#top 5 fish food

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent-ish life pictures and etc.

[superiorsturgeon]

out of curiosity, why do you like sturgeons so much?

A chance to info dump about my favorite fish…?!

I grew up in the Great Lakes area of North America, where fishing is pretty popular but everyone knows that fish populations aren’t anything like “the good old days” when people took out huge numbers of fish while messing up their spawning sites. I got pretty into fishing when I found out that I could catch bluegill in the surrounding farm ponds, and once in a while my family took me to an isolated fishing cabin for vacation, but for years I never encountered a wild fish bigger than a kilogram or two.

BUT THEN…

I found out about sturgeon! They were HUGE fish that had once lived in the rivers and lakes all around my home, and better yet, fish almost exactly like modern sturgeon had existed all the way back in the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs, and they STILL EXIST TODAY!!! The fact that small numbers of these huge dinosaur fish still existed made them seem almost like a real-life lake monster/cryptid, except that we had proof of their existence!

Furthermore, there’s just nothing else like them. Sturgeon get big. Like, REALLY big. The record for the largest sturgeon was almost 11 meters/24 feet long, which is colossal for freshwater animals. They have armor plates of bone running down their sides, and at the same time they don’t have bony skeletons. They also have a crazy mouth structure, which allows them to actually pop their jaws out like a tube and suck up food. And on top of all of this, the adults are absolute tanks. I’ve seen skin nearly 8mm thick, and it’s so tough that people make leather out of it, and they occasionally lose fins or even entire gill plates and just keep on swimming! (I found out about that last one when I tried to wrestle a big female out of a river and my hand went straight into her gills. She didn’t seem that bothered by it!)

For a long time I filed sturgeon along with Alligator Gar, Giant Mekong catfish, and Yangtze paddlefish as a semi-legendary fish that may still exist, but I was never going to see except possibly in an aquarium, until I enrolled in graduate school. For those unfamiliar with grad school in the US, it typically involves both high-level classes as well as an independent research project the student designs and carries out with help from an experienced professor. When my mentor asked what kind of thing I wanted to study, I tossed out “sturgeon” as one such possibility, expecting to hear that I would probably have to limit myself to more common/accessible species.

I was blown away when she said “Actually, I think I know a guy…”

For the next several years, I got to ride along collecting wild adult sturgeon, gathering eggs, and raising the baby fish in a lab and in a hatchery. I was holding something that I had thought of as a semi-mythical lake/river monster in my own hands! I got to see a river choked with giants as big as 2 meters long, and I got to hold a 5-centimeters mottled baby whose armored scutes were still sharp and possessed the little arrowhead shape and big black pectoral fins that remind me of Mickey Mouse ears! In the video below you can even see a little heartbeat! (Don’t worry, this little guy was returned to the tank soon after to recover from his anesthesia!)

Sadly, I didn’t find anything super groundbreaking in my research, but my experience DID land me a job working in sturgeon aquaculture! If you’ve ever had caviar that wasn’t poached, it probably came from a sturgeon farm, and if you want to see a lot of big fish up close, this is a good place to do it! I probably personally handled more individual sturgeon than there are wild fish in several sturgeon species. In addition, while the wild broodstock I mentioned above might reach 2 meters and over 50kg, the sturgeon I dealt with at the farm would easily double that, and there were a LOT of them! I got to see sturgeon behavior that had never been recorded in field guides, and even a few crazy one-in-a-million mutations like the infamous “ghost” sturgeon!

I even got the opportunity to cook my own sturgeon meat (Yeah, I basically turned into the Touden siblings from Dungeon Meshi except for sturgeon instead of RPG monsters). I got pretty good at making smoked sturgeon, but the meat is also good on the grill or baked, and people have been cooking them in various ways for centuries.

My favorite part of the job was physically wrestling the big fish! Sturgeon are easier to grab than other fish with the right know-how, but a human-sized fish often has its own plans for the day and won’t always cooperate. I was pretty good at moving the adults by the time I left that job, but it was still a wild rodeo every time!

Even more exciting was how we spawned each new generation of sturgeon. In the wild, they form massive spawning runs in big rivers that in the past would be enough to tip small boats, but in a lab or farm we have to use other means. I’ll spare you the details, but I am one of a small number of people who have surgically extracted eggs from a live sturgeon and sutured them back up to swim another day.

The tldr of this essay is that sturgeon are a big, crazy-unique fish that have been around a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of my career handling and working with them. There’s just nothing like them for a fish nerd and they’re damn cool!

(Clip art not mine, I think @sturgeonposting drew or shared it!)

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny Pt.9

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.10]

"Fan-sea meeting you here. You must be Phantom!"

Danny slowly turned around, grin blinding. "I shore am. Who's asking?"

Danny knew exactly who was asking. Bludhaven's vigilante, Nightwing. If the giant dark blue bird emblazoned on the front of his suit didn't give it away, the friendly demeanor and the puns would have. Plus, now that Danny's figured out who Tim was, the rest were pretty simple dots to be connected.

"Hi. I'm Nightwing. Thanks for saving Batman."

"I am Phantom. You are welcome. Please lecture him on the necessity of keeping the waters clean."

"Uh, I think he knows," Nightwing grinned. “So, why are you cleaning Gotham’s bay? I heard the Atlantic is nice this time of year.”

“Exactly. This?” Danny flapped a gloved hand around them, specifically at the moldy docks and the paint scraped board. “This is not nice. If it were nice, I wouldn’t need to be cleaning it. Look at that paint! It’s flaking off into the water! Does Gotham not have proper boat maintainance? That’s dangerous for the waters and seafarers!”

“Woah, you know a lot about boats,” Nightwing commented, crossing his arms and leaning back. What the hero didn’t know was that he knew more about boats than Danny did, as Danny’s hyper fixation was more focused on space ships and Dick had education à la maison de Bruce Wayne which usually meant an absurd amount of information for someone who doesn’t actually use boats as a regular mode of transportation.

“Rust! Rust is very much a thing!” Danny ranted, using his ice to scoop up water and using it like a makeshift filter. “It weakens bonds! It’s a tetanus hazard! And oh, don’t even get me started on how you people mutated the ocean life!”

“Mutated ocean life? I’m pretty sure we hadn’t. It’s just a little weird, right?”

Without another word, Danny dove into the weird ecosystem that was the Gotham bay. He came back holding a wriggling green thing the size of a worm.

“Do you know what this is?” Danny demanded. The thing flopped around on his gloved hands.

“A sea monkey?”

“They’re brine shrimp. Brine. Shrimp. Do you know what regular brine shrimp look like???” Danny shoved the thing at Nightwing, who took a step back.

“Not like that?” He replied, a quizzical look on his face.

“No, not like that! What in the ancients is this?!” Danny waved the weird sea brine that had started glowing faintly, like Danny’s natural ectoplasm glow. “Far be it from me of all people to judge evolution but this was all man made!” Danny gently tossed the brine shrimp back into the bay. “Brine shrimp is staple food for the ocean! You’ve got weird brine shrimp? You’ve got weird fish! Why is it impossible for this place to, for even one day, refrain from dumping hazardous chemicals or dead bodies in the water?”

“Ooookay, how about we take a breather?” Nightwing quickly glanced around, trying to find something to change the subject, feeling oddly guilty at the earnest expression on the kid’s face. “Uh, I was actually wondering if you’d swing by the waters near Blüd?”

Danny crossed his arms. “I clean the waters as a past time because you humans don’t know how to keep it clean. I am not a personal, on call, seakeeper.”

“Batman will pay you for your time,” Dick offered. Danny straightened. Amity didn’t actually cost that much to live well, but Gotham was a whole other ball park. The rent might be dirt cheap for a city, but the special pricey little add ons such as gas masks and space level insulation on top of the sky high insurance policies were draining what’s left of his half dead soul. As they say, Danny was a city dweller first and Phantom second.

“How much, when, and I won’t fish up the bodies unless he pays me extra.”

“Four thousand base pay, extra one hundred per identity, fifty for bodies with no shades, and on the weekends.”

Danny straightened as his mother’s steel spine, Jazz’s whip sharp wit, and his own craftiness made their appearance as he bargained. “Five thousand. Rate agreed, but I can only do every other weekends and I’ll have to call out some days.”

“Okay.” Nightwing rocked back on his heels with an affable smile. It’s Bruce’s money and it’s going towards his probable future baby brother, after all, even if said baby brother is a dead immortal Atlantis founder. Or something.

Danny groaned. “You are supposed to bargain back. But I’ll take it.”

“Great! Who do we got tonight?” Nightwing looked down at the plastic/burlap wrapped person Danny dragged onto the shores a bit ago.

“The lake kept the body cold, so it should be preserved adequately if you want to examine him,” Danny tilted his head to the side, the flames of his hair tilting with him. “He said his name is Gorganzo Bean.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s a nickname he got for eating a whole can of beans straight.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it. Any more details?”

“Sure.”

When Danny reached to take the money from Nightwing, he found that the hero had tightened his grip on it.

Danny pointedly dropped his gaze from Nightwing’s face to the money.

“Wait. I- I heard from a source that you could possibly smell souls.”

Danny yanked the cash out of Nightwing’s hand and shoved it into his shoulder. If that didn’t confirm Nightwing’s identity, he doesn’t know what would other than the guy telling Danny who he was. “You’ve been speaking with Danny. Yes, I can.”

“Can you tell what’s wrong with my brother?” Nightwing blurted out.

Danny stared at him, his legs flickering in and out to his tail form. “…Other than dressing in probably leather or Kevlar and going out to beat criminals with his bare hands?”

Nightwing opened and closed his mouth. He coughed awkwardly. “Other than that. Why is he- um, stinky? Soul-wise,” Nightwing added, clearly humoring the tinny little voice at the base of his temples that was an annoyed Red Hood saying that he showered. “He showers often. And is definitely not stinky body odor wise.”

“I am not a doctor. Well, not now anyways,” Danny said, thinking about his future PhD. “But he’s got a… soul infection. His natural immunity- all souls have a natural immunity against regular outside influences- is working hard to repel the equivalence of chronic bronchitis.”

“There’s… no way to help him?”

“I never said that,” Danny tilted his head. “Bring your brother to meet Danny. He could probably handle it.”

“The civilian?”

“His parents hunted my kind, once. He helped protect me and my people. If anyone knows how to cure it, it would be him.”

Phantom could not afford to deal with this right now, because Danny had a presentation tomorrow that he needed to finish.

“Oh. Thank you, Phantom.” Nightwing said, looking relieved and pensive. Danny decided right then and there that was Future Danny’s problem.

Danny nodded distractedly, blinking out.

He blinked back in. Nightwing jerked back. “Do you happen to have any examples of corrupt politicians in Gotham?”

Nightwing blinked before laughing. “It’d probably be easier to name the ones that aren’t.”

“Good to know. Thank you!”

——

A couple of days later, Tim and two older guys ambushed him in the quad.

“Hi! I’m Dick! This is my brother Jason! We’re Tim’s older brothers!”

Danny looked down at his hand- trapped in an overexcited handshake- and back up at Dick.

Whatever expression he was making, it must have been ha-fucking-larious because Tim and Jason burst out into laughter. Danny cursed his past self.

“Yeah?” Danny blinked. Wait. His smile grew and he made a face like he just realized something. “Oh. So you’re Nightwing?”

The laughter cut off.

“Haha, what?”

“Phantom told me you’d be coming but I, uh, thought you’d be in gear. Not… straight up telling me who you are?”

“You’re in regular contact with Phantom?” Tim demanded.

“Yeah, dude. After you- wait, you’re Red Robin!” Danny whispered.

“Oh shit, B’s gonna be pissed,” Jason drawled, looking mildly amused and hiding an extremely cautious, possibly lethal (if it weren’t for the fact that Danny’s pretty much impossible to kill with regular weapons) reaction.

“You’re one to talk. I’d smell your soul no matter what your disguise was.”

“…About that.”

——

You might be wondering: wouldn’t Dick know not to show up in civvies?

Yes. Except for the fact that Tim stalked Danny for weeks after he met Phantom and Danny hadn’t hung out with (himself) at all. They think Danny doesn’t know Phantom well enough to even talk to him much, despite being from the same town because: they’re all big city kids and have never experienced small town solidarity and, more importantly, gossip grapevines + they have no idea these two are the same people.

A deleted scene:

“When did you have time to talk to Phantom?” Tim demanded. Jason nudged Tim. That had hinted too much at what Tim was doing on his off hours and stalking was usually frowned upon.

“When I wasn’t talking to you, duh.”

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Animal Farm: Thursdays

Kinktober Day 5: Double Penetration

Male Yandere Cat Hybrids x Gender Neutral Reader

CW: Noncon, cum as lube, double penetration, some fluff, clingy yanderes, general yandere behavior, cat men, centaurs mentioned

Word Count: 457

(Wrote for kinktober though I have been meaning to write it for a while. Sorry for the wait. I hope you enjoy it even though I rushed. This is the long awaited fourth day in the farm harem series Animal Farm. The original fic and other days can be found HERE!)

It was Thursday. That meant two horny cat men. Leeko and Meeko. It wasn't so bad; their dicks weren't any bigger than a significantly well-endowed human's, and most of the day was cuddling and playing rather than just fucking. 

You didn't even bother washing off from the last round with the centaurs. Cum still dribbled down your thighs. What was the point? The cat men would lick every inch of you when they saw you, no matter what.

When you entered their shelter, your prediction was proven correct immediately. They had been waiting in anticipation to ambush you as soon as you walked in.

"Farmer!" They exclaimed in unison. 

Leeko, the pale cat man who looked human except for his furry orange cat ears and tail, started at your neck. Meeko, the dark-skinned cat hybrid with calico fur, started cleaning at your thighs and happily lapped up the centaur cum.

They made short work of the task, though they left a bit of cum to use as lube when they made love with their favorite human. 

The calico laid down and pulled you on top of him. He quickly slipped into your cum-lubed hole that had been so kindly pre-stretched by the centaurs. 

Leeko rubbed up your sides as he cozied up behind you and slid his dick into your entrance to join Meeko's. He nuzzled and licked your neck as he pounded you.

So much for a break from huge cocks. It didn't matter that they were smaller than the others when they were both in you at once.

Both cats were purring loudly as they plowed you hard. Neither of them lasted very long. They were just so excited to have time with you. They quickly added their own seed to the cum already inside you. 

They had much more stamina and resilience than a human and quickly went back to railing you together. When the three of you were tired from several orgasms each, you could finally rest.

They laid down with you between them, kissing, nuzzling, cuddling, and cleaning their precious farmer before you fell asleep on one of their chests. 

With the mandatory sex out of the way, the rest of the day would consist of lazing about, using a laser pointer and watching them "hunt,"  spending time outside watching them run about, and maybe a bit of fishing on the lake that bordered the farm.

Though fishing with them was more them pestering you into fishing and then purring, nuzzling, and clinging to you while you tried to catch them fresh food. 

There may be one last round of sex before bed, but overall it would be a nice break from the non-stop fucking that filled most of the other weekdays. 

[icyminghao]

a-teen!

pairing: bestfriend!seungcheol x gn!reader genre: fluff, some angst, idiots to lovers warning(s): mentions of food, reader plays a fem role in a school production word count: 3.2k

summary: you can’t remember life without seungcheol, and so can’t he.

When I was very young I wondered If there was anyone Who could understand me

AGE: 5

Seungcheol has always been alone.

For as long as his five-year-old self has lived, he’s never really had any friends. He’s more than content with it, though, because as much as his mother had been convincing him to “Go approach the other kids first!”, Seungcheol would much rather spend his playtime building sandcastles alone in his little corner.

So when he skipped into the playground on just another day of hanging out by himself during playtime period at preschool, to say he was surprised by the sight of you not only being at his usual spot at the sand pit, but building on top of his painstakingly-built, one and only sandcastle at that, was an extreme understatement.

Seungcheol was furious.

“Hey!” he stomps into the sandpit, and you look up at the commotion. “What are you doing to my sandcastle!?”

You stand up to meet his eye level, mouth opening and closing like a fish having been caught off guard. “Um… I-”

“Seungcheol, be nice to them!” you’re cut off by a familiar voice, and the both of you turn towards the sound to see your beloved teacher, Miss Yoon, standing before you. Miss Yoon smiles softly at the two of you, reaching down to rub a hand on your back.

“Seungcheol, this is y/n. This is their first day here, so they must not have known this was your spot, honey,” Miss Yoon reasons, and Seungcheol’s eyes widen, realising his mistake, before looking down at his feet to hide his embarrassment.

“What should you say, Seungcheol?” Miss Yoon prods, and Seungcheol flares even redder in embarrassment.

“S-sorry…” he mumbles reluctantly, much to his dismay. Miss Yoon chuckles.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to it then! Be nice to each other, okay?” Miss Yoon beams at the both of you before walking off to another group of kids. You and Seungcheol continue facing each other awkwardly while Seungcheol reels in his embarrassment, refusing to talk to you first out of pettiness.

“My name is y/n!” you reach forward cheerfully, raising your tiny hand up to wave at Seungcheol. Seungcheol stares at you, dumbfounded.

“I know.”

“Oh!” you exclaim, seemingly unbothered. “I’m… sorry for building on your sandcastle. I thought the sandcastle would look better with a roof, so I went ahead and did it!”

Seungcheol glances over at his (or yours? or both of yours?) sandcastle, and as much as he hated to admit it considering he was just humiliated by you a few seconds ago, all animosity towards you before melted away.

“It… does look better.”

Seungcheol swore your smile rivalled the sun in his statement.

If there was even such a thing as love Or who would be the one to take my first kiss?

AGE: 16

Much to Seungcheol’s surprise, the friendship between the both of you survived his petty tantrums in preschool, your emotional dramatics in middle school, and his raging teenage hormones in high school to end up where you both were now.

Looking back on it, your friendship didn’t really make much sense to Seungcheol. Seungcheol’s a soccer jock, and you’re a theatre arts performer. The both of you have always been on two opposite ends of a spectrum, yet somehow, he always finds himself gravitating towards you.

And that’s not to mention your (and his, he supposes?) overwhelming popularity. Everywhere you went, guys and girls flocked to you, vying for just a second of your attention. Yet, (to his glee,) you always choose to direct the entirety of your attention to him time and time again, and Seungcheol just can’t help but take pride in his status as your best friend.

A best friend that he’d maybe want to kiss.

Wait, what?

“What are you thinking about?” you nudge Seungcheol with your toes from the opposite end of his bed, snapping him out of his stupor.

“I’m not thinking about anything!” he exclaims immediately in reply, looking away as you raise an eyebrow at his suspicious response.

“Really?” you scoff, “You stopped answering me five questions ago.”

Oh. Come to think of it, Seungcheol isn’t even sure why he lied.

“Anyway,” you move on from the topic, to Seungcheol’s relief, “I was just asking if you’ve had your first kiss yet.”

Seungcheol turns his head towards you so fast he almost gets whiplash.

“W-what?” Seungcheol barely manages to stutter out a reply, still reeling in shock at the fact that you knew exactly what he was thinking of. Heat slowly creeps up his neck as you examine his reaction.

“Have you?” your eyebrows raise just a little in amusement, and Seungcheol’s brain short-circuits, mouth opening and closing for a solid few seconds.

“Cheol, I’m kidding,” you clarify after a while, an amused smile creeping up your face, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“No, I-” Seungcheol replies nearly immediately, “I was just surprised, that’s all…”

“…I haven’t kissed anyone yet, actually.”

Your mouth hangs open. “Really?”

Seungcheol nods in reply, subtly furrowing his brows together. “Have you?”

“No, of course not,” you reply without missing a beat. Seungcheol contemplates prodding you to elaborate, but you beat him to it.

“But… my friends at Theatre all told me it was kind of the norm around here to have had at least some kissing experience, and- okay, stop looking at me like that! I know it’s stupid! But… what if we were each other’s first kiss?” you rush out, eyes focusing on anything but your best friend in front of you.

“You… want us to be each other’s first kiss?” Seungcheol replies, absolutely dumbfounded by your statement.

“Only if you want to, that is!” you rush to clarify immediately after his question, looking down at your fingers in order not to make eye contact with him.

Seungcheol ponders on the request, eyes never leaving you. If it were up to five-year-old Seungcheol, he would have complained about getting the cooties and left immediately.

But he’s not five-year-old Seungcheol. Not anymore.

He leans forward, and you look up at the sound of the bed sheets crinkling. His lips envelope yours completely as you do, catching you off guard. You let out a small gasp in surprise, but make no move to stop him. The butterflies in Seungcheol’s stomach are practically begging to be released, swirling in uncontrollable motions as all Seungcheol can think about is you, you, you.

The kiss is awkward, and clearly highlights the inexperience of both you and Seungcheol.

But it’s both of your firsts, and that’s all that matters for Seungcheol.

The first few minutes after you pull away are awkward, the both of you clearly unsure of what to say to each other having never been in such territory before.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” you pipe up first, and Seungcheol nods immediately. “Thanks for agreeing to do this, Cheol, you’re a solid best friend.”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol replies, the last two words of your sentence bringing him back to reality, “I guess I am.”

When I look to the side I see you, standing next to me, that gives me courage

AGE: 17

You can’t remember life without Seungcheol. In fact, you like to think your life started when you met Seungcheol, and now you can’t imagine what you’d do without him by your side for every milestone in your life.

Until now, you suppose.

By some stroke of luck (or the opposite), you had been given a golden opportunity to play your first leading role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, which entailed performing to a sold-out show of at least two hundred. Only, Seungcheol coincidentally has a sports retreat on the same day, three-hundred and twenty kilometres from Seoul.

“I’ll make it,” he had said with unwavering determination, warming your heart to the core with his insistence. “Trust me.”

But as you stand in preparation backstage, eyes glued to Seungcheol’s latest messages, you can’t help but let a wave of disappointment rush over you at the realisation that this would be the first time Seungcheol would miss an important milestone in your life.

cheol </3: i’m so sorry y/n, it’s taking a bit longer than i expected. [19:10]

cheol </3: i’ll make it up to you [19:11]

cheol </3: smash the stage like you always do, yeah? [19:11]

“y/n?” your clubmate and stage manager, Minhee, pats your shoulder lightly, and you jolt a little in surprise. “You’re up soon. You can do this, okay?”

You press your lips together and nod in response, your best friend’s text messages still lingering in the forefront of your mind.

It’s okay, you tell yourself, part of growing up is learning how to be independent, right?

As you step onto the stage, ever-aware of the two-hundred-or-so pair of eyes staring at you. All you can think about is doing well.

And you only have yourself to thank for relentlessly training your acting skills, because it takes everything in you not to drop your jaw in shock at the sight of the person you’d least expected to be among the audience tonight.

Seungcheol maintains eye contact, the intensity of his gaze igniting your body in flames as the world seemingly disappears. Your heart processes his presence before your head does, as you let out the brightest grin while still reciting your lines, your glow lighting up the whole stage for the rest of the performance.

The piece is over before you know it, and amidst the roars of applause and cheers among the crowd, you’re focused on one and only one person.

Beaming at you, your best friend simply shrugs as he mouths, “I told you to trust me, didn’t I?”

You’re quite sure your smile rivalled the sun at that moment.

My heart that was as pure as the clouds wants you My poor choice of words express my heart I’m just saying anything, you make my heart pound This strange feeling, seems like it’ll be my first and last Because of you

AGE: 18

Seungcheol is late.

Which is surprising, considering that you’re (more often than not) the tardy one in the duo. Rain or shine, Seungcheol always shows up first at the cafe you frequent every week, laptop already on the table with both of your usuals in front of him.

By the half-hour mark, you’re ready to pack your bags and leave when your best friend stumbles into the cafe, his hair frazzled as if he’d rushed all the way here.

He spots you almost instantly, speed walking towards you as a million apologies roll off his tongue.

“I’m so sorry,” Seungcheol begins as he slides into the seat opposite you. You notice that he’s brought nothing except for himself into the cafe, but don’t call him out on it. “The boys were keeping me from leaving training.”

A small smile makes its way onto your face at the mention of your best friend’s goofy teammates, and you hum, “What did they make you do this time to make you forget to bring your stuff too?”

Seungcheol hesitates for a while before smiling sheepishly, and you stare at him, confused.

“I can’t stay here for long,” Seungcheol explains, picking up a cautious tone, “They set me up on a date in… twenty minutes.”

You don’t know why, but Seungcheol’s revelation has your heart sinking as your brain tries to come up with as many different ways as possible of justifying whatever you’d just heard to you.

It’s not like this is Seungcheol’s first ever date, you try to reason, he’s been on plenty of dates since you’ve been friends, so this shouldn’t be any different, right?

“y/n?” Seungcheol stops your internal spiral, and you jolt a little as you look up from the table to make eye contact with him. “Are you… okay?”

“Y-yeah!” you exclaim a little too loudly, wincing at the volume, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows are furrowed as he analyses your expression. He opens his mouth to say something, but you beat him to it, desperate to end the conversation.

“You should go. It’s not good to be late on the first date,” you flash him a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes, kicking him softly under the table to make a point. Seungcheol opens his mouth again, but you shake your head, nodding towards the exit.

“Have fun,” is all you can manage as Seungcheol slowly gets up from his seat. You feel terrible for worrying him with your actions, but all you want to do is be alone with your thoughts at the moment.

You let the waves of disappointment, sadness, and everything in between crash down on you as you watch Seungcheol leave through the door, and it’s not until many hours later and you’re still staring at the cafe doors that it dawns on you.

You’re in love with your best friend. You’re very sure you’ve always been, and you feel nothing but stupid for only realising this now, when his heart is at risk of being stolen by someone else.

Having a first kiss by the age of sixteen wasn’t even that deep for you or your theatre friends. You’d just brought it up that fateful day because as selfish as it was, you wanted to feel Seungcheol’s lips on yours without ruining your friendship.

Having Seungcheol present at your first big performance was so important to you, because he was important to you. You wanted him to see you shine, wanted to impress him, so much so that the idea of him not being there almost impacted your performance that day.

You’ve been in love with your best friend for as long as you can remember, but you’re quite sure it’s too late to do anything now.

Eighteen, this moment won’t ever come back I’m giving it to you (All in, all in)

AGE: 18

Seungcheol feels horrible, and for many reasons.

For one, he feels horrible for going on the date his friends set him up on, when he’s clearly wasting the other person’s time.

He feels horrible for the short responses he’s giving to his date, and feels horrible that calling his date his ‘date’ feels horrible to him.

But most importantly, he feels horrible for leaving you in the cafe. His heart shatters as he imagines you all by yourself in your favourite booth, and the date is not helping considering the fact that he can’t help but subconsciously compare every detail and every interaction with his date with his interactions with you.

“You know, I was sceptical at first when I heard the rumours, but I’m completely sold now that I’ve had the chance to talk with you,” Seungcheol’s date (Julia, he belatedly remembers,) chuckles.

“Huh?” Seungcheol replies, dazed.

“You and y/n,” Julia explains, and Seungcheol’s eyes light up at the mention of you, “You like them, don’t you? I thought there was a chance you didn’t, since you’ve been friends for so long, but you do, don’t you?”

Seungcheol freezes like he’s been caught, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Julia simply laughs.

“It’s okay, I’m not mad or anything,” Julia says between chuckles, “your teammates did tell me this much when I told them to set us up together.”

“Oh, no, I just–” Seungcheol replies, trying his best to put his thoughts together coherently, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Julia shakes her head, smiling, “I already knew. I’m not sure if y/n does, though.”

Eighteen, right now This might be my everything Everything, everything

AGE: 18

Seungcheol is almost completely out of breath by the time he’s at your doorstep.

He’d apologised profusely to Julia for that disaster of a date just a little over an hour ago, all while she’d been encouraging him to confess his feelings for you.

Pacing around the corridor, Seungcheol’s heart starts pounding faster as the nerves finally creep in.

What if you don’t feel the same? Will your friendship still stay the same?

“Cheol?” your familiar voice breaks him out of his inner turmoil, and the way you call him by his favourite nickname has him smiling subconsciously. “What are you doing here?”

“I, uh—” he rubs the back of his neck, nervous, “I wanted to see you.”

You tilt your head in confusion, moving to stand in front of him. “Are you not supposed to be on your date right now?”

Seungcheol winces at the implicit reminder of him leaving you at the cafe, looking at you with the most apologetic expression he can muster.

“Yeah… she ended it early.” Seungcheol explains, and you furrow your brows together.

“Why? Were you too boring?” you’re suppressing your laughter now, and Seungcheol can’t help but smile along with you.

“Not funny, y/n,” Seungcheol huffs, “But you might be right, yeah. I may have been a little boring intentionally.”

You look at him quizzically, urging him to continue. “I just— I like someone else, y/n.”

“Oh.” is all you reply as Seungcheol mentally chastises himself for how horribly he’s steering this conversation.

the “Um, it’s pretty late now, so you should go back,” you pipe up after a beat of silence and turn to go into your apartment. Seungcheol rushes to stop you, hand reaching out to grab your wrist.

“Wait, I—” Seungcheol takes a deep breath, eyes boring into yours.

“I’m in love with you,” Seungcheol breathes like a weight has been lifted off his shoulder, and you, too, let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “I probably have been ever since you fixed my sandcastle for me back in kindergarten, and I’ve never stopped. I’m just stupid enough to realise only now that I love you so much, and I really, really hope you do too because—”

Your lips are on his before he can finish his sentence, and his eyes widen a little before he leans into you, kissing you back with full force. Just like the first time, the kiss sets off a million butterflies in Seungcheol’s stomach, and he embraces the feeling, reaching up to cup your face in his hands as he closes the nonexistent gap between the two of you. Seungcheol can only hope this is enough to convey his love and longing for you.

“I love you too, idiot,” you breathe out as you pull away, giggling as Seungcheol chases after your lips. “I wasn’t going to fix your sandcastle, you know, but Miss Yoon told me to make friends with you, so I did.”

“Well, thanks for fixing my sandcastle that day, then,” Seungcheol thumb brushes gently across your cheek, as if committing the feeling of your skin to memory.

“Your sandcastle building skills are horrible,” you huff as an attempt to divert attention from your burning cheeks.

“You’re so mean!” Seungcheol pinches your cheek and he puffs his in mock offence.

“But you love me,”

“I do,”

Your laughter travels down the corridor as the both of you continue bantering, just like when you were both sixteen and hopelessly pining for each other.

Seungcheol’s heart is full as he looks at your beaming self. He’s loved you for more than a decade, and he’s only just begun.

a/n: finally posting something after so long!! this has been in my wips for really long, and i lowkey don’t like how it turned out :( really missing every one on here though!! how have y’all been </3

masterlist

taglist (send an ask to be added!): @slytherinshua @weird-bookworm @viscade @pepperonidk @belladaises @tastymintchocolate @chanceonceli @hrts4hanniehae @moonkyeom

[fountainpenguin]

Wild Life Session 1 takeaways thus far:

- Tiny Grian blends in with the fish

- Scar and Jimmy are doing their best... I don't have anything specific to say, but I like their cherry hill base plans. And I'm just really glad Scar decided to call them Bam Boys instead of Bang Boys.

- Grian's reputation as a cheater precedes him and it cracks me up... He really is out here like "You really think I'd cheat on you guys? I've been gone for like 5 minutes" and Mumbo and Skizz are just not having it.

- Grian: "I'm not here to share." [Realizes Martyn took all the sugarcane right in front of him.] "Oh, wait... Can I have some?"

- Etho calling BigB his big brother and saying he's nervous about wandering away and needs someone to hold his hand...

- I really enjoyed the Etho-Bdubs banter over the black horse. Bdubs had so many great lines throughout this episode. I especially liked "Wait, I can't take this- That's a bad example for the children."

- Giant Etho and Tiny Scott in the boat...

- Martyn looking around in confusion when he can't find Ren like "I think Ren shrank so much, he perished."

- Ahasbands... save me, Wild Life Ahasbands... Martyn gushing over Mumbo (to Ren) and imitating Mumbo's voice and talking about how cool he is (followed by their later teasing chat over Martyn inventing the wheel) is killing me slowly...

-> sldkfjsdklfj wait, Martyn really is gunning to bring Mumbo on his team, huh? Yeah, that's not gonna last.

- Ren and Martyn talking about how they were going to claim the top of the cherry hill unless someone already put down a sign, and then they reach the top of a long climb and there's just a sign saying Scar and Jimmy live there. Comedy gold...

Martyn: I think [Grian] thinks of you as 'less than half.' Mumbo, who has spent an entire episode bragging about being tiny and loathing anyone big: Or more than half. That'd be worse.

I'm crying.

- I enjoy Martyn saying "I love that for us" in regards to a group he's trying to schmooze his way into, but isn't yet part of.

- I'm fascinated by Sub 1 Club's obsession with getting as tiny as they can and opting to go into swim mode as a form of land travel.

- Oh gosh, Mumbo knows Martyn so well... The lack of faith he has in his honesty is incredible.

- Mumbo screaming at Martyn, "I knew you were tall! I knew it! You're just pretending to be small!" in regards to his personality despite him being small enough to fit in a pocket.

- Martyn leaving by saying "I'm not your friend anymore" sdklfjskd?? Drama in the Ahasband household tonight (/jk)

- Pearl, reluctant to kill animals that have low respawn: Yeah, but porkchops...... Scott: Taste great; yeah, you're right!

- The dichotomy between the other groups I watched, who mostly kept trying to mine or build after they shrank, and GGG + Impulse who started doing parkour.

- CACKLING at Pearl dying, asking her teammates for food, and Cleo looks straight at her and says "Arguably, you shouldn't need any" since her hunger meter refilled when she died.

- Impulse is going to be a really interesting balance to GGG because Cleo is being lightly "aggressive" towards Pearl (Denying her food, teasing her and Impulse for having a thing for soup since they're the Soup Group with Gem). Cleo and Scott cling to each other a lot, so Pearl having a close friend and not ending up a third wheel is interesting.

Scott, digging, calling up in a wobbly voice with his heavy Scottish accent: Pearl, there's a drowned down here! Pearl: There's a... clown down there? Impulse: There is now!

- I doubt the bit will be continuing, but wouldn't that be hilarious if the Clocker family tree extended due to Cleo joking that Pearl and Impulse were her parents?

- Considering I'm currently in the "Impulse and Cleo struggling with half-smothered resentment and weirdness over 3rd Life and stuff" arc in Dog's Life... their conversation about Cleo saying she doesn't trust Impulse is perfect timing. That is literally the arc I've been posting.

- Etho said they're playing in a 500 x 500 world instead of a 700 x 700 one this time. There are so many people this time, so this should be interesting!

-> Even on a server brimming with people, BigB's alone again... (It is very late when I'm scheduling this, so I will watch him another time <3)

[abbyfmc]

Yanderetober 5/10:

Monster: Wendigo.

Yandere Wendigo: He was a childhood friend of yours in the small town where you lived. At that time, a severe famine and drought was hitting the city and there wasn't much food.

Yandere Wendigo: You shared together the little piece of food you have. He admired this small gesture of yours because the hunger was great.

Often both saw the drought on land and in water becoming more prominent. Needless to say, neither farming nor fishing were good, so many were forced to do whatever they could to survive. Some held contests in which the prize was food rations or money; others were forced to go to far away places to work or shop; some left the village while another group of people turned to crime, and some women even prostituted themselves for food and money.

The yandere wendigo has endured it all. He's had to go to work far away from a young age, as well as being assaulted and beaten by vandals just like you.

You were the most important thing to him in his life.

However, everything changed at the age of fourteen, when your parents decided to take you out of that town. The yandere wendigo HATED your parents when you told him the news. He didn't want to let you go, but before he could even go claim you at home, you had already gotten into your parents' van.

Neither of them had cell phones that year, so he lost all communication with you. That ended up driving him slowly crazy from a very young age, and it wasn't enough for him to send you letters.

Years have passed and your life has improved considerably. You have become a horror fanatic and recently discovered the legend of a creature known as the "Wendigo". A humanoid creature similar to a deer or reindeer, quite terrifying, aggressive and scary that ate human flesh (or that of other wendigos) to survive. You recently discovered that your old town was surrounded by this legend according to an article on the internet.

You immediately remembered your childhood friend and your last visits. He seemed delighted to see you, he was always glued to you and didn't want to let you go. You had been texting him, but he wasn't answering any texts or calls, so you went to pay him a visit.

You searched everywhere for your friend, and even asked the people in the village, but you found no answer.

You didn't know that your best friend had turned to crime and cannibalism as a method of survival, thus transforming into a wendigo.

The yandere wendigo still remembered you, and was delighted when he saw you after a long time.

The yandere wendigo wants to get closer to you, because he still has his last trace of humanity for you, but he fears that his instincts will win and consequently, he will end up devouring you.

The yandere wendigo knows he's not the only one, so he protects you from other wendigos trying to eat you. One time you were about to be eaten by a rather aggressive wendigo, when he jumped on top of the wendigo and they started fighting. Your friend ended up winning, but you ran away.

He made noises like growling, footsteps, light scratching, and even called out to you from the shadows. You wanted to look for him, but because of the other wendigos around, you decided to leave immediately.

He found out and couldn't allow it. He was quick to chase you down and catch up with you. You tried to run but the wendigo knocked you down.

It didn't matter how much you ran, as the yandere wendigo had you in his clutches.

You couldn't escape. The yandere wendigo ended up devouring you, preferring that to letting you go.

You ended up dying in his arms, taking with you his last glimmers of humanity.

-The end.

[crsssie]

kinktober prompt 5: monsterfucking ft. Leon Kennedy

word count: 6.1k || Post re4 Plagas Lord Leon

warnings: dead dove: do not eat. monsterfucking, fingering, cunnilingus, plaga leon kennedy, tentacles, scorpion tail

summary: your mission is simple enough. bring Agent Kennedy back.

Your mission is simple.

Well, simple enough.

You're sent off back to the outskirts of Spain, off to find Agent Leon Kennedy, told that you are to retrieve him at all costs — even if all that was left of him was his jacket. You find that the branch needs him, considering that the president's daughter herself had been crying for them to save him. You're not one to say no when they're offering you more money than you could see in your life. What are you in the face of money when it comes to capitalism?

You're dropped off in a... village, and while the majority of the villagers have seemed to have grown a lot more welcoming compared to the intel that Hunnigan had provided, you're still on your toes, tilting your head, waving no to the strange delicacies they provide for you. You ask them if they happen to know an American, and they tell you no, pointing that maybe you should as their Lord about it. Whatever weird cult that was once set up has been disassembled, though everyone still looks very much... scary. At least you aren't being attacked by what Leon was getting attacked by.

You're handed a pack of gum by one of the guys with a chainsaw.

...okay.

Another man with a... cow head leads you past the mansion and into the route that leads to the castle, handing you off to a moving knight suit, your footsteps light behind him as he takes you around the outside and eventually to the welcome room. It? He? The knight nods at you, leaving you alone in the room as you glance up, hooded figure greeting you, your hand on your gun as you hold your breath.

"What brings you here?"

"You guys seen... an American?"

You watch as the man pulls off his hood, and your breath catches in your throat.

"...Agent Kennedy."

You try and do the math of just how Leon could end up like this, only remaining human features the blue eyes and faux blonde hair that you had been given a photo of. Purple streaks through his body and face, and though you can't see what's under his robe, you're sure that whatever the hell he's been infected with isn't just... the purple on his body. He's also, like, incredibly hot, whatever that means. You would curse yourself for such a thought, but to be fair, Hunnigan said it first.

"Agent." He nods. "Am I being retreived?"

"That is my order, yes. The first daughter misses you."

"It is a shame. I can not leave." He hums. "The villagers are tied to me."

"What? Are you going to try and sell me this immortality thing? They don't really expect me to go back, anyway." You tap your chin. "How's life here?"

"We make do."

"Please tell me you're actually eating edible things and not... whatever it is the villagers offered me earlier. Everything seems infected."

"You won't be able to eat anything here. I suggest you return."

"Truly?" You raise a brow. "Does money exist as a concept here?"

"Not quite. Unless you want a gun from the merchant."

"Can I eat anything?"

"The water is infected with the virus, and such is everything else. Though, there is a sanctuary in the castle with fish safe to eat."

"Raw?"

"You can try cooking it, though, it will not do you much better."

"What's my selection of food?" You raise a brow.

"Eggs, chicken, and fish. Specifically, bass."

You tap your chin. "Nothing else?"

"If you go fishing out on the coast, perhaps you will find something." He hums. 

"Are there... herbs?"

"You get three colors."

"What the hell?"

"I will show you. Let me descend—"

You hear some of the servants yell for him to stay up top, but he ignores them, opening the doors on the bottom as he nods for you to follow him, and you trail after, catching glance of a... tail that reminds you an eerie much of a scorpion, but you don't speak up on it. You follow him through some sort of a room, glancing at the servants as they turn the wheel, and you catch a glance of the back of Leon's head... bumps visible. You're not too sure if you want to think too much about it. To be fair, you're not a monsterfucker, but come on.. for Leon? Christ, what are you thinking?

You follow him out to a garden, glancing at the herbs grown, head tilting as he explains how it works and how there's a lack of the feeling of hunger, grinding it and holding it out to you, brow raised.

"What do I drink? What water can I drink?"

"The fountain." He points at the fountain, letting you step up to it and drink from it, pleasantly surprised when you find that it's not disgusting. You wonder if there's some sort of weird magic in this little plot in the middle of the castle. Yet, you continue drinking, filling your pouch as you follow Leon, letting him give you a tour of the place. It's in a lot better shape than what Ashley had described to you, and you follow Leon to the back area to the throne room. It's a little... lacking in functionality, having a knight room, a ballroom the size of a football field, a nice library but somehow no bedroom. Do they not sleep?

"You're still human, so you'll be sleeping, and I'll have the servants arrange for a bed for you."

"Do you not sleep?"

"No."

"Is the skin... from the plaga?"

"Yes."

You purse your lips. The skin of a killer, Leon. You have the skin of a kille— You slap a hand over your mouth when a laugh escapes you.

He raises a brow.

"Sorry." You mumble. "I'm supposed to take this seriously, I know."

"You won't be able to stay here for long."

"No, they barely care, I think." You hum. "What do you do in your day to day?"

"Not much."

"Nothing at all?"

"I read in the library."

"Wow, they sure didn't tell me you're a reader in the report." You mumble.

"There isn't much else to do." He mumbles. 

"Baking?"

"With what in the middle of Spain?"

"True, huh?" You huff. "A phone."

"It's 2006."

"Chess?"

"I keep winning."

"Wow, okay, wow." You huff. "Nothing else to do?"

"Shooting range."

"That's oddly... in the left field."

"Gets boring after you master the weapons."

"Um. Um. Um?????" You furrow your brows. "I'm out of ideas."

"Mhm. You sure you still want to stay?"

"Mm..." You pause to think. "Well, I mean... yeah, I'm out of ideas."

You're not telling Leon you want to jump his bones despite the weird bumps in the back of his head.

"So how does being a plaga work? Is it like... dogs? Wrong. Scorpions? Not that I would know."

"Would you like to visit the lab?"

"Depends. Does it include those freaks with insane jiggle physics?" You pause. "Ashley warned me about them."

"Regenerators." He nods. "They won't do anything with me there."

"You don't need servants?" You tilt your head. "Or does the infection give you an insane buff?"

"I am the lord of the island now. No one can go against my word." He holds a hand out to help you onto the lift, and you take it, surprised at how cold he is.

"You're so cold."

"It is the plaga."

You follow him to the other part of the island, passing just about everything humanly possible, down to the lab where the plaga had been created, reading through the files that "Luis" had left behind, details of how the amber had been procured and everything else. Leon sits on the bed behind you, watching you tilt your head and mumble to yourself, flipping through the entirety of the journal.

"This doesn't explain behavior." You huff. "Do impulses change?"

"Luis didn't have much time to study that." He watches as you turn around, tilting your head as you stare at Leon. "What?"

"Somehow, the plaga didn't change your face like it usually does." You hum. "What changes behavior wise?"

"I do not hunger anymore. Well, occasionally for flesh, but not as much since I hold the dominant species."

"That's awfully... I'm not gonna say it."

"Yes, it does have BDSM undertones." Leon shakes his head. "Since I am the dominant species, I also have a mating season."

You jump in your skin at the casual confession.

"Typically, I kick all the servants out and tear down a room in the castle." He raises a brow at you. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

You raise a brow, licking your lips as you shrug. "Just curious. Our entire unit always thought you were quite the looker, you know?"

"They weren't quiet with it. Does the body horror not phase you?"

"Not quite as much as you'd expect it to." You go back to Luis' journal. "Ah, you transform when you mate."

"Slightly. The robe comes off and the tail stays out, not to mention the tentacles on my back."

You raise a brow as you try and imagine that.

"Tentacles?"

"They grow out of my back. Think of it like fairy wings, only instead of wings, it's tentacles."

"Ah, so like the guy you defeated before sending the president's daughter back." You pause to think. "How interesting. Was it on purpose?"

"The plaga just happened to develop that way."

"Can I... see?" You raise a brow, surprised when Leon ditches the robe nearly immediately, causing you to throw the book in front of your eyes. You open an eye to look at his back, glad to see that he's at least somewhat clothed underneath, only lacking a shirt. You glance at the tentacles, letting him turn back to face you as he moves them. You reach for one carefully, slimy and strange against your hand, watching as it curls around your arm, free hand reaching to touch it and grab its end, observing the ends, blinking at it when you realize it's truly just an octopus' tentacle without the suction. 

Though, Leon watches you, eyes dark and smile on his face, a strangely threatening vibe coming from him as you play with the tentacle, letting it squeeze your arm gently, tip tapping your finger as you tilt your head, shaking it to have it let go. He complies, reaching for the robe, wondering if he has sated your curiosity. Yet, when he finds that you're still staring at him, he wonders just what you're curious about. It seems the government hadn't told you that the last agent sent had been eaten alive by him during mating season. Quite the opposite from how nature would have it, but still perhaps a warning.

They must really want him home.

"What?"

"Do you have fangs?"

"My canines are sharper, but not fangs." He bares his teeth for you, making not move to push you off as you step up to stare at him.

He could swallow you whole.

"Can I touch?"

"Be careful. They're still sharp."

Your hand reaches for the corner of his mouth, pushing his upper lip upward and bottom lip downward, opening your own mouth out of instinct to stare at his. He can feel your breath on his, watching as you crane your neck further to stare at his teeth, swapping your thumb with your index as your thumb brushes at it. He worries that he'll cut you on accident, but you don't seem to care, licking your upper teeth as he copies you instinctually, tongue sticking out and surprising you.

"Lizard tongue."

"Correct." He hums. "Scary?"

"Surprising." You let go, taking two steps back as you pick the journal back up. "Well, obviously it'd be rude of me to ask you how genitals work or have changed, and looking from Luis' journal, nothing much has changed."

"Does the government know you aren't going back?"

"There isn't any signal in the castle. Shouldn't you know?" You tilt your head. 

He smiles. "It's been a while. I left Ashley with the communicator."

"I figured." You flip to the final two pages of the journal, blinking up at Leon as you step behind him, observing the bumps on his head. "You can control the villagers?"

"That's how the dominant plaga works." He nods. 

"Do you control libido?"

"Is that any question to be asking someone you just met?"

"Apologies." You hold both hands up, flipping to the final page. "How fun. Mating season's close."

"What month is it?"

You smile. "Happy September."

Despite it all, you find that Leon's pleasing to be around, English not forgotten, snap of his fingers holding more power than anything else, showing you around the maze and the dogs, hand held in front of you calmly as he scolds the dog, and you watch in awe as it imitates a whimper, tail tucked between its legs as Leon lowers himself to ruffle its fur. You're not allowed to touch it in case the plaga infects you, but you have a fun time watching as Leon shows you how the door unlocks itself. Though, he tells you it remains unlocked now that you have the need of hopping from one side to the other in order to access your food.

The fish isn't all that bad either. 

You get used to it surprisingly fast, no food poisoning in sight when Leon shows you how to prepare it raw, brow raised amusedly when it happens. 

You also find ways to entertain the two of you, hiding behind pillars to play hide and seek in the ballroom, running around the halls to play tag, most of which has you questioning if life has really gotten to this point, but not enough that you would stop. You also play chopsticks with Leon, occasionally helping out the servants in bathing him. Leon checks for scrapes and unhealed wounds before you do, fingers gentle on your skin as he lets you sit with him in the bath, your fingers gentle and the soap on your hands as you play with the tentacles.

He wonders if you don't seem to mind that he's nude.

You've brought more entertainment since arriving anyway, letting his tentacles play with you as the servants tend to his skin.

"I'm surprised you haven't gotten disgusted yet."

"It's just some tentacles." You scoop the water in the bucket to rinse his back. "Not super scary once you get used to it. Luis' journal definitely helped too."

"Mm." He hums. "You ever learned ballroom dancing?"

"No." You pause. "Well, if you count that one lesson I got as an Agent for that one undercover mission, then yes, but other than that, no."

"You got that too?"

"Yeah. It was one of my first missions." You let go of the tentacles as Leon retracts them, waving at them as Leon dismisses the rest of the servants.

"Would you dance in the ballroom?"

"Well, we could do that, but with what music?"

"Silence."

"My dead phone?"

"We can charge it."

"My half-broken mp3, a CD, and a dream."

"I can send someone to buy one."

"When they look like that?"

"You'd be surprised at how little some of the neighboring cities care."

"Well, there wouldn't be speakers either. It's alright. We can dance in silence."

"Nothing else?"

"Not that we really need anything else." You tap your chin, making the motion to step out of the tub to dry yourself off. 

If you notice the way Leon stares at you when you do, you don't make mention of it.

"So? Dancing tomorrow?"

"Why not tonight?"

"Oh, under the stars? I didn't peg you to be such a romantic, Leon." You raise a brow. "I'm not in clothes suitable for dancing, you know?"

"You don't need a skirt for that."

"Didn't say a skirt." You step out of the room to let the servants dress him, staring out the window as you stare at Leon's room. Lack of bedrooms, yet somehow still a room with a bed. Two rooms, considering that yours is just across. Though, this is more of a formality. He has a nest, for all you seem to understand. The bed is for when he needs some rest... and for when you complain about your back hurting in that other bed. You don't know.

You settle yourself on his duvet to stare into nothing as you wait for him to get dressed. 

You need to touch grass — real grass. Not whatever was by the fountain where you would fetch your own food. Leon seems adamant about keeping you human despite your lack of resistance to the idea of getting infected. You're starting to think the villagers' stew might actually taste somewhat good, but you're not risking anything. Maybe all you'll think about when you're infected is how to serve Leon. Would you be a regular handmaiden then? You're not too sure. He seems to enjoy having a human in the house. Maybe he was a freak like that.

You thank the servant when she drapes a blanket over you.

"Let's go." Leon offers a hand, and you tilt your head. 

"Oh, you were serious."

"If you're cold, we can move back here to dance too."

"Very well." You tuck the blanket around you like a shawl, taking his hand as he squeezes it. You wonder just what dancing has to do with whatever has happened, impromptu question leading you to be back in the garden with Leon, his hand on your waist as you sway with him under the moon. You wonder if there's a reason behind this. Is there? Is he just bored to the point that he would resort to recreating one of your first classes in the command for nostalgia?

"Is this mating related—"

"I'm surprised you caught on so fast." Leon spins you gently, humming. "Yes."

"For the plaga or for scorpions?"

"Typically scorpions, but occasionally plaga. The submissive species doesn't need to do a courtship dance to please the bug."

"And you do?" You sneeze after, sniffling. "Can we go in? May we? Please, Lord Leon?"

He shakes his head, pressing your hand to his lips.

"Gotta kiss you so the bug's pleased."

"Are tentacles going to come out of your mouth."

"No." He shakes his head. "Are you into that?"

"Can't say. Never tried." You press your palm to his cheek, giving him a quick kiss. "Will that suffice?"

"We will see."

Leon grows increasingly more protective of you as the month progresses. You consult Luis' research to find out what it is, unsurprised that it's mating-related, but worried that it would mean that Leon had the chance of consuming you. You wonder if he cums sperm pouches like actual scorpions. That would be quite a situation to be in. Though, you wouldn't be surprised if just decided to lock himself in the clock tower during mating season for his people's sake. The villagers seem to like him a lot.

You bite on the end of the herb, mocking a bow with an imaginary cowboy hat, tilting your head when one of the castle workers point out at the gate.

"Mating season?" You tilt your head.

He tilts his head.

"...animales." You pause. Maybe you shouldn't have spaced out in high school Spanish.

He nods, gesturing at the gate, reaching for your wrist as you catch a flash, the man yelling in agony.

You look to the side... raising a brow.

Ah. Leon. 

This is not... only shirtless. He seems to have evolved as well.

You wave the servant off, staying still as Leon stares you down, undressing you with his eyes, smiling with way too many teeth for comfort. You glance at the way that he's got more than one scorpion tail, only humanoid part of him his face and somewhat... human-looking legs. You wonder when he had decided you were to be his mate, watching as the tentacles are much more visible, skin bare and clothes practically ripped. He seems to have sized up as well. Your neck almost hurts from looking at him.

"What's going in? Is this your mating form?" You don't move as the tentacle finds your waist, loosening your arms from its grip as it picks you up. You lift your legs out of instinct, bracing yourself as he bounces off from the ground, crawling through the opened clock tower and down to the place he had called his nest, the small area right before the opening to head to the labs. You're placed down gently as Leon sizes down back to what you're used to, collapsing on you as you glance at him.

"Apologies in advance."

"Huh—" You yell as he bites into your shoulder, drawing blood as you wince, struggling against his grasp as he pants. 

"There you go."

Your nails dig into his shoulders for support, letting Leon settle you into the mattress that he's placed in the middle of his nest so kindly, pulling your own clothes off out of a fear that he would ruin it. There was little to wear in the castle that would fit you and wouldn't feel dirty on your skin, so you valued whatever you had come wearing. You toss everything to the side, breeze uncomfortable on your bare skin as Leon presses his lips to your jaw, quiet humming rumbling on your skin. 

"You alright?"

"Are you always this gentle during mating?"

"No." He huffs. "I'm going to stop talking in a bit. The... bug is quite strong."

"Well, luckily for you, I'll do just about anything you ask me to." You hum, pressing your lips to his jaw, purring against him as he stares. "As long as you don't kill me."

"I'll stop the bug before it gets to do that." He purrs against you, prying your legs open as you stare down at him, relaxing your body as he opens his mouth, tongue rolling out as he moves his tentacles to slide around your legs, lips pressed to your clit as he sucks, earning a whimper from you. You reach for something to grab onto, nails digging into the mattress as Leon closes his mouth over your pussy, tongue darting between your folds slithering its way in your walls, your breath choking past your lips as you wince, yelping as you feel his tongue brush against your cervix gently, Leon retracting it a little for the sake of your body. 

It wasn't as if mating season was one day. It was a while, even if he was able to control his urges for the most part, he wouldn't want to hurt you or wear you out first day. So, he settles with swirling his tongue in you, which you squirm over, unused to such a feeling, but quickly replaced with muffled moans as he finds a proper pace, hands now clawed as he holds you down by the waist, tentacles holding your legs in place as you squirm. You whimper at the feeling of his claws on top of his tongue, hands flying to your face as your back arches, seeing white as you gush on his tongue, quiet cries from your lips as he sucks, tilting your hips up to lick at the rest of your cum dripping, tongue licking his face as he blinks up at you.

"Still good?"

"Mmm." You pause. "Will you fit?"

"We're going to need more than just one if you want me inside, sweetheart."

You try your best at a pout, sighing as you relax yourself back into the mattress, biting your cheek as he slides a finger inside with ease, texture catching you off guard, Leon's name flying past your lips as he leans over to kiss your cheek, cooing into your ear as he lets you grow adjusted to the feeling of his finger inside. You let Leon know to loosen his grip on your legs, letting you set them down as he presses his chest to yours, nipping on your ear as he finally moves his finger.

You curl yourself against him, voice breathy and patchy as he does, his breath in your ear as he hums quietly. Vibrations to soothe you, you suppose, but it won't do much if your head is already clouded. You let him take his time, finger textured in you, free hand resting on your lower abdomen, sitting up as you whimper, head thrown back as he curls his finger in you. It feels foreign, and though you shouldn't be surprised, you find yourself with your head thrown back and nails in the mattress, whimper spilling past your lips as his thumb finds your clit, gentle circles drawn with your bundle of nerves as you tremble.

At one point, he's tilting your head to kiss him, glass-stained eyes and half-lidded eyes earning a groan from Leon's lips, pretty head lost in something long forgotten. You wonder what it'd feel like while infected, but you're sure Leon would rather die to your hand than find out. Besides, the post-sex clarity would hit eventually, though not that it would matter to you at any point. His lips are bitter against yours, and your judgment has long been clouded, whining into his mouth at the feeling of a second finger, stretching you out. Your mouth opens almost instinctively, whining as he nips at your jaw.

"Feel good?"

"Mm." You mumble, eyes closing as he hums.

"Good girl."

Your head spins deliciously from his voice, fingers mean against your cunt as you whine, other hand finding your back, chest flush against yours as he laps at the bite from earlier, cooing into your ear when you tighten around him, your hands flying to find anything to hold onto, nails digging into his shoulders as he draws another one out of you, cheeks warm with your tears as he licks at it. Despite everything, he's still cooing in your ear, sliding his fingers out of you with a squelch ashe presses them to your lips.

"Come on, pretty baby."

You part your lips apprehensively, tongue stuck out as he rests his fingers on it, watching you as you swirl your tongue around it, arousal pooling further in your legs as your eyes roll back. You feel dirty, whimpering around his fingers as he shifts his hips to press his errection against your clit, fabric of his pants rough against your nub as you squirm. He rolls it against you a second time until he finds that the bug in his chest is far too impatient to wait, licking his fingers to stretch you out one last time, laying you back onto the plush to free his cock from the confines of his pants. The bug's ringing gets louder as it would, Leon furrowing his brows as you tilt your head at him.

"Plaga."

"Does it want me dead?"

"No." He whispers, lining his hips with yours, sighing. "If it hurts, there's a knife to the side."

You glance at where he points, and you nod. "Will it hurt?"

"Doesn't matter. It'll wake me."

You nod slowly.

You tilt your hips as Leon slides in slowly, size dizzying for your head, breath stuck in your throat as you shift against him to get used to the sizing. The tentacles hold you in place and wrap around your waist, his hand finding yours to ground you as you gasp for air, lightheaded and ditzy as his thumb brushes the side of your navel. You wonder if he's waiting for some sort of affirmation to move, as you reach up for his neck, ignoring the way his skin brushes against your arms.

Leon doesn't speak anymore, opting to just fuck you instead, snap of his hips into yours rough as you gape for air, arms around his neck as his hips buck into yours relentlessly, giving you no space for air as you cling onto him instead, body tense and chest pressed to his as you close your eyes. The lack of words makes the sound of his skin against yours alarming, but you hear his breath in your ear, enough to ground you to a certain extent. His size is hard to get used to, your head ringing each time he thrusts up into you, tentacles sliding down your waist alongside his hands. It feels weird. 

Yet, your back arches as he lifts himself off of you slightly, hand moving down to press down on where he would be inside of you, lightning jolting up your spine as you whimper, pressure making your head spin, texture sending your head into a spiral. He lets out a grunt in approval as you tighten around him from the gesture, your breath stuck in your throat still. Any longer and you would be gone, you fear. Yet, the asphyxiation is sickeningly delicious to your head, too blissed out to care if this is how you'll go out. You wonder if this is how all of the girls feel when it's mating season and Leon has to fuck something.

There's a lack of skin and a texture of his hand now, starting to feel colder, and when you peer open an eye to look, Leon's fingers are mostly gone, replaced with darker claws. You wonder if this is an effect of the plaga, too heaven-struck to care, moving your head back to look at him, red eyes catching you off guard as he angles himself to brush your g-spot, eyes rolling back with a whine from your lips. 

You'd make a joke about how it's giving 2013 Harry Styles Wattpad fanfiction, but in the state that you're in, you can hardly get the thought to form. His claws dig into your waist and draw blood, wounds fresh on your waist as you hiss, whimpering as Leon opens his mouth to bite your jaw, your head spinning. Too much. It's too much. You cum without warning, mouth open and eyes wide as you struggle under him, walls raw and sensitive from the taste of ecstasy, white stuck in your vision as you cry. Your legs squirm as Leon forces his chest further into you, hands flying for anything you can grab, one hand nailing into his back as the other finds a tail. Namely, the scorpion tail, and you tug on it, earning Leon's gasp and an immediate orgasm. The tentacles tighten around you as warmth sticks to your walls and he gasps, eyes blue nearly immediately, collapsing on top of you as you blink, wide-eyed at the revelation.

Fuck the fact that you just saw white and had the best orgasm of your life, did Leon just cum from his tail being pulled on?

You heave as Leon pulls himself off and out of you, head thrown back as he sits up, blinking slowly as you blink up at him.

"What happened?"

You give him a sly little grin, climbing on top of him as you shimmy to get the tentacles off of you, Leon complying as you take the knife, pressed to his throat as he tilts his head back, raising a brow as you reach for his tail, giggle on your lips as you stroke it. Leon squirms under your hand, and you hum.

"That's what happened."

His hands find your waist, running them up and down as he blinks at you.

"You alright?"

"I'm fine." You nod. "You?"

"You should get water." He rasps.

"Your throat doesn't sound any better." 

"It's fine." He whispers. "I can live without it."

You reach over him for your pouch, unscrewing it as you press the water to your lips, swallowing it as you wipe at your mouth, free hand finding his jaw as you force it open.

"Swallow."

Leon sticks his tongue out for the water, swallowing as you command, licking his lips as you reach over to put the water back. He takes the chance to rest his hands on your back, tongue finding your chest as he sucks, free hand pinching at the other one as you whimper, lashes fluttering. You hold yourself still, fingers finding his hair as he swirls his tongue. You try and get off of him, fingers tightening around his hair as he holds you still, biting down on your nipple gently, teeth grazing the buds as you shiver.

"Leon."

He hums against your skin, raising a brow as you look down at him, pulling yourself back up as he lets go of you.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you still?"

"It's a continual process." He whispers. "Until I am satiated."

"Will it be soon?"

"Just one more for me." He hums. "I'll let you rest after it."

You agree begrudgingly, letting him press his fingers into you again, looking much more human than before, tail still evident and tentacles still looming over you, but his body looks far more human than you have ever seen. He looks like his picture again, you think. You find it a little strange to see a lack of purple in his veins, taking the chance to press your thumb to them as he breathes quietly. 

"You're human."

"Not often." He whispers. "Can I have you again?"

"I agreed when I danced with you, Leon." You whisper. "Have me all you want. Kill me if you want to."

"I won't."

"I know you won't." You whisper.

Leon kisses at your jaw again, whispers gentle in your ear as he holds you, careful to not cut you with his claws as he holds your head.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No." You whisper back. "Your claws hurt, but <i>you</i> didn't hurt me."

"You ought to stab me next time." He brushes the wound on your hips. 

"Quite a domestic turn, huh?" You laugh as Leon slides his pointer down to curl inside of you, claws uncharacteristically sharp yet gentle inside of you. You shift your hips, curious as to what Leon could possibly need to check with his finger when you've got his cum dripping out your pussy, his finger squelching with each movement he makes.

"Yes." He mumbles. "Can't have you dying on me."

"Is the plaga sated?"

"More than sated." He slides his finger out, lips pressed to your shoulder gently as he hums. "So just me this time, alright?"

"Of course." You let him shift until you're lined up, letting you lower yourself onto him as you adjust to the size. Too big, still. You wrap your arms around his neck and flutter around him, earning a groan from Leon. 

The tip of his cock sits snug against your cervix, your body trembling as you become aware of it. You hadn't felt it earlier from how hard your head was spinning, but you try not to think about it, lashes fluttering as you hold him to your chest his face smushed between your tits as he glances down at where the two of you connect. You <i>swear</i> you feel him twitch inside of you.

"You alright?"

He muffles back an affirmative, rolling his hips against yours gently. His arms wrap around your waist as he thrusts up into you, staring up from your chest as he drinks in the way your brows furrow. He's careful not to scratch you more, fingers curled into fists against your back instead of out, angling his hips to brush all your sensitive spots, the drag of his cock inside of you drunkening. You babble his name and roll it off your tongue like a devotion, vision spotty as he holds your arms on your back, you name stumbling past his own lips like a broken prayer. 

There's a wondering if you should be devoting yourself to Leon, taking him as your lord, taking him as your savior. You wouldn't be against it, eyes closing and brows furrowing as you feel him twitch inside of you, speeding up to chase his own high as one of his fingers finds your clit. He sends you tumbling down first, body shaking in his grasp as the coil in your back snaps, gushing and trembling around Leon as he chases his own high, pretty praises easy on his lips for you. Your head spins as he spills into you once more, arms tightening around you as he does. 

His forehead rests on your chest, and your vision clears as you stare up at the ceiling.

 "You back?" 

The feeling of circles on your lower back brings you back to reality. 

"Mm." You hum. "Spinny."

"Do you want your bed?"

"Is the castle empty?"

"Always is this season. I only brought one here because it's where I spend mating season."

"I thought you tore rooms down."

"Stopped doing that after a while." He hums. "Do you want to go back?"

"'m too sleepy." You let him set you back down on the bed, your fingers gentle against his face as you look at him. "Night, Leon."

"Sleep well, sweetheart."

When Leon's sure you've knocked out, he sends a tentacle over to grab your device, stepping away from you and setting you down from his arms, stepping outside of the ballroom to the dock, radio pressed to his ear as he glances at the boat. The night breeze rustles his hair, and he feels more human than he has in the past years. Hunnigan did him right for once.

"Hey."

"She alright?"

"In one piece." He exhales. "Send some liquor in the next shipment."

"If she's not dead, then we won't need to send anything else."

He glances at the boat. "He's turned docile."

"You can get rid of him."

"I'd need her to be awake for that."

"Is she out?"

"Just sleeping."

"Wake her."

"Can't. Drew too much out of her."

"First time you've actually used a recruit, huh? Glad I can just mark her as MIA and not dead for once. Will you back once it's out?"

"Mm, most likely not. I'm getting used to life here. They think I'm dead, don't they?"

"They don't know."

"Keep it that way. Mark her as dead too."

The voice goes silent on the line.

"Get us some new passports and identities, and we'll go back."

"We?"

"A dead man can't marry, Hunnigan."

"That's awfully quick of you."

"Not taking my chances. No one just falls in love unconditionally like that."

"Well, aren't you lucky."

A chuckle.

"So?"

"I'll see what I can do."

[toxycodone]

GOD modern Laios would make such a good little trophy/house husband 🥺 he LOVES cooking dinner for you when you come home after a long day of being the breadwinner. you get to spoil and dote on him and he gets to spend all day doing nerd shit and taking care of the house (he LOVES cooking you dinner and seeing the look of relief on your face coming home to a clean house & warm meal after a long day)

on your anniversary you come home and he's cooked a fucking 5 star meal- like the kinda shit you only get at some fancy ass overpriced restaurant . After dinner you suprise him with a huge intricate Lego set you know he's been wanting but wouldn't ask for because it's soooo expensive & he nearly cries.

He spends like 2 hours going down on you out of pure joy alone before letting you tie him to the bed and ride him until he DOES cry- whimpering "thank you" and "I love you"'s over and over before you've even let him cum. tears falling down his flushed cheeks and eyes rolling back in his head as he writhes against the restraints, so desperate and grateful for whatever you give him. such a good boy, your perfect little house husband 😌

GOOOOOOD YES

okay. Since we got minimum wage retail Laios confirmed by Kui. House husband Laios is so fucking real.

Laios who’s a total part timer since meeting you, he works for pocket change and like. Bare minimum benefits just to keep things comfy for the two of you while he basically puts everything in savings. (Until like one day he just quits tbh when yall are really settled in)

But like in my mind he works under the table at Senshi’s restaurant for cash + to learn about cooking! They go on fishing/hunting/hiking trips together and go to the farmers market to get fresh produce and Senshi teaches Laios everything he knows.

He cleans up your apartment every day. Like, he’s not the best or a maid or anything. He’s just a dude. But he does recognize that he’s immensely privileged and does his best to show you hey. He does care. And he wants you to not have to bust your ass after coming from a full time shift. He does basic things like dishes and stuff and on the weekends you guys maybe spend an hour or two maximum cleaning on the weekends together

LAIOS. PACKS YOUR LUNCH. He love love LOVES doing this and he has little sandwich shapers to make them into little dinosaurs or dolphins or something. And he does bentos with cute little pins and molds and he lovingly spends time on this. I think he genuinely enjoys doing this stuff and testing out new recipes.

And cooking in general!! Like that is how Laios shows he loves you forreal. He genuinely pays attention to your tastes and tries to “gourmet” your favorite foods. (I’ve been rereading the manga and when Marcille’s upset he offers to try his best to make whatever she wants to eat out of monsters and it’s so cute…). Like you want grilled cheese? How about grilled Brie on fresh made bread? Bagels? Oh yeah he tried a new recipe at Senshi’s at 4 am, here’s fresh out of the oven pastries. It’s so cute.

I think. He loves like those random ass kitchen gadgets too. He 100% has an ice cream maker and he makes custom flavors for you.

And he just loves watching you eat. It’s such an expression of love. He works so damn hard to make you smile and make you happy. And his food never sucks because 1. Senshi teaches him everything 2. He ALWAYS tests recipes before going way too hard with them. Like he pays attention to your palette so if he made something gross or something just. Not to your tastes you’d let him know in the trial stage.

And GOD. Laios is just a fucking sex toy I swear. He’s genuinely like. A subby service top. He wants you to absolutely use him however you want but he likes to be the one that’s doing most of the work because he likes to spoil you with his body…(also he cums super easily in my hc so if he tops he’s able to like. Pull out and give you head or switch positions when he’s getting too close)

But when you spoil him and ride him…tell him how handsome he is and how much you love him. yeah he’s crying and whimpering about how much he loves you and how you’re just so fucking perfect. It makes your head spin because Laios genuinely makes you feel like you’re the only person on earth for him.

[myhrtbrkr]

my summer meal plan! 🥒🥚🍵

// on a boring day at home:

—breakfast • choose between:

oatmeal (no toppings): 160 cals

fruit bowl: 50-70 cals

iced coffee: 40-60 cals

yogurt bowl: 130-150 cals

smoothie bowl: 100 cals

cheerios w/ almond milk: 140-160 cals (eat w/ caution, as it is easy to b!nge with cereals)

—lunch • choose between:

plain rice cake w/ hummus & cucumber: 110 cals

shirataki ramen: 20-80 cals (depending on toppings)

iced coffee: 40-60 cals

spicy cucumber salad: 10-80 cals (depending on sauces)

HALF tuna fish sandwich: (not sure on cals but good for protein and feeling full)

—snacks • choose between:

rice cake: 40-60 cals

yogurt rice cake: 80 cals

tea: 0 cals

diet soda: 0 cals

airpopped/organic popcorn: 35 cals per cup

mini pretzels: 100-120 cals (my favs)

pickles: 5 cals

—dinner:

HOME COOKING : small portions!!

EATING OUT : have both veggies & protein and have full knowledge of what you are taking in

—dessert:

avoid ice cream & dairy at all costs

always go for the lowest cal option

~ tips :

* just because everyone else is, doesn’t mean you have to either. stand out because you’re doing what they don’t have the courage to do

* never let free, open food be the opportunity to b!nge.

* overate in public? no worries! make up for it tomorrow with sweat and tears in the gym.

* keep the sweet treats as TREATS. bad dogs don’t get treats remember? don’t be spoiled either.

[disneyprincemuke]

glitter * mv1

it's the morning after a party, and you find yourself tangled up in bed with your boyfriend

pairings: max verstappen x fem!reader

warnings: fluff!! (which is rare for me)

notes: the first one for my 2k sleepover!! my requests are open for my 2k follower sleepover event!!

“darling, wake up.”

the grip around your waist tightens and your back is pressed up on max’s chest. his lips linger on the back of your neck as his thumb traces circles on your bare waist.

you hum in response, your hand covering the back of his that laid on your waist. “good morning, love.”

“it’s 1pm. we need to feed the cats and eat something ourselves,” he whispers. the bed dips behind you and when you open your eyes, max is looming over your shoulder with a smile. “good morning.”

“5 more minutes,” you mumble. you shuffle in the bed, adjusting the duvet as you turn and force max back down into the bed. you throw your arms around his bare torso and bury your face into the pillow. “i’m too tired to get up.”

he shakes in a chuckle, making you pull away and furrow your eyebrows to glare at him. he simply grins at you and moves the stray hairs from your face. “you said that at 11am when i tried waking you up.”

you groan and drop your head onto the pillow. you put your fingers over his eyelids and force them close as you bury your face into his chest. “i’m saying it again now at 1pm. go back to sleep.”

the sun barely illuminates the room you share. you don’t know where the cats are, and while you are concerned about them, sleeping is the only way to cure the pounding you feel in your head.

max had thrown a party the night before, celebrating the end of the 2023 season with the grid. he had it in your house and invited everyone that could say yes. and he threw a raging party.

it did end at 5 in the morning, fueled to last that long with endless party games and loud laughter. you can safely admit that you drank a little too much knowing that you had nowhere to be the next morning.

you didn’t take into account how hungry the cats would be at 1pm. in your defense, though, you’d drunkenly filled up their food bowl before you fell into bed with max at 6.

“but we have to get up,” max mumbles, twirling a piece of your hair on his finger. he presses a kiss to your temple then rubs your shoulder gently. “some of the guys stayed over — carlos is making pancakes.”

you have to admit the pancakes that carlos makes is absolutely delectable. but it’s not enough to convince you to get up.

“he’ll make some for me later if i ask.”

“bold of you to assume that.”

“i know he will. he loves me.” you tighten your grip around him and yank him closer to you. “shut up, max. i’m trying to sleep.”

“then i will get up, okay?” he whispers, slowly untangling himself from your arms. “i’m very hungry and thirsty.”

you frown as the bed moves and the warmth of his body leaves you. you peek through an eye, watching him bend down to get his shorts off the ground and pull it up his legs.

“do you want any coffee? what about water? i’ll bring it up to you, if you want,” he offers, turning to you as he pulls his shirt down. “what about orange juice?”

but you didn’t want to be in bed alone. so now you’re slowly pushing yourself up the mattress, ignoring the way your world spins and head pounds with every second passing.

“darling, get back in bed. i’ll get you what you need.” his voice wavers as he rushes over to your aid when you stumble at the edge of the bed. “i’ll get you some pills for the headache.”

“i want pancakes,” you mutter as you fish for your shorts resting peacefully on the hardwood floor. “and i should help you clean. it’s my house too.”

“it was my party. you just sit back and relax until you feel better,” he says. he pats your head, grabbing the headband sitting on the bedside table peacefully.

he gently pushes your hair back and slides on the top of your head. "are you sure you want to get up now?"

you nod your head, eyes scanning the floor for the shirt you'd thrown somewhere here in the middle of the night. instead, your attention catches a picture reflecting a ray of sun onto a small patch of the wall.

you wobble over to it and pick it up, a polaroid picture of you and max from the night before. it's a tame picture from before the night had gone wild: you're in the kitchen by the fridge with a bottle of beer in your hands with his hand around your waist, and your head on his shoulder.

you're sure that there's another somewhere, later in the night when you're both flushed from the alcohol and giggling on the couch with your legs on his lap.

"there's more pictures on the coffee table downstairs," max chuckles, towering over you from behind. he holds up a piece of clothing by your side, the shirt you'd been looking for seconds ago now accounted for. "were you looking for this?"

"it's my favourite hangover shirt," you giggle, receiving the shirt into your hands. when you put it on, it rests just below your thighs, covering your shorts very slightly.

it's max's shirt from his teen years, no longer fitting him as he grew, but it fit you perfectly on days you prefer loosely fitted clothing. you tuck the hems of the shirt into your shorts and pull it out to give yourself some air.

"ah, you've got glitter all over you, darling," max laughs, his thumbs grazing over your forearm where the said glitter sits on your skin.

he squeezes you three times before he drops his hand to his side, eyes scanning your body for more traces of glitter.

"laugh all you want but you've got one on your cheek too," you tease as you lift your hand up to try and scratch it off. "this is going to be ass to get off."

"you're the one who suggested getting glittery party hats, darling, i don't know what to say," he shrugs as he turns and walks over to the door. "let's get some food and start our day."

"okay," you mutter, walking over to him. you stop by the door where he is and lift your chin. "i had fun last night. great party."

"it was only great because you helped me throw it."

[ltash]

Eating Habits

List of headcannons when it comes to his eating habits, according to my opinion.

1. Simple, no-fuss meals: Ghost prefers basic, hearty meals with minimal flair. Things like grilled chicken, steak, or a sandwich. He's more about sustenance than flavour.

2. Protein-heavy diet: He prioritizes high-protein meals to keep up his strength. Lean meats, eggs, and protein shakes are staples in his diet.

3. Tea over everything: Ghost drinks tea like it’s water. He prefers English Breakfast Tea, and it's often the first thing he reaches for in the morning.

4. On-the-go eater: He’s used to grabbing quick meals between missions or even eating on the move. Protein bars, jerky, or simple rations are common in his kit.

5. Cold baked beans from the tin: When he’s in the field or in a rush, Ghost has no problem cracking open a tin of baked beans and eating them cold. It’s quick, easy, and gets the job done.

6. Avoids processed junk: While he doesn’t care for gourmet meals, he steers clear of overly processed or junk food. He sees food as fuel and tends to avoid anything that might make him feel sluggish.

7. Coffee drinker: Despite his love for tea, Ghost also has a soft spot for a strong cup of coffee, especially black coffee. It provides a calming moment in the chaos of his life.

8. Rare indulgence in spicy food: Every once in a while, Ghost enjoys a spicy kick in his meals, especially when he can find a good chilli or hot sauce.

9. No-nonsense about breakfast: Breakfast for Ghost is usually something quick and effective, like oatmeal with nuts, scrambled eggs, or even cold baked beans straight from the tin if he's on the go.

10. Prefers to eat alone: He’s not one for big social meals. Ghost often eats in solitude, especially when in the field or at the base. It gives him a moment to think and decompress.

11. Hydration is key: He drinks plenty of water, especially during missions. Staying hydrated is essential, and he’s always got a water bottle nearby.

12. Doesn't like sweets: Ghost isn’t into sugary foods or desserts. If offered, he’ll decline politely or simply pass them on to someone else.

13. MRE master: Having spent so much time in the field, he’s developed a knack for making MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) more palatable. He knows how to combine ingredients to make them taste a bit better than the standard fare.

15. Doesn’t drink alcohol often: Ghost rarely drinks, preferring to stay sharp. But when he does, it’s a stiff whiskey, neat, no mixers, no nonsense.

14. Rare moments of comfort food: Every now and then, when he’s feeling nostalgic or off-duty, he might indulge in something comforting, like a hearty shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, or even a hot cuppa with biscuits.

16. Highly disciplined portions : Ghost eats in strict portions, never over-indulging, knowing that he needs to stay in top physical condition for his missions.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: krill

The ocean is a huge place and food can be sparse. While the ocean receives plenty of energy in the form of sunlight, that energy needs to be converted into a form animals can consume. This is a job that krill have adopted with gusto. These little shrimpy critters live all over the world and play a vital role in the cycling of energy and nutrients. Krill are among the most common and important marine species, but many people overlook them or think of them as nothing but whale food. let's take a dive into the world of krill to show you that there's more there to appreciate.

(Image: a side view of an antarctic krill. It is a shrimp-like animal divided into a solid cephalothorax and flexible abdomen. On one end of the cephalothorax are the eyes and antennae and on the underside are multiple pairs of thin, feathery legs and gills. Along the segmented abdomen are paddle-like appendages. The tail is fanned out. The body is translucent with spots of red pigment. The cephalothorax looks green due to the presence of algae in the stomach. End ID)

There are 86 known species of krill in the order Euphausiacea. While they look a lot like shrimp or prawns, Euphausiacea is actually a sister group to Decapoda, which contains the shrimp, prawns, and most other crustaceans you've heard of. Krill can be distinguished from shrimp by the gills and number and anatomy of the limbs. Krill are zooplankton, a description which makes many people think they must be microscopic. In fact, plankton just means an organism is carried around by currents and cannot swim against them and has nothing to do with size. Most krill reach 1 to 2 centimeters as adults, but some species can get larger. The largest species, Thysanopoda cornuta, can reach 9.5 cm (3.75 in).

(Image: a swarm of krill in the ocean with so many members, it makes the water look red. End ID)

Krill anatomy is very similar to that of shrimp. Their bodies are divided into a cephalothorax, flexible abdomen, and tail fan. The cephalothorax is a fusion of the head (cephalon) and thorax. On the head are compound eyes, mouth, and antennae. Emerging from the thorax are legs. These legs are alternatively called pereiopods thoracopods, or thoracic legs. This is one of the key areas where krill are different from decapods. Decapods always have 5 pairs of thoracic legs and at least some of them are adapted for moving around on the ocean floor. Krill have a varying number of these legs and none are adapted for seafloor life. Krill spend their entire lives in the water column. Behind the legs are the gills, which are exposed to the water. The abdomen is long and flexible and has appendages called pleopods or swimmeretes that are used to assist in swimming and moving water over the gills. Decapods also have these. Finally is the tail fan, which is used in swimming and is also found in decapods. Krill exoskeletons are typically transparent with a bit of pigment on the top. All but one species of krill are bioluminescent, though its possible that the bioluminescence comes from their food. Krill have gills that are exposed to the water while Decapod gills are inside of their exoskeletons.

(Image: an anatomical diagram of a krill, with different external and internal body parts labeled. End ID. Source)

Krill are primarily filter-feeders that live in all oceans and in the shallow and deep seas. Most species feed on phytoplankton, especially diatoms, while other are omnivores or carnivores that hunt zooplankton and larval fish. The thoracic legs are covered in filamentous structures and will be held out in a formation called the feeding basket. Plankton passing through the basket will get caught and transferred to the mouth. Krill have a simple digestive tract with a two-chambered gut. The first chamber acts as a mill, crushing the hard shells of the diatoms to make digestion easier. Most krill practice diel vertical migration, a common ocean strategy where animals will remain at depth during the day and move closer to the surface at night. Some species remain in the deep sea all their lives. As krill feed, they become heavier and more sluggish and will sink, allowing the hungrier krill. Krill swim and feed in massive swarms.

(Image: an antarctic krill balanced on a human finger, to show its size. It is barely longer than the first segment of the finger. End ID)

Krill are a vital part of ocean ecology. Energy is introduced to phytoplankton by the sun and used to produce the energy-storing molecule ATP. Krill eat the phytoplankton and convert that energy into a form larger animals can consume and digest. Whales can't gain energy from phytoplankton, but they can get that energy from krill. Krill are a vital food source for baleen whales, seals and sea lions, fish, squid, and other animals. By eating phytoplankton and then being eaten themselves, krill allow that energy to move through the entire food web. Krill also play a role in moving nutrients and carbon through the ocean. Carbon enters the ocean through runoff and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere entering the surface waters. Phytoplankton take in the carbon dioxide and covert it into forms of carbon that other organisms can use. The krill then eat the plankton, taking the carbon into themselves. Through feces, molted exoskeletons, and dead krill, that carbon can sink into the deep sea, where it can become sequestered in the sea floor. Similarly, nutrients can pass from krill to their predators or into the deep sea through feces and remains. Without krill and other animals filling similar roles, carbon and nutrients would have a much harder time reaching the deep ocean and larger animals wouldn't be able to access the energy stored in phytoplankton.

(Image: a diagram showing the highly complex process by which krill assist in moving carbon through the ocean. End ID. Source)

Being animals with exoskeletons, krill have to molt when they outgrow their current shells. Generally speaking, young krill will molt more often than older ones. Most crustaceans will slow down as they age, with each molt occurring further and further apart. This is not the case with krill, which keep molting at a relatively consistent rate through their lives. some species of krill can also get smaller after a molt instead of always getting bigger. This is used when food is unavailable, reducing the amount of energy the animal needs. Some species have been observed going 9 months between meals. Some species can spontaneously molt as a reaction to threats, leaving behind the empty exoskeleton as a decoy for predators.

(Image: a northern krill. It is similar to the antarctic krill, but with a different arrangement of pigment. End ID)

Krill typically mate seasonally, though some tropical species can mate year-round. A female can produce thousands of eggs, which can make up a third of her body weight during mating season. Being a major prey animal, krill need to reproduce rapidly to keep their populations up. Most species will mate and produce eggs multiple times per mating season. Males approach females and deposit sacs of sperm into their genital openings. The females then produce eggs which can be treated in two ways. Most species will release their eggs into the water column and provide no further care. 29 species instead attach their eggs to a sac held by the rearmost thoracic legs and carry them until the eggs hatch. Some of these species hatch at a more mature stage. Once the eggs hatch, they have to swim upwards to reach the photic zone of the ocean, where photosynthesis can take place. Larvae progress through several developmental stages. Like other crustaceans, they start as a napulus larva, though some sac-brooders will hatvch at the more advanced pseudometanapulus stage. Either way, they progress then to the metanapulus stage. At this stage, they can lo longer subside on yolk and must reach the photic zone and metamorphose into the calyptosis stage, the first stage with a mouth, before starving. The final larval stage is called the furcilia, which passes through a number of molts. During each molt, the abdomen will grow another segment and pair of swimmeretes. After the final furcilia stage, the krill will resemble a small adult. Krill life spans vary baes on species, from less than a year to 10 years, with species in colder water usually living longer. Relatively few krill will die of old age. In the antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, over half the population is eaten every year.

(Image: several stages of krill development form egg to napulus to more advanced larval stages that look like the adult. End ID. Source)

Krill conservation needs vary by species, but in general, they are highly abundant and in little danger of extinction. Krill are among the most abundant animals in the world, with antarctic krill having one of the largest total biomass of any animal. Monitoring the krill population is extremely important because of their importance to the global ecosystem. Krill have been fished commercially for centuries, used as food, bait, supplements, animal feed, and for shrimp paste and fish oil. Most krill fishing takes place around Antarctica as the krill there are highly abundant and seen as cleaner. As the krill fishery grows, more studies need to be done on the impact on the population and the other species that rely on them. Krill are also impacted by global climate change, ocean acidification, and pollution. Krill can ingest microplastics, which can then be passed onto whatever eats them. Krill are keystone species, meaning they are crucial to the health of their environments. If they go, massive parts of the ocean ecosystem will collapse.

(Image: someone holding a pile of dozens of krill in their hands. End ID)

[edgeray]

oh yes i meant when the reader is pregnant if u can, not in a nsfw way im sorry i made it unclear😭

Dragon Hunter Mother Part 4

(Arlecchino x Fem! Reader)

A/N -Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  It is once again dragon time, guys. I've written three dragon-related things straight 😩. The part you guys have been waiting for. Actual romance, hell yeah. Extra fluff for that one annoying moot (you know who you are 😡). It’s a bit short compared to the other parts for this series, but probably because there's no new lore dump. Guys, I’ve thought so far into this au, please feel free to ask questions about this AU outside of requests. I am dying to talk about random bits of lore I made up (such as Arle's backstory that I won't be able to write). Also this isn't the end. Because there is going to be a Part 5. What the fuck, guys /j.  Hi anons!! Yes, you can be 🦊 anon and 👅anon. I'm sorry for how late this was first anon, I know I kept you for a while 😭. Also I'm sorrry for not being able to fulfil parts of your request because a) jealous arle wouldn't make sense given the worldbuilding, and b) i don't write nsfw of any kind. Sorry. I'm not going to include how exactly you're pregnant because it makes me uncomfortable writing it, so I'll just leave it up to your interpretation.  Please don't let these discourage you from requesting from me :). I always try my best to satisfy every request as long as it's reasonable and within my rules.  Content warnings / info - no warnings :), 1.8k words

Recovering from the infected wound didn't take long–in fact, it only took a week to be fully healthy, and the wound was healing nicely. Arlecchino was able to take care of everything while you were bedridden. You were surprised by how diligent and aware she seemed to be of taking care of you, especially as a dragon, but you didn't question it. She has had several decades of experience before you, you wouldn't be surprised if she picked up on a few things about humans. 

It's been about four months since the dragon hunters incident, and you have yet had another situation like that. Venturing into the town you had previously been going to was no longer safe, and so you began frequenting another bordering village. It was a bit further away, but because it turned out to be a port town, it ended up providing you with a lot more food and resources you previously couldn't access; including: fresh fish, more meat and produce, and more clothes and fabric. 

The trio have grown big enough to which you ride on top of one of them with no difficulty. They not only increased in size, but also their affection for you, crawling into your lap or climbing your back, or simply pouncing on any limb and holding onto you tightly. The same could be said for you, you no longer saw them as children, but your children. Arlecchino tells you that they refer to you as ‘Mother’ often.

Speaking of Arlecchino, she is no longer the standoffish dragon she was before the dragon hunters incident. On certain days, she can be just as clingy, if not more, than the children, although she would vehemently deny it with a scoff if you are to ever bring it up. Over time, she was less dragon, and more human to you, and with that, your attraction towards her continued to blossom. Your current relationship status with her is still strange, neither of you had ever labeled it on human standards, nor have the two of you ever ‘courted’ one another–in human or in draconic methods. Still, neither the two of you could miss the glances or the way you hold each other. 

Lately, the past few weeks, she has been acting strange. She's been exiting the cave more often alone, leaving you with her children to tend to, not that you mind. She returns hours later, usually with some type of wild animal she caught for you: deer, the occasional bear or moose, sometimes even pigs. You often stand at the entrance of the cave, dumbfounded as she drags the dead creature by her teeth in her dragon form, while the hatchlings salivate. If it's not wild animals, it's usually an arrangement of different colored stones she found along the shores or in the river. You appreciate them, but you're no less puzzled by the intention with each gift. 

You tried to wrack your brain of why she would be behaving like this, but you can’t come up with anything. It also seemed like with every gift you received, she became more and more… saddened? You weren't entirely sure for the reason, but you don't want to offend her by questioning her more. As the weeks pass by, and she disappears more and more, it seems like Arlecchino is… moping. 

You have asked the children multiple times, but all they do is give you a pointed look before jerking their head towards their Father and letting out a rumble. When you approach Arlecchino, asking what was troubling her, all she does is shake her head, her subtle pout ever so slightly intensifying. Finally, having enough of Arlecchino staring blankly at her hands for hours straight, you finally come up to her, taking her clawed hands in yours and gaze into her eyes. 

“Arlecchino. Tell me what's wrong,” you demand gently but firmly, kissing her knuckles.

The dragon stays silent, turning away from you, making your eye twitch. 

“Please…” You plead. 

Arlecchino seems hesitant to answer, opening her mouth before closing it several times. She contemplates something deeply, then lets out a steady exhale. 

“I've been… making courting attempts towards you,” she quietly admits, her cheeks flushing the slightest amount. “But… it seems like you're unreceptive to it because you're human.” 

Courting attempts? As if she was trying to establish a romantic relationship with you? No, it’s not courting as in ‘human courting.’ If it has to do with dragons, then perhaps it means–

“You… you want me as your mate?” You whisper out loud, your face undeniably warm at the realization, and your lips quirk up to the faintest smile. 

The dragon nods timidly, so unbefitting for a strong beast like herself. She peers at you intently, searching and analyzing every twitch of your face to come up with her own answer. You let out a huff, raising your arms to cup the sides of her face in your palms. The cold texture of her skin will never be an unwelcome sensation. 

“You could have told me instead of pouting like one of our children,” you chuckle, stepping closer to lean your forehead against her chest, feeling her thumping heart through it. 

“I didn't know if you wanted to be since… you never responded to my attempts. I know that it's silly seeing that you're human, but I felt more and more discouraged…” Her voice is low and vulnerable, and it makes you want to do nothing more but hold her in your arms forever.  

“You really still have so many things to learn about humans,” you giggle, pressing your lips against her nose. Fingers card through Arlecchino's silky locks, and you hum contently.

 “What do you mean?” 

You grin knowingly. “We like more direct expressions of our desires.” 

You stand on your tiptoes before leaning in, warm lips gracing cold ones as you pull her towards you. Your arms lock around her neck, keeping the two of you against each other. Quickly, Arlecchino responds, pressing her mouth against yours fervently while her fangs prick your bottom lip. You groan into the kiss, and squeak when her hands slide down to your behind, lifting you up from your feet and wrapping your legs around her waist. 

The two of you pull away, and there's almost a feral look in her eyes. 

“There's somewhere I have to take you to,” she growls in your ear, and you can't deny that it makes your stomach coil, your loins burning.  

“Okay…” You murmur, holding onto her tightly. She carries you with ease, walking out of the cave and following along the edge of the mountain's base. It takes only about ten minutes until you spot a small opening, another cavern. Arlecchino takes you inside, and your eyes widen at the sight.

It's a nest, a careful structure supported by stones as the foundation with the sides from branches and sliced tree trunks, before the top is covered in an assortment of blankets and pillows. However, it's smaller and cozier than the nest at home–as if it's made for humans. You carefully step into it, sitting down and finding it pleasantly comfortable. 

“Arlecchino…” you gasp out with whispered awe. 

“Yes…?” 

“Where did you get the money for this?” You question, holding a heap of the numerous silk blankets in your arms, giving her a pointed look knowing damn well it wasn't your money. 

The dragon brings a claw to her face and scratches nervously. “I had Lyney search the bodies of the dragon hunters for anything of value. They had quite a hefty sum,” Arlecchino confesses. 

You sigh in relief, glad that no weaver or innocent person was harmed in getting this. “It's lovely. Is this what you've been leaving the cave for for so long?” 

Arlecchino nods, her voice bashful. “It's… it's a mating nest, so that if it were to happen the children would not be there. I wanted to ask you here…” 

The dragon walks inside the nest, before kneeling down before you, her clawed hands gingerly finding yours and holding them in her large palms. “Would you like to be my mate?” 

“I thought my answer was obvious. Of course,” you answer, smiling. “But isn't mating season in another two months?” 

She nods in response. “I wanted to prepare as early as possible. I wanted everything to be perfect.” ‘For you,’ she leaves out, but you know it's what she implies.

“It is perfect. Thank you… though I feel bad,” you murmur, your own face flustered by your embarrassment. “It took me this long to realize. I guess… I should make it up to you by courting you back, right?” 

Arlecchino flushes, her face visibly reddening. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… you've courted me with how dragons usually do it. I will do the same, but with humans. Does that sound alright?” You offer, giving her the largest grin. 

Arlecchino's face softens, leaning down and pressing her forehead against you. “Yeah… yeah, that sounds alright,” she murmurs against your lips. 

—

Three months have passed by since then. 

Safe to say, you’re pregnant. 

Arlecchino’s attentiveness towards you had always been impressive, but it borders on extreme with how much she pampers you. Before the mating season, you've taught her all you can about human civilization and socialization so that in the instance you won't be able to travel to town yourself, she can instead. While you always have saved up a lot of money from your time as a dragon hunter, she likes to spend it on you unreservedly. 

It would be endearing if it weren't the excessive amount of blankets in the nest, as if you weren't warm enough. Not to mention the amount of books she's gotten you. Since she doesn't exactly know how to navigate a bookstore, or how to differentiate between different genres of books, she’s gotten you dictionaries, children's book, erotica even. She was blissfully unaware why you read a page for a few seconds, shut the book immediately, took a deep breath before reopening the book, only to reshut it as well, repeating the same process. You didn't want her to get any… ideas. 

Currently, Arlecchino was in her dragon form, nestled around you   protectively from any gusts of wind that may pass through the cave entrance, her tail thumping against the floor softly. Her head rests besides you, her throat rumbling gratifyingly as you run your hand over her snout. 

The trio are currently fighting over some of the beef jerky you mistakenly bought for them, unaware of the chaos it would ensue in the cave. They seem to forget that you can return to the town to buy them more… Ah well, hatchlings will be hatchlings. 

You wonder how much more lively the cave will be with another one. 

[frogeyedape]

Ah. Max tags 30? Lol congratulations on your new friend/overlord, don't hesitate to ask for more advice as needed

The road is definitely upwards, I know that one other family let you down and you're clearly terrified by me, but I hope we'll become a family.

Welcome home little one

[answer2jeff]

ready for another lie?

// carmen berzatto x reader

song: Diet Mountain Dew.

pairings: nyc chef!carmen x journalist!reader

mdni!! i'm not responsible for your media consumption.

warnings: smutty smut, VERY DETAILED, fem!reader, oral and fingering (f!recieving), porn with plot, drinking, cursing, kinda subby carmy, praise kink, alludes to piv but it doesn't happen, complete and utter filth, i'm giving the people what they want don't look at me!!!

essentially a prequel, 1 year before the start of season 1 of The Bear.

"Fuck youuuuu! It's Friday, loosen up!" A groggy voice yelled from across the bar, cursing you for declining another drink.

You watched your friends flirt with the bartender over the course of 2 rounds of shots; causing harmless fuckery with the several guys who tried flattering them. You were actually bored for once. It made you sick.

You waited for something, anything else to impress you. You tried convincing yourself you didn't have to leave, that your friends wanted you here, and that nights like these were "good for your soul," but there seemed to be no hope.

"Just two vodka tonics. Oh, and a white Negroni. Uh, yes— yes, thank you." You caught a blonde curl from the stool next to you in the corner of your peripheral vision, and you dared to turn your head. You were met by the sight of an oddly familiar guy—and then it hit you like a semi truck.

The man you wrote your final thesis on "the senses creating art," about. Food & Wines best new chef, as of late.

You'd spent an entire year and a half traveling the world (after finally making a name for yourself as a journalist, and snagging a place in Food & Wines top writers) and interviewing the faces of all forms of modern art, representing one of each of the 5 senses.

Casey French, a fragrance designer as the face of "smell." Christopher Knowles, a fashion designer who specialized in optical wear as the face of "sight."

The list went on, until it ended at Carmen Berzatto, on "taste," just 6 months ago. It was September now, and you almost forgot about the 2 and a half hours you took from your day to sit down and talk to him in that studio. Your heart dropped to your stomach as you felt the pores in your palms release a nervous sweat.

You blinked rapidly, wondering if you were really seeing him— out of all the other Friday nights, when he could've visited all the other bars. But he chose this Friday, at this bar, next to you. You needed to say something.

"I'll take a Negroni too, actually. And you can just close out my tab for tonight." You handed the bartender your card after you anxiously fished it out of your wallet, trying to seem completely oblivious to Carmen's stare. Carmen clenched his teeth, his eyebrows raised in surprise as he kept his gaze focused on you.

"Holy shit! Is that—" A slightly younger man nearly yelped while he inappropriately pointed at you, quickly being shut down by his peer, and being told to "shut the fuck up," but Carmen stayed silent. He was dumbfounded at the sight of you.

"Uh, hi. Funny seeing you here," you croaked, swallowing hard when you realized how much of a horrible excuse of a "hello," that was. Carmen didn't seem to mind, dragging his head out of the clouds and smiling back at you as he received his glass.

"Oh my god, yeah. Wow, I— it's good to see you."

Carmen glanced down at your drink, watching you trace your fingertip around the rim of the short glass. He gazed at your fresh manicure, the beautifully layered rings on your fingers, the diamonds on your wrists, the black dress with a slit that exposed your leg up to your mid-thigh. Carmen always thought you looked nice, only being used to your blazers and gorgeous vintage pants that he was a little jealous of, but this was different.

And as if you weren't already anxious enough, Carmen's "friends" immediately arose from their stools and made their way to an empty table, leaving the two of you alone again. Just looking at him and his clean suit and tie made you nervous, especially with the ink on his hands still visible.

"Good to see you too, Carmen," you smiled, cheeks aching as you tried desperately to hide your excitement. Admittedly, you admired him. That wasn't new. But that feeling in your stomach, that aching, yearning feeling was.

"I don't usually do these things," Carmen mumbled, taking a sip from his glass and licking his lips.

"Me neither. It's kinda— I don't know, icky."

You knew Carmen avoided big gatherings like this, but they were usually tolerable thanks to people who "knew him" enough to let him hang around their groups in silence while they practically screamed at each other. But his free time just never seemed to align with anyone else worth talking to... until tonight.

"Icky. Couldn't have worded it better," Carmen tried not to laugh at your expense, keeping his tongue between his teeth as both of you fought back a smile.

"You get it! God, anyway—how've you been?" You inched closer to him, resting your chin in your palm as your elbows were propped up on the counter. You made sure to keep your stare on him and only him, glancing from his nose, to his lips, and back into his eyes. You knew exactly what you were doing, and it was too late to stop now.

Carmen paused, his mouth gaping open slightly as he thought of what he could possibly say to convey that he could be doing better, without completely ruining the mood. He sucked his teeth as he took a deep breath, his eyes glued to the floor until he finally looked at you again.

"Alright, I guess. Managing. How're you?"

"Managing. But really though. Like, has anything changed?"

Carmen thought about your question, realizing how much he seemed to relax tonight—while simultaneously being the most nervous he'd ever been outside of work in the last year. Was it being out and public after a long week? Was it the fact that he still felt so stupid for not getting your actual number, and instead only having access to your business email which was provided by your agent? Was it the smell of your perfume? Was it just you?

"Uh... yeah. Yeah, I guess some things have changed."

He couldn't help but awe at the way you did your hair and your makeup that night, appreciating the tiny details your jewelry and purse of choice added to the look. He hardly ever thought twice about the attractive women he'd run into; making small talk and watching them get bored with his interests.

But now you were here; his fantasies, his desires were here, right next to him; wearing a dress that flattered your cleavage and cinched you at the waist, black heels that tapped against the footrest of the barstool. It made his head foggy, and he couldn't even wrap his head around the encounter.

After finishing your Negroni's over the course of 3 separate conversations that left you with a cramp in your side and your cheeks hurting from smiling—basically hitting it off like you were actual friends, you decided to pull the classic...

"You wanna get out of here?"

Two successful, somewhat well known adults in their lines of work were allowed to be human, right? They were allowed to share deep belly laughs with someone they didn't originally plan to see outside of a work setting, right?

Wrong. It was unprofessional, inappropriate, unwarranted: everything you promised you'd never be around him.

Carmen knew this.

But he was eye-fucking you in that goddamn interview. His tattooed hands rubbing against his thighs as he sat in front of you in the white light of that studio, his gentle voice contradicting his large, almost intimidating arms—it was all you could think about when you wrote your thesis. And now you were gonna be alone with him.

And despite his worries, despite the nervous sweat beading on his forehead, despite his growing anticipation when he admired your figure like a horny teenager, Carmen agreed. The smirk on your face and your manicured nails in between your pearly white teeth was convincing enough. He knew it was risky, given the fact that you still wrote for Food & Wine every couple of months: being more than capable of ruining his career with one wrong, but so right move.

"Yeah, actually."

Unprofessional, inappropriate, unwarranted.

Fuck it.

Carmen closed his tab, gently helping you down from the barstool by your hand. You held your purse close to you while waving a shy goodbye to your friends, who were drunkenly squealing in excitement for you. Carmen's peers seemed to be out of sight; therefore, out of mind. You felt your cheeks go hot, every part of your body tingling. Neither of you knew where you were going. Just not here, and not with everyone else.

He couldn't even think about the fact that he would be back in the glowing white light of the kitchen that following Monday, and you completely forgot about the paper you had to start by Sunday night. And it was way too late to care about any of that now.

You decided your apartment was best.

"Fuck.." Carmen grunted under his breath, his eyes hooded while he felt his pants tighten against his throbbing length. He spread his legs wider as you palmed him, trying to ease some of his tension. You hovered over him as he lied down, sprawled out on your leather couch. His hands were clawing at anything he could reach; your hair, your thighs, the straps of your dress until he pulled it down to your hips, and finally the clasp of your bra.

His bare chest heaved, red and covered in sweat. His dress shirt, tie, and jacket were somewhere in the mess of your apartment. He was honestly too desperate to care.

"You okay with me takin' this off?" Carmen whispered as he cupped your cheek, keeping his fingers prepared to unclip your bra with your permission. He admired every inch of your flushed face as he waited for answer.

"Mhm," you soothed him as your hand moved up and unbuttoned his pants the second your lips moved onto his. Saliva pooled in your mouths with every kiss, turning into a sloppy mess of tongue and teeth. Carmen struggled, but eventually tossed your bra onto the living room floor, his mouth just centimeters away from yours as he exhaled heavy breaths.

You sat up straight, pulling Carmen up by his shoulders and smashing your lips back into his. He pulled sway to breathe, taking it upon himself to peel the rest of your dress off. His tattooed hands gently caressed your plush thighs, his calloused fingers sliding under the hem of your lace underwear. He practically worshiped you like this, planting open mouthed kisses along your jawline and neck.

Carmen needed to hear you, feel you, taste you.

"I wanna taste you, if–if that's alright," he placed one last kiss of gratitude on collarbone before he looked up at you through lust-blown, half-lid eyes.

Your entire body began to heat up again, and Carmen's words went straight to your needy cunt. You could feel yourself dripping through your panties while you put a hand over your mouth in embarrassment, nodding frantically.

"Please," you begged, a mixture of a moan and a silent cry escaping. Carmen's hands detached from your thighs, your hips writhing up from the loss of contact. Without another word, he nodded his head, letting his hands travel down your hips as he got down on his knees in front of you.

Carmen took a shaky breath, glancing from your pleading eyes and back down to your bottom half. He hesitated, choosing to plant one more line of kisses from your tits down to your navel before giving you one last look for permission. He put his hand between your inner thighs, asking you to spread further. You blinked slowly while he peeled your panties off of you, wondering if he would notice how wet you already were.

Unprofessional, inappropriate, unwarranted.

Carmen licked his lips, admiring the sight of your puffy slit in hesitation. With your body sprawled out in front of him, your pretty face looking down at him...how could he not eat you out right on that leather couch?

"I've got you, baby," Carmen cooed, his eyes wide as he nearly drooled over the glossy puddle in your underwear. He gently placed your calves over his shoulders, his calloused hands scooping the underside of your thighs.

Carmens wet tongue licked a bold stripe from your hole up to your soaked clit, not a drop of your arousal going to waste. You grew impatient, the kitten licks he gave your sensitive bundle of nerves driving you mad.

"C'mon, Carmy, I—" You whined, pleading that he'd pick up the pace. Carmen decided not to hold back, giving your throbbing clit aggressive sucks that he'd later soothe with slow, flat-tongued licks.

You bit down on your hand while the other entangled in his hair to muffle the sinful noises you made. Carmen felt his stomach turn at the sound of his name falling from your gaping mouth.

Carmen took note of how much you loved his tongue diving into your weeping hole, earning whimpers and cries of "please," and "oh, fuck, Carmen." He groaned into your pussy when you caught a grip on his hair, placing his head even deeper between your thighs. He moved his hands from your thighs and up to your waist—forcing your jerky hips down on the couch. He wanted to make sure you didn't miss a single bit of pleasure.

"Can I.. uh, can I try something?" He stammered, picking his head up with his chin shiny with your liquids as his hand crept back down, prying between your folds. Carmen needed to keep every part of him busy so he wouldn't have to focus on the aching bulge, already leaking precum in his boxers. He felt his thighs clench as he fucking whimpered beneath you.

"S–sure.." You nodded frantically again, tossing your head back as Carmen carefully inserted a digit into your core. You whimpered in slight discomfort as he stretched you out, which he immediately reassured softly.

"Shhh... you're alright. Jus–just relax f'me, yeah?"

Carmen waited until you whined again; his fingers started at an agonizingly slow pace until he heard your moans getting a little too quiet for his liking. He picked his pace up, sliding another thick finger into your hole and ramming into your g-spot. He hesitated, afraid to hurt you—but you quickly dismissed his worries when you urged him that you needed more. Carmen aligned his tongue back with your pussy, sucking hard before comforting your desire with lapping at your clit.

"Oh my god, Carmen," you felt that familiar knot in your stomach, your grip in his hair tightening while your moans grew louder and louder. You didn't care if your neighbors could hear you through the thin walls of your apartment. You didn't even think about what this would look like the morning after—because none of it mattered. Not with Carmen's head between your thighs.

Carmen could tell you were close, prioritizing your pleasure before he could even register how badly he wanted to cum into his boxers. He couldn't help but buck his hips forward, begging for friction while every noise you made just inched him closer to his release... but he needed this to last.

"You close? Let me take care 'f you," he mumbled, breathing heavily against your pussy while he tried his best to stay still. It sent shockwaves through your body, and you tried desperately not to scream his name.

"So... so close.. Fuck, it's too much," your useless protest was cut short by a loud moan, muffled by the sweaty palm of your hand. Your heart pounded in your head as your walls clenched around Carmen's fingers. You weren't used to anything feeling this good in months.

"C'mon baby, you can handle it. You're alright. You're doing so good. Takin' my fingers so fuckin' good," Carmen's raspy voice comforted you. His tongue finally came back to relieve you, his fingers slowing down so as to not overstimulate you, as much as he wanted to.

"Carmy!" Your eyes screwed shut as your thighs shook. You chased your high, practically grinding into his face as his nose bumped your clit while his fingers remained at work.

—

"Jesus..." You panted, grunting in disappointment when you felt Carmen slide his fingers out of you. He licked them clean while your eyes were screwed shut as you tried to recollect yourself. Carmen planted a kiss on your temple the second he sat back up onto the couch, pulling you into his lap by your waist. You felt his erection against your crotch, his already sticky mess combining with your wetness yet again.

"You okay?" Carmen cupped your cheek, pushing any sweaty strands of hair out of your face. And just when he thought he couldn't have felt more proud of you, he melted into the feeling of your lips against his.

You didn't know if you'd ever see him again, you didn't know if this night would magically become niche hot gossip within your respective groups; all you knew was that you wanted him. His lust blown eyes on you, his hands gripping your waist as he bent you over your kitchen counter and fucked you dumb, the sound of sex echoing through your apartment.

Maybe some other Friday night.