking him about his own week and listening thoughtfully in a way that had probably made him blush.  

If it hadn’t, then the way she’d licked at the creamy vanilla gelato on her dessert spoon definitely had.  

Cassian was far too tempted to slip his hand into the back pocket of her dark skinny jeans as he emerged after her, but he felt Nesta probably wasn’t one for PDA. Or more accurately, public groping. And he was determined to be on his best behaviour this evening. Determined to make her forget all about how shit-awfully he’d handled last Saturday.  

Not that he hadn’t given her a thorough apology.  

Consistency was key however, and there would be no lapse in his conduct any time soon when it came to Nesta. He’d lucked out so fucking hard in getting a second chance when he hadn’t even deserved the first with a woman like her. Clever and beautiful and passionate and god he had it bad.  

Had been thinking about her all week. Their date the only thing getting him through the late nights that were pretty much killing him at this point and the days spent arguing with Helion.  

Cassian had worked out who’d put a hit on his friend. And why.  

The contracts Helion was in the midst of signing were of a more personal nature that he’d originally let on. His will to be precise. In which it was detailed that upon his death, the pharmaceutical powerhouse that was Day Inc. should be handed over to Saoirse Vanserra.  

The married woman Helion had gone and fallen in love with twenty odd years ago. The mother of his child. 

Not that Helion had been aware of the that little detail until recently. Terminally ill, Saoirse hadn’t wanted the secret buried with her, and had gotten in touch with her old flame to tell him her youngest was his.  

Despite being well into his fifties, Helion behaved like a twenty-something at the best of times. But learning he had a son that actually was twenty-something had thrust him into a panicked play at accountability. Saoirse was going to die, and soon, but Helion would still have a piece of her, a piece of the both of them despite the estrangement that had haunted their relationship since the start. A piece he’d do every and anything in his power to do right by.  

Which meant Lucien would inherit his father’s company when the time came.  

But removing Saoirse from his will…it felt like signing her death warrant. At least that’s what he’d told Cassian. That it it felt like he was giving up on her.  

Cassian wished Helion could process everything in as much time as it took him. But time was a luxury not even the multi-millionaire could afford. Not with Saoirse’s eldest, Eris, trying to take him out before the will could be changed.  

As things stood, Eris was set to inherit anything of his mother’s- a compromise reached between Saoirse and her cunt of a husband who’d wanted everything in his name. The Vanserra court its own savage little patriarchy of snakes and vipers, meaning as long as Beron was around, what belonged to his sons, belonged to him.  

Still, Eris was the undisputed second in command and Beron wasn’t getting any younger. If he could take Helion out before any changes were made to the CEOs will, and if Saoirse’s doctors were to be believed, Day would practically be his by the end of the year.  

Maybe sooner. If Beron beat his cancer ridden wife to death upon learning she’d been left Helion Day’s company and why.   

He doubted anyone would put it past the bastard.  

“Hey,” Nesta’s voice tugged at his attention as they turned off tenth. “Where’d you go?”  

Cassian snaked his arm around her small waist, pulling her against him. “Just thinking,” he said. And as hard as he tried to push those thoughts away, something of them lingered in his voice.  

She raised a neat eyebrow. That little beauty spot above the arch lifting with it and the one beneath the corner of her plump bottom lip quirking just barely.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that before.” 

He couldn’t help but laugh. Tucking her tighter to his side as he looked down at her. “That’s because the only thing I ever think about is you. And when I’m with you, I don’t have to do that, do I?” 

Her blush was so utterly adorable it made him want to kiss her senseless.  

“How do you do that?” Those eyes like the smoke of ice narrowed in sincere curiosity. It was a little terrifying.  Which off course only made him like her more.  

“What? Make you blush like a-” 

“No,” she interrupted him with an embarrassed and chiding laugh, pushing at his chest slightly. “Say things, just say them-  like the only thing that matters is that you mean them?” 

Cassian smiled. “Not everything has to be done strategically, Nesta.”  

“Says the military man.” 

“And wouldn’t you say that makes me qualified to- okay fine, roll your eyes at me. Jokes on you because it’s actually very sexy when you do that so.” 

Nesta laughed, her head falling to rest below his chest as they walked.  

“Fortunate you say something to make me roll my eyes every five seconds then,” she hummed.  

“And that I know just how to make those eyes roll back,” he purred lowly in response with a roguish grin, rubbing his thumb against where her coat lay over her stomach.  

“Oh and you’re telling me this whole conversation wasn’t strategically constructed so you could use that line?” Nesta looked up at him.  

“Sweetheart, when are you going to accept that I’m just incredibly smooth?” He grinned. “Besides, that wasn’t a line.”  

“That was so a line!”  

“You’d know if I was giving you a line.” 

“Go on then. Give me your best line,” she challenged. Stopping dead and turning on him with her arms folded. Cassian didn’t let his arm slip from around her waist though. Kept it right where it was as he brought his free hand to tuck a lock of chocolatey hair behind her ear. Inspiration striking him.  

“Are you a box of chocolates?” he asked, gravelly and suggestive.  “Because I’d love to take your top off.”  

Nesta really had the loveliest laugh in the world.  

“That’s awful!” She put her hands firm against his chest. “How did you ever get laid before I took pity on you?”  

“Um I’m gorgeous and rich,” he reminded her, both arms now caging her in.  

“What a coincidence,” Nesta purred, their noses tucked against one another just barely thanks to his date’s shoes. No doubt expensive as they were tall.  

“No coincidences here, sweetheart. This is all fate.” 

“I’m deliberately not rolling my eyes just to spite you for saying something so cliché and dumb,” she murmured.  

“Fine then. Fate and your meddling sister,” he admitted.  

“Let’s not talk about my little sister right now,” Nesta’s hands snaked up to toy with the lapels of his coat.  

“What would you rather we talk about?”  

“I don’t want to talk at all,” she whispered. And pulled him down lazily to meet her mouth.  

Cassian moulded his lips to the perfect pressure of her own. Hard and soft, her mouth like velvet and her body pressing into his tight and loose in all the right places.  

Kissing Nesta was like brushing you fingers against the glacial softness of snow like flakes of glass. Irresistible and inevitable. Burning so soft at first before the sensation grew unbearably tender and acute.  It reminded you that you were alive.  

The movements of their mouths grew hotter, no less lethargic, but simply heavier. Like they had all the time in the world and planned to exploit every second.  

So much for not into PDA, Cassian thought, as she coaxed his mouth open further with her tongue, his own slowly swiping to meet it. And he did slip his hand into her back pocket then, giving her a fond and pining squeeze which pulled her tighter into him.  

The pads of her thumbs brushed at either side of his jaw as she arched a little, those perfect tits pushed against his upper body and he dug his fingers a little more possessively into the fabric of her coat. Bunching at her waist beneath his calloused touch.  

Nesta sighed sweetly into him-  

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cassian swore.  Tame Impala playing from his pocket.  

“Looks like I’m not the only one who likes your attention,” Nesta laughed quietly, hands smoothing back to her sides politely. The little menace. Her effortless composure all the more devastating with her mouth kissed cherry-red and pupils blown wide as saucers.  

He fished out his phone, and declined the call.  

“Well you’re the only one getting it.” 

She rose her brows as though she were impressed, winding her arms back around his neck.  

“For a man who hates games you have game, Velaris.” 

“Would you feel less wooed if I told it you was just Rhysand?” He admitted. Rejecting his busybody brother’s phone call a far less bold gesture than if it had been work.  

Nesta’s little smile was like molten satin.  

“That makes it even better,” she kissed him again.  

Cassian kissed her back through his laugh, dipping her back slightly for a more indulgent angle, her arms lacing tighter around him to hold herself up. Like he’d let her fall.  

Nesta was the one laughing now and it tasted like gelato and champagne and sunrises. He nipped at her lip as he pulled her back up with him snuggly, and she brought her hand to cup the side of his face, the other at his tapered waist.  

“I should get going,” she hummed distractedly,  hand gliding up his body like she didn’t even realise.  

Her tongue caressed his slowly before he was muttering against her, “probably”, chasing the plush heat of her mouth.  

They didn’t stop. Not even as Nesta was murmuring a disjointed, “heighten the…suspense…keep you…wanting and all that.” 

“I’m already losing interest,” he purred gruffly, their jaws knocking intimately as the kiss became hotter and fitful, short breaths and hungry mouths. Her nails scraping softly up the nape of his neck and through his hair.  

“And you’re looking for it in my back pocket, is that it?” She whispered, and Cassian gave her ass a firm squeeze as either confirmation or reprimand.  

She bit his bottom lip, the nip of her pearly teeth giving way to a sensual sort of chewing that made his eyes roll back behind closed lids and his large hands wound through her hair to guid her head back so he could take charge. Kissing her slow once again but dirtier, thorough and wanton and Nesta keened almost silently.  

“Found it,” Cassian said thickly into her mouth.  

“Want your prize?” She whispered breathlessly.  

“Yes please.” 

Nesta slid her hand between them. Fingers brushing his belt, then lower- 

Cassian couldn’t tell if he was relieved or devastated when she slipped her way inside his pocket and plucked free his phone.  

She withdrew just barely from the kiss, switched it on and turned the screen to him. The device unlocked as both his hands tucked into her pockets and her manicured thumbs were tapping away.  

Cassian brushed at the curved beam of her high cheekbone with his nose, trying to see what she was up to.  

“What are you doing?”  

“Callander says you’re free Friday. Or it did.  Now it says you have a date.” She nestled herself back into him tightly, tucking the device back into his pocket, exploiting that teasing proximity to something else entirely and driving him crazy as she grazed his mouth with her own.  

“Congratulations.” 

Cassian grinned.  

“Tha- wait just to be clear the date is with you, right?”  

 “Yes, Cassian, the date is with me,” she chuckled. “And I can’t wait,” her humming melted to something wordless and heavy as he kissed her again.  

Slow and explicit he stroked his tongue inside and he swore he felt the flutter of her lashes against his cheek.  

“Cassian,” she breathed almost silently and it burnt his lungs like freezing air.  

“Can I take you home?” Cassian whispered.  

“May I take you home,” Nesta corrected between the sinful caress of their lips.  

“Please do.” 

She was kissing the smirk off his face like she could taste how snug he was and wanted a piece of it for herself. Like she were working at a marshmallow or strawberry lathered with thick chocolate from a hot fountain of the stuff.  

“Maybe you are smooth,” she whispered and it only inflated Cassian’s self satisfaction. “But we both know I like it rough.” Ouch. “Just like we both know you’re way too exhausted to have your way with me.” 

He pulled back abruptly.  

But his mouth had barely opened to argue when she gave him a definitive “don’t”. It was little bit arousing. “You said yourself how late you’ve been working. Have you slept at all this week?” 

For all her icy glares and hellish attitude, at her core, Nesta was kind. She cared despite her pretences to the contrary and it meant she noticed things. Like how despite his lively grins, Cassian was out for the fucking count.  

“That’s what I thought. You can screw me when I know you won’t pass out before making it to third base.” 

“The only one who’d be passing out is you once I’m through fu-” 

“Save that thought for a night you have the energy to see it through,” she said.  

“But I-” 

A quirk of her neat brows shut him up.  

He growled a bitter but accepting sound. She was right, of course she was right, because she was Nesta and a Nesta was always right.  

“Friday,” he promised. “I’m gonna cook for you, something fucking romantic.” 

“More romantic than that sentence?”  

“Look I may not be Keats but I know my way round a stove, so hold all sarcastic comments until I’ve fed you.” 

“I’ll try, but I know for a fact you’re going to make that very hard.” 

“How have you already failed?” 

“Shut up,” Nesta laughed.  

“You have the sexiest fucking laugh.” 

“So you’ve said,” she blushed.  

“And I’ll keep saying it if every time I do you blush like that.” 

“Like I’m embarrassed for you?” she countered with an arched brow and a cruel twitch at the corner of her mouth.  

“You’re so mean,” he grinned.  

They made their way to the curb and hailed down a car on twelf. 

“Want me to ride with you back to your apartment?” he said, opening the back door of a yellow cab that had pulled up for her.  

“That’s sweet, but trust me, I can take care of myself,” she promised.   

“Text me when you get home safe and sound just to spite me then,” he said from the opposite side of the door.  

“I will. But you better not be awake to read it,” She gave him a lingering kiss before gracefully tucking herself inside.  

“Night, gorgeous,” he winked, and shut the door.  

Her ride had just turned onto fourteenth when Cassian decided against hailing his own despite the cold. It was only fifteen or so minutes on foot, and he could probably do with cooling down.  

Though even if he had to trek through tundra to get home he suspected he’d still find himself burning up under a cold shower in an attempt not to jack off to the thought of Nesta like a fourteen year old.  

Stuffing his already slightly numb hands into his pockets he began walking, his fingers brushing against his phone. He should probably call Rhys back.  

The phone rang for a moment before his brother picked up.  

“Did you decline my call?” 

“Yup.” 

“Bastard.” 

“I’m sure Feyre will kiss your bruised ego better,” Cassian grinned as he walked. “Along with something else so long as she doesn’t hear you’ve been calling me names,” he added slyly.  

“Are you threatening to tell on me to my wife?” Rhysand asked, a little wound up by the allusion to Feyre’s kissing certain places even if he hid it behind an unimpressed drawl.  

“Are you pretending the thought doesn’t have you quaking in your givenchy loafers?”  

“On the topic of not upsetting Feyre, she’s demanding a family dinner.” 

He laughed deeply at Rhysand’s avoiding the question.  

“That why you’re calling?” 

“Partly,” Rhys said. “Work’s been…She wants to be around family right now,” he said with an all too familiar casualness. “You free?” 

“For Feyre?” Cassian said without hesitation.  “Yeah, I’m free.” 

He would just have to pull an all nighter on the Monday. 

“Thank you. And also fuck you for implying if it was for me you wouldn’t be,” his brother said.  

“Well you called me just as Nesta was about to slip her tongue down my throat so-” 

“Nesta?” Rhys interrupted. “I thought that was over?” 

Shit.  

In all the carnage that had been the last week he hadn’t bothered letting his family know he and Nesta were back on. The woman was a touchy subject and he hadn’t had the energy or balls to get into it.  

While Rhys had been able to excuse Elain’s inactivity when the Archerons had been at their financial lowest, he’d never managed to extend that same courtesy to Nesta. Maybe it was because the first time they’d met she’d called him a cradle snatching whore. Regardless, Rhysand pretty much hated the woman’s guts, meanwhile his wife was desperately trying to lure her into the inner circle of the Velaris family.  

Cassian may have been able to bench a number higher than his IQ but he wasn’t dumb. He’d clocked on to the fact his sister-in-law was using him as Nesta bait.  In all honesty he was loving it. Nothing made him happier than helping out his family, and if that meant taking out an intelligent, passionate, stunning young woman, then really it was a double-win.  

Taking a second to grind his jaw softly he was reminded to tread carefully. Not something he generally excelled at, but for the sake of his brother he could try.  

“I know you’re not her biggest fan,” he said. “But Feyre forgave her years ago for bailing-” 

“Well Feyre’s a better person than I am.” 

“I’ll say. She set me up with a smoking hot model, meanwhile you’re trynna cock block me,” he tried.  

“You can put your dick wherever you want, doesn’t mean I have to like it.” 

“I guess not,” he ground out. Itching to hit something at the implication Nesta was just “somewhere to put his dick”.  

“Cassian if you want to date a biblical plague in human form knock yourself out, seriously, god knows Feyre will be thrilled. And Azriel, your moping-” 

“I don’t mope,” Cassian interjected.  

“Fine, your stropping-” 

“Fuck off.” 

Rhys’ laugh was about smug as the bastard’s crooning voice.  

“Mor’s gonna kill you by the way. You put a two grand dent in her wine collection over a woman you took back the next week.” 

Cassian groaned, wiping a hand over his face. The only thing worse than the hangover he’d had Monday morning would be Morrigan’s laying into him on this.  

“Don’t you dare tell her,” he warned.  

“Fine but you’ll have to do it before next Sunday, you’re bringing Nesta.” 

“Hang on a minute-” 

“Feyre wants a family dinner and if you and Nesta are back on that means she’s coming,” Rhys said.  

“Boy you are asking a lot of me here,” Cassian sighed dramatically. “I mean I can think of a few ways to persuade her but most of them are illegal in a lot of countries,” he grinned.  

“I don’t care if you have to roofie her and strap her to the hood of your car, just make sure she’s there.” 

“Alright, alright Don.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Rhys growled irritably to Cassian’s delight.  

“What else were you calling about then?” He smirked. “You said dinner was only part of it.” 

“I wanted to ask how things were going with Helion,” his brother said. “Any update?” 

Cassian sighed heavily.  

“This a secure line?” 

“Always”. 

“The hit’s Eris,” he said. “Apparently Saoirse does pretty well for herself if Helion kicks it and it’s looking like she won’t last the year. When she goes Eris takes the lot so he’s trying to take Helion out before he can change his will.” 

“That little bitch,” Rhys interrupted.  

“I’m not done. Guess who Helion might be transferring that inheritance to?” 

“Is Azriel going to finally have the funds to build that sex dungeon?”  

“Not quite,” Cassian said. “The money’s going to Lucien.” 

“Lucien?” 

“Turns out the kid’s his.” 

“Fucking hell.” 

“Seems obvious in hindsight to be honest.” 

Rhys was silent on the other end for a moment as he evidently thought through matter.   

“You said might, is he waiting on a paternity test or something?” 

Cassian winced. “No. No he’s dragging his feet about changing the will altogether.” 

“Why the fuck is he doing that there’s a bullet with his name on it!” 

“You think I don’t know that?” Cassian hissed, trying to keep his voice down. “I’m the one whose gonna have to jump in front of that bullet if he doesn’t get his ass in gear. But he…he’s losing the love of his life, Rhys. I’m trynna cut him a little slack-” 

“Slack Eris is going to have someone strangle him with.” 

“I’m handling it,” Cassian promised.  

Rhys went silent again.  

“We could always just kill Eris.” 

Cassian would have laughed at the unrestrained glee in his brother’s voice if the suggestion hadn’t been so tempting.  

“No you can’t,” he reminded him, ascending the steps to his front door.  

“Sorry, sorry, you probably want plausible deniability and all that- which is a shitty reason to leave a family business-” 

“What are you talking about? I left because I don’t like any of you.” 

“Dick.” 

“See it’s that kind of thing that made for a hostile work environment I really couldn’t foresee a future working under,” he grinned, unlocking the door.  

“You taught me words far more creative than that growing up, monte de merda-” 

“Desenmerda-te, and don’t cuss at me in Portuguese carcamano.” 

“I’m fucking Persian!” 

“Tell that to your pale ass like unbaked garlic bread, minchia,” Cassian retorted in Italian as he tossed his keys onto the skirting board and shrugged off his coat.  

“A fanabla!”  

“Love you too, tell Feyre I said hi.” 

“See you and Nesta on Sunday, I’ll text you timings.” 

“No shop talk okay, she still doesn’t know anything about-” 

“I know, I know, it’s not me you have to worry about. Feyre keeps asking me to hire her.” 

“As what? Has Cosa Nostra began dabbling in the modelling industry under your direction, baby brother?” 

“If I said yes would you come back to us?” 

“I’m a one woman man, Rhys.” 

“Jesus, it’s been less than a month.” 

“At which point you and Feyre were engaged.” 

“Nesta’s no Feyre.” 

Yeah, Nesta has enough wit about her to know you can’t go round offering Mafia jobs like candy, he thought to himself.  

“Whatever man, I’ll see you then.” 

“See you then.” 

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[sunlightandsuffering]

if btl mikasa was to do the break up prank to btl eren, he would just say no and then ask her what she wants for dinner like nothing happened 😭

YES!! U ARE 1000% CORRECT 😂😂😂😂 this actually made me laugh lol, Mikasa keeps trying she's like maybe he didn't understand my statement?? Here have more sleepy unedited garbage today!

"Eren it's over between us, I'm done." He gives her a look like she's insane, eyebrows raised and emerald eyes staring into her soul.

"No, what are you talking about?"

"Eren we're breaking up, I'm breaking up with you." How much clearer can she be?

"No you're not." He continues with making her a quesadilla, "You want sour cream and salsa with your Quesadilla." "Eren!" She says it more forcefully and he looks up at her again, irritated, "We're breaking up. That's final, it's over, we're going back to being friends, zip, we're done."

"Okay I'll give you both," He says before dumping a liberal amount of both sauces on her plate, sliding the quesadilla from the pan and onto the plate. He places it on the counter in front of her and she wants to scream. "Eren did you hear me?"

She's losing her mind, what is going on, is he deaf?

"Yeah, yeah I heard you," his voice is tinged with annoyance, snappy as he makes his own quesadilla. "Well we're not dating anymore," she clarifies, because he's not acting like they just broke up, he's acting like typical grumpy from work Eren.

"Fine."

His blunt response shocks her and for a second she feels a little sad, he doesn't even care. Does she mean so little to him?

"Don't you even care?" She asks, and she's ashamed that her voice comes out wobbly, tears welling up in her lashes.

Eren turns back from his own quesadilla and when he sees her tears he lets out a long-drawn out sigh.

"Miki, I'm not really sure what this is about and I'm too tired to deal with it. If this is that 'would you still love me if I was a worm' thing all over again, count me out."

He drops his own dinner onto a plate and passes her to walk to the living room, dropping a kiss on her head as he goes. "Come find me when you want to get back together."

She practically growls at his retreating form, he brushes her off so easily, as if she would never really break up with him. Mikasa savagely bites into her quesadilla, reluctantly realizing it's really fucking good. She'll show him.

The next day she wakes up and she promises herself she won't cave, they're broken up now.

He tries to kiss her when he first wakes up, sleepy and shirtless, planting a kiss on her cheek as he goes in for a cup of tea. She dodges and his eyes widen as she moves across the kitchen to get away. "Seriously Mikasa?"

"We're broken up."

"Oh my fucking god." Now he's irritated and she can see he's not going to brush it off anymore, good! He should take her seriously, he's not her EVERYTHING. She could break up with him, she could do it!

"Fine, that's fine Mikasa."

She quickly realizes the prank is a colossal screw up when Eren begins tormenting her, and not in a way she'd ever thought would be an issue but its torture, excruciating. He showers with their shared bathroom door open, and he does a fuck of a lot more than just shower if the soft grunts and little moans are anything to go by. She'd bitten her lip raw thinking about what he was doing in there, stopping herself from getting up just to have a peak, just to see the water cascade down his chiselled body while he probably stroked himself to completion.

He just straight up stops wearing a shirt all together and starts working out in the living room instead of going downstairs to the apartment gym. It's sweet, sweet torture. but she doesn't cave and she's proud of herself, although she's not sure if it's worth it.

She breaks on the third day, she hasn't properly touched him in three days and it's out of sheer stubbornness, Eren hasn't said another word on the topic, just goes about his business. Ironically, what finally breaks her is not sexual in the least and her intense desire for him is not what finally gets them back together it's Eren sitting alone on the couch, watching a reality TV show by himself and cuddling with a pillow instead of her.

The pillow is tucked into her spot in his lap as he eats popcorn and gives the TV dirty looks. She finally caves and rips the pillow from his grasp, plopping herself in his lap. Thankfully Eren says nothing, just smirks at his pillow replacement and gives her a little kiss.

"Miss me?" She huffs, "Yeah."

"Good, because I'm going to fuck you so hard you can't walk later for being such a fucking brat."

[imnotwolverine]

LOVE IS LIKE - Women and Wine

< PART 2 | PART 3 Women and Wine

Summary: Things don’t always go as planned. But Henry has learned that’s quite alright. If anything, it may just make you closer to loved ones. Also, the banana sock wearing princess is her clumsy-as-ever self. 

Word count: 2.178

Disclaimer: Breakup, teenage insecurity, fluff and wet dicks. I mean. In the fluffy awkward sense of the word. 

--

LOVE IS LIKE - Women and Wine

--

‘So far for an outdoor date.’ Aurora scrunched up her nose and looked down at Kal who didn’t pay any mind to the drizzle, nose sniffling through some bushes.

‘Sorry..’ Henry pouted, making her laugh.

‘You know, my apartment isn’t far from here. We can dry off, have some tea? I mean..’ She hesitated, looking back to Henry who got a particularly large drop of rain in his eye.

‘Mmpfff.’ He groaned, wiping furiously at his eye.

‘OH! Are you alright?’

Kal looked up and Henry chuckled. ‘So your initial reservations of not wanting to meet at someone’s place are...gone?’

She shrugged. ‘Drastic times, drastic measures. Come on!’

Kal yapped in agreement and Aurora laughed heartily, the heaven’s cold tears of rainwater not bothering her one bit.

‘Why..?’ The woman who had once kept his heart sobbed, thick tears rolling down her sweet cheeks. Henry swallowed as he clutched her hand a little tighter, her whole body shaking with agony. With every tear on her face he was less sure if he made the right decision.

‘Why don’t you love me?’ Her wine-red lip trembled. ‘Did I..’ She sniffed and burst into another onslaught of tears. Henry sighed quietly. Why did love have to be so hard? With a quick glance he looked at Kal who was lying in the corner of the living room, careful eyes looking back at his owner after he had been told off by the woman - the two had never quite gotten along.

Perhaps that had been a sign.

Henry waited for his mom to pick up the phone. It was Sunday, it was raining in London and he had nothing better to do then..

‘Hello dear.’

‘H-hi mom.’ Henry quickly clicked back to the flower webshop on his browser.

‘Are you alright dear?’

Henry laughed - even after all these years his mother was straight to business when her children called. ‘Mommm…’

‘What?! You never call so early in the day. I can remember the days when you called every hour of..-’

‘Mom, I’m fine.��

‘Alright alright. So there’s nothing the matter?’

‘Nothing. Or well, I just wanted to check if you’re home on Thursday, so your package won’t get lost like last time.’

‘Oh.. OH! Mother’s day. Henry sweetie. You know you don’t have to buy me flowers every year.’

‘And yet I do it anyway, mom.’

Marianne laughed before the line crackled, her voice hushed as she spoke to someone else - probably his father. ‘Alright. Oh! You are too good for me! Also, Colin’s at home. I’m picking up Nick’s cat, since they’re going on a holiday. So no lillies please!’

‘Noted.’ Henry stared at the pictured bouquet on his screen and smiled. 100 roses. ‘No lilies, got it.’

With a confirmative nod he pressed “order”.  

‘And say hi to dad for me!’

Awkwardly tugging at the far too tight and strange looking noose of a knot around his neck, young Henry waited for his father to answer his phone. Nerves were tickling his loins and the more he looked back at the reflection in the mirror, the redder he seemed to get. He had seen his father tie a tie a million times, and yet doing it himself left him suffocating and disappointed in his own abilities.

‘Henry boy.’ His father’s low voice crackled through the bad phone line. He was probably abroad right now.

‘Pa..’ Henry tugged at the tight material around his slim neck.

‘How’s it hanging, hmm?’ -- Colin tried his best to stay hip and cool, but it only made conversations between him and his sons more awkward. Henry silently rolled his eyes.

‘Ehm…’ He cleared his throat, wishing that for once his voice wouldn’t get pitchy mid-sentence. ‘I--’ He pulled at his tie again and managed to let the knot slide out like it had never been there at all. ‘I need your help dad.’

‘Something the matter? Henry, you know you can ask Mr. Mindel for help.’

‘Yea well..eh..I want to learn it myself.’ He squared his shoulders as he looked at his mirror reflection again.

‘And what is..”it” exactly?’ A mix of mirth and pride was heard in his father’s voice.

‘A tie. I’m..I’m trying to get this stupid thing on and ..’ Henry voice got pitchy and unleveled again and he groaned in annoyance.

Colin chuckled and hushed his teenage son. ‘Alright alright. First step..’

With a trained tug at the knot, Henry released the silk tie from his neck. Perhaps it had been a bit over-the-top to wear a suit and tie when going out for lunch and walk Kal with Aurora. But Henry just couldn’t help himself. These clothes just made him feel powerful and secure. Like a modern day armor, shining, sleek and - right now - also terribly uncomfortable and wet.

They had been caught by one of London’s infamous rain showers and had been soaked to the bone. Suit included.

Removing his tie, Henry let his eyes glide over Aurora’s cosy but luxurious apartment, Kal trotting behind Aurora as she ducked into one of the closets in the hallway to fetch some fresh towels.

‘You want one as well, hmm?’

Henry looked up and noted that she wasn’t talking to him, but Kal, the dog happily wagging his tail as he pushed his nose in the fresh towels in her hands. She laughed.

‘Alright then.’ With a quick swoop she pulled another towel from the closet before bumping it closed with her hip, offering one of the towels to Henry who accepted it graciously.

‘Shall I see if there’s some clean clothes that ..fit...you?’ She looked him up and down, obviously unsure whether ANYTHING would fit the colossal form of bulking muscle that was Henry. Henry shrugged.

‘I’ll keep this on if you don’t. Don’t worry.’ He smirked perhaps a bit too temptingly.

They both laughed and Aurora turned around before he could see the blush on her smiling cheeks.

Left alone in the hallway, Henry dried his face and hair, removed his jacket and sauntered over to the living area, which reminded him in a strange way of the 70s decor of some other woman’s home. Letting his eyes glide over the furniture he smiled; large leather couch with a bounty of pillows, Pilea pancake plants, the tiniest tv he probably had seen in his long life and then on the long wall on his right, one absolutely hu-freaking-mongous bookcase.

Turning his attention to said bookcase, he let his eyes roam over the more empty shelves, finding a book he knew well; it once had been his. But there was also her copy. The berry juice ruined one. King Arthur and His Knights. With curiosity Henry opened her berry ruined book, not sure what to find there other than exactly the same exact text. His eye fell on the personal note that was scribbled on the inside. Apparently it had been gifted to her.

‘To the woman who “doesn’t need no knights in shining armour”. Andy.’

‘I eh..oh!’ Aurora shrivelled away as she found Henry. Henry quickly shut the cover of the book, near stumbling back as he tried to apologise for snooping around.

‘I’m sorr-’

‘Sorry!’ She looked away. 

‘No I’M sorry, truly.’

‘No.’ Aurora shook her head and her voice sounded terribly queasy. ‘I’m sorry. Here. Hope it fits.’ She pushed a pile of what looked like a white shirt and jogging pants in Henry’s arms with a quick little glance in Henry’s blue eyes.

Did he fuck it up? Looking with a pained expression at the soft white and grey fabrics in his hands he sighed, forgetting all about his wet clothes and the way a little stream of water was running straight into his butt crack right this instant.

‘I didn’t mean to..snoop.’ He tried, but Aurora shied away even further, making a clear demonstration of turning away from Henry.

‘Aurora? Will you forgive me please?’

Aurora nodded with her head still firmly turned away.

‘Will you at least look at me?’

And then, with the slowest of head turns in human history, one beet red head looked back at him, lips biting to keep a chuckle at bay. Henry frowned, before realising that he had completely, utterly miscalculated the situation. She was not mad at him, she was.. With a slight slip Aurora’s eyes moved back down - before quickly shooting back up and away. So that was it huh? She was trying to look anywhere but to the very clear outline of his …

Dick.

--

So this is why men don’t partake in wet T-shirt contests.

‘Oh my gods!!--’

‘It’s like sugar--’

‘TURN IT OFF.’

‘So sweet.’

‘HEN.’

‘Good enough..’

‘HENRY.’

‘..to eat.’

Grumbling a hand appeared from beneath the fluffed up blankets, searching blindly for the phone that was blaring out happy tunes into the dark bedroom. In the background a shower was heard, Henry totally oblivious to his very displeased bedbug.

Turning off the hot stream of water, Henry wrapped himself in a towel, hair dripping wet as he brushed a hand over his cheek to check if it could do for the moment. Geralt could have a little stubble right? He grinned at himself in the mirror and made for the bedroom, silent feet padding to reach for his gym gear like he did every morning.

‘Baaaabeeeeeee.’ A groggy voice that in no way fit his pretty girlfriend erupted from the sheets. Henry halted his tiptoeing.

‘Your phoneeeeeee.’

‘OH! oh.. Sorry.’ Henry bit his lip as the groggy voice mimicked in horrid echo:

‘All I wanna do is get ye

Body next to mineeee.’

Henry chuckled as the sheets folded back a little so a grabby hand could reach for him.

‘Haha..oh why love, I’m WET.’

‘AS AM I. Now get in here.’ The blindly grabbing hand searched like a needy worm for anything it could attach to, making Henry chuckle even harder.

She truly was atrociously cute in the morning. With a quick flip of the hand he managed to slip back under, making the room echo with a loud squirming squeak.

‘HENRY.. YOu!’

The both of them laughed.

With a little kick in his step Henry stepped into his parent’s kitchen, the rural stone tiled room filled with the smell of fresh baking pastry and female chatter.

‘A rose..’ He pulled one of his hidden away hands from behind his back to offer a rose to his mother. ‘For my dear mom.’

Marianne chuckled and rolled her eyes at Henry’s antics, before smiling even wider when the other hand served an even prettier rose to the brunette with the princess name. Aurora snorted out with laughter.

‘YOU DORK!’

Henry gasped in mock-hurt and grasped for his chest. ‘My heart, my love! Why must thee hurt it so.’

Aurora stepped in and pressed a little kiss on Henry’s pouting lips. ‘For love cometh of the heart and not by constraint.’ She smiled and smelled the rose ‘..for love is free.’

Marianne chuckled. ‘Well it’s from the garden, so I guess it’s free. Can you call your dad for me? Lunch is almost ready.’

‘Why of course I can mother dear!’

Marianne widened her eyes, urging him to move on. Henry laughed and winked at Aurora before he made his way to the back of the house.

‘These men of ours. They wouldn’t know what to do without us.’

Aurora leaned into the kitchen counter and smiled. ‘It takes a lot to make a man. Tis true. But I do think Henry is a man enough on his own.’

‘You do?’

‘You raised him well you -- all of you did.’

‘Two books?’ Aurora frowned as she pulled the books from their pretty packaging. Henry was beaming with a smile from ear to ear.

‘The same exact..books?’

Henry nodded eagerly.

‘Hen..I know I might be a little clumsy, but…’

‘Nooo no. I thought..’ He scooted a little closer to her on the couch, making Kal grumble who had just found the perfect spot atop Henry’s feet. ‘I thought we could read together. On the plane? It’s a long way to Canada.’

Aurora flipped open the cover of the book on top, shrugging that Henry might have a point, before letting her eyes roam over the little note written in the inside of the cover page.

‘Careful with that berry juice, princess. x. Henry’

‘Youuu…’ Aurora moved to jab at Henry, but he managed to reflect her hand with practised ease.

‘Me?’ He grinned.  

‘Oh yes you.’

‘What about me?’ His smile grew wider.

Aurora shook her head then sighed in defeat. ‘Alright then. You win.’

‘I win?’ Henry acted overly victorious and smug.

Aurora’s smile melted away. ‘I..’ She swallowed. ‘-I think I love you. I wanted to say it when I meant it an--’

Henry’s smile dropped as well, eyes widening.

‘You..? You mean..’

‘You have to kiss me now okay? I mean..that’s what princes do when..--’

Henry didn’t skip a beat. 

And good gods did they kiss a lot. 

--

Also: good gods, who in their right minds places red wine on the edge of the couch seating with a pristine looking book like that nearby? Let’s just say the plane ride to Canada only had one copy of Pride & Prejudice - The Illustrated Edition on-board. 

--

End. 

--

General tagsquad: @harrysthiccthighss​ @tumblnewby @magdelen69​ @thereisa8ella​ @darkbooksarwin​ @summersong69​ @madbaddic7ed​ @luclittlepond​ @maroonmolly @just-a-normal-fangirl18​ @hell1129-blog​ @agniavateira​ @tillthelandslide​ @elinesama​ @maddyreads14​

@beck07990

[historybetweenthepages]

Blocked to comment this on Anthony Fantano’s video (so I posted it here).

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I couldn’t comment a response to this video on YouTube due to censorship so I decided to do it here:

The problem with Paul Joseph Watson is mostly the rational that is used to justify the 'breakdown' of morality through art and culture. The viewpoint that popular culture, within the twenty-first century,' is more "vulgar," "vapid," "self absorbed," "hedonistic," and "dehumanizing" "than any other time in living memory" is a view that is extremely one sided and biased. Any generation of the past could have made this argument about the popular cultural of their day and how it is "farther apart" from the traditional, fundamental values that define a culture or society.

If Watson is going to use the example of Miley Cyrus twerking in front of Robin Thicke as a reason this is no different than the view that parents, or most adults, had during the sixties about rock n' roll. For example, when the Beatles broke up my grandparents (on my fathers side) disparaged the groups period as a band commenting that 'The Mills Brothers' (a barbershop quartet that had a career run of fifty-four years and scored hits with 'You Always Hurt the One You Love,' Paper Doll,' 'Glow Worm,' and 'Up a Lazy River' in the forties and fifties that branded them "The Beatles of the 1940's") had a longer run and that the music, aside from Earl Hines, Marva Josie, and Dinah Washington etc. (musicians who need no introduction), had more 'quality' than the entirety of rock n' roll due to the immoral substance that my grandparents (on my fathers side) believed existed. Although this is not meant to disparage this generational period, as they were not always wrong on what popular culture contained whether it was moral or immoral, it highlights the gap between an older and younger group of people who, in some cases, failed to keep an open mind on what was new and presently modern.

If I was going to provide an example that related to the "classical traditionalism" that is 'mostly' found within Watson's channel, I would counteract this with examples of artists (composers, painters, sculptors, etc.), such as Frédéric Chopin, Alexander Scriabin, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst, or Samuel Beckett. Although these names would invoke a more increased sense of realism to counteract against Watson's belief it would STILL, no matter how logical or understanding, would not be enough to disprove the argument that most, or all, of modern culture is immoral and responsible for the breakdown of "beauty" and "truth" (although these terms are subjective to how they are used within the given context to what people believe is beautiful and true).

Although there are a fair number of examples that have proved how modern society has provided the shift for the decrease of morality, this is still not comprable enough to assert the belief that modern society is the reduction of "everything that is 'moral' or 'positive' " (given the context of a certain subject or topic). If Watson had existed in the different eras of the artists listed above, he would have most likely disparaged what was not explicitly beautiful (hence, if he had existed in the era of Chopin, or Scriabin, he would have denigrated the use of dissonance found within a fair amount of their oeuvre as composers) believing that although these more modern artists are not entirely negative they STILL take away from the reality of "what beauty is."

Although I am four years late (regrettably), and I do not happen to agree with everything Fantano is expressing, he includes some important and relevant points, saying that although the classic, artistic styles of portraits are still relevant, it is essential to have variety and new ideas so these artistic, subject areas do not become static (3:00 - 3:08). With new ideas this allows for newer perspectives on how these traditional concepts can be considered, or 'digested,' from a newer perspective. Fantano also reminds us of the point that not everything in the modern era, especially television, is awash of programs that are unproductive, crude or narcissistic. For anything that can be defined, or misconstrued, as negative, or unproductive, it can be followed up with television programs, art, music, literature, or online articles that are supported with the intent of positively informing or entertaining their readers, listeners, or audience members.

Due to this, it disproves the view that modernism has produced the "diminishment of beauty" to such a high degree that it is a rare, almost nonexistent characteristic within our society. Although I believe that beauty has been subject to various levels of diminishment throughout the different eras of modern history, it STILL is an aspect of life that many people are fighting, protecting, and exemplifying through their work with some examples that include modern artists who are still living or working within the twenty-first century (with videos to prove my point):

Anthony Braxton (American "free jazz" saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and improvisor) 

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Barry Harris (jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and teacher) 

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(although he is more of traditional modernist, espousing those who came after bebop such as Bill Evans)

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Cormac McCarthy (author, novelist, poet, and playwright) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-egB5SzFY

David Dubal (classical pianist, writer, and disc jockey)

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David Hockney (painter)

Frederick Buechner (writer, novelist, poet, autobiographer, essayist, preacher, and theologian) (this will only maintain relevance if you are religious)

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George Winston (pianist, organist, guitarist, composer, and improvisor)

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Keith Jarrett (jazz and classical pianist, composer, bandleader, improvisor, and multi-instrumentalist)

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(with five other video examples as well that will be posted in the reblog of this response)

Even if these examples provide a strong,  moderate, or weak validation for my argument they prove my point (I hope) that beauty is STILL a valued characteristic of daily life and defined as essential for the overall growth, of not only those who are subject to the work, but of the society and environment in which they live. Although the examples above are mostly based around music (due to this being a music channel), I have tried to include other aspects of the arts as well to prove that the modern world, whether it is centered around the second half of the twentieth century or the majority of the twenty first century, is capable of deriving beauty from non-traditionalism and that traditionalism is the foundation that supports the ideas that are acted upon in a modern context. Understanding this, it is safe to assume that not everything has to be 'traditional' or 'conservative' to be considered legitimate. Instead, it is more proficient to believe that as long as the various mediums within the arts, or other aspects of our societal culture, exude a pronounced sense of positivity, this will create a more likely heightened sense of awareness for what is considered 'valuable,' or 'essential' for a given society.

In summary, if Miley Cyrus and Marilyn Manson have profited off an existence that is viewed by a majority as being immoral this does not define the entirety of the modern world. Overt sexualization, the diminishment of beauty, and the "pretentious works of art" found at TATE Modern (using Marcel Duchamp's readymade sculpture, 'Fountain' (1917) as an example) is not the "top defining example" of modernism. Instead, they represent examples of variance that Fantano views as "shit posting before shit posting," even though I disagree with this viewing it as the development of a new artistic style and philosophy (what was known during Duchamp's life as 'DADA'). These newer styles separate art from aspects that are "static," "boring," or "plain" (depending on how these works are viewed) with Fantano using Lou Reed's 'Metal Music' as a relevant example for musical, modern ideas.

The "take down" (depending on how you define this in the context of how it is used) of traditional, conservative values do not define the majority of what is observed throughout the lens of modernism. Instead, it is artists, writers, composers, etc. taking risks on how they can combine traditional aspect of their medium, or style, and subject them to new ideas that are experimental, or improvisational, in their nature. even if an artist’s ideas had no connection to any aspect of traditionalism would this make it bad? In my opinion, not really.

Even if Watson makes a fair number of points that, hypothetically, could be agreed upon (with most that I do not agree with) this does not account for how flawed this view is. It is not healthy, or viable, for someone to look at the modern world with blinders on and continue to move forward. This does not assert change. This does not introduce newer ideas. This does not move traditional aspect of art, or culture, past their classical, conservative stages of infancy. If you want to move forward in the truest sense of a philosophy (give or take what that may consist of) you have to be open to incorporating newer ideas, even if it exists outside of your own personal worldview. You do not have to agree with it but to close yourself off entirely from a new experience that could benefit you personally is wrong.

The logic of "I disagree with certain characteristics of this so I am going to reject it entirely" is WRONG and should NOT be exemplified by anyone at any time. If you happen to disagree entirely with something that is your prerogative and should be respected (as long as it logically based off of facts that can be proven and sourced). Regardless of how right or wrong Watson is (although it may be apparent which view people have taken), it does not set aside the hatred that is transparent when choosing to believe in this philosophy. There are certain facts that define life and although it may be obvious that general "players" within the current culture are immoral and act in contrary ways, (opposed to the moral and values that once, in greater ways, defined our culture), this does not mean that those aspects of modernism that you personally disagree with, aside from what can be factually proven, are wrong, nor are they "the problem" (as Watson would say).

Yes, society has become more contradictory.

Yes, society has become more immoral.

Yes, society has become less centered around a factual or moral truth.

That is just the reality. But is it appropriate to hate what does not measure up with "moral" examples of the past? No.

Of course Mark Rothko is going to be different from Michael Angelo or Jackson Pollock from Claude Monet. That is just the way it is.

But to throw away what you cannot see personal value with may be realistic, and understandable, but in the end is ignorant.

So overall, anything that can be viewed as negative in the modern era can ALWAYS be paired alongside that which is positive. This has been true for the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, while still remaining currently true.

If Watson has to be given examples of positive aspects of modernism within the arts and culture, I suggest that he do more research. But then again, he is probably incapable of finding real, hard data, or credible sources, when he only exists on a surface level (and I know this from personal experience, I used to be a subscriber)

P.S.

And NO, I would not say that this is a realistic portrayal of conservatism because what exists on the surface is usually not a summary for the entirety of people who exist within a political or social group/philosophy. Regardless, Fantano makes a great logical point while still remaining relevant while providing examples are spot on in making his point. Overall, this is a good video that deflates most of what Watson is saying as flawed and illogical while disproving him in a factual way.

Rating: B+

 NOTE:

I may edit this comment so expect changes. If I do not than it is here to stay. I hope that you have enjoyed what I have written and find it to be a good contribution to Fantano's response.