#time loops are real hard work ya know?

[sky-of-ideas]

I am gonna make Wu and Garmadon so morally questionable in the demon's wish au aren't I.

[kingkatsuki]

Can’t stop thinking about trying for a baby with Bakugou.

You[7.05PM]: I’m ovulating.

Bakugou raises a brow from across the room after reading the text you’d just sent him. A bottle of beer perched in his other hand as Sero and Kirishima continue their conversation either side of him.

Since having the discussion about trying for a baby, neither of you had managed to find any spare time together to try. Your conflicting work schedules paired with social engagements had meant that time together was few and far between, seeing more of him on the news than in real life as of late.

“What?” Bakugou mouthed to you as you tilted your head towards the bathroom, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

You tried to take a sip of your drink, motioning towards Mina’s bathroom as your friends continued to chatter around the living room.

Deciding to send another text to your perplexed boyfriend as you made a scene emptying your glass, downing the liquid as you motioned that you were going to grab another drink before leaving the room.

You[7.10PM]: Bathroom now.

There was a slight rap against the door as you opened it, tugging your boyfriend into the pink room in haste. Your hands poised on his arms as he kept you pinned between his body and the counter inside the small downstairs toilet.

“What the fuck are you doin’, woman?” Bakugou couldn’t hide the amused smirk on his face as he motioned towards the door, “You actin’ like a randy teenager or something?”

“We can’t waste time,” You practically whined, moving to paw at his jeans as you noticed in amusement that he was already half hard, “Now’s the best time to try—”

“How’d you know?” Bakugou didn’t stop you from unbuckling his belt, letting the leather hang in the loops as you moved to attack the zipper.

“I downloaded this app to help track my cycle.” You replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“There’s an app for that?” He snorted.

“Yeah,” You grinned, “It tells me the best time to try and conceive.”

“You don’t need that shit,” Bakugou scoffed, moving his large palms against your hips to turn you to face the mirror. Crimson eyes staring back at you in your reflection as he gave you a smug grin, “You really think I need help fuckin’ a baby into ya?”

[nyctophiliq]

✮ — MOMMY OR DADDY? ; sevika, renata glasc, cassandra, ambessa, grayson, vayne, samira

minors dni; afab reader. nsfw ! — lowercase writing intended, suggestive themes, mommy and daddy kink,

moss' notes; you might not see eye to eye with my headcanons or characteristics that i defined as being more mommy or more daddy, but please enjoy this nonetheless!

first laying some grounds for the criteria of what i define or use as characteristics for deciding who is more mommy and who is more daddy. THIS FIC IS NOT ABOUT ROLE PLAY, IT'S ABOUT THE KINK !

— MOMMY

mommies are more nurturing, they utter kind words to cherish, care for and protect you, help or courage whatever your dreams or goals are. they are good at telling you how they feel, and although they might take some convincing to do so, they are open about their feelings so the two of you can work any problems or discomfort out quickly and as effectively as possible. they are protective like a mother figure, they don't just protect you from physical harm with their words but would rather lie for you than have you in any conflict. she often tries to take interest in your interest, maybe look after it, and suggests making time with her regarding that interest. they are so affectionate you might get sick of them, and they express their emotion overbearingly which might cause you to think they are being clingy and overshooting the point of validation.

— DADDY

daddies have a harder time expressing their emotions, either because they are closed off or are afraid they won't appear as strong in your eyes as they originally deemed you see them. they would rather see you in jail as a cause of teaching you a lesson than have you get away with murder. they are protective like a father figure, and they use physical force if they need to so to not see you harmed. they rather show their feelings through physical touch rather than uttering sweet words to you out loud. she often shows you her current hyper fixation, trying to rope you into the loop of it and convince you to make plans with her while she had already had you confined to a chair just doing that. they might seem distant because of their lack of showing their emotions and you might rule them ignorant, cold, and uncaring of how you are but that is not true! they care about you deeply, they just have a hard time verbalizing it.

— sevika ˖⁠♡

sevika is a person who won’t hesitate to kill anyone for you and then ask for a reward, say that you should thank her in whatever way you see fit. she strings you along like a puppet to get you wherever she wants you, and persuade you to do things with her or for her. she won’t cross a line, that is something you can be certain about, but she will say some words that you might not all favor. she acts daddy, with all her aggressive words and moves, walking tall and proud, ready to give out some slaps to keep those around her in place. behind closed doors, she is less demanding and less of a “tough guy” but still not enough to give in to her gentle emotions and rant about how much she loves you. she is a person who picks a play time partner by how fun it will be, that she gets the most out of it but not with you, not anymore, she is ready to settle just doesn’t know how. call her daddy, she will like it! she will be even more proud of herself, hearing you call her such a thing gives her a newer perspective and opens up the vulnerable side of her knowing that you trust her like this.

“got ya a pretty present, princess! it’s your favorite, i went through real trouble to get it so you gotta thank it later, alright? come with me to that game i told ya about?”

— cassandra ˖⁠♡

she is a true mommy, the fittest of them all, if not for being a mom already, then because she would have a feel for being it. she carries herself around with not only presitge but with the kind of gaze that you know she cares about those who are around her. the councilwoman will pay extra attention to whatever interests you and share some of her tips for saving money so you can do more of your hobby. she won’t be too explicit about her affection towards you out in public, but behind closed doors she utters the most beautiful of compliments, calls you her sweetest girl, that no wealth can compare to you. cassandra will need a little time to warm up to the idea of being a mommy in a sexual context and that it means that she takes care of you in a different kind of sense rather than the usual mom duties.

“my sweetest girl, surely there is non i can help you with right now? say to word and i am taking you home, you don’t really have to be around here if you don’t like. i take you home, we have lunch, play a little maybe, or just sit around, hm?”

— renata glasc ˖⁠♡

renata is the perfect definition of a mommy, without a question. she has the means to support you financially, the power and influence to help you reach your wildest dreams. she loves spoiling you, be it your favorite food, snack, or something you have wanted and just mentioned to her that you planned to buy it. she likes checking in on you if not hourly, either she appears or one of her most trusted fellows, making sure you are well and content. this might sound possessive and it is, but she is just so terrified of something happening to you while she is not there, she would rather hear you complain than not hear you at all. she might be a little closed off, a tad bit embarrassed about how she has a liking for being called mommy but that shouldn’t stop you from calling her that, she will click into the rhythm very soon and will call herself mommy, playing along.

“have you had a good day? my day was like usual, work towering high but i got you something because i knew my darling would be very fond of it. go ahead… open up, don’t make me wait too long.”

— ambessa ˖⁠♡

ambessa rather punch a hole through a wall, start another war, or begin her angered rant about some fool that tried to wife her before talking about her truest feelings. there are no such things as emotions in front of her people, she is a warlord, and she is supposed to be scary rather than scared. she is fearless, a true warrior, and a really hard nut to crack- ambessa is the perfect definition of a daddy. while she adores the title of being a daddy to you, but she would much appreciate it if you’d address her as mistress or warlord, but she is fit for a daddy whenever you feel like calling her one. she can be cruel sometimes, making you practice the sort of skills of survival that piltover no longer sees necessary, shedding blood and coerce you into taking a life, prove her if it comes to it you can protect yourself. ambessa can’t admit out loud that she is starved for being touched and so she sometimes can go overboard with physical attention, just give her a hug out of the blue and she will be thinking about it for the rest of her life.

“is there anything you don’t do for me, my girl?

— grayson ˖⁠♡

grayson’s shell radiates the typical daddy vibes, a person who is afraid to commit to their feelings and would rather gift you something than tell you how much she loves you. but grayson isn’t really a daddy, she is a mommy without a doubt. she is very protective of you, and would risk her job even if you think that’s silly, she would lie instead of seeing you behind bars, and not without reason. she might not be the wealthiest person, being an enforcer isn’t the highest-paying job, but her connections can help you to climb some ladders if needed. grayson has never been a mom, the closest she got was maybe training caitlyn and when you call her mommy for the first time it’s just something she gets drunk off of and becomes a little addicted. she is overbearingly loving, can’t stop calling you sweet pet names and tell you how pretty you are, how she can’t get over the fact that she finally can settle down and not be afraid of taking a bigger step in her life alone.

“dearest of mine, i am sorry for being late, but this job… thankfully i am staying home, like it or not. what about if we go around the city, visit your favorite café for an afternoon sweet?”

— vayne ˖⁠♡

shauna needed no introduction to the name calling, although she started out calling herself daddy which is very understandable. she is closed off, not at all willing to let anyone be emotionally close to her due to her fear of them being taken away once again. she does appear to be on the daddy side because of her need for vengeance, the way she fights, talks, and lives her everyday life but soon will grow into the more mommy side of her personality. shauna will always be a mommy, she just needs a little more time to really appreciate being called one. with the space left for her she will be more open, now you won’t need to use those clues you picked up along the way to understand how she is feeling because she will tell you herself how she feels.

“my moon, the night is still not clear of the demons but i will never let them take you, i would never ever let that happen. if it means that i have to give up hunting them, then be it, as long as i can keep you safe.”

— samira ˖⁠♡

samira is the person who if caught in the right moment can be very open about her feelings and won’t shut you out or shut down as soon as she realizes she is getting weaker and weaker with each word she utters. her appearance, her strong frame, the clothes she wears, and the way she talks all scream mommy. being called mommy would be a new thing for her, she had never really thought about this kind of thing, but then not a lot stayed with her as long as you have. samira might be a fighter, a woman who brings both a gun and a sword to a fight, spreading herself thing but don’t forget about her just because she looks so put together, mommies can hide their emotions well.

“habib albi, my sword is not a pretty toy to play with, at least not like this! you are gonna cut yourself, can’t have you bleeding my pretty girl. gotta keep you safe, okay?”

tag list ; @mxyx-rx444 @darlingmisa @einrosa @sevikasangel @nopealoupe @pixiegirlz @gonegonethankyouuu @xthescarletbitch @orang3-ish @bigboobslilheart

[gracegrove]

TW 70s era use of the word "queer"

Neil Hargrove doing a very working-class thing by volun-telling Billy that he will be spending his summer as a 14-year-old doing hard manual labor on a job site with some random ass uncle he didn't even know he had until one morning over dry Cheerios.

Neil drops him off at Uncle Matt's in Anaheim with a backpack and a duffel bag. See ya in September. "Don't cause your uncle any trouble," he warned with a thick grip on the shoulder before he took off for the interstate.

Billy stared at the man with hard eyes, his arms crossed in defiance. "You're not my real Uncle..."

The man chortled, ash sprinkling from the thick cigar chomped in his teeth. "Ya think so, tough guy?" He chuckled some more, waving for Billy to come inside.

Uncle Matt was a large man, as wide as he was tall. The furniture groaned when he sat down, casually kicking off his work boots and shrugging out of his suspenders as he picked up the can of beer from the side table.

"So Willy..." "It's Billy." Uncle Matt gave him a toothy grin. "Billy," he corrected, "Ya ever work a day in yer life?"

Billy sat on the corner of the couch, as the man took a long sip from his Coors. "Kinda. I mow lawns n' stuff."

Matt chuckled, "Ya ain't gonna be mowing no fucking lawns here! This is gonna be hardass work kid. Best get some sleep now..."

Billy rolled his eyes and headed off to the bedroom he was given.

After the first month, Billy and Uncle Matt fell into a routine. Matt's wind-up alarm clock was grating and shrill enough to wake Billy before Matt got two extra snores in at sunrise. The pair shared toast, eggs, and Folger's instant before heading out to the job site.

Billy's hands had gotten rough and calloused. Blistered and scabbed over more times than he could count.

"Hey Billy!" Matt called out over the ending shift horn. Billy slung the hammer in his grip onto the loop of his jeans and began climbing down the ladder. "Yah?"

"We're gonna have some company over tonight for dinner. My bookkeeper, Dan. So play nice." Billy smiled wryly. "I always play nice."

Things seemed a bit odd when dinnertime began rolling around. Uncle Matt was combing and carefully parting his hair in the mirror and was that the stench of aftershave on his beard?

Also for the first time in his life, Billy discovered what a tablecloth looked like as Matt carefully smoothed it across the dining room table. Billy crinkled his nose in suspicion, "Dan's a woman."

Matt barked out a laughed. "You're a hoot kid! Wait till Dan hears that!"

The doorbell rang and Matt stood up straight, smoothing his shirt. "Billy, can you set the plates out while I get the door?" Billy squinted at him, as the man hurried out of the room.

Peeking his head around the corner Billy snuck a glance at their guest.

Dan was not what Billy was expecting and he certainly wasn't a woman either. Dan was an average man of average height. He had shaggy brown hair and a thick mustache to boot. His face was set with round thick-rimmed glasses. What was so special about Dan that they had to have dinner with him?

The men hugged at the door, the embrace uncharacteristic of how Billy believed men should act around each other. They regarded each other warmly. "I'm so glad you came," Matt said quietly. "Me too. I've missed you."

Scurrying back, Billy quickly set the table and sat down, his heart thundering. He suddenly felt like he shouldn't be here. Like he was now a part of a horrible secret.

"Billy, this is Dan." Matt introduced as they entered the room. Billy awkwardly rose from his chair, weakly shaking his hand. "H-hey."

"Why don't you two have a seat and I'll fetch the chow, huh?" Matt said happily, a hand on Dan's shoulder.

"Oh, I'll help!" Billy forcibly stated, rushing into the kitchen.

Matt raised an eyebrow, "Ok..."

In the kitchen, Billy was nervously wringing his hands around a hot pad as Matt entered. "Are you a queer?" he blurted out, regretting it in an instant.

Matt set down the crockery he had set to take in. "I am Billy. Does that make you uncomfortable?"

Billy twisted the hot pad back and forth in his hands, "I... – I don't know. It's like..." He was struggling, his nose scrunching and his eyes watering up. "You're... you're not supposed to."

Uncle Matt ripped a paper towel off the rack and handed it to Billy. "It's okay tough guy, you don't gotta figure it all out right now. If you wanna have dinner in your room you can."

Billy shook his head, blowing his nose loudly. "But you made all this, and... you're real nice, and... –"

"... a damned queer." Matt added with a deadpan delivery. "Just don't tell your father, he'd have a heart attack."

Billy laughed.

"Now c'mon. Chow's gettin' cold."

[itslovelyamari]

In The Middle

ELLIE X DINA X READER

---

The community hall buzzed with activity. People mingled, danced, and laughed under dim string lights. Y/N sat at the corner of the bar, nursing a drink, trying to ignore the fluttering feeling in her chest whenever Ellie or Dina walked by. It was exhausting, being so hopelessly infatuated with the two most incredible—and off-limits—people she knew.

“They’re a couple,” Y/N muttered to herself, shaking her head. “They’d never feel the same way.”

But Joel, who’d just sat down beside her, had keen ears.

“You say somethin’, kid?”

Y/N startled, almost spilling her drink. “Oh, uh, nothing important.”

Joel squinted at her, clearly unconvinced. “You’ve been moonin’ over those two girls for months now. You think I don’t notice?”

Y/N’s face burned. “What? No, I—” She groaned. “Fine. Yes, okay? I like them. Both of them. It’s stupid, and I’m just making things weird. I was thinking I should... I don’t know, keep my distance. Let them be happy without me hovering around.”

Joel snorted. “You’re real dense, aren’t ya?”

“Gee, thanks,” Y/N said flatly.

“No, not like that,” Joel chuckled. “Ellie and Dina—they’re just as gone on you as you are on them.”

Y/N blinked, sure she’d misheard. “What?”

“Yeah, don’t act so surprised. I’ve seen the way they look at you. Like a pair o’ lovesick puppies. It’s almost funny.”

“No way,” Y/N said, shaking her head. “They’re together.”

Joel smirked. “Doesn’t mean there ain’t room for you.”

---

The revelation left Y/N spinning. Joel found it endlessly entertaining, even turning it into a game.

On patrol a few days later, Joel casually dropped a bombshell. “So, there’s this girl asking about you.”

Y/N frowned. “Who?”

“Just someone around town,” Joel said nonchalantly. “I told her you might be interested in a date.”

Ellie, who was inspecting her rifle nearby, froze mid-cleaning. Dina, perched on the fence, straightened with a sharp glare.

“Joel,” Ellie said tightly, “don’t you think Y/N can make her own decisions about... that?”

Joel grinned innocently. “What? Just tryin’ to help.”

Y/N caught Ellie and Dina exchanging dark looks but thought nothing of it. Joel, on the other hand, was having the time of his life.

---

Another patrol incident involved Jesse. Y/N, in a rare playful mood, slung an arm over his shoulder and laughed at something he said. Jesse, being the good sport he was, leaned into it.

Ellie and Dina, however, were not amused.

“Wow, Jesse,” Ellie said loudly, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Getting cozy, are we?”

Dina crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you were so... touchy, Y/N.”

The tension grew thick. Ellie almost blurted out the truth right there, but Dina nudged her hard, and the moment passed.

---

That night at the bar, Ellie and Dina were done holding back. Spotting Y/N near the edge of the room, they made their move. Ellie grabbed Y/N’s hand, Dina catching the other.

“Dance with us?” Dina asked, her smile soft but firm.

Y/N hesitated but nodded, unable to resist. She was pulled into the space between them, their movements syncing to the slow rhythm. Ellie’s hands rested on her waist, while Dina’s arms looped around her shoulders.

It was intoxicating—being so close, feeling their warmth, the weight of their attention entirely on her. Tension crackled as Dina leaned in and pressed a feather-light kiss to the back of Y/N’s neck.

Y/N shivered, heart racing. “D-Dina...?”

Ellie caught her chin, turning Y/N’s face toward hers. “We need to talk.”

---

In the privacy of the bathroom, Ellie and Dina stood before Y/N, their expressions uncharacteristically vulnerable.

“Look,” Ellie began, rubbing the back of her neck. “We’ve been dancing around this for too long.”

Dina nodded. “We both like you, Y/N. A lot.”

Y/N blinked. “Wait. Both of you? I don’t—how would that even work?”

Ellie stepped closer, taking Y/N’s hands. “We’d figure it out. Together. If you want this too.”

Dina placed a hand on Y/N’s cheek. “We don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But we couldn’t keep this to ourselves anymore.”

Y/N’s breath hitched. Her feelings, long buried under layers of doubt, bubbled to the surface. “I—I do want this. I just... never thought you’d feel the same way.”

Ellie grinned. “Well, surprise, genius.”

They laughed, the tension breaking into something warm and tender. Dina leaned in first, capturing Y/N’s lips in a sweet kiss. Before Y/N could process, Ellie pulled her into another, rougher but no less affectionate.

By the time they pulled away, all three of them were breathless.

“We’ll make this work,” Dina said firmly, and Ellie nodded in agreement.

Y/N smiled, finally letting herself believe. “Okay.”

And as they left the bathroom hand in hand, the night felt brighter than ever before.

---

I take requests 💓

[harrisonbrainrot]

Modern han with pregnant s/o with the cutest bump like imagine him holding her stomach or watching her getting ready for bed doing her hair, putting on moisturiser etc while he watches her waddling about the bedroom.

Or any other sweet wholesome scenarios you may think of .

Have a good day/night!

Anon, I see you, I hear you, and you're in luck because I have many thots.

This man is a total simp. He's a tough and gruff man, he gets his hands dirty in a lot of different ways, but you? Nu-uh, he's sweet and kind. He can be a stubborn jackass, but he usually and eventually bends to your will. However, when he finds out you're pregnant, good lord, the man spirals for a moment. He never planned on kids, he didn't have parents. He was raised in the foster system. He knows nothing about properly raising kids, but he looks at you and he knows in his soul that he can do it. He has to. So, upon the revelation of 'Oh, shit, oh fuck, I'm going to be a whole ass father', he steps up his game significantly. Whatever you say goes, with minimal arguing. In fact, he becomes such a helicopter worrier that it kind of begins to piss you off. 'How are ya, feelin'? How can I help? Need anything? Snacks? Water? I got it.' He's hovering constantly.

You and Han even ending up together was a fucking miracle in his eyes. Until he met you, women would come and go as they pleased, he didn't have to try hard for their attention or time. But you made him work for every second he spent with you. He loved it, it was new and exciting. He was enamored with you and every bit of effort was worth it in the end. Han told Lando about you, he'd talk to Chewie (Who just sat there on his dog bed, half asleep but he listened well) about you. He knew you were out of his league so the relationship itself was never taken for granted. Realistically, you hadn't been with Han for very long when this happened. Maybe a year into living with each other. He came home from the shop and found you in shambles. Tears and snot, quite embarrassing really. You were clinging to chewie for dear life, who was confused but always a solid shoulder to cry on. Han knew something was up when chewie growled at HIM when he came inside. That hadn't happened in years, since he first got chewie. He tossed those stupid yellow-tinted aviators on the coffee table and crouched next to you, he pulled you off chewie and you clung to him next. He just wrapped himself around you, keeping you safe and snug until you could calm down enough to talk. He was anxious though, he needed to know what was wrong, but he couldn't push you. Not when you were like this. His hands traced your spine for what felt like hours so when the words 'I'm pregnant' left your lips, he fell back on his ass. He stared at you for a moment and just blinked. All he could muster was a quiet 'oh'. Which did not improve your state of sobbing, at all in the SLIGHTEST. He was bad at expressing himself, he was working on it, being in a real relationship for the first time in.. a while, helped a bit. He scrambled and stumbled over his words; 'Not a bad oh, a good one, babe. This is good.. right? We want this?'. That took you for a loop, with a simple shrug you looked at him, sobs quieted. 'I do. Do you?' He didn't trust himself to speak, so he swallowed his words and nodded. He was taken aback that you trusted and loved him enough to want to create a whole ass human being with him. 'I do, girl. I really do.' He mumbled into your hair after pulling you into the tightest hug he could manage. It took over a week for it to sink I'm, he'd just watch you as you moved around the house, as he helped make dinner, he'd stare. He'd stare and think 'That's not just my girlfriend, that's the mother of my child.' Then came the new pet name; momma. That's what you had been promoted to, the same way he knew you'd get promoted to wife, dearly beloved. He knew he was going to marry you, not because you were pregnant, he knew before that. He'd call you momma anytime the conversation was around you being pregnant, your child, anything. He'd stand behind you on the back porch, mumbling into your shoulder 'you hungry, mommas?' Or he'd praise you with it when he saw any form of nesting behavior, 'You're doing great, momma, this kid is one lucky son of a gun.'

This led to constantly talking to your child. He wanted to know every detail of what was going on with his kid. What were they the size of this week? What would be developing this week? The second he heard that they were developing their hearing, good lord, he never stopped talking. He read parenting books that encouraged playing music for babies in the womb and immediately introduced the kid to your favorite bands. He made baby playlists of the 'greatest music every made by humankind' which was really just a Doors, Smiths, and Grateful Dead supermix, but he agreed to throw other stuff in there. He also made sure he talked a lot. He read that babies could recognize voices in the womb, and he ran with it. He'd talk real carefully, so that his kid knew it was him, it was dad. He'd say the sweetest, tooth-rotting things to his kid. 'I'm your dad. Ya got a kick ass momma waiting to meet ya. Y'allright in there for now, kiddo. Sleep tight.' 'Hey, baby, just checkin' in, it's your dad again. You're makin' your poor momma sicker than a dog today, cut her some slack. She's workin' hard keeping ya safe and warm and healthy.. go easy on her, tiger.'

When it came time to take care of you, he was on top of it. You could wake him up at 2 in the morning with a craving and he'd hop out of bed as fast as he could. Baby kicking around like crazy? He's walking around with you in an attempt to lull the baby back to sleep. He loved taking care of you. Foot rubs, back rubs, shit he'd massage your scalp if you asked. He'd always offer his lap to prop your feet up when you were out. His hand rested on your ankle, his rough thumb rubbing soft circles. He took great care of you from the moment he found out you were pregnant. He quit smoking, which made you incredibly proud, despite his grumpy attitude for the first two weeks. He actually found it soothing to take care of you during those two weeks so he had a physical reminder as to why he was doing this. The man held your hair back for three months straight. His kid definitely made pregnancy difficult. He didn't mind helping, he was partially responsible for your state, so he felt it only fair to help.

He was a pest the closer your due date approached. He watched you constantly. His eyes watched you like a lion, following every small move. He knew you were uncomfortable, restless. He felt bad. He could do nothing now. Nothing but wait. Of course his child arrived a week early, at the most inconvenient time. Middle of a poker game at Lando's on christmas eve, 'a tradition,' han had said, 'we don't have any family, me and Lando. So, we celebrate the only way we know.' You understood but reminded Han that this was his last Christmas without a family. Even though your due date was after the new year, the mini-Han had other ideas. the mild contractions you felt for most of the day had progressively and quickly gotten worse. He was very aware of this but the second you knew something wasn't right, the whole room was frantic. Grown men running around unsure of how to help or what to do. Honestly, you yelled at them. 'All of you, sit down, shut up, and pay attention. We are leaving and will update you as soon as possible. None of you are doctors.' Han had insisted on keeping the hospital bag in the car, so going from Lando's to the hospital was a breeze. During all of the labor and the hard parts of the pregnancy, Han was a rock. He was your rock. He wanted nothing more than to support you. That continued through labor. Honestly, you expected him to pass out, but he ended up sitting right behind you on the hospital bed. You could lean back against him, his hands on your knees, rubbing soft circles. But the second he heard his kid's first cries, he reluctantly left you side. He got to cut the cord, which made him tear up just a little. He stared in awe the second that squirming child was on your chest. His hand stroked the downy hair, he blinked away tears and failed ridiculously. He sniffled and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He had a son, he was thrilled. Over the moon. Elated. He was so madly in love with this kid. He held that baby and didn't take his eyes off of him for minutes on end. Just watching how he moved, how he squirmed and settled. The small hands balled into fists and his little whines and snuffles. He was enamored. His eyes would flick from the baby to you back to the baby and he'd mutter soft words like 'He's got your eyes.. My nose. My hair.. your lips though, mommas.' You had picked a name a while ago, two because you refused to know the gender ahead of time, because Han's friends wanted to bet on it. Of course. But with a baby born on Christmas eve? Han knew he needed a different name. It threw you for a moment when offered the name Dorian. 'It means gift, baby. Seems fitting, right?' You couldn't help but agree.

Dorian immediately became the light of Han's life. He wanted to do everything. Partly because you just birthed his son and he wanted you to rest, partly because he didn't want to be away from him for half a moment. The second Dorian sounded even a tad bit upset, Han was there. They napped together, Han stretched out on your hard, shitty couch, his shirt off and Dorian tucked under his chin. His hand always rested on his back or his stomach, making sure he was still breathing. He was known and called 'little dude' by basically everyone. Lando fell into the uncle role quickly and easily. He loved Dorian. Dorian was a mini-Han. The older he got the more you realized 'Oh shit, I just copy and pasted my boyfriend.' Han proposed a year later. Well, Dorian did it. He originally planned to have chewie do it, with the ring tied to his collar... but then Dorian started to walk and that plan went out the window. He had given Dorian the ring box and instructed him to bring it to mom but Dorian kinda decided to toss it at your feet half way there. Han promptly responded with 'Dude, we rehearsed this all week.. c'mon, man.' With his face in his hands. You were absolutely over the moon. He was so thoughtful, it hurt your heart thinking about it. You said yes, of course. It was a summer wedding, naturally. Chewie looked super presentable. Dorian looked cute as shit. Han had a decent sized backyard for your small little shindig. Super private and small, the house was big enough to accommodate.

And you lived happily ever after. I have so many more thots this was just becoming a ramble about my husband. Thanks for reading this. It got long LMAO.

[sourbombz]

So my friend made a joke about how I need to stop timelooping Yuma (because I keep replaying the game) and now I've just been thinking about timelooping him so here's a thought dump about a timeloop AU

Spoilers!!

How the timeloop itself functions/started I have two ideas for at the moment

one being: the idea that Yuma didnt leave the mystery labrynth at the end, and he's basically reliving the mystery over and over again due to his soul wandering forever (I feel mixed on this because I like the idea of everyone being Real and not just the result of a labrynth but this is also a very fun idea to think about as well? Hm)

The other being: the emergency exit.. didnt work how it was supposed to and suddenly Yumas back where he started and also stuck. Also Shinigamis not actually gone (because I don't want her to be!!)

Other than those ideas hhh I dunno forces beyond our comprehension (me I am the forces)

Okay, other fun things

Yuma: he's the center of the timeloop, so he's aware of it. He's so tired, he still doesn't have his past memories but he has future ones now! (Soooo he knows he's Number One, and everything)

Shinigami: she's also aware of it/stuck! She doesn't mind it, less boring than being trapped in a book and she gets more time with Yuma! Joyous!

Fubuki: I think it'd be so fun if Fubuki like.. was also kinda stuck with him, she's the time gal afterall! Although she's Fubuki so she's probably more so "also stuck, but also oblivious"

Vivia: I feel a need to bring him up, and I don't know if I really think he'd be really stuck since time in particular isn't his thing? But yeah udk (I've thought about making him aware because I'm a kokolight shipper and POTENTIAL but I'm on the fence)

Makoto: I guess it depends on how the timeloop itself works on if Makoto knows of it/is stuck as well here or not. So I'm gonna go with "he may or may not it's honestly hard to tell"

All other characters would probably not be aware of it. So I won't talk about them right now

Anyway yeah I imagine at first Yumas like "WHAT HUH WHY WHATS HAPPENING" and then after calming down starts assessing situation and trying to like, do what a lot of people would probably do in that circumstance and try to do things better, save people who died, all of that as ya do.. annddd the timeloop doesn't stop and its a nightmare

I dont have a SINGLE clue how stopping it would happen. All I know is loop loop loop loop

Anyway here's some of my brainstorm doodles the first page I did at 1am before I had anything really thought of, enjoy (idk of its obvious but I am also a Kaguford (Makoto x fubuki) fan, I just think they're cute)

There's so much more I want to think about like hey he knows Yakous murder plot now how would he go forward with that information, how would he go about the cases in the game in general? Augh so much to think about but those are my current thoughts YAY

[asynchronouscommunication]

Day 6 & 13: Et tu, Brute? and Leitmotif

He swore he heard those few notes of the harmonica every time he looked at the Courier. That lonesome warble that had risen in the night air like it was pushin' back the dark, like it was making a statement.

Here I am. Here I am still.

It wasn't even the full melody that lingered on in Kel's mind either. Just a bit of it, the initial rise and fall that rose again just before the song picked up. Just that bit playing on loop in his brain. He could just about see the firelight glinting on that battered case in flashes as Six moved his hands.

It had been the most animated with his hands that Kel had ever seen the man outside a gun fight and the novelty had pulled Kel from his work of cleaning all the grit and sand he could out of his revolvers. He had stared all the way through the song, something about the way the music had caught and swelled and shifted between slow and fast, the way it had moved him. Like he was hearin' all the heartache he knew must be followin' the Courier's tracks laid out for their little campfire to hear.

He'd been brought back to himself abruptly when Arcade's leg had bumped his and Kel had turned to the doctor with what Boone called Kel's 'clueless private' face but the Follower was in discussion about what songs worked well on a harmonica and what ones just didn't translate with one of the guards traveling with the merchant they'd met on the roads.

The doctor was like that sometimes. Real discrete with his kindness and Kel was glad for the reminder to school his face into something less puppy dog like, not that he'd ever tell Arcade that.

His attention was caught ED-E makin' that little beep it did whenever it had recorded something' and he glanced up with a big ol' grin as Six gave the floating bot a scowl and ED-E just beeped again and played back part of the song though it was mixed with static and campfire crackles and the quiet noises of the brahmin settling in for the night.

"Looks like ED-E is a fan of your music too!" Kel called delightedly in the tone that drew Veronica's attention like dead meat drew bloatflies. They spent a good few minutes attempting to wind up Six by making up fancy stage names and coming up with increasingly ridiculous acts to keep his theoretical show fresh and entertaining ("Vegas moves fast, Six, and you can only get by on name recognition for so long!" Kel had said as seriously as he could at that point while Veronica giggled into the sleeves of her robes).

It was such a funny thing how memory could work like that. How the few bits of a sad tune could bring back what had been such a happy moment at the time. How memories like that could hurt so bad later when circumstances and relationships changed.

How betrayal could sour even the sweetest desert wine.

Now it was Kel and ED-E standing by the shack where the Courier had told them to wait, the sky still grey in the predawn light.

The collar on his neck was cold, and he debated tucking the edges of the handkerchief he used to hide it when in polite company underneath but that might let the little red light shine through and-

And ED-E played just those sad parts of the Courier's song and Kel's eyes found the man walking up the rocky trail toward them a moment later. His lips pressed into a thin, hard line as he waited, his heart a half-dried, half-rotten thing in his chest even as he reached out with one hand to drag his fingertips along the little bot's side.

"You too, ED-E?"

================================================ First off thanks to the people liking the work I've been doing. Got in a brain rut recently but I am re-motivated. I have had PLANS for 5: Hospitality (hey kel maybe don't sleep with the daughter of the dude letting the party sleep in his barn even if she asks ya to, HMM?) but it's being a pain. I know exactly what I want to do and I don't know how to do it. This is inspired by my recent habit of collecting harmonicas and other 'junk' when i play, even on my new Hardcore game. Stuff that has no value when playing New Vegas as a game but would be things I could see people actually carrying. Also inspired this wonderful video:

Not exactly the song Six plays I think, but it gave me the vibes I needed to write this.

[pleuvoire]

2023 books i liked recap because why not

top faves, new entries on the all-timers shelf:

piranesi is like a sweet spot of novels made for me i swear. aesthetically beautiful (as far as mental images go), themes of wonder at the beauty of the world, a slowly unfurling mystery, a simple plot but with vibrant beauty and meaning layered on top. It's Good

giovanni's room also has a very simple plot that is so overlaid with soaring passionate emotion i swear it feels like an opera in book form. timeless classic. it's good idk what to tell you

oh man ancillary justice is such good sci-fi. when you start out reading it you're like this is rather dry but it pulls you in so hard. the worldbuilding! the themes of identity! breq is such a good character!

not quite all-timer shelf but still really good

fish swimming in dappled sunlight is ultimately a story about stories and memory and constructed narratives and the reliability thereof. it takes place over a single night and mostly just consists of characters sitting around talking, but manages to pull some crazy twists on you regardless. love the prose style too

i'm glad my mom died lives up to the acclaim. mccurdy has a real talent for narrative voice, effortlessly inhabiting the viewpoint of her younger self at various ages. balances humor and tragedy with frank candor. i sound like a review pull quote here so i'll stop

infect your friends and loved ones is actually a novella so pretty short! it's by the author of detransition baby and has definitely gotten me interested in reading that. really vivid meditation on trans womanhood and transmisogyny that bounces between post-apocalypse and pre-apocalypse settings. pdf here

less stand-out but i still liked it

what are you are looking for is in the library is a nice little series of loosely connected vignettes about people who are stuck at some point in their life and find inspiration at the library. all the staff at my library job wanted to read it so the hold list was a mile long lol. has inspiring themes about always being able to find a way forward when you're in a rut and the power of community and stuff

a people's history of heaven is about the life and times of a group of girls living in a slum in bangalore, india. i liked how it interwove different people's life stories together and used lots of vivid detail and i like how the trans girl's story was written. some aspects were hit or miss for me but it was still nice

temple alley summer is a kids' book but i like kids' books so that's fine. it's about a boy who sees a ghost and the next day she's a student at his school and everyone seems to already know her but him and it turns out this is because his house was built on top of a mystical temple. i like the meditations on life and death and the simple heartwarmingness. it takes a long unexpected detour in the second half which threw me for a loop but ended up working for the story

stuff i started reading but didn't finish and i swear i'm going to try to get to it this year

to shape a dragon's breath is pretty long so i didn't get that far in before i had to return it to the library but i really liked what i read. the worldbuilding is really interesting and the narrative voice feels fresh and unique and deftly avoids the samey YA mold that tends to grate on me. and it's got commentary on colonialism! definitely check this one out

i got halfway through radium girls which is an accomplishment for me since it's long. rare nonfiction entry on this list. goes into insanely meticulous historical detail complete with fiction-style descriptions and embellishments of the girls' lives which just makes it more tragic

i own a copy of the haunting of hajji hotak but it's seriously harrowing stuff so i had to take breaks. it's good man. but whew it does not shy away from the realities of living under war and occupation. death to america

ok that's everything i think seeya next year

[northwest-cryptid]

Sometimes I look at the Project Moon games and wonder about what the team at PM must be like.

I mean hear me out... and yea spoilers and all that but I can't really get my point across without them so ya know.

Lobotomy Corp is a game that centers around the plot of 1 awful awful man who has done unspeakably horrible things to his colleagues in the pursuit of a goal they technically all wanted, but "not like this" only to go through so many horrifying loops of tragedy that everyone becomes numb, finding their own ways to cope with having to work at such a truly hellish work place. With the main character becoming someone better through atonement for his actions, he can't truly atone in the eyes of those he has harmed but he can try to better himself going forward and in the end he's able to at least give them all the gift of seeing their goal through to the end.

Library of Ruina shows us yet again a struggle with identity, this time accompanied by yet another major plot surrounding the idea of revenge this whole idea that the actions that freed one individual from a horrible life of abuse and neglect inflicted irreparable harm upon another. Yet they work together for so long in hopes of each achieving their own goals, only in the end coming to realization of their life, their grief, and their identity. Both being able to move past who they were and the pain they've felt and become something more than a husk living purely in spite of their suffering.

and I'll be honest, I've not played much of Limbus Company, I hate to admit it because I love the Project Moon universe but the game doesn't much keep my interest. That being said on the most baseline level of the game you have an understanding that this is a company of people specifically brought together for emotionless work. You have the most uncaring neglecting managers and head figures; Dante seems to be the most emotional of anyone and that's likely coming from the place of actually having to go through the literal pain of reviving anyone who dies, experiencing their pain in the process. So I could are they're a little more invested in their subordinate's wellbeing. However more than not, the lead figures here do not care about their underlings, and if you pay attention to the sinners; they're all full of life in different ways, sure some of them are less happy than others; but they all have goals, they all have ambition.

So what am I getting at with all of this? Well do I actually believe the lead writer/writers at ProjMoon are trying to say something about the company? Nah probably not, it's very likely they're just writing angst for the sake of angst; and while a lot of their writing is well done and captures a lot of mental illness and real conflict very well; I don't think they are necessarily trying to go any deeper than that.

That being said; we only now see how bad their CEO really is. However I have a hunch that this wasn't always the case, originally he was probably a genuinely nice dude. I say this completely on assumption mind you, so again if you think I'm making some weird stretches in logic or something read the above blurb again and recognize that I'm not some conspiracy theorist trying to spout some bullshit. I'm just saying that it's interesting to me that a small indie company of like 7 - 10 people who were really ambitious about their goal of becoming a game studio worked really hard (and likely failed a LOT in the past) in spite of their living situation being complete shit. Like basically everyone I know who knows about ProjMoon knows there were times they were so poor they couldn't afford basic heating and such. So here you have this company who dream of wealth and honor, being someone important, being someone rich enough to live a good life. They make 1 game (Lob Corp) that seems to be doing well, the Legacy version got played by a few youtubers and likely drew in a small but dedicated fanbase who gave them a rush of euphoria; finally there were eyes on their product. Real people, around the world who CARED about what they were making. They were likely far from their goal still, but now they had a chance. Then; they took a shift and remade the game to what we know it as today and what do you know... it was a success. They weren't rich or anything but here's this global fan community singing their praises, telling people "buy their game buy their game!" That's wealth and honor, at least on some level. See when you're THAT poor, even a couple thousand bucks or a couple hundred people with eyes on you can make all the difference. Sure we think "wealthy" means triple digit thousands at LEAST and such; but if even 100 people came to my stream and each of them gave me 25 bucks (the price of Lob Corp) I'd feel pretty damn successful having just made $2,500 "but cryptid they probably put a lot more money INTO it than that" sure that's true, and they probably sold a lot more than 100 copies of the game. There are currently 26,396 reviews on steam, with 455 being recent reviews. In total if we assume (and we don't, let's be real) that every one of those bought the game at full price, and the company got 100% of the money; that's $659,225 a little over a half a million. from Lob Corp alone. Now yea I'm not gonna say they didn't have to pay a % to steam for hosting and they likely had some copies sold when the game was like 50% off or something if we're being honest. However this doesn't take into account LoR being $30, with 20,501 reviews for a total of (again under the same assumptions which we aren't realistically assuming here) another $615,030 we have no idea how much merch they sold or how much profit they made from their café either.

What am I getting at here? That they made a bunch of money? We know. No it's more than that; See it's easy to look at the CEO and say "oh dude fuck Project Moon they're a shit company!" However consider for a second that you don't hate Netzach, Chesed, Angela, Tiph, Hod, etc; for the actions of Ayin... do you? Now yea obviously those are fictional people, so you know they don't have bills to pay they don't have families to take care of, they don't have real life problems to deal with... unlike the people who work at Project Moon.

All people who likely watched their friend, and CEO; change when he obtained the money and fame he was after; suddenly hiding the fact he had grown so much from the public so they could sell the idea of being a "small indie dev team" to keep pay lower and abuse their workers. Which, from what I understand; is what we learned from the WonderLab incident, unless I'm mistaken of course. Take everything I'm saying here with a grain of salt. It's very likely that the writing for the original Lob Corp wasn't about the Proj Moon team specifically, more so about working conditions in capitalism, and likely the current state of Korean societal/work norms. However I do wonder how much of the writing might be or could be based on what the team is going through in relation to their own work place.

I saw a lot of people saying "how could the people who wrote games about shit business practices literally do this shit, they wrote about it!" However I don't know if the CEO himself really had much of a hand in that, you have to remember that none of us; and I do mean NONE OF US. Have any idea what the working conditions there are actually like. For all we know the CEO could easily say "oh sure I wrote this and that, I looked over these things; I helped with those things" when in reality it's all delegated to some poor intern.

I mean hell I once worked with an indie company who literally stole my intellectual property, claimed it all as their own; said they had "come up with all of this the night before at an exclusive meeting" and then used it to profit off their scam of a game that they lied to the public about being something it wasn't and I never saw a cent of it because I told them off for not only stealing my work but A. lying to me and thinking I wouldn't know and B. lying to the public to scam people out of their money.

A lot of shady shit practices happen behind closed doors that never gets to be made public whether it's because you don't have a voice to say it loud enough or because contractually you're not legally able to without harsh consequences. You know what you can do though? You can write whatever you want for the plot of your game. Your game that is already built around the premise of abusive work practices and shitty capitalistic managers.

what was that limbus company quote, something like "take out their leader, remove the head and the meat under it crumbles" I don't know man, it just makes me wonder about how the people working at Project Moon feel about their CEO. I don't know how many of them are WILLINGLY following him vs how many have to keep a roof over their head and feel like they have no choice in the matter but to keep working for a shitty CEO who makes the big bucks while they likely get "small indie dev team pay" you know?

I'll say this again because I know, this is the "how dare you say we piss on the poor" website and I want to make this abundantly clear. I don't know jack shit about what goes on behind closed doors at that company, I'm not trying to make some kind of conspiracy theory, I'm not reading too much into plot or writing of a fictional world/characters/game. I'm not trying to make any claims about any persons working within the company. I'm merely wondering how much of the writing (WHICH COULD BE NONE) comes from a more personal view of venting about poor working conditions and how many of the employees working at Project Moon (WHICH COULD BE ALL OF THEM) actually consider their CEO to be a friend and someone worth working for rather than as an abusive boss they're scared of and who they can't quit working for because they need the money.

[teslathelame]

oh yeah the time loop thing is still just a theory, personally i like the dream world theory because it makes more sense that twisted wonderland is just a dream. or maybe both of the theory’s combined like the dream keeps looping? oh and about the battle. malleus is about to use his unique magic, and then ortho senses a large amount of blot accumulating and this little alarm on him goes of and he tells everyone to evacuate. crowley gives everyone permission to use magic against him to try to stop him but. he’s like super OP. I think 300k or however much it was is is base HP??? excuse me?? and the thing is i doubt this is the final stage of his overblot because there’s not even a phantom. OH about his overblot it’s really freaking me out because he’s so calm and like. happy. also when he overblotted he seemed very much conscious and it wasn’t caused by overwhelming emotions like all the other overblots? and his voice wasn’t distorted either it was completely normal which some how makes it more chilling. but maybe malleus HAS been pulling the strings the whole time? not as like a literal bad guy but like the fact his overblot seemed so normal it was weird. and the thorns when you groovify something. and the overblot markings on the dark mirror?? idk my mind is racing i do not know what to think

ohhhh......yeah, i guess the looping dream makes sense, what with the whole "1000 years will pass uh. really quick" thing (paraphrased, obvs) and WHAT? no phantom?? 👀 hmmm...... yeah see, that makes me think that mal hasn't really "over"-blotted yet, per se. if "overblot" is what happens when you use too much magic at once combined with intense emotions - and like you said, malleus is being suspiciously calm and collected, and we already know that he has just INSANELY MASSIVE magic reserves so it would be really hard for him to go past whatever threshold causes overblot. so maybe he just "semi-blotted" or something? i don't even know how that would work, but i feel like he ob'd too soon and with too little fanfare for this to be It(tm) ya know? it's giving ulquiorra's first resurreción from bleach to me. maybe mal's real berserker-mode overblot is gonna be when he goes full dragon on us :3 that'd be sweet lol

also!! holy shit, i recognized the thorns everywhere but the overblot markings on the dark mirror had never clicked for me! damn, this boi's everywhere innit

[ducknotinarow]

Don had the habit of growing quiet when things were on his mind; more of a 'work through it' sort of Turtle. And though it worked, most of the time, there were times when even his own frustrations can get the best of him. Not that it could be read, the Terrapin coming off as calm and collected in that moment, as he sat next to Raph.

He said nothing, simply flickering his gaze between the TV and Raph, over and over. He wasn't one to choose the 'violent' option, but even he needed time in the Dojo with someone he knows can handle him. It's something he hadn't done since they were little kids, but, hey, maybe Raphael still remembered this little tell of theirs.

Unprovoked, no warning, as quick as Donatello could move, he bites Raph - hard. Not enough to draw blood, he wasn't a savage after all, but definitely enough for his twin to feel it, and to react to it. Releasing them from his jaw, Donatello stared at them, expectedly, still not saying a damn thing. Hopefully Raph remembers that old 'game' of theirs, or things were about to get awkward real quick.

| Muse interaction

Don't get Raph wrong he didn't play favorites with his brothers, despite how rough he was around the edges he loved them all. You lay a finger on them and he will bite it off. He messes with them all about the same as well. Fighting with Leo to annoy them because well lets face it even Raph wasn't immune to that younger sibling need. Mikey got under his skin pretty easy and did it on purpose so he often got after them a lot. Don? well it was usually just through some sass back and forth. Where Leo will take a remark and get annoyed or Mikey got sensitive over saying something in a way he didn't like? Don just threw it back. Sassatello over here.But he was also the only brother Raph could just sit in silence near with out the possibility of trouble starting. Well between them surprisingly Don could be up for trouble when he felt like it. Just cause of Don's more so called clam and collected nature. He just cause mischief in his own way at times.

Plopped down on the couch Raph had his eyes fixed on the screen, wasn't a current game playing an old rerun the channel had going something about needing to fill in the screen time so they could make use of the time slot. It was better than sitting around and watching the news even if Raph knew the out come of this game already, he watched it the day of the actual match after all. When Don actually came out of his lab and joined him on the couch.

"uh there the brainiac, and out of his lab. Careful the light out 'ere may be too bright for yas." Raph just smirked a little and he slid over to make room for Don to sit next to him when they seemed to come his way. No remarks were given back when they plopped on down beside him though. Hmm maybe they needed a break from whatever they were in the middle of working with. He was a bit more like Leo when it came to all that after all they sort kept that stuff to themself. Mikey made every emotion he felt known even if you didn't ask, and Raph let it all show through his single one emotion. Anger. Leo held on to stuff knowing the time and place...sometimes. Donnie just kept busy. Raph shifted to rest an arm on the couch looking around for the remote a moment. Maybe he could bear through some painful moment of something Donnie liked to watch. When he suddenly felt something sharp sink into his skin.

Not sharp like a blade of anything no he knew this feeling easily. It didn't hurt really well it didn't hurt Raph at least sure they didn't draw blood when having done it but it was like he was just resting his teeth on Raph either. Raph turned to look at Don as they started to let go a very expected look in his twins eyes as they didn't offer a single word. "did ya just bite me?" Raph had to question a moment, before he moved to stand up on his feet. Looping an arm around one of Donnie's dragging them up to their own. "if ya wanna go a few rounds you could jus' say so bozo." Of course Raph knew what that bite meant and well it explain Donnie's whole demur since coming out to sit with Raph on the couch. Donnie was pent up and holding on to some frustration most likely. "Figure ya would have out grown biting me by now." Despite the rough treatment as he started to drag Donnie off with him to the dojo, there was clear enjoyment underlining the rasp in Raphael's voice.

Once getting to the dojo, empty and not being used in the moment, he let Don's arm go only to throw his arm around Donnie's shoulders, tugging them down a bit. Mostly just hazing his poor twin right now for their old habits. Reaching over to rub knuckles in against the top of Don's head as he chuckled a little. "Guess some thing' don't change, eh?" Letting go as he makes his way into the room now."How ere doin' weapons no weapons?" He starts to ask as he cracks his knuckles, pressing an open plam against a closed fist, and starts tilting his head left and right to pop his neck. Oh, he was all for a little bit of play fighting with Donnie. Leo took it all too seriously, and if you weren't fighting right' you gotta hear 'bout it, and Mikey ... was a pain in the ass. Cause he never shut up!

Fighting Donnie, though? Hey, for a guy who spent most of the day locked up in his lab, busying himself with machines and whatever else you might assume he didn't pack a punch and you would be severely mistaken which was excstly why Raph was razed for a fight with Donnie. "Times up, no weapons. Le's see if ya still got it. After all, I've been wastin' away in yer lab all day, notnsure you can handle it?" Course Raph knew better, but talking shit just added fun. "Come on, Don, no holdin' back now. Let's see that angry face you hide?" And with that, he tackled Donnie to the ground, getting that start to a fringly little play fight with his twin. Actually, I kind of had the red banded turtle feeling a little nostalgic suddenly.

[wintrwinchestr]

kiss it better

the killer & the sound - chapter 2

summary: you’re with the band, officially. you’ve met them, rehearsed with them all of two times, and now it’s the tour’s opening night. pretty nerve-wracking, but nothing you can’t handle, right? that is, until Joel asks you last-minute to perform their suggestive hit single Kiss it Better with them, live on stage. before you know it, your teenage dreams are coming true, in more ways than one.

warnings: 18+, smut, no outbreak au, no use of y/n, rockstar!joel, aspiring rockstar!reader, d/s dynamics, pretty major daddy kink, age gap (reader is early-mid 20’s, joel is early-mid 50’s), heavy flirting, pet names (darlin’, sweetheart, baby, babygirl, etc), shy/anxious reader, a little dub-con bc reader has a couple drinks but is alert and consenting, joel refers to reader’s pussy as she/her, smoking, power imbalance & joel using it to his advantage, exhibitionism (suggestive performance onstage but no sexual activity), lapsitting, praise kink, finger sucking, tummy bulge, unprotected p in v sex, some angst, let me know if i missed any!!

word count: 11.5k (i’m sorry or you’re welcome)

a/n: thank you so much for your patience and interest in this story!! i’m sorry i took so long, but i hope you enjoy another chapter of rockstar!joel that somehow turned out longer than the first one. thank you as always to my best girl kiers i love you so much and i’m so happy our baby rockstar brought us together <3 thank you for reading, nice comments/reblogs appreciated if you enjoyed!!

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divider by @saradika-graphics

It was only a handful of days ago that you had received the life changing invitation to open for Death’s Head on their sold out national tour. And it was only a handful of years ago that something like this was an unachievable fever dream, something you could pantomime in the shower or in the car, but still unsure if your hard work and commitment would ever pay off.

It’s been a complete whirlwind, your teenage dreams coming true in the span of less than a week. And now here you sit, shut away in your dressing room, leg bouncing up and down like a jackhammer as you add a final coat of mascara and one last sticky swipe of lip gloss. Meeting your own gaze in the vanity mirror, you fidget with your necklace, eyes wide and unblinking as you try to suppress a complete freakout.

A sudden knock on the door startles you from your daze, followed by a familiar gravelly voice asking your name. It’s Joel. You invite him in, and although you had seen him at soundcheck earlier in the day, it’s the first time you’re seeing him in the clothes he’s chosen to perform in tonight: black button-down shirt with western-style embroidery on the pockets, generously opened at the top to expose his tattooed chest. He pairs it with his signature black leather jacket, black jeans, and black boots with a pointed silver toe. He’s got various chains and metalwork adorning his ensemble, making him jingle and clink as he moves.

“Jus’ wanted to drop by before you go on, tell ya to ‘break a leg’ and everythin’...” He stands in the doorway, the thumb of one hand hooked on a belt loop while the other rests above his head against the doorframe. He looks you up and down quickly. “Look real pretty, darlin’, ‘s a nice dress.”

You look down at yourself, so flustered and not in your own head that you have to remind yourself of what you’re wearing. “Oh, th-thanks. Just bought it yesterday, got it special for tonight.”

“Certainly is special…” He muses, shutting the door behind him before taking a few long strides in your direction. “You feelin’ okay, sweetheart, feelin’ good?” He pulls up an extra chair from the corner of the room as he speaks, setting it down next to where you sit in front of your vanity. He spins it around in his grip to sit on it backwards, dark denim-clad thighs straddling the backrest of the chair. You resist the urge to stare at how his strong body stretches the material.

You opt to answer him with a lie, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

He drops his chin, looking at you from underneath his dark lashes. “Now why don’t I believe you? We've been over this, darlin’. Nothin’ to be scared of, yeah?” He places a large hand on your knee in an attempt to halt its incessant movement.

“‘S just a lotta people… never played in front of crowds this big before. Mostly just did a bunch of bars before now, maybe a community center or somethin’ every so often, but never a crowd bigger than a thousand. And there’s gonna be, like, ten thousand people out there.”

“Try doublin’ that.”

Your eyebrows shoot towards your hairline, and it feels like your heart just dropped into your stomach, a red hot piece of iron ore sinking into freezing water.

“Shit, shouldn’t’a said nothin’.” Joel shakes his head, pinching between his brows before lightly gripping your chin so that you stay focused on him. “Look at me. Remember our talk in the car the other day, don’tcha?” You nod your head in his grasp. “Said all about how good you are. Believe force o’ nature is the term I used, wasn’t it?” You can’t help but crack a smile at his compliment, and he returns one in the form of that canine-like grin of his. “You can do this, babygirl, yeah?”

Oh, that’s a new one. You decide you like the sound of it already, how it rolls off his tongue coated in his gravelly drawl.

You nod again in understanding, but he seems dissatisfied. “Say it back to me, sweetheart,” he instructs.

“I-I can do this,” you reply, your voice quiet, embarrassed of having to reassure yourself to his face.

“One more time, lil’ louder, like you mean it.”

You try again, attempting to infuse the sentence with a little more confidence. “I can do this.”

He seems content with your second try, and swipes at your chin before rising from his seat. “Fuck yeah, y’ can. Gonna knock ‘em dead, baby.”

He takes one last look at you before he leaves the room, and reminds you that you’re ‘Sposed to be on in fifteen, darlin’. See ya out there. He winks at you before closing the door, and then you’re alone again. Savoring your last few minutes to yourself, you decide to pace a few laps around the small room, running through a few more vocal warmups in an effort to drown out the sound of babygirl, babygirl, babygirl echoing around in your thoughts. Jesus Christ. It’s like he finds it impossible to comfort you without throwing in a little something extra to work you back up again. Though, you suppose you’d rather have your nervous energy redirected to him than to keep it focused on the endless expanse of people you’re about to be introduced to for the first time. 

What if they hate your music? What if you forget your own lyrics? What if they think you’re not good enough?

You take a guess that they’ve hit the lights in the venue now, judging by the cacophonous roar of voices that just erupted from somewhere sounding altogether too close and too far away at the same time. Too late to back out now. Not that he’d let you.

You brace your hands on the vanity counter, looking yourself in the eye one last time before you make your way to the stage. “I can do this,” you repeat the little mantra to your reflection. “I can do this, I can do this, Joel said I can do this.” A final deep breath and a tousle of your hair before you’re swinging the dressing room door open, heavy lace-up boots carrying you to the wings of the stage where your band members are already waiting to go on. It’s dark backstage, and it takes your eyes a second to adjust before they land on Joel. The accents of silver decorating his face and scattered throughout the clothing he wears catch some of the light from the stage, helping you to identify his form. You acknowledge him, but keep your feet planted where they are, flexing your hands and then clenching them into little fists as you try to peek at the audience, relishing your final moments of being a relative nobody. Your chords, your lyrics, your innermost thoughts are still only known to you and a few handfuls of others, for the next few minutes at least. Your life, your career, begins tonight, there, on that daunting and expansive stage. Angel is already out there waiting for you, beckoning to you, if only you could just push off the balls of your feet and go to her. You wish Cat were here.

A rough hand perches itself on your shoulder, and a low voice begins to speak close to your ear. “Everythin’s all set, show starts whenever you’re ready, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” you half-whisper, giving a swift nod of your head, swallowing hard and worrying your bottom lip between your teeth. His hand applies some pressure to the slope of skin between your neck and shoulder, massaging the muscle.

“Gotta relax, sweetheart, c’mon. Breathe with me. In…” He inhales deeply, and you mimic the action, holding your breath until he permits you to let it go. “And out…” 

He moves his hand to your upper back, course calluses scratching against the patch of soft skin exposed by the low back of your dress. “Gonna be back here the whole time. You start gettin’ nervous, you look at me, ‘kay?” He speaks the phrase slowly, like he’s trying not to spook a newborn animal. You suppose he’s validated in that, the way you do feel a little like a fawn about to walk out onto a frozen lake.

You turn your head to face him over your shoulder. “Okay. Um… wish me luck, I guess.”

“Don’t need it, babygirl.”

The both of you share a knowing smile once more, and it makes enough of your nerves melt away that you don’t even realize that Angel is becoming closer and clearer in your vision. Your feet had started carrying you out onto the stage before you had given them permission to, it seems, and now the embroidered luna moths are wrapped around your body. The hot lights are shining brightly in your eyes, and you’re suddenly enveloped in a dense cloud of white noise that sounds like cheering and screaming. 

You look behind you, and your band members have each taken their positions. They all give you a nod or a thumbs up, and now it’s up to you to kick off the tour’s opening night. When you turn your head toward the wings one last time, Joel is still standing where you left him, arms crossed in the darkness. He juts his chin upwards and mouths something to you, the shapes of his lips forming the phrase you can do this. You whisper the affirmative phrase back to him, the same way he had you do in your dressing room.

After you’ve introduced yourself into the mic using the steadiest voice you can muster, you shut your eyes, take a final stabilizing inhale, and then a metallic chord reverberates around the venue as you begin your set.

Instincts and muscle memory carry you most of the way through the first half of your songs. You can worry about building up your confidence and stage presence after you’ve come out the other side of this first night in one piece, you resolve. Right now, you’re just trying to work up the courage to unstick your eyes from the setlist taped to the floor in front of you. Those titles printed in bold black ink are the only familiar things you can see, and you wish someone else covered in black ink were standing in front of you for you to rest your gaze on. Someone to use his tattooed fingers and devilish grin to charm you like a snake, prevent you from curling up and hiding from him, from the tens of thousands of people who traveled and paid good money to see you. You can’t let them down, let him down. You won’t.

One of the songs toward the end of your set requires Angel to be the sole performer for the first few measures before your voice and your band come in behind her. The song starts with a repetitive, hypnotic strum pattern, one you’ve practiced hundreds of times by now. But, it’s easy to get lost in it, lose track of your place if you allow your mind to get distracted or your fingers to be on autopilot for too long. 

That’s exactly what’s happened, you realize, when the first verse starts without its igniting lyric. You come in just in time to sing the second line, hoping your voice isn’t coming out too shaky as you try to cover up your mitsake. Your face feels hot, fingers struggling to grip your guitar pick as they become sweaty with embarrassment.

You start gettin’ nervous, you look at me, he had told you, what seems like hours ago now. 

When you feel you’ve got a better handle on the song, you turn your head toward the wings to find him already looking at you. If he had noticed the slip-up, his face doesn’t let onto it, which helps to relax you. He wears a proud smile, and holds eye contact until you’re ready to let it go.

His reassuring presence allows you to finish strong, and the remainder of your set is over before you know it. When the drums and bass have faded behind you, and the remaining tones of your closing chord have dissipated into the air, you start to come back into your own body as the white noise filling your ears turns into voices. They’re cheering, whistling, screaming. You raise a hand above your brows, blocking the harsh spotlights so you can get a better look at the crowd, at the thousands of people you had been too scared to acknowledge the reality of earlier this evening. You break into a laugh, eyes becoming wet when you realize Joel was right, you could do it. You did do it. And the crowd fucking loves you. 

Unable to contain your elation, you step back from your mic to do a little spin in place, strumming out some final nonsense chords with your nose all scrunched up as the skirt of your dress flutters around you. You take a bashful bow and wave to the crowd, your cheeks burning with the stretch of your smile. Stepping forward again, your voice echoes around the venue as you extend some final “thank you”s to your incredible audience, reminding them of your name one last time before skipping offstage, your band following close behind. 

Although your vision is still recovering from the blinding lights, you don’t find Joel in your quick scan of the dark backstage area, and you figure he must be doing some last-minute warm ups or pre-show rituals with the rest of Death’s Head. You share a quick celebration with your bandmates, and then head your separate ways for the night, realizing when you go to change your clothes in your dressing room that you’ve still got Angel draped across your body. It’s going to take a few shows to get used to leaving her onstage for a roadie to pack up for you, you suppose. It’s difficult to remember that you’re not the only one taking care of yourself anymore. But if this was what the rest of your life was going to be like, what your years of hard work and trying and failing and rejection and acceptance had gotten you, you could certainly learn to get used to it.

For now, you detach yourself from Angel and lay her down gently on the couch in your dressing room, setting a mental reminder to find a stagehand later to surrender her to. You know it’s strange to feel such fondness toward an instrument, but she’s like a close friend to you now, a partner. “We did it,” you say to her quietly, smiling to yourself.

Your sentimental little moment is interrupted by another knock at the door.

“You in there, darlin’?” Joel calls from the other side of the wall.

“Oh, yeah! You can come in,” you permit, and he pushes the door open as you turn to him. “What’re you still doin’ back here?”

He scoffs and makes a face in mock disgust. “Damn, could act a lil’ happy to see me.”

“Sorry,” you giggle as he steps fully inside the room, shutting the door behind him. For a beat, you just stand facing each other in silence. You bounce on your heels and fiddle with the hem of your dress, waiting for him to say something.

“Fuckin’ incredible out there, babygirl. ‘Bout knocked me on my ass, I swear.” He steps closer to you, taking your face in both of his large hands. It makes your breath hitch, your eyes widening as they look into his. “Goddamn superstar, you are. They fuckin’ loved you.”

You break into a grin, swollen cheeks pushing into his calloused fingers. “Thank you… Took me a while to get it going, slipped up a little towards the end, but it was fun. Can’t believe I did it.”

“Well shit, I can. You should be proud of yourself, baby.”

“I am.”

“Good.” He studies your face for a moment, and for a split second, you think he might kiss you, and that you might want him to. You try to knock the thought from your head swiftly, and he drops his hands from your face as you do.

“So listen, came back here to ask you somethin’ actually. I know it’s pretty short notice and all, but the guys and I were wonderin’ if you’d wanna come back out and open our set with us.”

Your lips part in surprise, blinking quickly as you process his request. “Oh, um… That’d be really cool, but–”

“But what? C’mon, sweetheart, they loved you. They’ll go crazy for it.” He almost sounds like he’s getting impatient, the way he cuts you off. 

You try to justify your hesitation, hoping he’ll understand. “We just didn’t rehearse it together, I don’t really know the chords–” He interrupts you again. “Don’t matter, we’re changin’ the opener, anyway. Gonna play Kiss it Better instead. Gotta know that one, right? Since you’re such a huge fan and all.”

He’s caught you, and he knows it. Of course you’re familiar with Death’s Head’s biggest hit. When you first fell in love with their music, it was one of the first songs you taught yourself to play. He had probably heard you absentmindedly plucking out the chorus during your soundcheck. You know you can’t lie to him now.

You take a moment to consider, then nod. “Okay, yeah. I’ll do it.”

The stern look on his face melts into one of smug satisfaction. “Good girl. Now c’mon.”

You lean over to grab Angel from the couch, but Joel stops you with a hand on your arm. “Won’t need her.”

You pause, turning your head to look at him with your brows furrowed. “I won’t?”

“Thought you just said you knew the song, baby. You forget how it starts?”

Oh.

He wants you to perform that part of the song with him. You wish you had remembered how the intro goes before agreeing to go back out there.

Shit.

Joel jerks his head toward the hallway with a “c’mon”, and you follow him out of your dressing room and back to the side of the stage. The rest of Death’s Head is already waiting, looking exasperated by Joel’s tardy appearance. Tommy gives you a double take, a brief look of confusion washing over his face before adjusting his expression to offer you a friendly smile instead. He and Joel exchange a few hushed words, and it doesn’t take much for you to gather that the guys weren’t in on this at all. This last minute switch up had all been Joel’s idea.

When the brothers are done speaking, Tommy nods in understanding, then passes the change in plans along to Eugene and Jesse. Joel must hear the erratic metallic scrape of your crucifix dragging across its silver chain as you fidget with it, and he turns his attention to the thousand yard stare you’re wearing.

He nudges one of your shoulders with his own to jostle you back to reality. “Where’d my confident girl go, hm?”

“Nowhere. Just… wasn’t really prepared to do this.”

“Just follow my lead, sweetheart. It’ll be good, promise.”

You nod, blinking rapidly, trying to focus on his face in the dark.

“You ready?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Joel grins down at you in satisfaction, then turns to face the band. “Whaddya say we get this show on the road then, boys?”

Tommy claps him on the back with a “Let’s do it, brother,” and then Joel is taking your hand in one of his big paws, leading you back out onto the stage you thought you’d already seen the last of.

An explosion of screams and cheers even louder than the one you’d received nearly knocks you over where you stand next to Joel, unsure of what to do with yourself while you await his instruction. He lets go of you briefly to pick up his guitar and situate the strap across his broad chest, then replaces his hand against the small of your back. It feels a little grounding, reassuring, and prevents you from being consumed by too many questions of what the fuck you’re doing out here. You’re pleasing him, that’s what. Not letting him down, right? Doing what he asks, because you’d do anything he asks, and he knows that.

He introduces himself and the band to the crowd, not that they need reminding of who they shelled out a couple hundred each to see tonight, and then you realize he’s talking about you.

“Remember her? Beautiful, ain’t she? Hell of a performer, too,” he speaks into his mic. You turn to smile at Joel while the sea of voices threatens to swallow you up, and the way he’s looking back at you is doing much the same. His expression is hungry, almost, and it reminds you of what it is you’re about to do.

He turns to face the crowd again. “Y’all seemed to like her so much, thought she could be my lil’ helper for our first song this evenin’. That alright with y’all?” Another ground-shaking response from the audience, and he leans closer into the mic to huff a laugh and say, “Thought so.”

Joel covers the head of the device with his hand, so that he’s only speaking to you now. “C’mere, sweetheart. Stand in front o’ me.” His other hand tightens against your lower back, moving you to where he wants you. “Want you to kneel for me now, baby.” He moves his hand up to your shoulder, applying downward pressure and helping you sink to the floor. Your eyes are doe-like and sparkling as you look up at him, heart pounding and breath quickening as you settle at his feet. The sound of your own blood rushing through your skull almost drowns out the fit of ecstasy erupting behind you, the band’s most loyal fans already knowing where this is going. And so do you.

Joel removes the mic from its stand, holding it to his lips and speaking a final “You know what I wanna hear, go ahead, now,” before lowering it to your mouth, his hand now level with the growing bulge in his jeans. The other one begins to strum a steady rhythm against steel strings, building up to the crescendo into the crash of the song’s first verse.

You hesitate, opening and closing your mouth once as you reach a wavering hand towards the microphone. Joel shakes his head in disapproval, and his lips form shapes that look like “hands to yourself”. He smirks down at you when you quickly snatch your hand away, pleased with your obedience. His silver brow piercing catches the light when he jerks his chin upward, the bright lights making his eyes appear to flash like a cat as he encourages you to speak.

“Please…” you squeak out, your voice providing the queue for Tommy’s thrumming bassline to come in.

Joel swings the mic back up to his mouth to speak into it once more, initiating this depraved little game of give and take. “Please, who?” he challenges, and then it’s your turn again.

You swallow, knowing what he wants to hear. “Please… Please Da– Daddy…” The title catches in your throat, this being the first time you’ve ever spoken it aloud the way you’ve always fantasized about. What a debauched sight you must be, pretty young thing on her knees for her teenage rock idol, calling him Daddy in front of thousands and thousands of strangers. If only your mother could see you now.

A kick drum comes to life somewhere behind Joel’s towering form. It vibrates your already sore knees, the feeling traveling to the apex of your thighs. “Tha’s it. Now please, what? Use your fuckin’ words, baby.” His demanding tone prompts a soft whimper to escape your lips, and you shift on your heels. His eyes flick down to where the hem of your dress just barely conceals your panties, licking his lips before focusing on your face again.

“Please kiss it better, Daddy,” you plead, and a warm, fluttery sensation begins to wash over you. Your eyelids feel a little heavier, your brain feels a little cloudy, and he knocks the underside of your chin with the mic once to bring you back to him.

“Hm, I dunno… Still think you can beg a lil’ prettier than that. Try one more time for Daddy...” He flashes his canines as he watches your hips rock back and forth, unsure if you even know how your body is reacting to him. He’s got you exactly where he wants you now, making a mess of yourself for him, shedding the skin of that shy little girl he first met not so long ago. 

“Mmh, please, Daddy, need you to kiss it better, please…” Your voice sounds fucking wrecked, and you almost don’t recognize it as your own. It takes you a second or two to realize that Jesse’s guitar has joined in over top of the drums, and you know your little performance is over now.

Joel steals the mic from your panting mouth for a final time, slotting it back into its stand. With lips pressed against the device, he growls, “A’right, good girl, tha’s enough, baby,” and his shrieking guitar resounds all around you as your reward. 

You stay kneeling for the remainder of the song, recovering from the whiplash of sinking into such a soft, unfamiliar headspace for the first time only to have nothing come of it. Attempting to recenter and distract yourself, you study Joel’s fingers up close as he plays, trying not to think too hard about those gothic letters adorning his knuckles. It’s no use, of course it is, and you shift around on your sore knees as the memory of that title leaving your lips, being commanded of you by him, replays itself like a skipping record. You’re a little ashamed at the feeling of how soaked your panties are, only being made worse when you chance a look up at Joel to find him already staring down at you, singing the suggestive lyrics of the song to you.

The final chords ring out a few minutes later, and then he’s reaching an inked hand down for you to take. You use it as leverage to push yourself back up to your feet on shaky legs, and you attempt to smooth out the bottom of your dress while Joel maneuvers you to face the crowd again.

“What a performance, huh? God damn,” he praises, making your cheeks burn as he drinks you in again. “‘S all I need from you for now, sweetheart, catch up with you later, yeah?” 

You nod, doing an uncoordinated little curtsy toward the roaring crowd, cheering voices peppered with a few lewd-sounding whistles and hollers. “A’right, you run along, beautiful thing,” and he sends you offstage with a wink and what seemed like an unspoken promise for more, later.

–

Earlier in the day, you had been looking forward to watching the band from the wings after you were done performing, realizing how cool it was going to be that your first time seeing them live would be from somewhere even better than the front row. You can’t even bear the thought of that now.

You make a beeline from the stage to your dressing room, searching frantically for the lighter and pack of cigarettes in your bag. God damn, you need a fucking smoke right now, and some fresh air. It’s like striking gold when you find them buried underneath receipts and gum wrappers and makeup, guarding them with your life as you head out the venue’s back door.

You let it slam behind you as you press your exposed back up against the cold exterior wall, shaky fingers trying desperately to flick the lighter on and ignite the cigarette between your lips. Closing your eyes for a moment, you take a deep inhale of smoke, letting the cool night air wash over your heated skin. It’s impossible to escape him entirely, even all the way on the other side of the amphitheater, his muffled timbre still audible as the breeze carries it across the dark sky. You let your gaze rest on nothing in particular as you puff through your cigarette, trying to process what the hell just happened out there.

The problem isn’t so much what you did, it’s that you liked it, the evidence of which is still smeared along your aching cunt and between your thighs. The light wind flutters the skirt of your dress, and the sensation on the cooling moisture at your core sends a shiver up your spine, igniting goosebumps all along your exposed skin.

When your cigarette is almost burned down to a nub, you’re tempted to put it out on your arm, just to see if the burn might wake you up from whatever insane erotic dream you seem to be having.

‘S all I need from you for now, sweetheart, catch up with you later, yeah?

For now. Catch up with you later.

You’re sure he meant nothing by it, the “catching up” most likely referring to a conversation where he tells you not to look too far into what happened tonight, that it was just a performance, all a part of his act. You had played your part, it was a one time, spur-of-the-moment thing, and now you navigate the rest of the tour pretending it never happened.

You toss the smoldering butt of your smoke onto the pavement, stomping it out before heading back inside, the majority of your racing thoughts now slowed by a dense cloud of tobacco. You feel a little more stable than you did twenty or so minutes ago, letting your heavy boots lead you to the venue’s green room. You plant yourself on one of the large couches upholstered in tacky paisley fabric, preparing yourself for the awkward but professional talk you’re bound to have with Joel once the show is over.

Eyeing the bar cart in the corner of the room, you decide to get up and pour yourself a drink to pass the time. You don’t typically go for brown liquor, but it’s what’s in front of you, likely at the band’s request. Joel certainly strikes you as a whiskey kind of guy, at least. You hope he won’t mind if you help yourself to some of his share, pouring a finger into a short glass with ice and filling the rest with half a can of Coke from the ice bucket on the cart.

There’s a small, square television in the room, which you notice is playing a live feed of what’s happening on stage. You spot its accompanying remote on the lacquered coffee table in front of you, and grab it to turn the volume up as you begin to sip on your drink. 

It’s not the most high-definition feed you’ve ever seen, and you can tell the television is a few years outdated. But it’s good enough for you to use to pass the rest of the time. You could woman-up and just watch from the side of the stage like you had planned on, but it’s nice to have this little room to yourself for now. The combination of watching Joel through the shabby screen and the sagging couch you’re practically sinking into reminds you of home, in a way, of the first time you’d ever seen his face aside from album covers and posters ripped from magazines. It’s still hard to believe you’ve met him now, performed with him, been on your knees for him. The memory makes you squirm uncomfortably, both from arousal and humiliation. 

You allow your focus to be shifted to the small pile of Rolling Stone copies on the coffee table instead of your little performance, and flip through the pages while the crackling sound of the rest of Death’s Head’s set plays in the background. You’d always had a knack for finding ways to keep yourself distracted, and you’re thankful for that skill now.

After another hour or so, your attention is pulled back to the television when you hear the words “thank you” and “goodnight” in the mix of what Joel is shouting to the crowd, and you realize the show must be over now. A glance at the clock on the wall lets you know it’s almost eleven thirty, and a yawn takes over the muscles of your jaw on instinct. Between all you’ve been through tonight and what ended up being two Jack and Cokes, you’re looking forward to finally changing out of your clothes and tucking yourself into your tour bus bed. You hope it’s at least somewhat comfortable, having not had a chance to lie down on it yet. 

But before you can succumb to the temptation of sleep, you have to catch up with Joel first. You’ve already gone over what he might say to you a dozen times in your head, prepared for any and all possibilities when he pulls you aside tonight to set the record straight between the two of you. 

The stage is dark and empty now on the square little screen, the sound of screams and applause replaced by baritone laughter and heavy footfalls approaching the green room door. When Joel pushes inside with the other men in tow, you sit up a little straighter and offer him a friendly smile as he heads straight for the bar cart. You were right in your assumption of his alcohol preferences, watching as he pours himself a generous glass of the same whiskey now working its way through your bloodstream.

“You stealin’ some of my good liquor, darlin’?” he jokes, noticing that the cap on the bottle had already been unscrewed and spotting the glass on the table in front of you.  

“Yeah, sorry, was hoping you wouldn’t mind.”

“Nah, ‘s fine by me. Want me to top off your glass?” He asks as Tommy relaxes into the other end of the couch you’re perched on. Jesse and Eugene sit down together in a creaking loveseat to your left, already engaged in a conversation of their own.

“I’ve already had two, I probably shouldn’t–” you protest.

Joel interrupts you, reaching a hand out and making a grabbing gesture towards your quarter-full drink. “We’re celebratin’, baby. C’mon, hand it over.”

You oblige, surrendering your glass, and it becomes more and more true with each interaction with Joel that he really doesn’t ever take ‘no’ for an answer. At first, you had thought Tommy’s warning was because Joel was just stubborn, which does seem to be the case. But he doesn’t have to argue much to get his way, he gets it just because his charm and demeanor warrant it. It’s like he cast a spell on you the moment you first met him, and now you can’t help but to say ‘yes’ to whatever he asks of you, even if it might be against your better judgment. 

Joel hands your glass back to you, a little more Jack and a little less Coke than you would’ve poured for yourself, but you only have to sip on it long enough to get through the “catching up”. Maybe the extra helping will make the whole thing a little easier, anyway. Joel plants himself on the black leather chair across from the couch you’re sitting on, groaning as he spreads his legs and relaxes his forearms on top of the chair’s wide armrests. There’s a lamp that sits in the corner of the room, and the warm glow illuminates the back of his head of curls, still damp and sticking in odd directions from the sweat he worked up while performing. The slight golden halo almost makes him look like a king sat atop his throne. 

He catches you staring, studying him, and his lips tug into a smirk. He chooses not to taunt you about it, instead turning his attention to Tommy to talk about the show. That’s what you assume they’re talking about, at least. You feel a little awkward, out of place among the group of men, and your eyelids are getting heavier with each passing minute despite their gruff voices and sharp bursts of laughter. You let yourself shrink into the couch's worn fabric, swirling your glass around and taking an occasional sip just to look like you’re doing something. You’re half tempted to reread one of the magazines you had already looked through.

Eventually, after each of the men have gotten a drink or two in them, Tommy is the first to rise from his seat. You had been playing with the lace hem of your dress, tracing the patterns with your finger, so engrossed in it you had almost forgotten you were sharing the couch with him.

“Well, you ready to head out, boys? Keep the party goin’ a lil’ bit longer?” he proposes. “You’re welcome to come too, sweetheart, if you wanna. Just not sure it’d be your kinda scene,” he adds, turning to you.

“Oh, it’s okay, I’ll probably just head to bed soon. Thank you for offering, though.”

Tommy smiles at you and nods in understanding. Jesse and Eugene accept his invitation, and then there’s only one member of Death’s Head whose plans you’re unsure of. “You comin’, brother?” Tommy asks him.

“Nah, I’ll stay here. Make sure our special guest gets to her bus alright ‘n all.”

“Good idea... Well, see y’all later, then. You were great tonight, darlin’, by the way,” Tommy compliments, and you smile politely as you thank him.

The three men leave the room, closing the door behind them, and now you’re alone with Joel again. It’s mostly silent, save for the squeak of the leather and light jingling of metal chains when he decides to get up from his chair, replacing Tommy in the empty spot beside you on the couch. He crosses one leg over the other, resting a calf atop the opposite thick thigh. You can feel his gaze on you as he stretches his arms across the back of the couch, not quite sitting close enough to you for his arm to reach across your shoulders. You fidget with your fingernails, avoiding acknowledging his presence until you have to. Please just get it over with.

“Said it once, said it a million times, but you really were amazin’ out there tonight. Appreciate you bein’ so willin’ to do that for me last minute.”

“Oh, um… yeah. I mean, the crowd seemed to like it, so–”

“And how’d you like it?”

His question takes you by surprise, and it finally makes you turn your head to look at him. Why does it matter if you liked it or not? You’re sure nothing like it will ever happen again as far as you’re concerned, as far as you’re sure he’s concerned.

“How’d I like what…?” You question, just to make sure he’s asking you what it seems like he is.

“You know exactly what I’m talkin’ about, sweetheart,” he speaks lowly, those carnivorous eyes of his scanning over your body, coming to rest on where white lace just barely conceals the tops of your thighs.

“Oh… I, um… I liked it, I guess,” you admit sheepishly.

“‘S okay if you did, I could tell.”

And there he goes again, always being fucking right about you. You should know by now that there’s no use in trying to skirt around the truth with him.

You continue to try, anyway. “I just haven’t really done something like that before, wasn’t sure if I was doing a good job.”

“Did a perfect job, babygirl. Looked so pretty on your knees for me, sounded so sweet when you were beggin’ for Daddy.”

Oh. 

You aren’t sure what you were expecting him to say next, but it certainly wasn’t that. The room starts to spin a little, either from the alcohol still floating through your veins or from the sharp turn your catching up has taken, you can’t say for certain. Joel huffs lightly through his nose, and you think he must have noticed your breath catch in your throat and the shift of your hips in response to his filthy compliment, punctuated by the title he used so casually. 

“C’mere, sweet thing. Sittin’ so far away, you scared o’ me or somethin’?” He teases.

“N-no…”

“Didn’t think so. Now don’t make me ask again, sweetheart.” He pats the empty cushion beside him as he speaks, brows raised at you expectantly.

You obey, of course you do, and your heart hammers against your ribcage as you slide closer to his side of the couch. Your eyelids start to flutter against their own volition, and that candy-sweet, far away feeling from earlier on stage begins to make its second appearance of the night.

“Good girl… So beautiful, baby, you know that?” he praises softly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear before lightly rubbing his thumb across your pouty bottom lip. He presses it downward against the pillowy skin, and pushes the digit inside with ease when your mouth parts for him so eagerly. You close your lips around him and swirl your tongue along the calloused skin a few times, and he looks like he wants to eat you alive as he watches you fall apart for him so easily.

Joel pulls his thumb from your mouth, dragging it down your spit-slick lip so that it bounces back into place when his finger leaves your skin. He wears a satisfied grin at the way he has you completely at his mercy now, looking up at him with your glazed-over doll eyes. They scan back and forth between his glowing amber ones, awaiting your next direction.

“Gave you a compliment. What do you say, babygirl, hm?”

“Thank you, Da– unh…” The word starts to come out before you can catch it in time, shove it back into his cage. Your face runs hot immediately at your slip-up.

“‘S okay, sweetheart. You can call me that, if you wanna, say it real pretty for me. Don’t got it tattooed on me for nothin’,” Joel soothes, still-wet thumb rubbing across your cheekbone in placating strokes. “C’mon, finish your sentence, baby.”

“Th– thank you, Daddy,” you repeat, so lost in this saccharine headspace he’s coaxed out of you that you can’t even feel ashamed anymore.

“There we go, good girl… Y’know why I got that special word tattooed on me, hm?” He asks, already knowing you’re too far gone to come up with an answer. But it’s fun to watch those little gears behind your eyes struggle to turn. If you did ever know the reason, it’s long gone now. You shake your head, humming an mm-mm.

“Figured if it was part of the song that made me famous, might as well own it. Don’t you think, sweet girl? Think it belongs to me, that it should always be there to remind you who I am?”

You manage a weak sounding noise and nod in response, cheek brushing up and down against the skin of his palm.

“And who am I, sweetheart? Wanna hear you say it again…”

“D-Daddy…”

He smirks, enjoying how quickly he’s been able to reduce you into nothing more than a wet, pliant puddle of a girl. “Yeah, tha’s right… c’mere, baby. Lemme feel you.” He uncrosses his legs, returning them to their trademark spread so that he can pull you into his lap and situate you into straddling his hips. The position makes your dress ride up so far that your panties are exposed to him now, soaked-through gusset and all. His fingers make to tease the wet spot there, but change course to pay attention to something else first instead. Something scrawled in uneven black linework, peeking out from underneath your dress’ hemline. He pushes the fabric further up your bare thigh to fully unveil the shoddy little illustration, tracing around it with a roughened finger.

“Wha’s this, sweetheart, hm? This for me?” He prompts, hooking a knuckle of the opposite hand into the little dip in your chin, guiding your head downward to look at his discovery. A death’s-head hawkmoth, bearing a striking resemblance to the band’s logo, with its scribbled wings made of bleeding ink spread out across your skin.

You hum in confirmation, not trusting your own voice anymore. He squeezes at the plush skin of your upper thigh, massaging around the tattoo. A faint growl rumbles from deep in his chest. “Tha’s cute, babygirl. ‘S real cute.”

“Th-thank you,” you return, politely accepting his compliment the way he likes you to. 

His large hand migrates from the moth to your dampened core, nudging at your clothed clit with a tattooed knuckle. “All this for me too?” 

You’re so sensitive there, his touch sending a shock through your nervous system that makes your hips rock into his hand. You nod, your affirming noise sounding more like a whimper. He pinches the swollen nub between two knuckles, and you let out a pained little yelp. “Yeah?” he taunts. 

“Yeah, yes, Daddy,” you squeak out, so fucking gone for him already as his other hand guides your hips to move along his covered crotch. Even through his tight jeans, you can feel how hard he is, his cock straining against the thick material.

“Fuck, need to feel this lil’ pussy, baby. You gonna let me?”

“Uh huh, please,” you whine, ready for him to see you, touch you however he wants right here on the worn-down couch cushions. You’ve never felt anything quite like the hazy little cloud he’s got you floating in, shyness and inhibitions suddenly gone, replaced with unabashed submission.

Joel glances at the watch on his wrist, then over your shoulder to the door you’ve got your back to as you continue to unconsciously roll your hips in his lap. 

“Reckon someone’ll be back here pretty soon to clean up for the night, don’t want no one walkin’ in on what I’m about to do to you, do we?” You barely register what he’s saying, making some unintelligible sound in response as you fight to keep your eyes open. “Well, maybe you do… Had you whimperin’ and whinin’ for me in front of all those people pretty quick, didn’t I? Hardly even put up a fight, just wanna be good for me so bad, don’t you sweetheart?”

“Yes, Daddy, wanna be good.” Another wave of wetness seeps from your aching core, staining your panties a shade darker and making the fabric adhere to the shape of your swollen pussy.

“Yeah, fuck, know you do. Hang onto me babygirl, gonna take this somewhere else, let you prove it to me.” He stands up as he speaks, and you wrap your limbs around him as he carries you out the back door of the venue and onto the Death’s Head tour bus.

When he steps onto it with you clutched tightly against him, you can see the bus is spacious enough to have a bedroom in the back, which of course gets to belong to Joel for the next several weeks as opposed to a cramped bunk. You’re not sure there’s ever been a time in his life when he hasn’t gotten exactly what he wants, what he deserves, it seems, and tonight is no exception.

He tosses you onto the bed, and you don’t even have time to unlace your boots before he’s gripping your ankles and yanking you down toward the edge of the mattress. The movement hikes up your dress all the way up to your tummy, and you attempt to pull it back over yourself before his hands are replacing yours on the hem. “Nuh uh, way past that, sweetheart. Off,” he orders, and helps you sit up enough to shimmy it over your head and discard it onto the floor. “Get these off too.” His fingers hook into the waistband of your underwear, and you lift your hips to help him rid you of the ruined fabric. “Now lay down, baby, spread ‘em. Lemme see her.”

You pull your knees in towards you, and Joel places two rough hands on your inner thighs, pushing them apart to slowly reveal your glistening cunt to him as he crouches down to face her. “Oh, she’s pretty, ain’t she?” He marvels, collecting the slick pooling at your entrance with a calloused thumb and using it to circle your sensitive clit. All you can do is whine and let him play with you, so entirely blissed out that you can’t be sure if any of this is real. “Knew you’d have such a pretty lil’ cunt like this.” The sensation of his warm breath ghosting against your sensitive bud combined with his touch and his praise makes you squirm, shifting your hips into his hand and silently begging for more. He uses his thumb to tease your dripping entrance a few times, and laughs when it makes you whine a little louder, a little more pathetic-sounding, before abandoning it to pay attention to your clit again.

“What’re you makin’ all those pretty sounds for, sweetheart, hm? She feelin’ empty, ‘s that it?” He goads, fingers leaving your core entirely as he stands up to finally free his cock from his jeans, hard and angry and leaking. He taps the head against your hole, enjoying the sight of it constricting around nothing. “This what you want, baby? Need me to fuck you full?”

“Unh, uh huh,” you cry, still desperately bucking toward what he’s so close to giving you. 

“Might be a lil’ selfish of me, but I think I wanna hear you beg for it again. Just sounded so sweet tonight, can’t help if I wanna hear it some more... Look at me,” he barks, and you hadn’t realized your eyes were closed until he demanded you to open them. He towers over you, sliding a thick hand up and down his shaft, the wet sound of it making you salivate. “You want this cock?”

“Yeah, yes, Daddy, please…”

“Please, what?”

“P-please gimme your c-cock, Daddy, please… Please f-fuck me.” It almost sounds like you’re crying, the way you’re hiccuping and sobbing through your words, one slurring into the next as you beg him.

“So fuckin’ eager, Christ. Such a good girl for me,” he praises, moving to line himself up with where you’re aching for him the most. You’re probably dripping onto his nice sheets, so soaked that he’ll barely have to put in any effort to fully slip inside you. “I’ll give it to ya, babygirl, fuck. So goddamn desperate.”

You prop yourself up on your elbows to get a better look at him before he spears into you, and you let out an involuntary little mewl at how big his cock is. You only have the one experience to go off of for comparison, but Joel is fucking huge. He’s thick and long, with a blushing mushroom tip and a prominent vein running down the length of him. Your reaction to him makes him refocus on your face, noticing how wide your eyes are as you take him in.

“Can’t promise I’m gonna be gentle, don’t got it in me. Say somethin’ if you can’t handle it, I’ll put your pretty mouth to use instead, ‘kay?”

“O-okay,” you promise, continuing to watch as he begins to push inside with a groan, just the tip at first, until he quickly loses his patience and sheaths the rest of himself inside you.

“Tight lil’ cunt, suckin’ me in already, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good…” He releases a strained breath once he bottoms out, and you swear that swollen tip of his is kissing your fucking cervix. You feel so full, letting out a debauched sound as you adjust to the burn and stretch of him. He lets himself sit inside you for just a second before he slides out almost completely, growling again when he pushes back inside.

“Oh fuck, look at that,” he muses, trailing a hand from your entrance to the expanse of skin just under your belly button. His touch tickles, making you shiver, and you direct your attention from where the two of you meet to whatever it is he’s suddenly become fascinated with. “So big inside you, huh? Tummy’s tryin’ to push me out, can’t hardly take it, Christ… You’re gonna, though, huh sweet girl? Gonna take it for me?”

“Y-yes, Daddy…” you cry.

“Yeah, y’ are, good girl,” Joel says through gritted teeth, and you let your back fall flat against the bed once more as he quickens his pace, rough hands gripped onto the underside of your thighs as he pistons in and out of you. Each slap, slap, slap of skin on skin is accompanied by obscene wet squelching, the sounds becoming more distant in your ears as you let yourself drift away into some dreamy, filthy space. God, you almost wish that stupid bartender you unfortunately gave your virginity to were here to take notes on how to actually fuck a girl. Joel’s got a dirty mouth, and he knows exactly how to use it to push and pull you, mold you into exactly what he wants you to be, at least for tonight. And you’re more than willing to give in.

You’re not sure how much time has passed before you feel a thumb and fingers squeezing either side of your face, forcing your lips into a pout as he jostles your head to bring you back to reality. When your fluttering eyes finally focus on Joel’s face hovering over yours, you can see that his lips are moving, teeth bared as he speaks. He’s looking at you expectantly, his pierced brow twitching into an arch, and you assume he must have asked you a question.

“Hm?” You mumble, and he gives your jaw another little shake.

“Asked you if it feels good, sweetheart. Tell me it feels fuckin’ good, need to hear it, babygirl. C’mon,” he spits through gritted teeth, that rockstar ego of his taking over in its need to be aroused. He punctuates his request with a particularly sharp thrust, one that makes you yelp.

“F-feels… feels good, Daddy. Feel so… so– unh,” you cry out, unable to finish your string of nonsense reassurance, the jumbled mess of sounds only spurring him on to fuck into you even harder. He returns his thumb to your clit, using your slick to rub quick circles around it. It’s all too much, too fast, too hard, too big, but it’s just the right amount of overstimulation to launch you to the edge of your orgasm. You can feel yourself constrict around him, abdominal muscles contracting as you shut your eyes so tight you start seeing stars.

“Oh fuck, gonna come for me, baby? Gonna soak my fuckin’ cock, huh? C’mon, pretty girl, come for me, can feel you chokin’ me.” All it takes is a few more rubs around your aching clit, a few more of his filthy words, few more stuttering pulses of his cock inside your walls so deep and powerful you know you’ll be sore tomorrow, and then you’re howling, spasming on the sheets as he groans above you. Fireworks are exploding on the backs of your eyelids, so vivid you swear you can really hear them. The imaginary booms muffle Joel’s voice as he floods you with his come only a moment later, grumbling good girl, such a good fuckin’ girl, so god damn perfect. 

Falling forward to brace his hands on either side of your head, he stays inside you for a couple of minutes, still rock hard as his cock finishes out its last few shudders. He pulls out all too soon, and you let out an involuntary little whine as soon as he does, your subconscious’ way of protesting the loss.

“I know, babygirl, I know. She misses me already, don’t she?” he placates, thumbing some of his spend still dripping from your fucked out hole and smearing it around your pussy. Not to provide any more pleasure, just to play with you, enjoying the sight of what he did to you. “Did so well for me, sweetheart.”

As you half-whisper a “thank you, Daddy,” you hear what sounds like the bus door open and close, followed by boisterous laughter and clumsy footsteps getting louder and closer. You’re quickly snapped back to the reality of your situation, and panic begins to set in when you fully realize where you are and what you’ve just done, and with who. You’d been so lost in arousal and pleasure you’d lost track of how much time had passed. Joel hears them too, and notices the fear in your expression as he sucks his finger clean from your shared release.

“Oh, shit... It’s fine, sweetheart, it’s okay. Listen to me.” You lock your eyes onto his, your brows knit together in worry as you push yourself up to a more alert sitting position. “Just stay put, alright? You can… just sleep here tonight, I guess. Not gonna sneak you out like a fuckin’ teenager.”

“Okay,” you reply, wrapping your arms around your body as you start to shiver. For some reason, you feel the need to apologize. 

He looks around the room, quickly shoving himself back into his jeans and running his hands through his damp hair. He reaches into a still half-packed suitcase and tosses you one of his t-shirts, black with a fading whiskey brand logo printed across the chest. “Here, uh… put this on. I’ll bring you somethin’ to clean up with, just try to relax.” 

You make quick work of slipping it over your head, enjoying the comforting feeling of the soft cotton on your skin, providing some warmth on your chilled skin as its thin layer of perspiration begins to dry.

Joel slips out of the bedroom in the second that the dark fabric covers your eyes, closing the door behind him. You can hear the men’s voices erupt at the sight of him, greetings coated in their slowly dissipating inebriation. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like they’re asking him any questions, mostly just laughing at themselves as they talk over each other, struggling to recount some apparently hilarious story from earlier in the evening. From the sounds of it, you just had to be there, you guess. Tommy says something to Joel of a similar effect, and then the commotion seems to quiet down as they each collapse onto their bunks.

The bedroom door opens again a minute later, and you lean back where you sit in an attempt to duck out of the sight of the other band members.

He lets out a light chuckle at your stealthy movement. “They ain’t gonna see ya, darlin’. Wouldn’t remember it tomorrow even if they did. Here, brought you these–” He sets a glass of water down onto a nightstand with one hand, the other occupied with a damp washcloth. You extend your arm to take it from him, and he tuts. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. Lemme do it. Lay down again, like I had ya before.”

You obey him wordlessly, resuming the same position he had just fucked you in a few minutes prior. His touch is much softer, gentler this time, as he uses the warm cloth to pet at your still-sensitive pussy, cleaning her of your shared fluids. It’s such a striking difference, the two sides of him you’ve seen tonight, and you’re surprised when he completes the task without so much as a suggestive praise or filthy remark. It makes you start to think that he might actually care about you, that maybe he could see you as something more than a plaything, something fun to tease. But he makes it so goddamn difficult to tell for sure. 

“There we are, she’s all cleaned up.” He discards the cloth into a pile of laundry, then bends down to retrieve something else from his suitcase. “Why don’t you cover up with these tonight, too. Since the pair you came in here with is a lil’... outta commission, for the time bein’.” 

You gather that he’s referring to your panties, how they wouldn’t be very comfortable to put back on again, what with how they’re still soaked through with your arousal. He seems to smile at the notion of that being his doing.

“Lift up,” he commands softly, and you raise your feet off the bed, still laid flat on your back with your knees bent. He slides a clean pair of his briefs up your legs, situating them around your waist, before applying light pressure to the tops of your feet to help you lower them once more.

“Alright… Just, uh, make yourself comfortable, then,” he says, laughing quietly when a yawn overtakes your face before he can even finish his sentence. “Think I’m gonna rinse off quick, so… ‘night, I guess.”

“Okay, yeah. ‘Night, Joel,” you reply, and he offers a quick nod as he slips out the bedroom door again. You infer that he’s expecting you to fall asleep before he comes back, which is fine, you suppose. You’re not sure you could force yourself to stay awake much longer to wait for him, anyway. Reaching over to the glass on the nightstand to take a few sips of the water he brought you, you let your mind wander to what he could be thinking right now, what any part of tonight could mean. He cleaned you up, he’s letting you sleep over, he didn’t sell you out to his bandmates. That means he cares about you, right? He didn’t kiss you, but everything happened so fast, and you could’ve been the one to kiss him if you had enough wherewithal to do so. Maybe he’s just not much of a romantic guy. But he cares about you, you’re sure of it now.

You pull back the sheets and curl yourself into a ball underneath them, then extend a hand up to turn off the bedside lamp. Now shrouded in darkness, the muffled sound of the bus shower running nearby prompts your heavy eyelids to pull further and further over your eyes. It only takes a few minutes for you to finally succumb to the temptation of sleep, feeling sore but satisfied, hoping that tonight will be the first of many spent like this with him.

–

You wake up several hours later to an empty bed, having been so exhausted last night that you don’t have any recollection of if Joel had ever joined you there in the first place. You don’t even remember hearing the shower turn off, or feeling his big, warm body slide into bed beside you, or even noticing the bus lurch into motion at some point to transport you to the next city. You wonder if he had pulled you close to him, let you nuzzle into his chest, if he had scratched the top of your head to soothe you after you had made some little noise in your sleep. You think at least one of those things might have happened, you’re just not sure which one. You smile to yourself at the dreamy memory.

Sitting up, you rub the sleep from your eyes, then reach out a hand to feel where the sheets are mussed on his side of the bed. The fitted sheet feels cool, indicating that he must have gotten up a while ago, but let you sleep as long as you wanted. The digital clock on the nightstand reads a little past 10 AM.

You peel back the comforter, swinging your legs around and letting your bare toes touch down on the carpet. You carefully pad your way to the bedroom door, staying quiet in case any of the other band members are out there. Cracking the door open ever so slightly, you check if the coast is clear. The men’s bunks look empty, but you can see the boots of someone sitting on a couch near the front of the bus. The silver tips make them unmistakably Joel’s.

When you make your way over to him, it almost looks like he’s just been sitting there waiting for you to finally wake up, the way he’s hunched forward over last month’s issue of a guitar magazine. He’s fully dressed, and you feel a little embarrassed to still be wearing his shirt and briefs.

He flicks his eyes up to you quickly before returning them to his reading, and greets you with a curt “Mornin’”. Not spoken playfully, not punctuated with one of his charming little names for you or a scan of his eyes over your bare legs, just “mornin’”. You repeat the word back to him, taking a seat on the couch opposite him. You’re not really sure what else to say or do, the air feeling tense and thick for a reason he hasn’t let on to yet. You decide to be brave and break the silence first, but he cuts you off, closing his magazine and tossing it onto the coffee table between you.

“Listen, last night was a mistake, alright? I shouldn’t’ve let myself get carried away like that, should’a shown you some more respect, treated you like a professional. That’s what this is gonna be from now on, okay? Professional. Tell me you understand that.”

Your heart plummets into your stomach at his words, and you try not to let your face reflect the cocktail of confusion and disappointment and hurt you feel. You take a deep inhale and nod your head. “I understand.”

He looks like he wants to say more, something with some actual emotion behind it, maybe, but he pushes it down. “Already dropped your clothes from last night back onto your bus. Best go on before the boys get back, get yourself somethin’ to eat before soundcheck this afternoon.”

“Okay,” you reply quietly, eyes glued to the floor so he doesn’t see the whites of your eyes turn pink and the shine begin to well up in them. “Um, see you later, then, I guess.”

“Yeah,” is all Joel says back to you, but you hardly hear it as you swiftly exit the Death’s Head bus and slam the door behind you. You don’t have far to go, you and your band’s bus being parked right behind theirs, but it feels like the longest, most shameful sprint of your life. You allow your tears to fall once you’re safely cocooned inside your own bunk bed, thankful to be alone. You figure your band must be out for a late breakfast or exploring the city together, and you’re grateful that even if they did notice you missing last night, they probably won’t ask any questions about it.

You feel so fucking stupid, like such a naive little girl, for ever entertaining any of your childish hopes that some playful flirting and a one night stand might ever turn into something real. He’s made it very clear to you now that you’re nothing more than a little mouse for him to bat around, toying with your emotions and your cunt any way he pleases, just because he can. Because you’re so inexperienced, such an easy target, too good and too eager and too willing. And he knows you’ll do exactly as he asks now, keep it professional, because it’s what he commanded of you. And you want to please him, don’t you? Despite the hurt you feel now, you still can’t make yourself disobey him.

You feel drained all over again once your tears finally run dry, but decide you can’t let yourself wallow on your own shattered girlish dreams all afternoon. You turn over and pull the curtain back on your bunk to check the clock on the wall, and realize you have a good handful of hours until you have to be anywhere. You’ve done more with less, you think to yourself, springing out of bed to pull on some of your own clothes. You rush to locate a pen and a notepad, and retrieve Angel from the storage underneath the bus. 

With all necessary items in your possession, you sit yourself down on your own bus’s couch, and let your tangled mess of feelings transform themselves into chords and lyrics. You’ve always used your music as an outlet to cope with what you’re dealing with, why should now be any different? He wants a goddamn professional, you’re going to show him one, and if he can spring a surprise on you as big as moaning for Daddy on stage in front of tens of thousands of people, you can certainly perform a brand new song just for him, tonight.

tag list: @beefrobeefcal @iamasaddie @rebel-held @dilfgestivo @zliteraturehoe @joeldjarin @kamcrazy123 @hellowoolf @rexamongthestars @stevie75

message/comment/ask if you'd like to be added!!

[unboundtravels]

🎲 ...

𝑀𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲

send  🎲  and i’ll place our muses into this generator and post the resulting muse combinations and a few ideas on how to make it work! 

This one was a bit hard! I had to look up some of the characters I was unfamiliar with, but overall I think some of the pairings here can work! A lot of what I might plugin is simply just because my knowledge of the world of certain worlds is a bit rusty, so I did my best! But I like a lot of these pairings.

Nous * The Scarf Doctor [Time War]

I am like 99.9% the Genius Society and The Timelords have beef. In the classic era of Doctor Who (the 1963 - 1983 run) the show had this kind of implication that advanced societies and genius-level-intellect races were aware of The Timelords. To those who were able to perceive The Timelords. If you were smart enough to "see into the unseen world of science" then you basically were aware of The Timelords, otherwise they were this unknown myth-status eldritch godlike beings. To those in the loop, though, they were basically this non-interfereing race that had a huge monopoly on Time Travel, which is what made Gallifrey such a beast in terms of the power structure of the universe— it's also what made The Daleks so feared as a race. The Daleks were absolutely the worst possible race to catch up to the Timelords in power. I definitely think that members of the Genius society or even Nous himself has a reason to not only be distrustful of The Timelords, but downright aggressive to them. The Timelords were hypocrites. They swore never to interfere with the progress of the Universe unless the web of time was threatened— but they also sent agents (the doctor) back in time to try and AVERT the creation of The Daleks because the Daleks had the potiential to threaten gallifreyan power. Additionally, they failed!! Which is what STARTED The Time War!! So, factor all that in— make The Genius Society aware of the carnage and chaos of The Time War and how devestating it is to the universe and how utterly unstoppable both The Timelords & The Daleks are (justified anger towards deserving forces.) THEN!! Put maybe the only good Timelord in a situation where he arrives to help The Genius Society repel a Dalek invasion of one of their stations— and you've got some real fucking drama. 

VINCENT VALENTINE & THE SIXBY DOCTOR

On the other hand, wouldn't hijinks also be fun? Sixby, my little puffball of a 60's era Black & White Doctor— arriving in a twilight-zone like world, and meeting Vincent. At first, word of mouth has him believing Vincent is actually a Dracula-esque Villian. When he eventually does track Vincent down and confront him, The Doctor realizes that he actually isn't that bad of a guy and maybe the people hunting Vincent down have a mob-based mentality. So he tries to help Vincent escape at risk of his own life. A nice little one off adventure where two immortals help each other out.

MR. FOX & THE BOND DOCTOR

Knock knock! It's an Alien Empire that acts all high and mighty and they want to put the Earth on trial for something stupid. They seek out The Doctor to act as a legal consult to the defendant's attorney, and then cycle through a randomized list of lawyers to represent their client: The Earth. Unfortunately, Mr. Fox is the lawyer they select? What are they offering to pay? Oh, ya know, just not blowing up the planet. An exiled Doctor, with nowhere to go but Earth, has no choice but to save it (even though the threat of it being blown up was enough, he's not entirely motivated by his morality.) He has to align himself with Fox and has to aid him in repersenting The Earth so that the Planet can survive.

VOID ARCHIVES & THE WAR DOCTOR

This interested me, but I struggled to figure out what prompts the two to meet and how they interact. VA is described as an antagonist via most of the sources I've found— so I imagine that during the Time War, VA is kind of let loose during the war. That happens very late in the war— entities that usually are dormant and uninterseted in the universe are awoken by the war and it's violence. Whilst those entities often view the war as beneath them, some admit have predicted that it's destructive capabilites might overwhelm the power of a god, leading to the destruction of the perceivable universe and all life within the cosmos. The Time War even bled into the multiverse on various accounts, and I can see that being the reason VA is able to enter the war and interact with it. Bleedout from the Doctor's universe could attract him like sharks to blood. The instability caused by The War is so intense and powerful that if it were correctly harnessed, it could give one unimagineable power with destructive consequences. Perhaps The War Doctor has to find himself facing off against Void all on his own in order to stop him from taking advantage of the destructive power of the war. I could see the thread being a sort of... space-operatic, you know? Lots of action as both armies fight around the stand off being waged between The War Doctor & Void. 

[theboysfromaustin]

March 26, 2020

"If I eat any more bread, I'm going to hurl."

"I - I know, Kaz," Gav held his hands up, "He's turned into an absolute menace." "In the kitchen all day, surrounded by mountains of bread dough, he's like the Pillsbury Scarface. I want my husband normal again." "Normal." "Well, usual Ian, sweet and goofy.  The guy in the kitchen is covered in flour and slightly crazed." "The neighbors can't take it either."

"How much bread has he made in less than a month?" "I lost count after 300." "Jesus." "I think even Jesus would be sick of bread at this point." "How do we tell him?  I'm kind of scared…" "We should make Anders do it." "Yeah, distract Ian with the baby, then talk him down."  Martha pushed through the screen door and out onto the porch.

She made a beeline for the front garden, dropped a loaf of bread, and began digging.  "Shit, that's a good idea." "Even the dog who eats everything given to her is sick of bread." "Call the kid." Gav nodded, pulling out his phone, hit the contact, and put on a syrupy-sweet voice, "Heyyyyy, son.  How ya doin'?" "Dad, I swear to god if this is about bread…" "It is." There was no response other than a long, exasperated sigh.

"I'm sorry."

"He needs to be stopped." "We know, we know.  We're kind of scared of him." "He smells like yeast." "We thought you and Dermot could distract him with the baby." "That hasn't really worked.  This started after you guys watched him for the first time." "Maybe if we watch him overnight again…" "I bet I can convince Dermot this may fix a broken half-Welsh idiot.  Give me like, half an hour.  Wait, what about Maureen." "Maureen is not sick of bread." "Damn."

Anders hung up, and Gav sighed, "Well…" "I'm going to go talk to him," Kazuo stood, a bit wobbly, and headed to the kitchen, a place he now feared.  Ian was standing at the counter, arms caked in flour, the mixer working hard to knead dough.  The oven was also in use, while another loaf was covered to rise.  His hair was disheveled, dark circles under his eyes.

"Heyyy…." Kazuo crept in, "How ya doin'?" "I think I've got a good rye recipe going." "Um," Kazuo bit his lip, "Have you thought about going back to work?" "Why would I?" "Well," Kazuo thought quickly, "It would give you more of a challenge than baking bread."  Gav poked his head around the screen door, Martha pushing past him.  The dog trotted into the kitchen, planted all four feet on the ground, and screamed like a hoarse seal.

"What the…?"

Kazuo inhaled shakily.  He was upset, and he was tired of pretending that he wasn't, "Ian!" "Huh?" Ian cocked his head, "What is it?" "You're fucking neglecting everyone and everything that isn't your bread obsession!  I'm sick of it!  Everyone's sick of it!  Even the fucking dog is sick of it!"  Kazuo was letting everything out, there was no stopping him now, "You'd better get your ass back to the law office real fucking quick!  I…I…I just…." He was breaking down now, "I just want my husband back!"

Kazuo let out a hiccuping sob, swiping at his eye.  Ian approached him.  He looked different, like he'd just woken up, "Have I really been that terrible?" "Yes!" Kazuo choked out, "You stay in here practically all day, you don't sleep, and…I miss you.  We all do.  I miss hanging out at the office, going to get drinks…just being together."  

Ian pulled him into a tight hug, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize…I'm going back to work.  I'll work until the day I die.  I can't believe I did this to you guys, I need to make up for it.  Just…keep the finished stuff.  Get rid of the rest, and keep me out of the kitchen for a while.  How can I make it up?" Gav entered and began cleaning.  "Take us out tonight.  Dinner, drinks, dancing."  

Gav's phone chimed, "Maybe not tonight.  That's what Anders and Dermot are doing.  We'll be watching the boy." "Well, that's good, too.  We can go out tomorrow," Kazuo looped his arm around his husband's neck, "We can still be together tonight." "We can play Street Fighter tonight.  Or dirty Scrabble.  Strip Monopoly?" Gav offered up.  Ian laughed, 

"Sounds like a great way to reconnect.  I'm in."

[stevestonbike]

More General Stuff.

My MET average has grown to 1799.9 MET minutes per week averaged over the whole year to date. Good for me! Yes I rode my usual loop last night, but some news items caught my attention this morning so let's talk about that.

One is that diabetes medicine Semaglutide has proved effective in reducing risk of cardiac disease by 20%. A real double blind study too. But it works by making people less hungry so they eat less and do not snack and therefore lose weight. It is expensive and this boutique use increases demand and makes it less available to diabetics. Drug companies rejoice!

Years ago I was a very busy person and started to skip lunch. Eventually I usually skipped lunch and my body stopped being hungry at lunch time. I was not concerned about weight or fitness so I did nothing else. My point is I did not feel hungry at a time I usually did before. No drugs involved, just a stupid workload.

The disease fighting mechanism above is eating less. Not the actual drug burning fat. Just thought I would emphasize that.

I have to admit my fitness thing is kinda bipolar. I spend my workdays typing and mousing and spreadsheeting away on the computer. Three times a week I go hard on the bike to make up for that. I got a fitness watch to remind me to get up and walk around at work, as 7 hours motionless from the chest down is not good. I sometimes pay attention when it beeps and says "MOVE."

Off my bike I am a potato. I rationalize that extremes of activity prepares the body for being stupid ready. Ya that is a total rationalization.

In even slightly more pathetic news apparently 2500 steps per day also reduced risk of Cardiac Death by 20%. Who needs 10,000? Yes a real study done in the UK. You can get fit by being lazy active. Actually that fitness watch nag is to do 250 steps every hour for nine hours so not quite even 2500.

The steps criteria is really a poor measure. I know there is a huge difference walking in one shot at a good pace versus spreading it out over a full day a tiny bit at a time. My wife does 10 k fitness walks in about 90 minutes. That is about 13,000 steps at her stride. She had to work up to that and it is an effort.

My Saturday ride covered 108 km and I got "credit" for 12,614 steps on the day. If I had walked that distance it would have been more like 110,000 steps.

Oh for the mathematically challenged you do not add 20% from drugs and 20% from walking to get 40% healthier. It would be more like 36% if they have a linear cumulative effect.

All in being active at anything is better than not. The human body wants to move, it was built for that. Our ancient ancestors walked miles per day hunting for food. I bet even a McDonalds Burger would be good for you if you walked 5 miles to get it.

So for the next few weeks I need to book moderately long distances. Part is just maintenance, part is making long days in the saddle more routine. My ass was getting quite sore coming down that FN hill.

This is my "summer" shape.