#two state solution sounds completely fair and reasonable to me

[cometconmain]

You understood the post re: what happened to middle eastern Jews around 1945 PERFECTLY and thank you thank you thank you for doing so. It feels like I've been going crazy. I'd like to add that when non-Jews come at us about Israel, It's also not immediately obvious that they don't know what happened to the other Jews in the region, or the long history of Dhimmi. We're used to being treated like we deserve to be killed for breathing, so it just looks like more of the same antisemitism - and when we try to explain it, we're told we're centering ourselves in someone else's tragedy. I do not have the words for saying what it feels like to see someone non-Jewish understand this. It gives me a kind of hope I hadn't anticipated seeing since I was little and believed in miracles, makes it feel like I can meaningfully work towards a solution without condemning my people to be horrifically killed, again, and told that it wasn't happening and if it was we deserved it. Thank you for giving me this hope.

This has really made my night and I am so happy that me trying to learn has made a difference for you in a world that's weirdly and horribly obsessed with opposing and ending your very existence.

I got here because some really REALLY patient Jewish people chose to sit me down and check where I was actually trying to come from, then helped me identify that my activism had been infiltrated by both bad faith actors and other history-ignorant people alike, and in my intention to help Palestinians without first being educated in the full history properly I was being dragged into the radicalisation rip without even realising it.

I am very sorry to anyone I made feel unsafe while spouting things I didn't understand and I'm really glad even this ultimately bare minimum act of trying to listen for once may have done something to hopefully start making up for that.

I'm going to keep trying to listen and learn because while what's happening to the Palestinians is also still fucked up and needs to end (and I want to listen to Palestinian voices on horrific things that are being done to them by their own military and the Israeli military I just need to figure out what's truth and what's Al Jazeera propaganda which those Jewish people I mentioned are currently helping me with), spreading incorrect history, denying that Jewish people are also indigenous, refusing to recognise our (non-Jewish Westerners') massive part in causing this conflict and continuing our oppression of Jewish people doesn't achieve that in any way and just adds more horrors into the world, both for Palestinians and Jewish people, a group who have never seen an end to their persecution and many of which have understandably given up hope in seeing.

You're not imagining it, you are being gaslit about your own history both by already-bigoted people who are doing it intentionally and slowly-radicalising people who don't know any better (but who really need to stop and check where their info is coming from; it's not like we don't know about propaganda on the left or that misinformation is rife and we have a responsibility to try to filter it out. There's no excuse to keep insisting on not looking when people ping us about issues in our activism and information), and you are entirely valid in feeling hurt, angry, endangered and betrayed by that.

We are out here and we genuinely want to help everyone. Unfortunately, our ignorance of history, politics and how to find reliable non-extremist news sources is being leveraged by shitty people who see an opportunity to take our anger at what's happening to one group to sicc us on the other, a time honoured fucked up but horribly effective tactic of bigots the world over.

We can be reached though. There is hope. And when we're reached we will try to reach others (I have an overdue conversation with a good friend coming up neither of us are looking forward to because I'm pretty sure she thinks I've been hijacked by the evil totally-all-the-same-beliefs Zionists who want us to turn a blind eye to war crimes against Palestinians so they can push them all out and take everything for Israel or whatever, when I literally just want her to learn the actual history/different types of Zionism/etc with me and stop applying settler-colonial theory to a place where the problems are actually very different in nature and require a different approach neither of us know how to do yet because we need to remove all the antisemitism bugs from our activism database on this first or it'll keep infecting the rest of our system until it takes over and whoops when did we become Nazis? Fuck. I know she wouldn't want that so I'm hoping to use the same approach that worked with me without her deciding she should just throw out our over ten-year-long friendship. Wish me luck. 😆 )

You are also valid in trying to make sure you're safe. Deradicalising people is always a risk and you are so valid in not being able to pick good-faith-but-ignorant people from the raging dickheads when we all share and spread the same stuff. We usually can't pick out the differences either; that's why we fall for it slowly without even realising it's happening.

One last thing.

You never deserve it. It did happen, it is happening, and you NEVER DESERVE IT.

Anyone saying otherwise has been radicalised and needs a serious wake-up-call kick up the arse. All the best intentions in the world of helping other people who are suffering and don't deserve it do not suddenly make it ok to attack Jewish people or say they deserve oppression, disenfranchisement and genocide. They do not and they never will. That is bigot talk. That is actual Nazi talk and it is never warranted or remotely justified.

(I, too, am ignorant of what Dhimmi is. Do you want to tell me about it? I'll look it up now too but I'm open if you feel safe to share. DMs are fine too if you prefer.)

[scarlet-rosepetals]

Listen OP, I recognize that you probably didn’t ask the question in earnest because no one on this gods forsaken website asks questions earnestly, but it fucking kills me that even with genocide joe funding an extremely visible genocide right now as I type this we are still doing this shit, so I’m going to answer earnestly.

You are not American, as you said, so I get that from the outside that looks like an innocuous statement, but the reason people get angry about those who’s response to everything is “you should still vote blue” is because it never just means “you should still vote blue”. It is designed, at its core, to be a victim blaming statement, and it directly translates to “the United States would be a perfect country if only those yucky wucky marginalized people weren’t too laaaaaaazy to vote!!!” I recognize that this might sound like an exaggeration to you, but I need you to understand that there are uncomfortably large swaths of people in this country who earnestly believe that every bad thing that has happened in the United States since 2016 happened because Trump won the election, and that he won because young marginalized people didn’t cast their votes. The democratic party is in power right now, choosing to fund genocide right now, and people believe this is happening as a direct result of an insufficient number of young people voting blue no matter who.

I’ll put it in perspective. Imagine walking up to a Palestinian immigrant in the US right now who lost their family to Israel’s bombing and telling them they should still go vote blue next election or things will really get bad. Can you seriously look me in the eye and tell me that sounds like an innocuous practical statement right now?

You bring up what the alternatives are, and in fairness, I’m sure you’re getting a lot of responses that are completely irony poisoned jokes about firebombing a Walmart instead of genuine responses, but also in fairness the fact that those are your ideas for alternative actions is pretty disturbing and suggests that you just don’t think there’s a viable solution other than to keep voting blue and hoping that eventually fixes everything, which it won’t, actually it will make things worse. Frankly, it’s weird how few people seem to think that getting everyone to stand up and say “I will vote for this political party and support them no matter what they do” isn’t an obvious recipe for disaster. The democratic party is explicitly counting on left-leaning people to keep saying that so that they can keep courting centrists and pushing their party further politically right, because that’s the logical thing to do to get the most votes if voting for them is truly the only “moral” option for anyone on the left (and also because the two party system is a farce but that’s another post).

So what are the real, honest alternatives then? Well, honestly the most appropriate answer to that question is “what are you, a cop?”. Detailing your personal political actions on the internet is horribly unsafe regardless of the legal and moral status of your actions. If they genuinely challenge the status quo, it’s dangerous to talk about them. In the broad strokes though the best thing we can do is work together and help each other, because individualist notions about doing your small part in isolation or being an individual crusader for the revolution are bullshit. We’re all going to have to be a little nicer to each other and a little more willing to work as a group. On my end, that starts with providing you with a genuine explanation even though your question was dismissive and carried the victim-blaming sentiment of the “just vote blue” rhetoric. On yours, it starts with listening (and yes it starts with you too, don’t think for a second that whatever country you live in means this all doesn’t apply, the world will not be changed strictly along border lines)

listen i am not american. i understand that even democrats fucking suck and its a genuinely shitty situation to be in. im so sorry. but hey, hey look at me. why are you guys bullying people for saying "you should still vote blue?" Like im curious about the alternatives youve got. voting red? firebombing walmart? tumblr user catboyssepticbutthole, i know you will not be firebombing walmart.

[the-bau-quinjet]

Is that my sweater?

Summary: When lounging around the compound, Steve wears a lot of sweaters. When he's on a mission, you "borrow" those sweaters.

Warnings: fluff, angst, implied smut, some cursing probably

Word Count: 2284

a/n: I needed some fluffy Steve Rogers in my life today.

Masterlist

You're not sure when it started, but when Steve is on a mission, all you do is worry. It's easier to control when you're on the mission with him or even on a mission of your own, but when he's gone and you're in the compound?

All you do is worry.

You could barely even sleep. That is, until you found a semi-decent solution.

Before the last mission Steve went on, the two of you were arguing about Harry Potter. He had the audacity to say the movies were better than the books, which is categorically untrue.

Unbeknownst to you, he was just trying to get a rise out of you because he likes the way your face scrunches up in annoyance.

Anyway, he followed you to your room when you stormed out of the kitchen, not wanting you to be mad at him while he was gone. He carried his sweater in his hands, having taken it off while cooking, leaving him in a white t-shirt.

When he got to your room, he dropped it on a chair so he could grab your hands to truly convey how wrong he was about the books and movie situation.

When he was called for the mission, he left the sweater behind, leading to your so-called-solution for sleeping while he was away.

The idea hit you one night when you were physically exhausted, but mentally couldn't calm down. You rolled over, trying to get more comfortable when you caught sight of his sweater on your chair.

In your sleep deprived state, you shuffled over to grab it, throwing it on over your own pajama shirt before returning to bed.

You were enveloped in his scent, easing the nonstop worry long enough for you to fall asleep.

When you woke up the next morning, you told yourself it was a one time thing. It only happened because he left the sweater there. You were just worried about your best friend. It didn't have to mean anything.

Those were all lies.

The next time he left on a mission, you were quick to find you couldn't sleep again. Your thoughts kept returning to his many sweaters, causing you to sneak into his room to steal one to sleep in.

Every time he left while you were still at the compound, you would "borrow" a sweater from his closet, returning the previous one you had to his laundry basket.

You figured he would never find out. He owned so many sweaters, he wouldn't notice when one was dirty even if he didn't wear it.

Oh, how wrong you were.

-

"Y/N, welcome back!" Bruce greeted you as you walked into the lab, having returned from a mission late last night.

"Thanks, Banner!" You looked around the room, surprised to not see Tony. "Where's Tony?"

"Oh, he's on a mission. They left a day after you, should be back on Sunday." He replied, not taking his eyes from the tech he was working on.

"They?" You questioned, trying to think of who you had seen around the compound since returning.

"Yeah, Tony, Bucky, Nat, Wanda, and Steve." Again, his eyes remaining glued to his project, not realizing the way your face fell at the mention of Steve being gone.

"Five of them? What happened?" You tried to mask the worry that was already creeping in, threatening to take over.

Bruce finally looked up, surprised you hadn't heard about the explosions.

"There was a series of explosions in Baghdad. Intel suggested it was all to assassinate one man, but multiple bombs were used to divert attention."

You nodded, trying to take in the information. "Any leads?"

Bruce's expression turned grim as he nodded. "Hydra."

You felt your heart drop even further as you now fully understood just how dangerous the mission was. No wonder they needed the five of them.

You nodded in response before muttering something about going to the gym, needing to leave the lab so you could worry in private.

Since the compound was nearly empty, you ended up going to the gym as you said. You managed to distract yourself for a few hours, but there was still 4 days before they were supposed to be back.

That night, you snuck into Steve's room, borrowing another sweater to snuggle up in for the next few nights.

-

Friday morning, you woke to somebody knocking on your door.

You couldn't really be mad since it was already almost noon, but it was still mildly annoying to be disrupted from your limited sleeping.

In your hazy morning fog, you got out of bed to open the door. Your grumbling about being woken up died on your tongue when you realized just who was on the other side.

"Steve!" You jumped into his arms, ecstatic to see him after worrying so much. "I thought you weren't supposed to be back until Sunday!" You squeezed your arms around him tightly, unwilling to let go even when your feet returned to the ground.

"Yeah, we got done earlier than we expected." Steve graciously returned your hug, thrilled to see you after nearly two weeks apart.

After a few reassuring words that the mission went well and he was uninjured, you finally stepped back from each other.

"I was wondering if you wanted to join me to watch the next Harry Potter-" He abruptly cut himself off as he took in your appearance. His brows pinched together in confusion. "Is that my sweater?"

You instantly froze. In your sleep fogged ming, you had forgotten to take off his sweater before answering the door. You could feel the blush warming your face as you tried to think of a way out of this.

"Would you believe me if I said no?" You gave him a nervous smile, trying to avoid admitting the truth.

He laughed, although still confused. "Not really, no."

You sighed, before reluctantly confessing. "Yeah. It's your sweater."

He waited, as if expecting you to willingly explain why you had it, before he eventually asked the question you were dreading.

"Um, why are you wearing it?" He coughed, a slight blush growing on his cheeks as he looked you up and down again.

Your mind raced trying to come up with a good reason for you having his sweater, but you couldn't think of anything but the truth.

You threw your hands up over your face, avoiding all eye contact as you blurted out, "I was worried about you."

He waited again, before gently prompting you to continue. "So..."

"So, I broke into your closet and stole your sweater to sleep in because it's the only way I can get myself to calm down enough to sleep while you're on missions." You gasped, covering your mouth as you realized what you just admitted.

His eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he sputtered. "Missions? Like multiple? You've, uh, you've done this before?" His face grew redder at the thought of you sleeping in his clothes.

You nodded, hands still over your mouth to prevent any other unfortunate confessions.

"Um, since, uh since when?" He cleared his throat, trying not to sound to giddy.

"You remember when we had the Harry Potter movies versus books argument?" You moved your hands away from your face just enough to talk, before quickly covering your face again to hide your embarrassment.

He nodded, thinking back a few months.

"You left a sweater in my room when you were called away on that emergency mission and I just..." You gestured with your hands, not wanting to actually say it out loud.

Steve was completely speechless. You worried about him enough to want, no need to sleep in one of his sweaters when he was gone?

The only word he could manage to get out was a whispered, "why?"

You shrugged, repeating your earlier statements. "Because I worry about you when you're on missions."

"Yeah, but why?" He was having a hard time comprehending what this actually meant. He meant why did the sweater help, but you took it as a question of why you worried.

You shrunk in on yourself, avoiding eye contact again.

"I, uh, well you're my best friend, and I, um, care about you..." You trailed off, not sure you were entirely ready for your feelings to be out in the open.

"Enough that you worry so much you can't sleep without my clothes?" Steve was so bewildered, he was barely thinking. He was definitely not controlling his tone of voice. The question came across to you as harsh and annoyed.

In your eyes, he was clearly upset with the situation. The only logical reason you could think of for him to be that upset is if he knew about your feelings and didn't reciprocate them.

Tears sprung to your eyes as you hastily removed the sweater, leaving you slightly chilly in just your tank top and shorts. The chill sent a new wave of emotion over you, anger replacing the sadness at how harsh we was being with you.

"Yeah, I care about you, asshole. Hell, I think I'm in love with you." Despite your mumbling, he could clearly understand what you said. His eyes went even wider at your latest confession.

"I'm sorry I took your clothes." You threw the sweater at him, grabbing a sweatshirt from your desk. "If it helps at all, I only ever had one sweater at a time." Your bitter tone did not go unnoticed by Steve.

"Y/N, I..." He paused, still overwhelmed by finding out that you loved him too.

Your eyes quickly softened, the brief angry stint ending. You couldn't be mad at him for not feeling that same way. It wasn't fair. You would just have to move on.

"Steve, it's fine. I'll get over it." You brushed past him into the hallway, deciding to drown your sadness in junk food from the kitchen.

Steve stood frozen, watching you walk away and wondering how that went so poorly.

-

When you made it to the kitchen is was thankfully empty. You dug around for a few minutes, looking for something that would make you feel better, ultimately settling on a package of Oreo's and a glass a milk.

For some reason, it's always been a comfort food for you, reminding you of being a kid and having no real problems.

A few stray tears fell down your cheeks, but you hastily wiped them away. You would resign yourself to cry in the comfort of your own room later.

A few minutes into eating your Oreo's, nearly everyone appeared in the kitchen.

You honestly should have expected it since it was pretty much prime lunch time.

You did your best to put on a happy face as you ate your cookies, not really joining any conversations but nodding along. A few minutes later, everyone settled around the room, eating various things and having separate conversations.

You had just finished your cookies and rinsed your glass when Steve ran into the room, a look on his face that could only be described as desperate.

"Whoa, slow down there Capsicle. Where's the fire?" Tony joked, earning chuckles from a few people.

Steve ignored him as his eyes scanned the room, settling on your frozen form by the sink.

"Cap, you good?" Sam questioned as everyone grew more concerned with his behavior.

Again, Steve ignored him. He took four large steps around the island before coming face to face with you. You took a deep breath, really not wanting to have this conversation in front of literally everyone you work with.

"Steve, wha-"

He cut you off by pulling your head to his, pressing his lips to yours in a passionate kiss.

You froze at first, but quickly leaned into his embrace to deepen the kiss.

He pulled back, much too soon for your liking, to stare into your eyes.

"Y/N, I honestly have no idea what just happened in your doorway. I think my brain malfunctioned or something, but please believe me when I say I've been in love with you for months."

A blush painted your cheeks as you took in his words, a weird mixture of confusion and relief flooding your emotions.

"You do?" He nodded, still holding you close to him. "But- you just- you do?"

He laughed, pulling you into a hug and whispering in your ear, "I do. I really, really do."

"I love you too." You admitted in as soft a whisper, eagerly leaning into his warm embrace. You took a deep breath, finding comfort in the all too familiar scent.

You would have stood in his embrace for hours if not for your moment being interrupted by the clapping and hollering of your teammates.

"About time, punk." Bucky smirked from his seat on the barstools.

"Personally, I would love to know what happened in Y/N's doorway." Tony chimed in, laughing when you hid your face in Steve's chest.

"Steve probably just found out about Y/N's sweater habit." Nat added casually, earning looks from everyone in the room.

You were speechless, having been sure no one else knew.

Wanda, Sam, and Clint looked way too excited to learn more.

"You all really need to be more observant." She muttered to yourself.

You and Steve slipped out of the room when attention had turned to Nat, slowly making your way back up to your room.

"You're welcome to steal my sweaters anytime." Steve pulled you into his side as you walked down the hall.

"Oh, well I guess I'll start with this one then." You smirked before pulling him into your room, already removing the sweater from his body.

Permanent tag list:

@averyhotchner @jesuswasnotawhiteman

[satendou]

800 follower special!

⟼  you should’ve gone to shiratorizawa

・‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥・

⇢  pairing: oikawa/iwaizumi/reader/matsukawa/hanamaki

⇢ au: college

⇢ summary: friday nights are meant for fun, but maybe not the kind you’re thinking of

⇥  masterlist

⇥  requests are open! | rules

⇢  warnings: gangbang, fingering, cocksucking, unprotected sex, double penetration, spitroasting

⇢  word count: 5.3k

・‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥・

⇢  a/n: hopefully this lives up to expectations. the name is just a joke and this was written for laura’s birthday in july. it hasn’t been proofread, so hopefully nothing sounds too weird. anyway, i need to go exorcise my computer, so if you’ll excuse me.

Being friends with the former Seijoh third years was...interesting to say the least. They were all flirtatious in their own ways but never more than you were comfortable with, and they were more than a little protective. They went from best friends to brothers and back again in the span of a half a second if someone was making you uncomfortable or someone they didn’t like was paying too much attention to you. It wreaked havoc on your love life, to be honest, but at the end of the day you wouldn’t trade them for the world.

Being the manager for Seijoh with them also led to some issues at school. They were popular, especially with other girls, and that meant a lot of jealousy. It was easy enough to ignore because they were yours and anyone who listened to the rumors were put on the club’s shit list. Girlfriends posed a bigger problem, but you made do with their nasty looks and possessiveness and a petty part of you couldn’t help but be happy when the boys got sick of it and cut them loose. New rumors would fly every time it happened, calling you a multitude of names and saying they needed to “wake up and see what you really were.” They were always there for you when it got to be too much and, once, when you were really considering quitting the team in your second year, they banded together and all but begged you to stay. Even Oikawa, who flew through girls like he flew through serves, wrapped you up in his lanky arms and pleaded with you.

That was probably the reason that, even in your second year of college, you were still best friends with them. Sure your circle of friends had expanded, but the core somehow remained the same.

Which was why you were at home with them on a Friday night instead of out at the club or the bar with your other friends, trying to decide on a movie to watch next.

“Treasure Planet,” you said, pinning Oikawa with a scowl. 

He looked back at you with one of his own, arms crossed over his chest. “Independence Day.”

“Treasure Planet.”

“Independence Day.”

Your petty argument was interrupted by Makki and Iwa walking out of the kitchen with beer and bags of chips, setting them down on the table.

“Children, children, there’s a simple solution to this problem,” Makki said, falling down onto the couch beside you. The action threw you off balance and you fell sideways into him, and he used that to pin you to him, laughing when you squirmed. “It’s _____’s birthday and we’re going to watch The Incredibles, and that’s that.”

Oikawa whined from the loveseat, falling back into it with a huff. “That’s not fair.”

“Well, maybe you should wait your turn. Besides, you’ve been outvoted,” Iwa said around a mouthful of chips. The tab on one of the beers opened and you could hear the faint sound of carbonation bubbling. “Did Issei fuckin’ fall in? Where is he?”

“He probably got distracted watching those Tik Tok dances again,” Makki snickered. You had relaxed against him at that point, giving in and laying down with your head in his lap. He absently petted your hair as he scrolled through his phone, finding Mattsun’s contact info.

Before he could send a message, Mattsun came out of the hallway, saying, “I’ll have you know I had Chipotle for lunch today, so fuck off.”

“Way too much information, Mattsu,” you said, grimacing. “That’s why you should stay away from it.”

“I’m just kidding,” he said, sitting down beside you. You curled your legs up to give him space and then stretched them back out, resting your ankles on his thighs. His hands were warm and rough where they rubbed your skin, and goosebumps rippled up your arms. “I was watching Tik Tok.”

“Ha, called it.”

“Is someone gonna play this stupid movie or what?” Oikawa grumbled, salty about not being able to pick the movie. You could find no reason to complain, however, because The Incredibles was one of your favorites and Makki knew it. “After this we’re watching Independence Day, though.”

Mattsun picked up the remote to find the movie while Iwa threw a chip at Oikawa, saying, “Yeah, yeah, Whinykawa. Just shut up and watch the movie.”

Silence fell for a little while and, for all his complaining, Oikawa became absorbed into the movie, gasping and hiding behind his hands when things got too tense. You were trying not to laugh at his dramatics, but you still found yourself snickering into your hand.

Makki kept looking down at your shaking shoulders, brows furrowed in confusion when you laughed at things that weren’t even funny. Leaning down, he whispered, “What the hell is so funny?”

Still grinning, you pointed at Oikawa, who had his knees up to his chest currently, arms wrapped tightly around them as he watched the screen. Makki snickered at that and nudged Mattsun, who looked up from his phone in confusion and followed his finger to Oikawa. Soon, all three of you were giggling, much to Iwa’s annoyance, and he glared at you after a few minutes.

“Would you idiots shut up? There’s a movie playing,” he snapped, even though he had spent more time on his phone than actually watching. There was a girl from his calculus class he was trying to get with, and that was far more important than The Incredibles.

“Yeah, shut up, please. I’m trying to watch,” Oikawa said, completely oblivious to the fact that it was him you were laughing at. 

Silence fell again for a while, but then Makki and Mattsun got bored. It started off slow, gentle drags of Makki’s fingers up your arm and Mattsun’s ghosting lightly over your calf. You swatted and kicked, thinking they were doing it on accident, but when it continued to happen, you rolled over to glare at them.

“Do you want Iwa to get pissed at us? You know he’ll kick us out of the living room,” you whispered, swiping at Makki’s hand. He snatched it out of reach at the last second, not that you could’ve held onto it anyway with your meager strength.

Makki hummed, pretending to think, and shared a glance with Mattsun. Your eyes narrowed at the mischievous grin on the latter’s face, and then he said, “That’s tempting. I can think of a few other things I’d rather be doing.”

He punctuated it with an eyebrow wiggle and you groaned, covering your now red face with your hands. Because of that, you missed the round of knowing looks that passed between them, smirks rising up onto everyone’s faces.

Favorite pastime number one-- riling _____ up.

“What, you don’t like the sound of that, princess?” Oikawa asked, all interest in the movie suddenly lost. His feet came back down to the floor and he snickered when you flipped him off, keeping your eyes covered.

“Oh come on, you can’t tell us you haven’t thought about it before?” Makki asked, trying half-heartedly to pry your hands away. He didn’t want to hurt you. When he finally managed it, you squirmed against him, trying to tug them back and hiding your face in his stomach.

“What would you say if I said yes?” you asked, voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt. Your face was so hot that you were sure you were going to combust, but two could still play at their game.

“Woah, wait really?” Mattsun asked. He had had to gather your ankles up when you were fighting Makki to keep from getting kicked in the gut, and he squeezed them now, lazy eyes narrowing. “No way.”

“Wha-- No, of course not,” you said, whipping up to look at him with a scowl. It was the first time you had seen any of them since the whole teasing session had started, and you floundered at the looks they were wearing. Intrigue mixed with amusement, all of them more serious than you had expected. “It’d be weird.”

Of course you would never in a million years tell them that you absolutely had thought about it, with all of them. They were gorgeous and they knew it, how could you not?

It was Iwa who broke the tension in the room, simultaneously bringing on a whole new type into play with his words.

“That’s too bad, princess. Because we have,” he said, and his lips curled in an almost sinister smirk. He watched your throat bob as you swallowed, your eyes growing wide with surprise, but the way you squeezed your thighs together didn’t go unnoticed by anyone. “So are you sure* you haven’t thought about it?”

Eyes flying around the room, you found each of them watching you with near predatory expectation. You had come home from school expecting to get drunk and binge watch movies until you passed out, not be offered the proposition of fucking your best friends. But the heat pooling between your legs gave yourself away, and you shifted to sit up. You had seen a lot of these men in the several years you had been friends with them, and you knew what they were packing through locker room mishaps and when you would go swimming together. And they had all wandered into your room more than once when you were getting changed. Even now, in college, they still just barged in unannounced, throwing things at you or lounging on your bed while you stood there in a state of half-undress. 

“You guys are pervs,” you said, but there was no bite to it. You were thoughtful, still gazing at each of them in turns, fidgeting with the hem of your shirt while butterflies fluttered in your stomach. “You’re being serious?”

The atmosphere shifted to something softer, something you were more used to then, and Makki’s warm breath ghosted over your ear as he said, “Only if you want to, princess.”

The rest nodded in agreement, excitement and anticipation glinting in their eyes and, when you finally nodded too, you found yourself being hoisted into Makki’s lap. Mattsun shifted closer, knees pressing against yours while Oikawa and Iwa stood up and moved to stand in front of you. If it had been anyone else, you might have been scared, but these were your best friends. So why were you so nervous?

Oh right. 

“Anything you don’t want to do?” Iwa asked, and the hands sliding up your sides and thighs stilled, waiting for your answer.

Your already red cheeks seemed to turn darker as you shook your head, and their eyes narrowed eagerly.

“Anything you want to try?” Mattsun asked, squeezing your thigh, and you were sure you were going to combust. If there was a worse time to try anything new, it would be in a five-way. Though was there a better place to try than with your friends? At least they would listen and take care of you.

“Um, m-maybe--” You paused and closed your eyes, expecting laughter at your request. “Double penetration?”

A pin could have been heard hitting the floor in the silence that followed, and then Mattsun and Iwa groaned deep in their throats.

Oikawa whispered, “Oh shit.”

Makki leaned forward, resting his forehead on your shoulder as your eyes opened, saying, “You’re gonna kill us, _____.”

“W-What?” you stuttered, bewildered at their reactions. If they didn’t want to that was fine. It was just something you had fantasized about-- and you weren’t saying any of them were the subjects-- more than once. “If you don’t--”

“Don’t even finish that sentence. Unless you have a preference, how do we decide who goes first?” Makki asked, and his eyes were bright with anticipation, his cock already hard at the prospect. 

Iwa shifted, a dark hunger in his eyes as he said, “I’m okay with watching first.”

“Me too,” Oikawa said, already shifting his erection so it was more comfortable in his shorts. “That okay with you, princess?”

You nodded mutely and then you were being pushed to your feet and guided down the hall by hands in yours and on your back. You wondered if this was how a lamb felt being guided to slaughter as they surrounded you, all rippling muscle and heat. Iwa’s bedroom door was pushed open and then they were stripping their shirts off, dropping them to the floor like it was the most normal thing in the world.

They didn’t seem embarrassed at all, but you squirmed under their intense gazes as you pulled yours off, letting your breasts bounce free.

“Fuck,” someone-- Mattsun, maybe-- cursed, and you flushed. Someone whistled low, and when you looked up they were just standing there staring, eyes roving up and down as each licked their lips. 

Bolstered by the positive attention, you hooked your fingers in the waistband of your shorts, wiggling your hips as you slid them off. They fell down your legs and you kicked them to the side, now standing completely naked before the four men. 

Oikawa groaned, running his fingers through his hair while Makki’s fingers twitched at his sides, and then they were kicking their shorts off as well and you gulped. They were all packing, and you couldn’t recall them being that big before. Then again you had never gotten a decent look at them so close up, but your pussy throbbed at the idea of those being inside you.

They were all standing up straight and tall, and you could practically feel smugness radiating off of them as you stared slack jawed.

“What the hell have I gotten myself into?” you asked, taking a few steps towards Oikawa, who was the closest. Glancing up as you reached out, he nodded and then hissed when your small hand wrapped around his cock. It was longer than it was thick, the smallest in the bunch-- which was saying something-- but still, your mouth watered at the sight of his flushed head leaking precum. Little gasps were escaping his mouth and he wrapped a hand around your wrist loosely.

“I’m a little jealous,” Makki said, watching your hand stroke Oikawa’s shaft. 

You licked your lips when you turned to find him matching your motions on his own cock, heat pooling between your legs as you watched. There was heat at your back and then large hands on your hips, and Iwa’s breath ghosted across your ear.

“Can we kiss you?” he asked, low in your ear but you could see Makki and Mattsun stand straighter at the question and, when you nodded, they smiled.

Oikawa was quick to capture your lips and you tasted chocolate on your tongue as he delved past them. Iwa’s lips latched onto your neck, nipping tentatively and letting his hands ghost down lower, dipping between your thighs. His hips rocked into your ass as he touched your clit for the first time, his fingers already coming away slick.

“Shit, she’s so wet already,” Iwa announced, pressing more firmly against you. 

You pulled away from Oikawa to gasp, spreading your legs a little more, and felt another set of fingers knock Iwa’s out of the way. Oikawa’s were longer and slender, a little more careful in circling the sensitive bud. Then Iwa’s fingers were back, prodding at your dripping pussy from behind, gathering your essence up before delving two thick fingers inside.

Your eyes widened, free hand flying up to Oikawa’s shoulder as you moaned, tipping your head back. “O-Oh.”

“Feel good, princess?” Oikawa whispered, and glanced over your shoulder to Makki and Mattsun, both palming their cocks as they watched. Your nails bit into his skin, hips rocking in time to their pumps, and he smirked. “I know I can’t wait to see you filled up. Been thinkin’ about this for a long time.”

You looked surprised by that statement, and everyone chuckled. It had come out one night when they got drunk and started talking, in typical male fashion, about women. All of them had agreed they wouldn’t turn down a chance with you and, instead of the usual jealousy, they had talked about what it would be like for them all at once. It had stuck in their heads ever since, just waiting for the right moment to come out.

“Did you really think we hadn’t thought about it? You’re hot, _____,” Makki said and, though he tried to sound nonchalant, he wasn’t pulling it off. He and Mattsun were right beside you now, each palming your neglected tits, rolling and tweaking your nipples while they squeezed the soft flesh. You arched your back, pushing into their groping hands for more, and then lips wrapped around them. Your free hand carded through Mattsun’s hair, a loud cry ripping from your lips as they sucked.

Iwa crooked his fingers just right, knuckles grazing over a certain spot inside you, and you cried out again, a babbled mix of their names. His hand tightened on your hip as you leaned into Oikawa and he did it again, spreading his fingers as he pulled out and feeling your slick walls squeeze down on him.

“Need you to cum for us, pretty girl, then we can get to the real show,” he whispered in your ear, dark and gravelly with repressed lust. His cock was smearing precum all over your ass as he ground it against you while your hand continued to stroke Oikawa unevenly, just enough to feel good.

You nodded, sucking your lip in between your teeth as the coil built, and Oikawa’s fingers pressed harder to your clit in an effort to bring you over the edge. His lips collided with yours again, swiping his tongue across the seam and you let him in with a gasp as Iwa slowed, curling his fingers again to focus on your g-spot. Your legs tensed and you pushed your chest into Oikawa’s, thighs shaking as your high crested, pussy squeezing Iwa’s fingers.

You moaned, hips jerking in his hold as Oikawa continued to circle your clit, Iwa basking in the feel of you cumming around his digits. Your breathing came out in puffs against Oikawa’s chest, where your face was currently hidden, and you allowed yourself to be guided around to the bed.

Makki climbed on first, laying down on his back, and patted his thighs to summon you. You crawled across the mattress on shaky legs and settled over him, slit hovering above his cock lying against his stomach. It was slick with his precum, red and twitching occasionally, and you rolled your hips, gasping as it ground across your still sensitive clit.

The bed shifted behind you as you rode Makki, and the sound of a cap opening reached your ears before something prodded your rear entrance. Matsukawa’s voice was low and close to your ear, nipping the shell before saying, “You still sure about this?”

He chuckled when you nodded frantically, and Makki joined him, commenting, “Yeah she is. I think she’s even wetter now.”

Mattsun took his time, massaging and working you up to take him, and your back arched when one thick finger finally slid in. Lips parting in a silent gasp, your toes curled and you rocked back in time with his slow thrusts.

“More, Issei, please,” you whispered, lacing your fingers with Makki’s. He was breathing heavy, rolling to meet your hips every time you ground against him, eyelids fluttering with pleasure. “Hiro, c-can I--?”

Mattsun hummed in response and traced a second finger around your hole, slowly forcing it in and listening to you whine. You were making the sweetest noises as you grazed your clit across Makki’s cock, his face contorted with pleasure at feeling your slick folds moving across him. 

“Can you what?” Makki hummed, helping you move. His eyes were locked on the sight of his shaft disappearing between your folds, and then you were lifting up, to his confusion.

Mattsun let his lips trail over your shoulder and up your neck, sinking his teeth into your skin. You tightened around him, hips jerking in Makki’s hands when you slipped the head of his cock inside you. “Fuck, baby, yes, shit,” he hissed as you slid down. 

You moaned out his name as he throbbed inside you. He had sucked his lip between his teeth to ground himself at the sudden tightness, his back arched off the bed.

“Fuck,” you moaned. Iwa’s fingers had nothing on Makki’s cock, and he eased you down slowly, groaning at how tight you were. “You’re so big, Hiro, oh my god.”

He snickered at your babbled praise, eyes focused on his cock disappearing into your tight snatch. “I know, princess, but you’re tight as hell. I hardly fit.”

If you weren’t already flushed before, you were after hearing his words, and he bit out a curse when you pussy clenched around him. He was panting by the time he was seated inside you, cock throbbing at the tight fit.

The mattress shifted again and suddenly Iwa and Oikawa were surrounding you as well, hands pulling yours from Makki’s and wrapping them around their hard shafts. They guided your strokes while Iwaizumi captured your lips for the first time, groaning as he swirled his tongue around your mouth. Your thumb grazed over the tip of his cock and his hand tightened around your wrist in response. 

The fingers in your ass slid out and the cap snapped open again. Mattsun poured a generous amount of lube on his cock, stroking it a few times to spread it around and then he was prodding at your entrance. 

“You can still back out of this, princess. Just say the word,” Mattsun said, and there was gentle concern behind the arousal. But you shook your head frantically, grinding down on Makki in an attempt to roll back again Mattsun, and he grunted as you tightened around him.

He held you still while Mattsun slid inside you as well, listening to you whine and gasp until he was sheathed inside. His cock was just as big as Makki’s, and your mouth fell open but no sound came out at the feeling of being stuffed so full. Oikawa and Iwa benefitted as well, your hands tightening around them as they continued to fuck them.

All the men released shuddery groans when you began to rock your hips, moaning loudly when Makki and Mattsun thrust experimentally. 

The room filled with groans, mixing with the wet slap of skin on skin. Sweat beaded on your forehead, head lolling back onto Mattsun’s shoulder. You were so full you couldn’t think straight, attention narrowed down to the slide of their cocks in and out of you, their growled praises and moans filling your ears and you whined at their words. Oikawa and Iwa had taken over moving for you, large hands wrapped tight around yours and using them to jerk themselves off.

Oikawa was babbling about how soft your hands were and Iwa enjoyed watching the tip of his cock push between your fingers.

“You look so pretty,” Makki gasped, fingers digging into the skin of your hips as his snapped up, burying his length into you again. He kept grazing over the spot Iwa had found before, unable to avoid it just because of how big he was, and it was drivinging you straight up to the edge. “You’re gonna cum for us, right?”

Your pussy fluttered around them when hands groped your tits again, playing with your nipples. Tears pricked your eyes, your noises muffled by Mattsun’s lips as he turned your head to the side to kiss you. 

Oikawa and Iwa’s hips stuttered when you squeezed your hands, the pleasure reaching it’s breaking point when Makki’s thrusts forced his pelvic bone to grind against your clit, and you cried out, clenching around them without warning.

Makki groaned and Mattsun choked, snarling out simultaneous curses as they buried inside you, giving short jerks of their hips to extend your orgasm. Your toes curled when it became too much and they pulled out, giving a few short jerks of their hands before they were cumming all over them while they moaned.

“Fuck that was so perfect,” Makki panted, sitting up to capture your lips. His kiss was feverish and needy, dominating your mouth and you whined when he pulled away. Shifting you to the side carefully, he crawled away, giving Oikawa and Iwa space while he and Mattsun went to clean up.

Iwa took you from him, peppering your shoulder all the way up to your cheek with kisses. His voice was gentle as he asked, “Are you alright? We can stop.”

But you shook your head, grinding back into him even though your cunt throbbed still. You were already aching for him to fill you again, and Oikawa tilted your chin up, letting his thumb glide across your lips, eyes dipping down to them and back up in question.

Instead of answering, you pushed him back and settled down on your hands, pressing against Iwa’s cock and wiggling your hips while you nuzzled Oikawa’s. His long fingers carded through your hair while Iwa grabbed your hips, wasting no time in burying himself inside your loose hole, eased by the slick from your previous orgasm. You gasped against the head of Oikawa’s cock and he slipped inside your parted lips, grinning slyly.

The sound of a door closing broke through to you, and you found Makki and Mattsun crawling onto the bed, settling against the headboard. They were wearing matching grins, eyes locked on you as you were stuffed again. Your eyes locked with Makki’s and you whined, causing Oikawa to groan. Your jaw ached as you tried to swallow him, drool spilling out down your chin. Relaxing your throat, you let him push further, groaning out praises as he rocked his hips, sliding a little deeper each time.

Iwa still managed to stretch you even after the pounding you had already taken, balls slapping against your throbbing clit and your fingers bit into the blankets, fisting the fabric between them as the pleasure built again.

After a few thrusts, your nose was buried in Oikawa’s curls and he held you there, thighs trembling with pleasure even as tears streamed down your cheeks.

“You’re so tight, princess, swallowing my cock so good,” he rasped, gazing down at you with lustful adoration. You ran your tongue along his length as he pulled back out, suckling on the head for a few seconds before he stuffed himself back in again.

Iwa had set up a steady pace behind you, eyes locked on the way his cock disappeared inside your slick hole, squeezing down around him every time his balls touched your clit. He knew you must be sensitive after two orgasms, but he couldn’t bring himself to be slow, not when you were so tight and hot around him. And not when he had gotten off to this exact mental image more times than he cared to admit. He locked eyes with Oikawa over your head and smirked, slamming his hips into yours nonstop.

You were whining and moaning around Oikawa, eyes rolling as the pleasure impossibly built again, faster and more intense than before. There was no way you could cum again, you swore, but the way Iwa was grazing over your swollen g-spot with every thrust, stimulating your clit each time, was driving you towards your high once again. Your toes curled when Oikawa hit the back of your throat, moaning at the vibrations your noises were making around him.

Both men were panting with exertion, fingers digging into your skin and tightening in your hair, moaning and gasping when you tightened or swallowed around them.

“Fuck, I can feel you’re gonna cum again, huh, princess? Go on, give us one more, I know you can,” Iwa grunted, and reached down beneath you. His fingers were rough against your sloppy, sensitive clit, and you whined pathetically.

Oikawa’s thrusts slipped and he pulled out of your mouth suddenly, painting your face in his hot cum, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as your vision whited out. You were probably loud as you cried Iwa’s name, the intense pressure in your gut exploding.

Iwa grunted in surprise as a clear liquid coated his abdomen, and then he chuckled darkly. His thrusts slowed as he rode you through your orgasm, more cream dribbling down his balls until he slowed to a stop. 

“Did she really squirt?” Makki groaned, and his cock twitched in his shorts. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

Iwa pulled out of your twitching cunt and stroked himself off, moaning as he came all over the back of your thighs. His movements stilled and you pushed yourself up onto your knees, legs trembling from overexertion, to look at the men around you. Oikawa’s cum was still drying on your face, and you took the shirt he offered you to wipe it off.

“S-Sorry, Iwa,” you said, but the look on his face said he didn’t mind at all, so you grinned.

“Someone’s happy with themselves,” Mattsun commented, watching Oikawa help you off the bed. They all snickered when you stumbled into his chest, and you joined in with them.

“‘Course I am,” you said, letting him and Iwa lead you towards the door. You definitely needed a shower and something to eat. “I just came three times. Why shouldn’t I be?”

The door shut behind you on the two of them cackling, and you wandered across the hall to the bathroom. A quick shower later-- and it was quick, even though Iwa and Oikawa insisted on showering with you-- and you were bundled up in fresh clothes between Iwa and Makki on the couch, another movie playing on the TV screen.

“You know, princess, if you wanna do that again, just let us know,” Makki said, a teasing lilt to his voice as he carded his fingers through your hair. Iwa grunted in agreement as he trailed his fingers up your thigh, slipping beneath the hem of the t-shirt you wore-- his, and he was a bit smug about it-- to finger the edge of your panties.

You hummed noncommittally but grinned, already thinking about what the next time would be like. “I’ll think about it. Does it have to be all four of you at once?”

They all furrowed their brows, looking at each other with thoughtful expressions and seemed to come to a decision.

“No, I guess not,” Iwa said, staring down at you with a quizzical look. “But is there some reason you don’t*?”

“No,” you said, shrugging. “I just wondered if I could get away with one or two at a time or if you were a package deal.”

“Oh, so you want this to be an ongoing thing?” Mattsun asked with a smug smirk. He was seated on Iwa’s other side, and leaned forward to look at you. “I’m down.”

Shrugging, you rolled onto your back, stretching your legs out so your feet rested in his lap and he trapped them there, massaging them gently. “I mean, if you are. I’m not dating anyone so why not?”

“Looks like all those rumors were true, huh?” Makki teased, poking your nose. “You did want us all to yourself. Greedy, greedy, _____.”

Swatting his hand away, you grinned. “Like you haven’t been all mine from the first time we met, Makki.”

“Would you guys please shut up? We can figure this out later, right now, I’m trying to watch this movie,” Oikawa complained, glaring at the three of you from the loveseat.

Iwa threw a chip at him in retaliation, but everyone fell silent after that, at least for a few minutes until Mattsun piped up again.

“So who does she sleep with tonight?”

You groaned.

⇥  masterlist

[vergess]

@autismserenity​ said: Your tags are the most American thing I’ve ever read, we are truly so screwed here   

May I interest you in a more complete, and more excruciating, explanation of what I spent the last 18 months doing?

It is, I need to emphasize, fucking nasty. Don’t feel obligated, especiallly if you’ve already had A Day(tm).

There’s a lot of disease, a lot of worker abuse including sexual and racial abuse, a fine portion of letting people die for not being white enough for real medical care, all leading to homelessness.

For NDA reasons, because my former employer was just as vile as any tech company has ever been, I cannot be super specific about who I worked for. However, I can say that we handled the records and patient contact for all COVID testing for several states, as well as 2 of the 5 largest metros in the US, and several dozen smaller ones ranging from the approximate population of San Francisco, down to little towns, as well as the testing for several public school systems and at least two government agencies that I am not at liberty to disclose.

I tell you this for a sense of scale. When I say shit like, “my boss was more than happy to let thousands or hundreds of thousands die” I am not exagerrating for effect. We handled hundreds of thousands of tests a week.

Again, I need to emphasize, government agencies. Ones you would know if I named them. Ones everyone in the country knows.

And we were in charge of getting their test results from the already over swamped labs back to the patients, who often were not allowed to quarantine while awaiting results.

The fastest we got our turnaround time to on any consistent basis was about 30 hours. Often it ballooned well into weeks.

There were a number of factors for this, but the big one was always understaffing.

The staff we did have were treated like trash. One of the big selling points of this company is how “trans friendly” it is to work there. That is a lie. Every trans employee on payroll had their dead name displayed to all other staff, and until I personally changed the system setup on my arrival, patient facing trans people’s dead names were displayed to patients.

Remember that thing about “hundreds of thousands of tests a week”?

I was able to change the way patient-facing names were displayed. I was not allowed or able to alter the way internal systems displayed trans people’s names. But I was assured that it’s fine, because once you get a legal name change, you’ll be given new system accounts with your new name!

Your old accounts with your dead name would still be displayed and associated with the new ones though.

This is the “trans friendly” working environment. We were allowed to be out of the closet, as long as we were willing to put up with that. And any attempts to get it altered were the result of those nasty little transgender ingrates not being thankful enough.

Meaning that by asking to use our own fucking names we were already in the disciplinary shitter.

Another big selling point is the ~racial diversity~. The CEO was a man of colour, and so were like four other people on staff!! Wow!!!!!!!

This, too, was laughable.

Once numbers started coming in about the care gap for COVID between English and Spanish speakers, and our Southwestern US service area began to have a separate and brutal backlog just of Spanish speaking patients, my employer encouraged me to interview potential hires who speak spanish.

Fair enough! We all wanted to do our part to help close the already massive mortality gap.

So, I found candidates, did interviews, hired them, trained them, etc. But I don’t speak Spanish. As a result, I appointed 2 assistant managers who do speak Spanish to assist me in managing, you know, like the job name.

So when my super contacted them directly, completely skipping me on the chain of command, and told them to stop all of our Spanish speakers from translating helpful simple messages to send to patients, and instead start translating medical and legal documents, they very reasonably assumed I was in the know and went ahead with it.

TO BE CLEAR, that could have ended my life, theirs, basically everyone involved. Everyone in the company would have been completely fucked. At that point, my subordinates, the people for whom I am wholly responsible, were doing everything from practicing medicine without licenses, to encouraging spanish speaking patients to enter contracts that no one on the fucking executive tier could even read.

The moment I found that out, I and the A.M.s immediately started trying to get actual medical translation services to do our documents. We collected them in a neat folder. We queried translation services. We got quotes. We contacted my super and the CEO, about this over and over again for months. In the late autumn, we received approval for one of the translation services.

The CEO decided at the last minute that having people with no medical or legal training draft medical and legal forms was fine and good actually, and refused to sign the contract or send the documents for translation.

The excuse I received was that the COVID emergency HIPAA relaxations would protect us.

That’s not how that works.

Throughout all of this, Spanish speaking employees were told to either keep doing medical and legal translation work, or lose their jobs.

Oh, did I mention everyone was working between 30 and 80 hours a week, and all of us were marked as “contractors” so the employer could tax evade? Don’t worry, we filed complaints with the labour bureau.

So the entire department was let go, and “rehired” as temps through a temp agency, which because it was a temp agency could keep them marked as contractors regardless of the facts.

This change was presented to all of us, myself included, as the company getting a new accountant to handle payroll.

So if you’re keeping score, we’ve covered racism, queerphobia, medical negligence, fraud, and a frankly uncountable number of deaths.

Let’s talk about the sheer negligence towards employees ourselves. If you’ve worked in near-death medical care before, or any number of emergency services really, you know that the standard benefit suite includes either a dedicated therapist for your staff, or access to peer support groups with other emergency and medical servants through your employer’s benefits program.

Do you know what our mental health benefits were for this company?

The CEO got on a fucking zoom call with us all one (1) time, and said that if we were feeling suicidal or traumatized by the work, to talk to him about it, and he would be our therapist.

Do you know how many people per fucking day we had to contact only to be told they had already died because our understaffing delays killed them? He doesn’t. He never listened when we told him.

But let me put the cherry on the “Oh baby, you can talk to me, oooh” sundae.

Anyone who “looked” or “sounded” female, regardless of actual or assigned gender, was subject to constant flirtations and slimy, overly personal compliments about our appearances. Fortunately, at 3 levels removed from the CEO (Executives > Department heads > Managers > Employees), most of the people under my management had relatively little contact with him.

I was not nearly so lucky.

The CEO of this company has a watersports (urination) fetish. I know this, because he told me so and attempted to get me to join him in it. I have no idea how many other people in the company he did this to. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do, risk losing my job to find out? I have a fucking family to support, people.

Not that it mattered.

Eventually, all of these abuses became too much for my subordinates. Productivity fell off a cliff. Delays were getting worse and worse. In a medical emergency like this, delays=deaths.

So, like a fucking idiot, when the department heads reached out to me to ask what they could do to improve productivity, I shot down their frankly insulting suggestion of raffling a $20 amazon gift card to patient facing employees, and instead suggested a very simple, “enroll us with a peer support group, every single person in this department has PTSD from working in this pandemic.”

They were confused by my assertion of PTSD. I was asked to compile a document of complaints, concerns, and weaknesses in our patient facing services.

I and the A.M.s did so. It was roughly 40 pages long, with each page given a known problem, the reasons why it was a problem, and some potential solutions that might inspire further solutions or be able to be implemented. We submitted it. There was no response.

A week passed.

I had been working 80 hour weeks for most of a year. I hadn’t even been able to take weekends. I took my first sick day, in a company with “unlimited vacation days.”

I received a call at 3PM.

I had been fired for “differences in communitcation.” If you’ve ever seen that “Problem Women of Color in the workplace” chart? Yeah.

So had most of my department, including every transgender member of the department, and several of our extremely limited in supply Spanish speakers, who were presumed to be “on my side.”

Some of them, I barely even knew beyond the formalities of the job, and they were punished anyway.

I lost my insurance, and as a result I lost access to my medications.

But the real problem? I lost my house. And not due to lack of payment.

I lost my house, because when I got the job we waited 6 months for stability’s sake, and then readied to move out of the area. I got a mortgage on the basis of my employer’s written guarantee to the bank that I would continue to be employed for the next year at a minimum.

With the mortgage approval in hand, we entered a sales contract on our existing home.

We got and accepted an offer just days before I was fired. To keep our house meant paying a 25,000 dollar broken contract fine. We didn’t have that. We had a 10% down payment for a modest fucking place in a cheaper area, which is less than half that.

But without a job, my mortgage approval was also voided, meaning we couldn’t buy a house either.

All of a sudden, we were homeless during the plague, because my employer wrote and signed a letter to a bank guaranteeing my future employ, and then changed his mind when too many people died due to his own negligence.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the job paid less than Pandemic unemployment Assistance.

...After that, well, it’s homelessness until just last month. I... if you’ve never been homeless it’s.

It blurs. Everything is happening constantly, except for all the ways in which you are endlessly, mind breakingly bored. Bored, overloaded, and always uncomfortable.

Obviously my health would have declined regardless. Malnutrition, stress, everything.

But I was also unmedicated.

It was hell. I was in hell. I don’t know if I can recover from it, to be honest.

I bounced back from being homeless as a child. Children are as resilient as they are stupid, and the monstrosity of homelessness was little more than a vaguely remembered loathing and a panicky fear that it would ever happen again.

A child who is dying is worthy of sympathy, even if it is meaningless coos from passers by. If they have family, they may be able to rely on them too.

An adult with the indignity to die homeless and crippled, according to the average passer by, is worthy only of disgust and perhaps even punishment for being such a worthless waste.

My reward for nearly killing myself in a desperate bid to help stem the tide of COVID was the destruction of not only my life, not only my entire family’s lives, but the lives of every single family of every single employee who worked with me.

And you know what’s worse?

Each one of us still did more to limit the lethal impact of COVID than the entire united states government.

It breaks something in you, going through that.

It makes you realize that hope is a fool’s game.

But, I have ever been a fool, and so, I continue to play.

[couchpotatoaniki]

The Queen’s Consort

You love him dearly, but a servant cannot marry their Queen. Luckily, you’re not one to give up so easily, despite what others might think.

Pairing: Servant!Namjoon x Queen!Reader Genre: Royal AU, ‘Secret’ lovers AU, fluff, slight angst Warnings: smoking, swearing, mentions of misogyny Loosely based off: I’m a bit of a history nerd, so this is a weird fantasy mash-up of the reigns of the English Tudor Queens, Mary I and Elizabeth I Word count: 4.5k+

Pungent smells of rose perfume and sweet vanilla filled the room, a cloud of cigar smoke mixing in occasionally as it lay in the atmosphere.

You exhaled after another puff, feeling the tension in your muscles ease with every deep breath. Namjoon drank the sight of you, eyes closed, head tilted back, light grey smoke escaping past your puckered lips.

No matter how many times he sees this, he thinks, he won’t ever get used to it. Normally seeing you in tight corsets, confining gowns, adorned in pretty, expensive things.

But this picture of you is the prettiest.

No fancy makeup, no fancy jewellery, no fancy dresses.

Just you, in a plain nightgown as you smoked a cigar that lay loosely between your fingers, the firelight flickering across your glowing skin (blemished from the years of stress and fighting, but gorgeous nonetheless), and occasionally taking sips from whatever alcohol was in your chalice.

Today was whiskey.

As inappropriate as it is, you never minded him seeing you this unguarded. It was your time to unwind, and Namjoon helped you do just that.

In this room of paintings, you two sat on velvety golden chairs in front of the roaring fireplace and let go of the day’s troubles.

The real world was just on the other side of the door, a twist of the brass doorknob and you two would revert back to a Queen and her servant.

But in here...

In here, in this sanctuary, you were you and Namjoon was Namjoon.

Staff and all those who worked within the palace grounds knew exactly what the two of you were. How much you two meant to each other.

Whispers went about but neither of you paid much heed, even if it caused more than its fair share of trouble at times.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Namjoon asked, noticing how your relaxed brow returned to it’s familiar scrunched-up look.

Chuckling, you kept your eyes closed as you exhaled once more. “You know very well I don’t need money.”

“Okay then,” he huffed, “a kiss for your thoughts?”

One eye opened at his proposition, brow above it quirking as you smirked. “Holding those lips hostage, now?”

A large hand enveloped one of yours, giving it a tight squeeze as he sported a lopsided grin of his own. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

You loved seeing him smile, trying to etch the curve of his lips, the dip of his cupid’s bow, the two tiny valleys of dimples.

Using the thumb if your other hand, which had placed the dying cigar on a nearby glass ashtray, you caressed the knuckles of Namjoon’s hand. “Nothing, my love. Just the same as last week.”

The muscular man leaned in closer, whispering faintly in your ear, “and remind me of what that would be...”

His breath smelled of the exotic fruits he just finished eating and all you wanted to do was see how many you could taste on his tongue.

“How much I love my country,” you teased with a sly look, something you loved to do, and you knew that he did too. Probably why his lips lingered over yours, barely brushing together, and before you could kiss him properly, Namjoon abruptly pulled away.

Sat back in his seat, the taller man chuckled at your rouge cheeks and furrowed brow. “I promised you a kiss, only if you told me what you were really thinking.”

As much as you cared him, what had been lingering in your mind was not something he should know yet. Not how stressed you were, not how your advisors had pressed for you to marry someone soon and sire an heir, now that you were of age.

While one faction--led by Seokjin and Jimin, the Secretary of State and Lord Treasurer respectively--had pushed for you to marry the sole Astopian Prince, Jungkook, another faction of advisors (led by Hoseok, the Captain of the Royal Guard, and Taehyung, the Lord Chamberlain) wanted you to marry a noble from the country you govern.

These were you’re most trusted and efficient advisors, but the headaches they have been giving you make you dread to think of how much worse it would be with others in their position instead of them.

Sure, you’ve met the Prince who hails from the Jeon dynasty that has ruled the Astopian Peninsula for many centuries. Conquering copious amounts of land despite not being coronated yet.  An over-talented man with an ego too big for you to handle.

Safe to say you weren’t a fan of the idea of being tied to the childish person.

And then the nobility...

All those beasts wanted were two things: the jewelled crown on your head and the golden throne you occupy.

It was one of the reasons why the advisors were so pushy lately--people wanted your strength and your nation, and with no direct legitimate heir, your position became more unstable.

It was shown when you had to squash rebellions to overthrow you with a distant cousin or half-sibling you had no idea existed until you heard of their claim to the throne.

Either Father sure was promiscuous or they did well to cover their lies.

But there was only one man right for you, and he was happily tasting the strawberries you had requested just for him. Servants couldn’t get the quantity or quality of food of your palette. Filled your heart to see him try all the things your taste buds had now grown used to.

“May I lay with you? Just for a little while?”

He didn’t ask why. He didn’t need to.

Not because you were his Queen, but because he understood you. Knew you had more weight on your shoulders than any other in the country.

So Namjoon did what he he could to ease the burden, letting you lay your head on his chest once you both moved to your bed. Calloused fingertips, rough from a hard day’s work, brushed between silky strands of hair that cascaded down.

“Namjoon…” You could feel his hum vibrating through his chest as he continued to run his finger through your locks, gently untangling them. “Would you marry me?”

If he was shocked from your sudden question, he did not show it.

In fact, he wasn’t surprised at all. Despite how well you were trying to keep it from him--he would have to commemorate you for your efforts--he was still a part of the servants workforce. And servants talk.

“If we could... then yes.” His lips pressed against your scalp for a sweet kiss, mumbling, “would marry you in a heartbeat.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I love you.”

“Sometimes love isn’t enough for a marriage to work.”

Namjoon knew what you meant. A classic example of this case would be your parents, the previous King and the late Queen. Your mother slandered for being unable to bare any healthy children save for you, the rest of them unable to live past five years of age.

Their marriage was one of love, you had heard, but after her complicated fertility issues and the pressure of a nation on their heads, things turned sour.

You saw how two loving parents become bitter and died cursing each other with their last breaths.

“You’re right... but we’ve been able to work together well before we fell in love. We’re familiar with each other, how the other works. Their needs and wants. I won’t let us end up as a heap of melted wax, our passion and care for each other burnt out. And I know for a fact you won’t either.”

You heard him through the rumbles in his chest, finding the warmth of both his body and his words comforting to you.

“Be mine and mine only,” you muttered as your lids grew heavy, shutting from exhaustion.

Noticing this immediately, Namjoon chuckled to himself.

“As if I was made for anyone else.”

“--and make sure to increase the taxes on the fishermen in certain areas of the coast as well as lessen them in others. I hear the marine life is becoming scarce these days along the eastern seaboard and to replenish it, we should encourage the fishermen to avoid those areas of concern.”

“Yes, your majesty. That sounds like an excellent solution,” Seokjin said, though not at all surprised you came up with it (even if it sounds simple when you say it out loud). To him--as well as the rest of your court--you did more than an exceptional job at governing your state.

You were the best monarch they had seen in a very long time.

Only, there was one issue, and you were well aware of it.

Breathing slowly, you looked at your council, dreading the words you were going to say next, because the touchy topic was going to be brought up sooner or later.

“Is there anything else on our agenda today?”

The Lord Chamberlain cleared his throat. “Other than the daily workload, there is only one matter left for discussion, your majesty.”

“And what would that be, Taehyung?” you sighed, slight hint of sarcasm laced in the tired tone you spoke in.

“Your marriage.” Seeing you roll you eyes only fired him up more. “You really need to decide! Do you want to completely secure your throne?”

“What about marriage is so important that my throne is insecure without it?” you burst out, not being able to hold in your frustration. “There have been Kings in the past who have lived their entire reign in peace without tying the knot with another, so why me?!”

“Because your a Queen, not a King!” Jimin yelled back, his old habits of arguing with you while you two were younger beginning to kick in. “We all know you’re more than capable of of ruling by yourself, but others still have their old-fashioned way of thinking! They believe that without a legitimate heir from you, your throne is theirs for the taking!”

Hoseok rested his hand on the red-faced man’s shoulder, pushing him back down in his seat from which he left as he argued with you. “What we’re trying to say, your majesty, is that the world’s attitudes are years behind ours. They’ll keep coming for your head if you don’t produce a legitimate heir, and the only way you can do that is if you marry.”

Grunting with frustration, you stormed out of the room, rushing to your bedchambers.

Felt lightheaded. From the advisors, from the world, for the corset restricting your breathing. Too many thoughts rushing through your head, you didn’t see Namjoon following behind you with concern hidden beneath a blank expression.

It was only until you stopped to open the door to your bedchambers did you realise he was right behind you. “Leave me to rest,” you spoke firmly, remembering to maintain the roles of servant and Queen even if you two were at the boundary of sanctuary.

Wanting to say more but being unable to have the freedom to say it while you both were in the doorway, Namjoon simply sighed and stood outside as you closed the door on his face.

Threw yourself on the bed, hoping for some miracle that will allow you to knock out there and then.

First, you needed to breathe. You needed air into your lungs to stop the dizziness.

“In... Out...” You hear someone speaking from your mind, louder, yet more soothing than the rest. Namjoon’s deep voice lulling you from a past memory.

“In... Out...” You followed as instructed, listening to his advise to settle your pounding heart.

“In... Out,” you repeated alongside his voice in your head, finding your beating organ relax bit by bit until it returned to normal.

Squeaking of the hinges had not brought you out of the trance you were in, but the dip in your bed under a person’s weight did.

“Don’t mind me,” Yoongi said as he lay beside you, his arms crossed behind his head, “your servant let me in.”

“Of course he did,” you smiled. Namjoon knew that if he was not allowed to comfort you, then someone else would have to in his stead--and there was no one better than the Foreign Secretary.

Yoongi--like some of your councillors--had grown up with you. He knew you like the back of his pale hand, and he was the only advisor you completely trusted.

Others had lost that level in pursuit of their own ambitions; he was the only one who fought against you appointing him for his role, wanting to stay in the shadows--something he had grown accustomed to.

Only when you explained that his real job would be your Spymaster did he agree. It was the shadows he was used to, and you weren’t going to fully rip him away from his comfort zone.

After a few minute of laying side by side in silence, you began to spill your thoughts.

“No one has any idea how painful this position is. Nor how bothersome getting the throne was in the first place. Now they want me to marry and relinquish my power after everything I had sacrificed to get and maintain it. Want nobles and Princes that would just overrule me and ruin this nation I brought back from the ashes like a phoenix.”

Attempting to gulp down the lump rising in your throat, you just couldn’t stop.

“After the shitshow my parents and my forefathers had turned this place into, I returned it to it’s rightful glory. It became a mythical beast because of my efforts, and now they demand I marry a man who would mistreat me and my people, as if we were mere deer or rabbits rather than powerful, fiery birds of the sun.”

Silent tears rolled down the sides of your face, the muffled drops on the sheet being the only sound indicating to your advisor that you were indeed crying since his eyes were closed.

“What do I do, Yoongi?” you begged in a small voice, not to an official of your court but your childhood friend. “How can I marry someone who cares more for power than they do for me? More than my people? How could I marry when the whole of my heart belongs to another?”

“Well, that’s easy,” he replied--already knowing exactly who you were talking about--not even opening his eyes as you turned you head to see him, awaiting his explanation. “Just marry the person your heart belongs to.”

Glaring at him, you spat, “if it was that easy, don’t you think I would have done it already?”

“Don’t lash out at me like you did to Taehyung and Jimin. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You’re my advisor and you fail to give me advise--”

“I just did--”

“Advise that I can use.”

Opening one eye, he looked at your annoyed face. “I told you before that I didn’t want to be an advisor.”

“Well I couldn’t just let you stay in the gardens your entire life. You need people skills, and to do that, you need to socialise with things that can actually speaks,” you threw your arms up, gesturing to nothing in particular just to emphasis your point, tears dried. “Besides, I prefer your company and council over the rest.”

Yoongi was not one for taking compliments--it was an unusual and unfamiliar task for him, especially if it didn’t come from you--so he stayed silent from the next few minutes.

“Who said it? That you can’t marry the person you love?”

You snorted at his stupid comment. “Everyone, Yoongi. Everyone.”

“Really?” He clicked his tongue. “That’s strange. I’ve never heard anyone say those words to you directly, and I’m the Spymaster.” He saw how you gnawed on your lip, eroding away the ruby lipstick until you finally got what he said.

Rapidly propping your body on your elbow, you snapped your face to look at him. “Are you suggesting I just marry who I want anyway?”

“Well, yeah, that is what I said at the start.”

Sent him a pointed look. “You know there’s gonna be a lot of opposition.”

“So? You’ll face opposition if you choose one faction over the other. You already face it daily anyway, so I don’t see the point in fretting over it. At least this way, you can live your life with the person you love the most.” 

For the first time during the entire conversation, Yoongi’s face softened as he sat up with you, taking your hands in his as a comforting gesture. They weren’t Namjoon’s hands--certainly weren’t as big or warm--but they did the trick.

“Listen, the only reason they’re pushing for a marriage with a nobleman or a foreign prince is because they want to milk this opportunity for all it can be. An advantageous marriage, that’s all they’re looking for.”

“But their main issue can simply be resolved with an heir.”

“Exactly. You can have a legitimate heir with the person you love, regardless of his status. All you have to do is marry him.”

Bursts of happiness bloomed in you, showing your smile and rosy cheeks, in your thumping heart and rushing blood. Unable to contain it, you pounced on your old friend. “God bless you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Don’t thank me,” he chuckled, with his own ruddy cheeks, “Besides, I never approved of those half-baked fools they offered to you. Especially Prince Jungkook.”

Releasing him from your tight hold, you looked at him fondly. “Would’ve been a pain in my ass if I really had married him.”

“Mine too,” he shuddered at the thought, “Rather have someone I know marry you than an arrogant stranger that I have to learn how to speak respectfully to.”

“You should be used to it!” You lightly hit his arm. “You’re the Foreign Secretary! It’s your job to talk to arrogant strangers.”

“And I dread every meeting,” he grimaced.

“...so it would be wise to change the systems in the areas that are being raided. For those most at risk, use all you can to protect our citizens. Place more guards and use stronger, more-resistant building materials for reconstruction, and also see if you can build an underground shelter for the people to take refuge in, stocked with supplies.”

“Wonderful, your majesty,” Seokjin said, scribbling down what you said in his little notebook. “We’ll begin that immediately.”

“Good,” you said, leaning back in your chair, which was significantly bigger and fancier than the others. “Is there,” you sighed, still not ready for the conversation to come. “Is there anything else on today’s agenda?”

“You know very well what we’re going to say, your majesty.” Your eyes landed on Jimin, who was much more calmer than last week.

“Yes, I know.” Briefly, your eyes shot to Yoongi, who was sat opposite to you on the large, round, spruce table. Puff of air pushed out of your lungs as you cracked your knuckles as a way to release the tension in your fingers. “How about this? State your cases; who you nominate to be my husband...”

Taehyung was smart, so he caught your hesitation. “But..?”

“But I have conditions of my own. Two, to be exact. Nothing exactly difficult.”

Hoseok scratched his head, feeling somewhat happy you’re not avoiding this topic as usual but also slightly suspicious.

“You main argument for me to get married is so I can have a legitimate heir, right?” Mumbles of agreement erupted around the room. “Good. So my first condition would be that whoever I marry won’t be King, they will be my consort.”

“But that’s unorthodox,” Seokjin piped in, more as if it was a passing thought than a counter-point.

“So would you rather me marry and then be overruled?” Your brow quirked, challenging them. Standing, you looked around, leaning your weight on the hands on the table.

“All of us here know that I am more than capable of ruling--you even said it yourself, Jimin. I know I can handle the weight of the country on my shoulders. Have been since I was 15, and I won’t allow some officious idiot ruin what I’ve build from the ground up.”

None of the advisors said another word on the matter since they knew you were right. Their Queen knew the country inside-out and having another person who had less experience or was not so familiar with the customs of the nation become more powerful was certainly a recipe for disaster.

“Very well,” Seokjin muttered. “Your second condition, your majesty?”

“This one may be a bit more challenging for you to follow, but it is just as important as the last.”

“And that is...?” Hoseok pried.

“After I choose, there will be no arguing. The monarch’s word is final and you should treat it as such. Once the decision is made, all of you--regardless of personal opinions--will have to greet the Consort with respect since they will become a part of the Royal Family.”

Carefully crafted words made the others oblivious to your plan. All but Yoongi.

“I think it’s safe to say that we all agree to your quite reasonable conditions, don’t we?” Taehyung looked around the room to see if anyone would object to his statement and, luckily, no one did.

Sitting back down on your seat with a silent groan, you waved your hand to signal the start of the debate. “Finish this matter by noon.”

With no further need for delay, the talks began. Seokjin, Jimin, and a few others opted for Prince Jungkook on the basis that he held power and knowledge, while trade and relations between the two countries would be much better.

An argument that you could handle without being married to him by simply being his friend and whatnot--but you of course kept this to yourself.

Various others began to offer you more local choices of husbands; lords, earls, dukes and the like. Hoseok and Taehyung both wished for the Duke of Lysia as he held a lot of support from the people, understanding of the country and culture and had retainers for your army should you need them.

It was as if they had forgotten you had no need for more love from your people since almost every single one already supported you. Also letting the fact that it would be treason if the Duke didn’t raise his retainers for your army upon your orders slip their minds.

But as the two sides died down, you looked at your Foreign Secretary. “You’ve been awfully quite, Min. Do you have someone’s name to put forth?”

“Yes, I do, your majesty,” he said quietly, appearing to be uninterested but you knew better.

Chuckling beneath your breath at his coldness, though never letting the smile become visible, you cocked a brow. “And who would that be?”

“Kim Namjoon. Your personal servant.”

“This is preposterous!” Jimin yelled, slamming his fist on the polished spruce.

You lifted your hand up to silence the Lord Treasurer, glaring eyes reminding him of your second condition before returning to question Yoongi. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that you both love each other.” He tilted his head to the side, yawning.

“Also on the grounds that he too is familiar with the royal customs and culture of this country, not to mention that he normally overhears what goes on in important meetings--excluding this one, of course. You confide in him and he has never broken your trust, despite how well he is within the servants--who often tend to chatter amongst themselves. He knows the ins and outs of the place and already unofficially aids you in decision-making.”

He licked his lips. “And, most importantly, he is fertile so you can sir a legitimate heir.”

“But what about his lack of power?” the Captain of the Royal Guard countered.

“He knows how to move with the people. The lad keeps his ear close to ground and is smarter than he looks. Besides, none of this matters since he’ll be a consort anyway, not a King.” Yoongi lazily shot back, killing Hoseok’s argument.

Silence grew over the room as each pair of eyes looked in your direction, already knowing the decision deep in their hearts. “A five minute recess is required.”

The advisors all stood as you did, only taking their seats again once you had left the room and the double oak doors shut behind you.

“How was the meeting, your majesty? Was awfully long this time. Any difficulties?” Namjoon enquired, not knowing what exactly went on.

Without answering him, you walked to a nearby empty room, with him trailing just behind. Turning on your heel, you held his arms, intensely looking in his eyes. “Did you mean it? When you said you would marry me if you could?”

Knowing that the two of you were hidden in a temporary haven, he gazed lovingly at you, caressing your cheek with his rough hands that only seemed to sooth you. “Of course I did, my love.”

“And if I could make that happen? Today? What would you say?”

As if he ate multiple salted crackers, Namjoon found his mouth dry up instantly. “What?”

Seeing his hesitation, you fought back the bad thoughts, the lump in your throat, the storm brewing in your stomach. “What would you say?” you pressed again, much harder than last time.

“I-I...I can’t.”

Tears tried to spring into your eyes, the sheer willpower you had to stop them from showing made your eyes burn. “Why?” Your tone turned stiff and stone-cold. He hated that--hearing you talk to him without emotion.

“Because it would mean I would have to become King. Although I want to lessen the burden you carry by your lonesome, I can’t take away the power you fought so hard to keep. Can’t be a ruler this nation and you deserve.”

Water began to spill as you closed your eyes, a sigh of relief escaping past your lips as your legs gave out under you. Luckily Namjoon was there to catch you. Lifted you from the ground and place you gently on a nearby chair. “You should really explain before you finish.”

His brows furrowed, kneeling down in front of you as he looked up to see your soft smile that had his heart beating just a fraction faster. “Should know better than to doubt my love for you at this point,” Namjoon whispered against the cold skin of your hands that he held in his own warmer ones.

Chortling lightly, you leaned to rest your forehead against his. “I really should, shouldn’t I?” Biting the lower flesh of your lip, you continued. “Would you reconsider if I said you’d only be my consort? Not a King?”

Could feel his lips stretch into a smile as it was still pressed against your knuckles. “If that’s the case, then definitely.”

“Good,” you grinned, standing up as you noticed the time on the clock. Wiping away the tears, you checked to see if you were decent in one of the mirrors.

Giving his hand a reassuring squeeze, you kissed his cheek. “Time to tell them my decision.”

[wisteria-lodge]

snake primary + slightly burnt snake secondary (some kind of built secondary model)

Hi hi hi!! Hope you’re well!! So tell me, is there a way to tell whether you’re a lion or a snake secondary beyond the actual “textbook” definitions? I think I’m pretty burnt, and I’m on my way to fixing that, but it would help to know where I’m supposed to be heading lol

(Btw, I’m a Sam coded Dean girl. I don’t think it’s relevant I just thought that system was both useful and hilarious and I’m so glad you posted that)

I also really liked how that turned out.

I’m pretty sure I’m an improv secondary. I think I’m bad at it, hence the burning, but it’s what comes naturally to me and what I would feel most proud of.

I end up planning for a bunch of things, and in some cases I don’t hate it.

Damning with faint praise.

Like if I’m giving a presentation, I open a word document and write down what I’m gonna say verbatim, even the language tics and pauses and hesitations and such, so it’s like I’m actually living it. Then I repeat the whole thing multiple times, amending it whenever I change something, until I feel like I’ve sort of gone through the experience already.

That is… the weirdest way of hacking an improvisational secondary. Because that’s what’s you’re doing. Improvisational secondaries need to be “in it,” so you get as close to that as possible in the prep work.

Then I scrap the whole thing and improvise when it’s actually happening – the result is often pretty different from the word doc

of course.

but I’m a bit more in my element because I’ve done it already and I know I can do it.

This is honestly a really good strategy to make yourself more comfortable with improvising? I can tell you’re unBurning, this feels very much like… training wheels, to me. Heck, I think I would recommend your method to another burnt Improvisational secondary.

I’m not sure, but I think that sort of thing is more built than improv?

Like, kind of? I’m autism spectum, and when I was younger I built a Bird model to help me feel more confident accessing my Courtier Badger. That’s what this feels like.

But I definitely feel like it’s a model I’ve developed to deal with social anxiety and my fear of failure lol. I didn’t do stuff like that before it got bad, and if I could deal with not doing it, I would.

I hear that.

In most other situations, though, I tend to jump right in and go with the flow. I really don’t think very far ahead. I guess I can if I try, when it’s just a matter of logic, but things like my life plans, my relationships, or even more short-term things like plans with friends or what I’m gonna eat or how I’m gonna deal with a task, I really can’t project into the future. I can’t really make decisions or see a situation clearly until I’m in it. Then I tend to make decisions very quickly, kind of on instinct, or whatever feels right in the moment.

You’re definitely an improvisational secondary.

(Actually maybe that’s a primary thing? I’m a snake primary, but I do have a very prominent lion model, and a bit of badger as well.)

Nah, that’s definitely an Improvisational secondary thing. I am curious about your primary though, because you say you don’t have too much in the way of life plans… and *that* is more where a primary would come in. You feel like a safe Snake to me (that is, a Snake whose people are safe) so there is a little bit of… what now? What is the Lion+Badger model you wear over the top interested in?

Point is, I prefer being spontaneous, even if it’s something important. Making plans and having to stick to them makes me feel trapped. I’m not the most constant person, and I like that about me. I want to have room to grow and change, even for the smallest things.

Completely, entirely fair.

Anyway, I feel like I’ve talked more about limitations and things I don’t want so far, but I guess that’s a burnt thing.

I mean, sure you’re a little underconfident, but you seem pretty far along to me.

I’ve seen you mention what’s really useful in determining a secondary is what you actually enjoy, so here goes. I like being in the moment, and I like being able to come up with ideas and solutions on the fly, by taking in the situation and using it to my advantage.

That’s very Snake secondary sounding language.

I think there’s a bit of a separation in my mind between “people things” and “being clever things.”

For “being clever things” (like… I don’t know, an escape room, a problem with an administration, a paper I have to write, video games, some kind of mystery…) I like to rely on being observant and quick-thinking, and if I can find loopholes or outsmart whoever I’m facing to win in an unexpected way, that’s even better (but really more for my ego than anything else, I guess finding the “normal” solution is okay, as long as you get there, it’s just less fun).

Hilarious. Yeah, you sound like a *confident* Snake secondary to me.

For “people things” (drama with family or friends, or if someone is being an ass, or if someone comes to me for advice on interpersonal things), I prioritize being straightforward and honest. If I have time to plan or if I’m giving advice, I might come up with something more sneaky and elaborate, but if I’m in the moment, I’m most likely to be really confrontational, stubborn and unyielding, even if it makes things more difficult for me.

Hmm. I am reading this as a Snake who likes being Neutral - especially those words “stubborn” and “unyielding.” There’s a reason Neutral Snakes are called “the unmovable object.”

If I catch myself, I try to avoid it, but that just means staying silent and removing myself from the situation – I can’t bring myself to make compromises if it feels like I’m betraying myself.

Okay, now that’s sounding more Lion.

To be clear, that’s almost exclusively with people I’m close to, or who are supposed to “know me”.

Oh okay. This is your secondary interacting with your primary. Actively lying to and misrepresenting yourself to Your People would be immoral to a Snake Primary.

With friends who aren’t in my inner circle, or acquaintances, or complete strangers, or authority figures, I might get upset internally if I’m perceiving a slight or injustice, but I can keep up the mask I need no problem. That being said, I don’t have a lot of patience for drama, so if whatever it is can’t be quickly resolved with a convenient lie or saying what works for me in a way they won’t mind hearing, I just stick to what I’m actually thinking and/or my neutral state (I’m not sure it’s accurate to use snake language here, but it feels like it and it’s convenient).

I think it’s highly appropriate and accurate. All that is reading very Snake.

I’ve seen a bunch of people say lion and snake secondaries are sort of at odds with each other, but I don’t really get the contradiction between them yet (as in, I don’t see why people can’t be both those “contradictory” things at the same time). I do mask a lot, and I enjoy it – I think it’s rewarding, and honestly it just makes sense – it’s what works best in that moment, and it feels natural to shift that way. I just don’t feel it’s a misrepresentation. The whole “it’s not cheating, it’s being clever” thing just feels a little too dishonest. Cheating is cheating, no need to be so smug about it. It’s not wrong, though, at least not always. If it’s hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it, then it’s wrong (might still do it if the alternative is worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly an ethical choice to make, it just means I’m okay with being immoral in that instance).

All that being said, I don’t think masking is being dishonest about yourself. I don’t think anything that comes out of my mind is “not me”, it just doesn’t work that way. The personas I have with different groups or people in my life are all genuine, it’s just that different sides of me are brought up. And if I’m acting in a way that’s actually not genuine, that mask is still my creation – if someone else were to come up with a mask for that same situation, it would be different, because their mind works differently. Everything you do is a reflection of yourself, and even if you were to try your best to be honest all the time, you’d never be able to show your true and complete self to someone else. You can’t even see that yourself.

Oh man. This is why I love writing these, and this is what I mean about Lion and Snake being so incomprehensible to each other. Because Lions fundamentally do not think this way, every word here is dripping with Snake.

It might be helpful to think of Lions as static. That’s how Shakespeare (who definitely seems like a Snake secondary…) writes about them, and he sees them as sort of tragic. Lions really do have a “core” persona that feels more true than all the others, and they really do exist in it as much as they possibly can. And feel good and moral about doing that.

And a mask’s point may be to deceive or to gain something, but being blunt and straightforward can be used in that way too.

You are literally thinking of “common Lion secondary presentation” as another useful mask, and it’s so Snake, and so fantastic.

I’m thinking this sounds more snake than anything else, so I’ll focus on why I thought I might be a lion too now. I guess the reason I’m on the fence is because these two are presented as “either you think the only way is through, or you’re looking for a way around it”, and I’m not comfortable saying I favor either.

That is *a* way to think about the two secondaries. But those are symptoms, not causes. The reason a Lion secondary feels that the only way out is though is because a Lion secondary must be themselves, or die.

My first thought was to say that I get more satisfaction from finding ways around a problem because it makes me feel cleverer and it’s more fun, but that’s because I’m zeroing in on certain types of situations (people giving me some intellectual challenge, debates, or video games). But there were also a lot of times where I stuck it out and kept going with pigheaded stubbornness, and got a lot more satisfaction out of that (physical challenges like obstacle courses, disagreements with my parents, winning over certain people).

Here’s where I think the confusion is. You’re a Snake secondary, and one of your masks looks very Lion. Note how you talk about using this “pigheadedness” with certain people, who you know will respond well to it.

In fact, I remember my father telling me one day “yeah, you’re never here to compromise, you just make decisions and inform us, and keep going while you wait for us to accept reality,“ and I actually can’t describe how proud and smug I was about that. Kind of insufferable, but I just get so euphoric when people see right through me and show they get me, even if it’s about the more annoying or bad parts of me.

I think that’s just a human thing. The mortifying ideal of being known is how you feel loved.

I remember a conversation I had with my ex after we broke up where she cut right through all my bullshit and discarded my whole mask to get right to my inner self and the core of certain issues, and even though I was still mad and upset, and kind of embarrassed that she could see me being vulnerable, I couldn’t help but be happy about it, because I felt known.

Yeah. <3

I don’t interact much with people outside of my inner circle, so I can’t tell if it’s entirely specific to them, but I really vibe with the “honesty is their strength” part of being a lion. That’s why my people trust me and rely on me so much, because even though they know how sneaky I can get and how fun I think tricking people is, they also know I default to telling the truth and saying what’s on my mind more often than not, because they’re my people.

I think that, as a Snake primary who mostly only interacts with Your People, you’re in a kind of unusual position. I know that the presentation of a Snake who feels safe can be blunter, can be more Lion-y. My experience with Snakes is… yeah, sometimes I know I’m being manipulated, or having my buttons pushed in a specific way. But I’m fine with it, because I’m one of their people, and I know they would never hurt me. That’s where the certainty is coming from.

Then again, I also have a “it’s not lying unless they’re entitled to the truth” attitude with basically everyone else. I just don’t think some people deserve to know me that way.

snaaaake

(lions are going to take the truth and PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE with it, and if you can’t deal that’s YOUR PROBLEM)

And “ideally”, as in, if I didn’t have anxiety and a bunch of other issues, I still don’t think I’d just be neutral all the time. Sounds boring. And inconvenient.

Snake secondaries are great.

Ahhh, should I even post this? I feel like my whole thought process before this moment of introspection was “so I really vibe with snake, but I’m also hotheaded and a bit of a bitch, so I MUST be a lion, right” lmao. I just think I’m a straight up double snake at this point.

Yep.

Oof, a long way from my original lion bird sorting back when I first discovered SHC hahaha

Yeah, I used to think I was a Badger Bird.

(For the record, I’m writing this in a word doc, and it’s almost 2k now. I haven’t checked how long these normally are, so I’m really sorry if this is too long!!! I’m like physically incapable of being concise I’m so sorry)

Sometimes I edit or re-arrange these slightly for a cleaning reading experience, but I’m having fun. I was engaged all the way though.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for doing these!! They’re super interesting and I’m sure it helps people a lot, and also it’s really cool to see how different people think. I’m a socially-challenged writer, so it’s useful to have that bit of insight into other people’s minds. Love ya <3 <3 <3

[worldsover]

Wintertide Inside ft. Gahyeon

length ✦ 4841

genres ✧ cockwarming; anal; gf!Gahyeon

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Maybe it’s obvious, but you’re thankful for Gahyeon’s ass. A simple contract—if you need a cocksleeve to wrap you or if your girlfriend needs a toy to fill her, neither of you would say no. You’re nominally in charge today but the outcome’s the same either way, with cum seeping from both ends of her tract and your cock sore in the best plight a man can have. 

Swift moans interject her snoring to surface you from your nap, probably because of flashes of biting air that creep in from some draft in the room. Her red crop-top is the only article of clothing on her scrumptious physique while you’re completely stark.  Don’t want to get up so you hold her somehow closer with no worry for your own frigidity. Gahyeon is tiny in your entwine. As you emanate heat from your torso to her back, she returns it tenfold between her legs. 

The incongruity of her pussy is that it’s both uncomfortable and comforting.  Stressfully tight and lovingly wet, while grueling clenches verge on coaxing yet another orgasm from you. Its quaver can be measured in millimeters when your cock etches its shape more permanent. Yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s worries become dust in your brain as it toils to memorize each of her inner folds.

Therefore more than the mouthwatering shape or size, you’re grateful for the cushion of her buttcheeks because it rivals your couch’s plushness and distracts you from your imminent peak, your third or fourth today. Losing track is easy when she keeps your cock incarcerated for so long. The threat of climax fades away and returns as quickly while single pulses reiterate how close to the edge you are. No lights on in your living room. Don’t need them. Nothing in your head other than Gahyeon anyway.

Rays spill through the thick curtains and a sliver barely misses her eyes to fall on yours instead. However, she rouses too from her sleep when a pillow between her legs slips to the floor. Nothing funny but you both giggle.

“How’s your nap, babe?” you say. 

She twitches at the warm air tickling her ears, and cold the rest of her skin, but you manage to keep most of your body stationary in Gahyeon’s embrace. Gahyeon yawns and stretches her arms, pushing back on the edge of the couch. “I think I had an amazing dream. Brr.”

“Dummy, you don’t dream until you hit R.E.M.” You point and she bends down to grab the thick blue blanket that fell on the floor. A small hum arises from you at the slight shift in angle. Look at the white clock above the TV and point again. “It’s only been like twenty.”

Gahyeon hands the blanket to you and you swathe it around your two bodies, calming both of your shivers. “Felt like forever. Pff, I was trying to be all romantic.”

“Why be romantic when-” Your words fall to breathy laments when the smoothest swing of her hips turn millimeters of movement to centimeters. The friction from only fractions of your length force a whimper out of her as it does a throb from you.

Gahyeon’s moans turn to more desperate whimpers in kind. Her hand aims below her crop-top and your shaft feels the curious kneading of her fingers below her belly button. Another throb. “Fuck. I still feel your cum inside. It’s almost too much.”

“Then why are you grinding so much? I’m barely running on empty.”

Your head is so fuzzy, you can’t tell how she manages to get on top of you while keeping your cock inside the entire time. For as savory as it is to look or smell or listen to her cute grunts, the only sensation that passes to your mind is her tightness twisting around your shaft. 

Gahyeon sits up and collects a bit of leakage with a finger, provocatively sucking it. “Nice try but I know the taste of your fresh load.”

“Fuck, you make my cock so sensitive. Such a good cumslut.” 

She gulps and bats her eyes so you pull her hair down, and your lips converge. Your core reignites when Gahyeon starts jolting her hips down hard on yours, and you note that her walls aren’t just clingy with your semen but that her pussy is lubricious with girl cum. It’s her turn to be the fucktoy but she’s stalwart in riding you. You’re in no condition to object. 

Gahyeon looks up at the clock and she slows down though not fully arresting her momentum. “Wait a sec, why didn’t you tell me the time?” she says after a thrust and a pant.

You shrug and she blows air out of her lips. Not a mind reader here.

Her pussy almost snaps shut when she gets off you. She steals the blanket while she’s at it. ”Right, should’ve told you to remind me. How am I supposed to focus on the performance later with this in me the whole time?” Gahyeon says, wiping the sticky load dripping from her other lips.

“Man, the blanket’s gonna be sticky now.”

“Sorry babe, I’ll try to do a better job keeping it inside me, okay?”

Stand up and grab some tissues for the fluids coating her groin before you clean yourself the same. You shiver at the air occasionally sweeping the room because you don exactly one less garment than Gahyeon, but it’s about making a statement. It’s your apartment dammit so you can be nude at any hour if you want to be. 

Widen the curtains and suffuse the room with natural white light. Look outside, your undraped stature proud and unsympathetic to the outside world to which you expose yourself. Sky and trees are near monochrome as the snow piles up on the grass which adds to the subtraction of color. 

“You’re so weird,” she says. Your dick flops as you turn around and flaunt your butt to mother nature itself, knowing its coldness towards you isn’t solely metaphorical in this season.

“This is our first winter together, my first new year in my own apartment. I have to be excited.” You raise your arms.

“Fair. You wouldn’t be here without me.” A signature curly smile and she joins your side to admire the snowy sight, letting you share in some—no, not all—of the warmness of the blanket.

“I mean if we were normal, I wouldn’t have left.” You hug Gahyeon and give her a smooch on her forehead. “But I needed my own place for my little cum-hungry, cum-greedy cockwarmer.”

Pink always spreads her cheeks at your brazen words. Her tummy presses on your softening cock and brings it back to life but she backs away. Gahyeon brings the back of each of her hands to her sides. “Right, speaking of which. Can I take one of my panties from your drawer?”

“You didn’t bring any? Hold on, that was supposed to be a secret!” you say.

“Yeah, obviously I know about them, stupid. You didn’t even notice when I packed a couple in there myself when you moved, did you?” 

She’s right, you didn’t, so shake your head. Gahyeon giggles then gives you the blanket again before she heads to your room. “I’ll be back soon, okay!” she yells while you fiddle with the thermostat. 

Grab some tortilla chips from the pantry then sit on the couch bundled in the blanket and turn to a channel that’s just playing a loop of a fireplace. At least the crackling sounds realistic with your speakers. 

In only a few minutes, she already has a full winter outfit on, a bright tomato that would stand out sorely in the snow. The apartment is already a lot mellower so you put the blanket away to wash later. Gahyeon is enticing no matter what she wears but you’re warm inside seeing your girlfriend wrapped up, though warmth also comes from the humiliation finally setting in from the contrast between her state of dress and yours.

“Did you hear me? I said I’ll be back soon.”

“Come on, the apartment isn't that big.” Get up to kiss her goodbye. ”Hurry back. There should be plenty of sun left and I wanna see the sun shine on your face with my cock in it.”

Open your laptop on your coffee table and promise to yourself that you’ll finish editing that teaser. It’s just a little distraction when you pore over videos you worked on recently, just reviewing your work to get ideas for how to cut. However, like a good and fully whipped man, one thing leads to another, one Dreamcatcher music video later—you’re proud of working on that one—and you’re back to the fancams of your girlfriend dancing. A similar, but less revealing crop-top, brief black shorts that strut the beautiful width of her thighs that you live between. Losing much weight, they’re still ample enough to stifle your cock on their own, without her amazing pussy’s help. Your erection should be exhausted but it returns at the sight of the jiggling. Two hands begin their work as Fly High plays.

A fluffy red jacket slams into your head. “You slob, put some clothes on!”

“What are you doing home?”

“Look at all the snow! What are you doing naked?”

“It’s my apartment, dang it! You know I’m naked all the time.” Didn’t mean to raise your tone there but she looks a touch distressed. You run up to her and give her a heavy drawn-out embrace.

“Babe,” she says, a little reluctant in the hug.

“I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.”

“No babe, it’s fine.”

“I was jerking it to you if it helps.”

“That doesn’t help, stupid. You’re gonna get this dress messy!” Gahyeon grabs your dick which leaks some precum. She bites her lip.

“Oh, sorry,” you say. You back off and retrieve the parka that fell on the floor and from all its pockets spill condoms like a deck of cards and a bad hand.

“Holy shit,” Gahyeon says. Whatever minute ire that remains burns away at her adorable laughter mixing with yours.

“Fuck, imagine if someone caught you with those.”

“Shit. Yoobin almost put her hand in my pocket for no reason.”

“Nah, she would’ve laughed just as hard.”

“You’re right.” Gahyeon bends down to pick the condoms up and you take your sweet time to help her. “We haven’t used these in so long,” she says.

“You wanna? Old time’s sake? Ha, fuck no.” Feeling bad for making her do all that work to appreciate her ass even in the baggiest pants possible, you spank her.  Wait, that’s not the solution. ”You should change first. I’ll clean up.”

There’s grey shorts and a plain white shirt in the dryer, so grab them. Gahyeon returns with her hair in twin buns, a short pink skirt and a white long sleeve half-shirt that manages to show off her cleavage from the top and the bottom.

“I hope that’s not a stage outfit.”

“Of course not. I just wanted to look more like a dumb slut for your dick.”

And with that, thoughts empty. As she crawls towards you, grab a wad of her hair. “So it’s like that today. Well shit, good job.”

“Thank you!” Only the corners of Gahyeon’s lips turn. “A good toy only has one purpose.” 

Fulfill that purpose and shove her head down to its rightful place. Gahyeon takes a single stroke into her throat, with nary a sound as she takes the entire length into her practice throat, but she pulls her lips back up to your cockhead. “You’ll be good there?” you say.

“Mhm,” she says with her usual mouthful.

You get a bit of video cutting done for an hour or so with her lips on your cock head, occasionally patting her head. Occasional moans slip out but you keep focused and erect at the same time. At some point during your work, you offer her one of your earphones to listen to your synthwave music. Despite maintaining an enthusiastic hold on your tip, Gahyeon looks a little tired from kneeling so long.

“Aww, baby, do your knees hurt?”

“Mm, I’m fine,” she mumbles while keeping her lips on your tip.

“Why are you pouting a little then?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, come here.”

Stoop to give her a passionate, drawn-out kiss, though it always turns out the same. You realize how long you could do nothing but make out with your girlfriend. You love the way Gahyeon competes with you, where your tongues battle and you each threaten to suck the air out of each other’s lungs. It’s impossible to keep your heart’s pace steady and you’d be remiss for your hands not to dig into every inch of her skin as she wanders the same on you.

Of course, there’s only one place those hands could lead to. Smack. You swear her ass ripples. “Now get back to sucking slut.”

You wipe the drool off your face but you interrupt her doing the same; she looks good messy. Gaheyon lays on the couch with her head on your lap. You can’t see her face but if she needs to get a better angle to watch Knowing Bros, then so be it. Her lips fasten your cock just the same. She sticks her ass up and a reflective circle seals her asshole.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Friend got it for Christmas, secret Santa.”

“Bora?”

“Mhmmmm-” Gahyeon draws out the vibration of the last consonant on your cock. 

A couple of hours later, you finish your work and send emails.  Once in a while you stroke her hair but she gives more suction in response, sending you ever closer to release. How greedy of her, she’s certainly swallowed enough cum just from premature singular pulses but Gahyeon doesn’t stop when you lay down the law and slap her ass.

“Whose turn is it. huh?”

Every hit of her ass emboldens her sucking, as she goes deeper.

“So you wanna be a brat? I said, whose turn is it!”

She gags for the first time in a while, spewing much spit, when you pull slowly but abruptly on the shiny buttplug after slapping her ass a final time. Lube spills out.

Gahyeon breathes heavy breaths on your cock. “Fuck. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Woah. Now that’s new.” 

“I guess it just came out naturally. Sir.” She licks up the froth on your cock.

“I don’t mind if you say it.” You circle her asshole with your finger and taste the lube. Sugary but you can’t think of the flavor. Not that you can think of much of anything.

“Only if you call me ma’am when it’s my turn.”

“Deal.”

“Thank you sir.”

She keeps your cock snug in her mouth. Browse your phone and decide to get some Jjamppong delivered, perfect for the cold.

“Gahyeon? Babe?”

Was she really? Incredible. She manages to doze off with a cock filling her mouth. That’s new. For all the times you’ve fallen asleep during tantric sex, it’s always been inside her pussy or asshole. How she incessantly drools while her head wriggles nearly makes you unload on her unconscious tongue but you hold it in, allowing only a few spurts to leak.

Unfortunately, you have to wake her up when you get the order from the door. You have to get some final work done but she eats dinner, sitting your dick. Your laptop is on her lap while you rest your chin on her neck. Tickled, Gahyeon giggles in between slurps of noodles. The lack of movement agonizes both of you but it keeps you focused. You could spend all day fucking each other; in fact, you have.

The winter sunset lights your room the colors of candy like artificial strawberry and sweet tangerines, though snow still storms down to desaturate the world. You’ve had enough productivity for one day. Gahyeon shares the soup with you, but after she sets the bowl down, she twists her hips in a quick motion and you explode without warning. Five or six? It’s only a curt removal of your soul from existence but you puff and pant anyway.

“Fuck, I’m sorry sir. I should’ve warned you.”

“It’s fine.”

“But I can’t let this cum go to waste, can I?” At some point during your orgasm, she withdrew herself and now she’s licking up and down your soft shaft to clean any cum that you didn’t shoot inside. “Damn, I just wanted to get my vibrator.”

“It’s okay Gahyeon, get it. I. I definitely need some time to recover.”

“I guess even you have your limits.” She grins, then leaves for the bedroom.

Gahyeon returns and a loop of a pink wire sticks out from her pussy. Now the only thing she wears is that thin strip of a top. Take off your shirt to match. “The egg this time?” you say.

She nods. “Here’s the remote.”

Get your Switch and play some Smash while she washes some dishes and organizes clothes that she’s brought over. Apparently you mix your clothes with hers often, which shouldn’t be such an issue considering how different your sizes are. Every time you lose a game, you turn on the vibrator for a few moments. You get a kick out of watching her buckle. If only you could do this while she performs live.

“You wanna head to the bedroom? It’s getting dark, uff.” A quick press of the highest setting and Gahyeon’s knees knock together. It never takes too long for you to get hard again when you see her put all effort into standing. “You- Ahhh, fuck, I love you. I hate you.”

Maybe it’s because you have yet to turn the intensity down. With a full hand on her ass and the other on her back, carry her to the bedroom but her wriggling hobbles you. An early left turn.

“I already showered earlier. Sir, please I’m getting so sensitive.” Gahyeon rotates through many different faces, from agony to excitement to pleasure. 

Set her down in the hot tub and her crop-top lands in the laundry basket perfectly.

“Nice throw.” Gahyeon high-fives you. She almost distracted you with that great throw. “Tsk. You’re still keeping that vibrator in you. Just what you deserve for making me cum when I didn’t even finish eating.”

Your apartment is relatively small for its price, but there were certainly no expenses spared for the bathroom. Both your shower and your jacuzzi could fit three people. It has the biggest panes of glass and provides no privacy but you love the ambiance especially during a night shower. Gahyeon’s moaning goes from having a quick rhythm to intense, long held notes. She’s playing with herself in any way that she can to make her climax, manically stroking her clit while she teases pulling the metallic plug in her ass. Turn off the lights and cocoa candles fill the scent of the room. Finally, remove her vibrator and buttplug.

“So fucking yummy. Come here,” you say, holding her neck carefully as you get in the tub to crash your lips into hers. After what feels like hours of kissing even if it is only a few minutes, you lay down in the hot-tub and Gahyeon straddles your thighs. 

“So which is going to be?” She glances next to the sink. ”Guess the lube isn’t for my pussy. Wait, why’d you turn on the water? It’s gonna wash away the lube. Woah, isn’t it my turn-” 

When you pull her groin up to your face, extra force on her clit shuts her up and nearly instantly drives her to orgasm. Gahyeon always grabs your hair and locks her legs together when you make her cum with your tongue but especially after all the stimulation of the vibrator, you have difficulty breathing. It’s worth it. She whimpers as your lips work relentlessly on her pussy but you settle down after a while. Hot jets of water blast on your back along with her legs. Gahyeon continues riding your face while she talks about her performance. Apparently the snow had a lot of the production people hold up. She brings a dewfall and you could taste her syrup forever but your cock aches once again. Maybe it’s asking you to chill out and that it needs a break, but if that were true, it wouldn’t be as hard as ever. 

“I’ve had enough of your pussy today,” you say.

“Really sir? Didn’t know that was possible.” Gahyeon needs no directions, your tongue licking up her body as your hands pull her last garment away.

“Siri, play relaxing radio. I’m staying in your ass until I cum.”

The middle of an R&B chorus plays. You get up to take the lube and Gahyeon drains the tub until only a little water remains. Her fingers wander and she vigorously rubs her clit while a curious thumb circles her asshole. Take a glob of the vanilla flavored lube and spread it on your fingers. Gahyeon sucks on your index, which goes straight to her asshole. Its wetness helps the tight ring expand slowly around it and the familiar pucker on your finger excites you. Get underneath her so that she’s laying on top of you while you sit back against the tub.

“God. I’m never getting used to how big you are.”

There it is. The tip of your cock vanishes into her tight asshole and you try to hold in a high whine, though Gahyeon lets out plenty of squeals as lube makes the entrance slick, squishy noises. Let her ass sink in with only her weight and it wraps down your shaft inch by throbbing inch. At last. She’s all the way down. If only you could see her face, but the position is comfortable and you get the pleasure of sucking on her neck while playing with her tits from behind.

The glow from the moon finds an angle into your room, mixing candle flame yellows with its white. Fierce winds push the falling snow outside of your window sideways. You’re warm nonetheless.

Midnight, the radio says as a new host talks about the inclement weather, but it’s not enough to keep you from kissing up and down Gahyeon’s back. Play with her nipples and the miniscule action not only gets them hard, but makes her ass’s folds react and roll to the pleasure. The breeze blows, a more important sound manages to distract you.

“Sir, do you hear that?” Gahyeon says.

“Yeah!” You hum along to the melody of Jazz Bar. “Hey, that’s you singing.”

“It’s not even one of our title tracks. I have to tell the members.” 

Gahyeon almost gets up from her but her head turns and shakes, realizing your thickness twitching as she almost fully unsheathes her ass. “Fuck.”

“Hold on. What’d I tell you?”

“Oh shit. Sorry. Sir. I can tell them later.”

“You know what. Just for that.” Pick her up, holding her thighs carefully to keep your cock in her asshole. The position is awkward, but you manage to lay her down prone without withdrawing your erection. 

“God, I love the way your cock hits.” All agreements and contracts are lost when you look at how the fat and muscle collects in Gahyeon’s full ass. A single thrust in and you can see the weight of the smack of your groin on her cheeks, so you endeavor to learn more about physics, even during the snow day. Slam into her and as you go in and out, Gahyeon yells and swears louder and louder, threatening to let all the neighbors know. No, of course they already know. It makes your eye contact with them hilariously awkward and it makes Gahyeon’s mask and disguise even more necessary.

“What a bad girl,” you say with a powerful shove.  ”Can’t even be a good cockwarmer, god.” Plunge and dive, your cock tries its best to widen her asshole but no matter what, it strangles your shaft taut. “Your butthole is just too. Fucking. Tempting.”

“Yes! Yes! Sir please, I’m going to- I’m just about to. Fuck. Shit I was so close.”

Chuckle at seeing her distraught face. “I’m getting some beer. Also, I want to finish in the bedroom. More comfy.”

She takes a minute to find her breathing but she gets up and grabs the lube. “Don’t have work tomorrow?” Gahyeon says.

“Lemme check.” When you both get to the bedroom, you check your phone. Nothing til noon. Perfect. Grab some beer in the minifridge in the corner of the room, while Gahyeon fixes her hair and lays down on the bed. She pats the mattress with both hands next to her. Missionary, it is then.

A hand to her chin. “Wait a second, didn’t you say you weren’t leaving my ass until you came. Hmm,” Gahyeon says. She gives a quick smooch and smiles naughtily. You could stare at her lips upturning all day. It’s her signature weapon.

Take a sip of the bottle of Cass. “What are you gonna do about it?” She digs her nails into your back to pull you and your cock finds the purchase of her asshole anew. In between thrusting motions, you take bigger swigs of the beer and offer some to her. She spills a bit on her tits and you lick it up. Suck on her tits as she pounds her ass into your erection. 

“Stretch me out, fuck me harder. Harder, sir!”

“God, mmmm, ugh., ugh.” Can’t speak much anymore.  Both of you love dirty talk, Gahyeon especially knows how to whisper to tickle your ear but she also knows how to scream to get your instinctive side out. You hold her neck as you hold the bottle, careful and secure. Her tightly drawn anus responds the same as her pussy when you choke her, as they each try frenetically to wring you dry. However, the friction of her ass, even with all the lube, arouses your cock harder somehow. This is the life you chose, in a way the most tiring work you could ever imagine.

Gahyeon grabs tighter and her whole body ripples at the force that you both put in. Not a single qualm about your lifestyle. Any pretense of space between you two is gone as every inch of your skin slaps against each other. A final gulp from the bottle.

“Right there, right there, yes sir, baby. Cum with me!”

There isn’t much of you left but it’s still a flash freeze, a blizzard and pouring hail slamming into you when you cum, and she shakes doubly so in her orgasm as she’s had double yours today. The throb of your shaft doesn’t match the squeezing rhythm of her sphincter and inner walls which makes your cock spurt with more intensity than you could think possible, even bearing your stamina. Your sticky semen replaces the slippery lube inside her ass but you didn’t need its stickiness to slow your rhythm as your dick gets softer. You let minutes pass anyway to feel her muscles react to the load sloshing around and so that it’s not as difficult to extricate your softness from her greedy butthole, though it takes a slow removal anyway with its tightness. Both of you limp over and Gahyeon is fast asleep, but you scramble to return the buttplug and keep the cum inside.

“Keep warm! It’s going to be like this all winter. Tomorrow, it’ll be a high of -5 and a low of -20 and that snow will keep piling up-” Turn down the volume so that it’s not muted but soft enough that you can hear the wind howl past your windows just as loud. Nothing amazes you more than the tiny idol asleep and cutely snoring while her pussy throttles your shaft. Looking at Gahyeon’s ass and feeling her shake it as you try to fall asleep, something tells you it’ll be the warmest winter you’ll ever have.

✦✧✦✧✦✧

AFF, AO3

Something quick with my favorite kink for my second favorite in Dreamcatcher. Also got a draft for my ultimate bias but that’ll take time as well. Woops, yet another thing to procrastinate on while I shirk on both real life and writing.

[teawaffles]

Forbidden Games: Chapter 5

At William’s question, Alan beckoned to another of his accomplices. That man took an item from his breast pocket and handed it to Alan.

“This is the game we’ll be playing today.”

In his hands was a revolver.

With the appearance of this dangerous weapon, the two men understood the contents of the game in a flash.

“Russian roulette, indeed.”

“Quite right. I believe you had spoken to one of the club members about this a short while ago. For what it’s worth, I was the one who learned about this game and introduced it to the club.”

Sherlock turned a deaf ear to Alan’s careless self-praise, instead staring at the gun in his hands.

“A Peacemaker……? No, it’s a little different. A modified version?” [1]

Alan hummed in approval. “Bravo. This is a modified Colt Single Action Army, made specially to order. The cylinder opens to the side. The type popular in the hall is but a toy which uses rubber bullets, but—— this one uses the real deal.”

“In other words, you’re asking us to wager our lives.”

“Indeed. Defeat means death.”

“I see.”

Even in the face of the word ‘death’, the two men remained unshaken. Alan, finding their lack of reaction dull, continued his explanation.

“The process goes as follows: first, open the cylinder and load a bullet.”

He mimed the action with the revolver in his hand, and closed the cylinder.

“After closing the cylinder, give it a spin.”

He then used his open palm to strike the cylinder, causing it to spin vigorously. It made a pleasant sound as it rotated, then gradually came to a stop.

“And there you have it. By the way, this gun has a maximum capacity of six bullets. Do you understand what that means?”

He seemed a little unskilled in handling guns, but his actions thus far lacked any trace of doubt. Both William and Sherlock nodded in silence.

“Excellent. Now, I wish to take both of you on, so I’ll be adding another player to my team to make this a two-versus-two match. The game will end either when a player is shot, or when one side surrenders without firing a bullet.”

Alan chose the man who had handed him the gun earlier. The other accomplices solemnly placed chairs around the table, and six bullets on the table itself.

Sherlock walked up to a chair.

“So you’re saying that each side is going to take turns firing the gun on themselves. Then let’s get on with deciding the order.”

“Please wait just a moment.”

Alan raised a hand to cut Sherlock off.

“That would be no different from ordinary Russian roulette. Hence I’m going to add just one more rule, to make this a little more thrilling for everyone.”

The duo listened on in silence.

“The rule is as follows: the next person to fire the gun has to load at least one more bullet into it.”

“At least one more……”

William immediately understood what that meant.

In other words, if the first player loads in one bullet, then the next player will have to use a roulette with two or more bullets. In the round after that, the gun must contain at least three bullets. Therefore, the last player would naturally be at a disadvantage.

“With these rules, the game will be settled early on,” William pointed out.

Alan shrugged.

“Well then, what will you do? Will you proceed? If you pull out at this stage, it will be considered your loss by default, and I’ll be happy to give you both a concession on your forfeit, you know.”

With the revolver in one hand, he made a clownish gesture as he pressed the two men for an answer. If they finally chickened out and begged him to call off the game, he would get a windfall. And even if they didn’t take up his offer, just watching the colour of their faces drain from fear would be enough to sate his desires.

However, as for the duo——.

“Let’s proceed.”

“Fine by me.”

Without hesitation, they accepted the match.

Although he’d half-predicted this scenario, Alan still grit his teeth.

“……That courage is definitely something I wish to emulate. But let’s get on with it right away. The sequence of players is just as Mr Holmes mentioned: both teams will take turns firing on themselves. ……Well, since my team was the one to suggest this game, let’s have your team start off.”

“Playing fair now won’t earn you any gratitude. ……Liam, what’ll we do?”

“…………”

For a few seconds, William sank deep into thought.

Many things raced through his mind: the opponent’s words and movements up to this point, an analysis of Alan’s personality, how the game would unfold, and the possible situations they could find themselves in after the game ended. The predictions branched out far and wide, and he considered each of them with no omissions, selecting the actions that they would have to take—— and finally arriving at a decision.

“Mr Holmes.”

He called out to Sherlock beside him.

The detective looked into William’s eyes. They were pure crimson, of a shade reminiscent of fresh blood. Despite the fact that they were allies, a chill ran down his back, and Sherlock felt as if his entire body was being wrapped in strings.

“…………”

Strangely enough, there was no need for words or gestures. Just by meeting his gaze, Sherlock sensed that William had devised a way out of this situation.

For the sake of his game, Alan had put up an elaborate facade of this scale. It stood to reason that the game itself would also contain some kind of trick. Although Sherlock more or less had an idea about it, William had already seen through the trick, and struck upon a plan to take advantage of it.

In that case, it was time to put the plan into action.

Sherlock gave him a nod, and resolved to pay attention to William’s every movement from now on.

Seeing the other man’s response, William dropped his gaze.

The preparations were complete. All that was left was to demonstrate that his solution was correct.

——It was time to show them a real plot.

A mathematics professor, as well as the heart of the “Lord of Crime”, spoken of with fear by the citizens of Great Britain —— William James Moriarty had set up a plan to manipulate all, including his ally Sherlock.

“I wish to go first…… Would that be alright?” he suggested, in a convincingly apologetic manner.

Playing along with William’s change in attitude, Sherlock deliberately adopted a frustrated tone as he replied.

“…… So you’re leaving me the worse spot. Guess it can’t be helped.”

He sat on the chair in front of him with a thud. Taking reference from his position, the other three men chose their seats at the table as well.

The sequence of players was: William, Alan, Sherlock, and Alan’s accomplice.

However, the sequence would not rotate until the fourth person was reached.

That was what Alan and his accomplices expected, and what William and Sherlock were sure of.

As the first player, William was handed the gun. He opened the cylinder. It looked well-used, with small scratches at four locations on the body and one location on the cylinder.

Having ascertained the state of the gun, he’d proceeded to take a bullet from the table and load it in, when Alan spoke up.

“By the way, it would obviously be against the rules to point the gun at anyone but yourself. I would caution you not to try anything untoward.”

Having heard his advice, William looked around the room and found Alan’s accomplices all turned towards himself, with small-scale guns at the ready. To go this far to maintain this unilateral pretence of a game…… William was, from the bottom of his heart, speechless.

Back to the game. He slowly aimed the revolver at his own temple, then intentionally took a few deep breaths, before pulling the trigger.

——A click.

William put the gun down with a long, thin exhale.

“Although there is only a one-sixth chance of death in the first round…… you have great courage, my opponent.”

As Alan showered him in praise, William handed over the gun and replied.

“However, it will be at least two-sixths in the next round. That is to say, at least a third of a chance that death will come for you.”

“Indeed, I am fully aware of that.”

Alan took the revolver and loaded his portion of bullets. There were two, which meant he would be firing a gun with three bullets in it.

“Hey, by doing that your chances will become one in two, you know.”

Sherlock looked at him with a puzzled expression. If Alan managed to survive this, Sherlock would be facing off with at least four bullets. The risk would be too great.

“Well then……”

Alan put the gun barrel to his head, and placed his finger on the trigger.

Sherlock held his breath as he looked on.

There was a dry click.

“Safe, it seems.”

Alan muttered in glee, having easily surmounted a one-in-two probability of death. Sherlock clenched his fists.

“Seriously?”

He looked aghast, the exact opposite of his conduct before the match. Alan revised his opinion of the two, especially that of Sherlock.

——As he’d suspected, their attitude up to now was just a bluff.

All humans would lose their composure when faced with their imminent death. That was true for detectives as well. Having decided that, Alan quietly placed the gun before Sherlock.

“It’s your turn next, Mr Holmes,” he said with a provocative smile.

Sherlock stared at the gun before him, with three bullets in it.

William, who was seated across him, tapped his index finger against the wooden surface as he spoke gravely.

“Mr Holmes, please don’t do anything rash. Allow me to advance a proposition. Two chambers— don’t fill them.”

After his strangely roundabout speech, William pressed his finger against the table.

“……Is that right. So that’s what you think, Liam,” Sherlock replied after a curious pause.

Alan was ready to burst out laughing from the look on their faces. These two seemed to be downright nervous. It was precisely this disoriented attitude which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had revealed their true characters.

“……Dammit.”

Alan’s plan had gone wrong. Sherlock spluttered out a single swear word, then began to tremble all over.

“Aah, that’s just great. Then I’ll do the same,” he spat.

With excessive violence, Sherlock loaded two more bullets into the revolver. Watching the detective ignore William’s advice, Alan cautiously tried to explain the high risk of his outburst.

“Are you absolutely sure? With that, your chances are now five in six. It would be odd for you not to get shot. To tell you the truth, we do not want anyone to die. As such, if you were to stay your hand and admit defeat——”

“Shut up. I won’t surrender at any cost.”

However, no matter how Alan tried to persuade him, Sherlock showed no sign of stopping.

“Are you crazy, Sherlock Holmes……”

Alan unwittingly let out a word of sincere amazement.

Indeed, if he managed to come out alive, the next player would be left with a fully loaded revolver. At that point, the duo’s victory would be secured. The chances of that happening were one in six. It was not exactly impossible.

However, any normal person would flinch from the five-in-six chance of death. Perhaps not, if one had nothing to lose, but this man had already built a reputation and gained the public’s trust as a detective. Having known the fear of loss, Sherlock’s choice was not one Alan could easily accept.

——But his desperation had worked against him.

Yet on one hand, due to a certain reason, Alan knew for a fact that the gun wouldn’t fire. Moreover, he also realised that at this stage, his side had lost all hope of winning the game.

Right as his enemy had sunk into disappointment, Sherlock swiftly finished his preparations and pulled the trigger with all his might.

“…………”

The result was—— no shot.

The room became enveloped in silence. William remained quiet, while Alan was silenced from the frustration that his plan had failed.

“……So things like that do happen, huh.”

Amidst the jumble of everyone’s thoughts, the first person to speak was the very man who had surmounted a five-in-six chance of death.

At first, Sherlock appeared to be staring into space in sheer relief. Then he yelled at the fact that the game had ended with their victory.

“All right! With that, the next guy will have to use all six bullets! Since he would definitely get shot, it’s our win! We did it, Liam!”

He stood up from his seat in pure excitement and raised a fist to William across him. To that, William responded with a joyous smile.

Immediately after that, the gentlemen in the room began clapping in unison.

“Wonderful. Both of you possess a rare courage. I was thoroughly moved.”

Although he’d suffered defeat, Alan wore an indiscriminately cheerful expression as he heaped praise on the duo. While this aroused William’s suspicion, he followed Sherlock and rose from his seat.

“It’s our victory, so please proceed to release this young man——”

“——With that, let’s move on to the next game.”

Footnotes:

[1] The revolver looks something like this: Wikipedia

[olivinesea]

Shouldn’t Have To

a/n: I actually want to get a lot deeper into the gay baby college lives of these two but somehow this came out short and complete and I can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Here ya go, more to come in this vein probably. ~1.6k

Emily trying to navigate her relationships, Hotch trying to keep it all together.

Hotch was exhausted. When had he ever felt any other way? He wasn’t sure. Not in this lifetime. He really needed to rethink his schedule. With a full course load he really shouldn’t be working thirty hours on top of that, even if it was only a campus job. There were benefits—his managers were usually gracious about the occasional plea for a shift change or a chance to cut out early when things were slow if he needed to work on a big project. But the pay was low, hence his acceptance of the extra hours. Emily had convinced him to move into an off campus apartment together for their third year of college and there were no scholarships to cover rent. Emily kept telling him to work less, that he really didn’t need to be paying half the rent when her mother didn’t notice how much she was spending anyway. He refused, growing quieter each time she brought it up until she finally realized the idea was insulting to him.

He didn’t mind working, certainly preferred it to empty hours and indebtedness to his best friend’s contentious relationship with her mother. It was impossible to deny how tiring this semester had been though. As it was, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a day off of both school and work. Possibly back in September. He was just grateful tomorrow would be Friday and he only had one class and a few precious hours to himself before he worked the closing shift. Thursday, however, was his longest day of the week: an opening shift and then two afternoon classes. All he could think about at the moment was dropping his backpack and flopping onto the couch, possibly forever. If he really got motivated he might eat some cereal.

Standing outside their apartment door, he could already hear the music as he put his key into the lock. He groaned internally, wondering if he could sneak away to his room before Emily tried to rope him into whatever plan she had for the evening. He steeled himself before opening the door, expecting to see Emily and possibly an unknown number of others lingering around their small kitchen table, hyping each other for some highly unnecessary excursion into the world.

All he found was an empty, though brightly lit, room. It was something they hadn’t managed to sort out—Hotch insisted that unless a light was in active use it needed to be turned off; Emily couldn’t be bothered to keep track of the state of a light switch, considering that a philosophical question between the light and its maker. In practice this looked like her leaving every light on and him trailing her from room to room switching them off.

“Emily!” he called into the apartment, priding himself on the fact that he barely sounded annoyed. There was no response, only the crash of drums and the pulse of a bass line from somewhere deeper in the apartment. Hotch hoped it was still early enough they wouldn’t be getting another noise complaint from their irritable downstairs neighbor. He locked the door carefully behind him and grumbled as he dropped his bag on the chair next to the table. He turned off the lights within reach as he moved through the living room toward the bedrooms.

The volume grew unbearably as he approached Emily’s room. He found her there but she couldn’t hear his approach and carried on unaware of his presence. He stood in the doorway, absorbing the scene. She was laying on the floor, an open bottle of wine beside her. In addition to the record playing at full blast, she had opened all her windows and the wind was howling in counterpoint to the music. She had clearly been crying, her cheeks were wet with tears she hadn’t bothered to wipe away. He sighed, leaning against the doorframe. Lately, she only acted like this for one reason—when she’d been fighting with her girlfriend. They’d been dating since early in the year and it seemed more and more often there was some new problem. Based on the the details in front of him, this had been a rough one.

He flicked the lights on and off to get her attention without startling her. Emily arched her neck to look back at him, glaring through her dark lashes. Hotch stepped over to the stereo and turned it down several notches. It was still loud but his ears wouldn’t start bleeding, at least not immediately. She lifted herself to lean on an elbow and took a pull from the wine bottle, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She picked at the label as he settled on the floor next to her, cross-legged. Hotch looked at her, concerned, the corner of his mouth turned down. She looked back, chin lifted defiantly. Her whole body was tense, ready to snap at him, regardless of his lack of involvement in or even knowledge of what was going on. He’d have to choose his approach carefully.

Finally he said, “You should put on a sweater.”

Her laughter was loud and abrupt, dark red droplets spraying from her mouth. She was more than halfway through the bottle and well on her way to being drunk. He frowned in distaste, contemplating what it would take to redirect this energy. Emily had a tendency to spiral recklessly when forced to deal with emotional conflict.

“You’re stupid,” she replied amicably, sinking down to floor again. She held a hand out to him above her head and he took it. Engulfed by his own, her hand felt small and warm as he rubbed the back of her knuckles with his thumb. She pulled at him.

“Join me.”

Hotch sighed and scooted until he could lay on the floor beside her, their heads just barely touching. His feet were in the doorway while hers pointed to the windows on the opposite wall. They both stared up at the ceiling wordlessly, their dark hair mingling. Hotch folded his hands on his chest, ankles crossed; even laying on the floor he appeared neat. Emily, forever his opposite, had her arms splayed out beside her like a half formed snow angel. The next song played, something angry and sad. He could tell she was crying again even though she tried to hide it. He could hear it in the surreptitious sniffles, could feel the occasional movement of a hand scrubbing at her cheek. After the side ended, he waited for her to speak. They’d been here before and he knew if he gave her a little time she would open up.

“She said I’m a fucking liar.” Her voice twisted with bitterness and barely concealed fury.

He bit back a sigh, counting to ten before speaking. He refrained from asking if she had been lying. “How’s she figure that?”

“I told her she couldn’t come to the wedding.”

“Ah.” He tried to sound neutral but this wasn’t the first time this issue had come up. He had already listened to hours of this debate relayed second-hand. There was no good solution and he wasn’t sure what else to say about it.

She reached behind her to punch his shoulder and he grunted. He supposed this was a sign that he hadn’t been as neutral sounding as he’d been aiming for.

“The ambassador would have a fit,” she defended.

“Isn’t that normally your goal?” he asked dryly.

She made a sound of disgust and got up to flip the record. Surreptitiously she nudged the volume up again. When she returned to their spot on the floor she waved the wine bottle above his face, nearly brushing his nose. He tried to decline with a shake of his head.

“I’m sad,” she insisted.

He rolled his eyes but took a sip. She took it back and downed another gulp. They positioned themselves on the floor again, the opening bars of the b-side moodier than the previous tracks. The wind was blowing harder somehow; it would probably start raining soon. It whistled through the room, displacing some loose papers on Emily’s desk. Hotch could feel her shivering and his toes had gone numb. Enough of this, he decided. He rolled over and stood up beside her. She reluctantly accepted the hand he held out to her and he pulled her to her feet. She grabbed the mostly empty bottle as she stood. Unguarded, she looked so sad, so lost. Navigating the conflicting wishes of her mother and her girlfriend had been difficult from the beginning. It was only getting harder as the relationship continued. Instinctively he drew her into a hug, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“I want to bring her,” she said into his chest. “I’m not ashamed.” The insistence in her voice told him that this was in response to a statement he hadn’t be present for, the unfinished argument eating at her.

“I just—“ she sniffled. “She doesn’t understand. It’s complicated. It’s political.”

Hotch didn’t think he had ever heard that word sound so much like an expletive from anyone else.

“Have you eaten?”

She snorted. “Have you?”

“Fair enough. C’mon, I’ll make you some pasta.”

“Mac n cheese?” Her hopeful expression was almost childlike.

“Whatever you want darlin’,” his drawl slipped out and she smiled, just as he’d hoped she would. Hotch flipped off the lights and the last song faded out as they made their way to the kitchen.

[silence-burns]

Please Hate Me //part 50

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Based on: “Imagine having a love/hate relationship with Loki.” by @thefandomimagine​ Who would have thought that babysitting a god could be so much fun?

Genre: slow-burn, enemies to lovers, banter, smut

Living in an apartment so full of various enchantments that you couldn't move without bumping into one certainly had its perks, but your favourite was the space enhancement that made sure the apartment could actually fit everything you wanted it to.

In their original state, both floors of the apartment weren't small on their own, but as your moving in progressed, you quickly realized that the amount of both your and Loki's belongings overran the space you'd been given. 

The solution was pretty standard and required bending only a few minor laws of physics and logic.

Whoever dared venture into your apartment now would get quite the surprise in the form of rooms that felt a little too big for the kind of space indicated by the building's construction, and doors leading to places that absolutely shouldn't be able to fit so close together and yet stubbornly did. But however much you loved the whole apartment in general, you couldn't deny that your absolute favourite part of it was the giant monstrosity of a bathtub that Loki was absolutely uncompromising about.

Laying in it now, you couldn't blame him.

The passage of time was forgotten as the two of you soaked in the scented water, kept warm for what felt like hours, and might've actually been that long. If it was up to you, you would've stayed there forever and enjoyed Loki's firm, warm body, the pleasantly dimmed lights and the few bottles of whatever Loki had hidden for special occasions.

Well, the bottles weren't there originally, but as your clean up progressed and both of you started to feel like something other than a walking biological disaster, a need for celebration rose. You weren't sure how the things progressed from the first bottle to the small pile of them on the floor by the bathtub, but you found yourself straddling Loki's lap, completely drunk and unable to move despite one of your legs going completely numb.

"Remind me to never drink with you again," you mumbled into Loki's neck. 

"I did."

"Then be more convincing…"

With your cheek plastered to him, you felt rather than heard Loki's chuckle. The rumble did unruly things to the contents of your stomach.

"I'm gonna puke."

"Please save the last of my dignity and at least aim away from me." Despite Loki's words, he didn't move a bit and if you didn't know him any better, you'd guess he was feeling similar sensations. 

With his head leaning on the tub's edge and his eyes closed, Loki was indeed fighting against the world spinning around him. The warm embrace of your body pressed into his and the water scented with jasmine were his only anchors in the chaotic mess his head tried to sort out. Truth be told, he had forgotten the full potential of the Asgardian alcohol, and especially the type he had stored for a perfect occasion. It was like a blow to all his senses, and as much as it was fun, Loki was starting to worry about his ability to ever walk out of that bathtub again. He certainly wouldn't attempt such an insanity now, with you weighing him down, so comfortably settled on his lap that you felt like an integral part of him. 

Loki tried, and failed, to convince himself it wasn't an excuse, and a pathetic one too.

"Do you think we're gonna get in trouble?" You asked, as if you knew you were on his mind.

"As petty as Odin is, I don't think he's going to execute us for stealing some alcohol…"

"I meant the stuff Thor was talking about. We kinda messed up the Moon, didn’t we?"

Loki hummed in a way that was definitely not an answer. One of his hands roamed over your exposed back, enjoying the soft curve and warm skin. The other stirred the water, making the soap bubble again and the temperature stay unchanged. Loki had to concentrate more than usual, which was partly because of the amount of alcohol consumed, and partly because his mind was slowly drifting away on soft tendrils of sleep.

"No one knows you there, and I wore my brother's face," Loki finally murmured, leaning his head back. "It'll be fine."

It, unfortunately, didn't know about those predictions, which was why It was interrupted by a certain boy's voice.

"Hey guys, are you okay?" Peter asked from the other side of the door, having let himself into the apartment. Again.

Loki groaned, even as he could feel your smile pressed to his chest. 

"We're fine," he said, louder than necessary. He winced as the sound seemed to erode his skull. 

"What about Barbara, though?" Peter was insistent. "She's scratching at the window from the outside… and I think she wants those pickles from the table?"

"You locked her outside?" You hissed, trying to look at Loki's completely innocent face, but the sudden movement only resulted in the world tilting to the side dangerously fast.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I love that bird dearly." Louder, he said to the boy, "She's only allowed to eat them outside!"

"Okay!" The answer was quick and cheerful and mercifully moving away as the boy grabbed the open jar and went outside.

Loki took a deep breath. The blessed silence once again enveloped the apartment. Through the cloud pressing on his hazy thoughts, Loki considered locking the apartment altogether. 

Another chilled bottle appeared in his hand, delightfully full and heavy. As much as he had tried to get drunk on Earth's alcohol, only the Asgardian kind seemed to do the job.

The drink burned his throat in precisely the manner he needed. It'd been so long since the two of you had a moment to yourself and could just relax without worrying about a thousand responsibilities. On most days, Loki enjoyed the kind of life he had somehow managed to secure himself. If he decided to be honest, Loki was still rather uncertain how it had happened. 

The long, curvy, and annoyingly labyrinthine road that started on the day the Avengers had decided to put him under your wing somehow ended up leading him to where he was now. Not literally, of course - as much as he loved the grand bathtub he had insisted on, Loki had in mind something grander spiritually. A place of comfort, but without the boundaries of a physical space bound to certain conditions and limitations. 

A home, but only if it could be a person. 

Loki supposed it could. Even as he drank again from the bottle, mudding his thoughts further, the philosophical conclusions he came to still felt right. 

Revelations such as these were worthy of sharing, lest they might be forever lost in one's memory. Loki wanted to share the wisdom granted to him by the unholy amount of Asgardian cider, but he had found you plastered to his chest, asleep. And drooling. 

Loki made sure the water didn't run cold as he too decided to join you in the dreams' escape. The quiet popping of the soap bubbles and the lavender scent hanging in the air lulled him quickly into a state of complete and utter comfort… 

"Brother, where are you hiding? 

…from which a rather brutish, and definitely unwelcome voice dragged him away. 

Loki started. The contents of a forgotten bottle escaped into the water. 

As the heavy steps sounded outside of the bathroom, it was clear the apartment was being searched through again. 

You swore. Loki agreed. 

"I'm going to," he hiccuped, "change him into a frog." 

"Barbara would devour him whole."

"Let them fight. He always prided himself to be a warrior."

Fortunately for Thor, even though he was not aware of the small mercy of the universe, Loki found himself too drunk to act on his words, despite his best attempts at conjuring the transformative spell.

But when his brother's thudding steps neared the bathroom again, with clear intent of dragging Loki out in whatever state he was, Loki was forced to make a very dire decision very quickly, or lest his quiet evening suffer a bitter end.

So Loki did what he had always done best, and spiced the world up with a tiny little trick.

You heard Thor approach the door, but you didn't have it in you to move and at least cover yourself up. The doorknob twisted and you heard it very well through the slight creak it always gave. Then you heard the door open - but it didn't.

Living in an apartment complex had its perks, and being able to hear your neighbors on occasion certainly wasn't one. Still, your gaze turned up when you heard a high-pitched scream and Thor's booming voice coming from the apartment above yours.

"He's going to kill you for that," you said.

"Given the vigor with which he was looking for me, I think he had a hefty list of reasons prepared already."

"That's fair."

As all good things have in common, they always come to a saddening end when you least expect them to. The conclusion that life was utterly unfair in its precipice was a natural one to come up with, even in the state of drunkenness. 

"I think it's time for us to go," Loki sighed.

A groan escaped you when the world tilted to the side. Getting out of the bathtub while completely, embarrassingly drunk was a feat that almost resulted in one broken neck and three broken limbs, but somehow both of you managed to scramble your way out. While you searched for clothes that had an annoying habit of duplicating right in front of your eyes, Thor's roars of fury sounded clear through the many walls separating you. 

You wondered if any of the neighbours would connect their unexpected guest to you.

You gave up on your search for the other sock and decided to only wear one. Trying to put it on was already hard as it was. "If you spelled all the doors in the building to lead astray, how are we getting out?"

"Don't worry," Loki hiccuped. "My brother dearest is too stupid to notice I didn't touch the windows."

You had never loved anything as much as you loved the walls in your apartment, their quiet support helping you get through the endless expanse of the living room. For reasons you elected to ignore, the swaying of the world only increased as you progressed, bumping into every single piece of furniture some idiot (most likely you the day before) had decided to put there.

"I don't think this is a good idea," you slurred when Loki opened the window, pickleless, owlless and impossibly high.

"Your intuition, my love, is right as always."

Loki managed to put his leg over the windowsill on the second try, which he deemed a great success. He also managed to get down on the other side with no life-threatening injuries, which was just as surprising.

His pride was short-lived when you tumbled down, knocking him off feet.

The few half-melted snowmen seemed to have a good laugh. The little garden was still winter-bare, and no grass cushioned the fall. Barbara, perched on top of Peter's head, hissed with obvious joy. 

The boy blinked. "Are you...sneaking out?" 

"No," Loki grunted in the same moment you said, "Yes."

Barbara ripped another pickle from the boy's hand. Life was short, especially after you died once, and there was only so much time she deemed worth looking at the two of you. She had far more pressing issues, like the impossibly narrow jar into which her head just wouldn't fit, and so left her reliant on the boy's nimble (and tasty) fingers.

"...are you sure?" The boy watched the two drunkards scramble to stand up. 

"We're just out for a walk."

"A long one."

Glass broke upstairs, followed by raised voices and what was undeniably a string of curses.

Loki looked at you. You looked at Loki. Another Loki looked at you. Unable to choose which to make eye contact with, you squinted and the two Lokis merged together—damn you were never drinking again. There was no way all of you would sneak out in time.

Barbara ripped another pickle to shreds.

"Hey, Peter," you cooed sweetly. "Do you happen to know a quiet little place to lay low for a while, my darling?"

Peter, the darling, did.

*****

A/N: Hi! I'm sorry for no chapter last week, my university is going to kill me with that graduation paper I have to work on and reasearch and realize how little do I actually know about the subject I have to get a 70-pages long paper done. Heh.

But don't worry, this story is slowly nearing its end, and even though I have little time to work on new chapters, I'm doing my best and hope you'll enjoy them. Well, my life's pretty busy right now, and it stresses me out, so I'm not sure how regular the updates will be, but I promise, I'm not giving up on this story. I'm so happy about all the support I have received for this story, and grateful for all the comments it got! Hope you enjoyed this chapter too!

[thefanficmonster]

So Done

Daniel (The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope) & Reader (Trans Masc - using They/them pronouns)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Platonic fluff, humor

Summary: Having a crush isn’t easy but having a friend who has a crush he thinks is hopeless is even worse. Dealing with the constant self-deprecation and agony, Y/N’s gotten used to it, but damn if they stop trying to convince Daniel otherwise. Cause that’s what best friends do.

Requested by my platonic spouse @hopeveon Here’s the fic you requested literal ages ago bro - sorry for the wait! Still, hope you enjoy it :) Love, Vy ❤

“If you don’t stop gazing dreamily at Taylor, I swear imma throw a french-fry at your forehead.“ I caught onto Daniel’s inability to focus on the conversation we were having quite early on so I just gave up on it. Well, not completely - he has a tendency of claiming he’s been listening to all I’ve said so I’ve just been rambling nonsense for the past ten minutes and he hasn’t reacted to ANYTHING. Yeah, he’s totally paying attention. TOTALLY.

It’s not like I mind it or anything - ok, sometimes I do, but what really bugs me is this dragging out of the inevitable love story that’s gonna occur here, no matter how hopeless he claims his case to be. Trying to beat that mindset out of him hasn’t proved to be effective nor has beating him out of that mindset so I’m just left to my own devices here because he’s starting to prove me wrong - he might actually be a hopeless case. Just not in the way he thinks.

“W-what?“ He suddenly snaps out of his odd state, turning to look at me with a baffled gaze. Probably the sound of Taylor’s name set him off. It seems to be the only way I can draw his attention. 

You see, I’ve known Daniel since high school sophomore year which means I’ve seen him have several crushes and girlfriends over the years. However, I have never seen him whipped quite like this. My dude’s literally in love and completely star-struck. And very fucking discouraged in the romantic field for some reason. I don’t understand when or why this sudden change in him happened but I can’t say I’m a fan. He’s always been the confident one in our duo and I’ve seen him win over girls with a single conversation many times. Yet here he is, across the cafeteria from the girl he’s infatuated with, unable to work up the courage to even text her let alone go up to her and talk to her.

Instead, he sits here, pretending to be listening to me. Wonderful, but I’d like the old Daniel back please.

“I said it’d be cool if a meteor struck that dumbass who sits next to me in class.“ I say, my head tilted to the side, very unamused.

He furrows his brows, lost and confused as though he needs a map for the conversation, “And what does Taylor have to do with that?”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. I’m typically a person of average patience but right now I feel a really strong urge to grab neon signs and spell it all out for Daniel. I roll my eyes and take a deep breath so I don’t snap, “Nothing with the meteor, but she’s got plenty to do with the fact that you’re completely different compared to the Daniel I knew in high school.”

He shrugs his shoulders like an accused child that doesn’t wanna admit what they did wrong. “College changed me.”

I give him another eye-roll, more annoyed than the previous, “That’s bullshit. You were the same dumbass in freshman year too.” I say, observing as he insecurely pushes his food around the plate with the plastic fork, “It’s all got to do with Taylor. You can’t rattle my resolve there.”

It’s his turn to be annoyed - the audacity he has, damn. “Alright, thanks Y/N, great observations. How about you give me some solutions though? Seeing as how I’m a dumbass and all that.”

“Well you are...“ I reply, unbothered by his childish outburst, “...especially since I just gave you a solution to your damn problem: go and talk to her! You have like four classes together, do you really have nothing to discuss? Any interests in common? Anything?“

“I don’t know.” He sighs defeatedly, “We’ve never talked about our interests. But I bet she’s not a video game nerd like I am. Nor does she look like she’s into sports. The most we could have in common is music and who knows what kind of music she listens to.“

“Oh God, I’m on the brink of losing my sanity.“ I mutter under my breath, burying my face in my hands. This is literal agony. “Daniel, YOU’d know if you went up to her and talked to her! Meeting people isn’t a guessing game - and look who’s talking! I hate approaching people first too, but this case of yours is too severe.“

“You realize you’re being hypocritical right now?“ He dares to ask me.

“You realize you’re being an actual coward right now?“ I retort, narrowing my eyes at him with what I can only describe as a threat put into a look. Oh if looks could kill, I would’ve killed his doubts asap.

He tilts his head back, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans back into his seat, “You can’t be serious....”

“They are serious, but more importantly - they are right.“ Says a voice I recognize immediately. One that belongs to the guy that just occupied one of the last two open seats at our table - Andrew. “And you gotta stop torturing yourself like this, Dan.“

“Yourself and us. This feels like watching paint dry with ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ as a soundtrack for it.“ I intervene, “It’s absolutely fucking brutal.“

Daniel’s gaze switches between Andrew and I, clearly defeated considering he’s been outnumbered and very clearly second-guessing his decision to be sitting here with us right now. “Two against one, this ain’t even fair.” He finally says through an uneasy sigh.

“It’s perfectly fair in democracy - two votes you go talk to Taylor, one - yours - for the opposite option.“ I shrug my shoulders, fist-bumping Andrew the table. “So...I think you know what you gotta do.“

His gaze does a few more back-and-fourths between the two of us before he mutters, “I’m so done with the two of you” and gets up out of his chair, headed to the other side of the cafeteria where Taylor’s seated with a few of her friends seniors.

“We’re done with you too!“ We call out to him in unison, watching as he walks away, no doubt having an inward debate on what to say or do. 

“He’s gonna thank us one day.“ Andrew says, taking a sip of his soda.

I nod, a small smile appearing on my face as I say: “Ten bucks says he’ll get too in-depth about the weather.“

Andrew snorts, almost choking on his drink as he bursts out laughing, “I’m not picking that up, I can’t afford to lose another ten bucks to a bet with you.”

“Smart guy, smart guy.“ I chuckle, stealing the unopened soda can Daniel left behind. Considering he has sat down at the seniors’ table and appears to be making casual small talk by the looks of it, I don’t think he’ll be returning to complain about the stolen drink anytime soon.

[sunlightxing]

Show Me Some Respect

After working for years as a secretary to General Hux aboard the ship, the Finalizer, life could not have been better for you.

That was until Hux informed you that Commander Kylo Ren would be joining you on that ship. Almost immediately, you both resent each other, but after being forced to spend more alone time with him, you begin to wonder, what's so bad about him after all?

Chapter 3: Following Orders

Tension rises between you and Commander Kylo Ren on your short mission to a nearby planet. However, upon returning back to the Finalizer, things begin to change between you and General Hux, and a misunderstanding lands you in hot water.

The minutes bled into hours as you impatiently waited for the stormtroopers to finish handling things on the ground. There was nothing but fire, dust, and absolute chaos visible to your gaze from the cockpit. Yet, you could not have been more bored. Of course, Commander Ren made absolutely no attempt to start any form of conversation. Instead, he sat perfectly mute in his seat, watching the violence conspire down below.

You felt guilty for constantly staring at him. One hand pressed up against the side of your face, supporting your head and neck, just to do nothing but study every part of his body. The way his chest heaved with every slow breath he took was mesmerizing, completely and utterly captivating. You wanted to speak to him, have any sort of communication, but he seemed to despise talking to you, or at the very least, despise hearing your voice. That was the worst part about it all, the mixed signals he constantly threw your way, and how he made you question every little thing.

Commander Ren suddenly engaged the ships thrusters, not giving any sort of explanation or instruction. He shot the shuttle down to the village, carefully maneuvering it over the sand dunes, and through the smog and smoke below. The ship slowly lowered itself onto the course ground below, at the very center of the others.

"You will not leave your seat. Is that understood?" Commander Ren demanded as he headed for the exit of the cockpit. His voice punctured your lungs, stabbing at every part of your soul. It hurt to hear him snap at you, the words rippling off his tongue like small knives, unrelentingly digging into wherever his gaze was placed.

You spun around in your chair, now gazing up at him. "I wasn't planning on it, sir," you responded calmly, trying to not show your obvious hatred for the tone of his voice.

Commander Ren let out another sharp, agitated huff before he stormed out of the cockpit, the door slamming behind him. You couldn't help but stare at the way his cape swayed as he moved, how it would brush over his shoulder with ever alternating step, revealing his broad shoulders and muscular physique. You smacked yourself square in the forehead as more sinful thoughts of the Commander flooded your mind, a small droplet of drool slipping through your lips. Those had to go away, or working aboard the same ship as him was going to become nearly impossible.

It seemed to be hours that you were stuck on board the shuttle, though it was probably only a couple minutes. You kept fidgeting in your seat, staring at the door in hope it would finally open to reveal the Commander, carrying on some prisoner, his breath panting as he carries himself onto the cockpit. His tired and aching body flopping into his seat, chest heaving as he took in any air he could. Your mind fluttered into thoughts of him calling you to him, making you tend to his wounds. The thought of pulling of his shirt to reveal finely chiseled muscles, then reaching for his helmet-

You slapped yourself in the face again, using that as a way to punish yourself for the thoughts and fantasies. It was beyond fucked up that you had such a strong craving for him, when all that came out of your mouth when he was around was berating insults, and the same flew from his own. He even said it himself, he didn't like you. Yet, he too must have a fair amount of pleasurable thoughts that fill his own mind, as he had acted on a few of them before. The only logical solution to stopping those strong emotions was getting away from the Commander, but it didn't look like that would be happening anytime soon.

A horrid hissing sound came from the back of the shuttle, the recognizable sound the door made when they were opened. You jumped out of your seat, running to the doorway and hurriedly opening it to see the two stormtroopers who accompanied you on board, but with no Commander. You looked at them for some answers, but they just shook their heads, pointing towards the cockpit. The fools didn't speak unless spoken to, but you doubted they were trained to answer to the likes of you.

"What?" You whispered, hoping they'd go against protocol just to give you a simple answer.

One of them went to speak, and the other responded by smack him on the back of the head. You rolled your eyes as the two troopers began to beat the ever loving shit out of each other, instead of giving you the smallest amount of answers. "Look," you stated, drawing their attention away from their small quarrel. "I just want to know where the Commander is. Can you give me that much?"

The two looked at one another, giving a nod of reassurance that only that information would be allowed to be stated, but then, a loud, and rather horrifying yell came from outside the ship.

"Uhhh, that would be the Commander," one of the troopers said, the other again smacking him on the back of the head as punishment for confusing to speak to you.

You turned back to the pair, shouting to stop another fight from ensuing. "Why is he so angry?" You demanded, hoping they'd answer that question, since they didn't technically answer the first.

"He didn't find what he wanted," the trooper answered. This time, the one who responded was the usual instigator of the fights. You went to ask the pair of them just one more question, about how much they knew about the Commander. You assumed they had worked with him several times, as they seemed used to the little tantrum he threw outside of the ship, but that would have to wait for another time.

Commander Ren came marching onboard the ship, his lightsaber fully ignited. The flashing, blood curdling sizzle of the electric flame sensing you tumbling back in fear. Upon seeing your reaction, or just you in general, he unsheathed the saber, placing it promptly at his side.

"What are you doing down here?" He demanded, his voice showing a vast amount of rage, more than usual that is. He turned to the troopers who were now dead silent, as if they were statues. "Did you speak to her?" The Commanders asked, reaching again for the saber at his side. You didn't want to hear that horrible sound again, so you were willing to lie for the sake of those two poor troopers. After all, they never would've spoken to you unless you practically begged for it.

"No, sir," you cried out. "They didn't speak to me."

The Commander looked at you, menacingly. Even the slightest glances from him would send shivers down your spine. He walked closer to you, stopping so his chest was inches from your face. His hand lifting up your chin so you were gazing into his jet black mask.

"You aren't a very good liar."

You felt your body go numb. "Commander, I'm not lying."

He reached his hand across your entire jaw, clenching it hard. "March your prissy little ass back to the cockpit."

You gulped, trying not to choke on your own spit. "Yes, Commander," you said as you sprinted away back to your seat.

The ships engine roared as he soared it away from the village, and back in the direction of the Finalizer. You kept thinking about those troopers, and how they probably hated you now. You nearly got their asses whopped just for asking a basic question. Why could the Commander not handle you asking just a simple question? It was for his own safety, he should be thankful you cared enough to see what happened to him.

"Enough," Commander Ren interjected. "You should've never left the cockpit in the first place."

"Commander, why do you keep reading my thoughts?" You asked ferociously.

He paused, clenching his fist so tightly you were afraid he might shatter it. "I don't want to, but you're yelling," he hissed. "I cant ignore it, though I desperately want to."

You rolled your eyes, completely and utterly annoyed by his antics, "I doubt that's the case, sir," you responded. He had no reason to keep searching your mind for every little thing that crossed it, and considering most of the thoughts your mind had been infected with, you didn't want him to.

Silence reigned for the remainder of the flight back to the Finalizer. The second you landed back on the base, the Commander shot up from his seat. The two troopers in the back carted the rebel pilot off of the ship to god knows where. You went to exit the ship and head back  to the control room, when he stuck out his arm, slamming it into the wall, stopping you from continuing your path out of the ship.

"I expect you to follow my orders more strictly next time."

You looked at him in confusion. "There's gonna be a next time?" You asked mournfully.

He huffed at you in rage, furious with the fact you didn't wish to spend any longer with him. He shouldn't have been that shocked, you thought it was pretty obvious as to why. In a fast and violent motion, he ripped his hand away from the wall, marching off to the ships exit. Then, finally, he was gone. You stood there for a moment in utter disbelief.  He should've been happy you didn't want to spend any more time with him, it's not like he enjoyed so much as a second of it.

You walked down through the hallways, passing by large squads of stormtroopers. They looked so rushed and hectic, probably because they faced a majority of the scrutiny passed on by Commander Ren. At least you had Hux, who was usually kind to you, and a very fair leader. They didn't have any one. Not even their Captain, Phasma, showed them an ounce of compassion.

You brushed those thoughts off as best you could, your primary focus to stop the stagnant bleeding of your nose before you entered the control room. You approached the bridge slowly, still wiping away some excess. Before you even fully entered the room, Hux bolted towards you, a pleasurable grin covering his face.

"You're back!" He exclaimed, rushing over to you. He then coughed, acting like it was a mistake that his voice was a bit too cheerful just to greet his secretary, as it would draw suspicion from the people who surrounded you both. You smiled at him, hoping there wasn't leftover nose blood residue on your face.

"How was it?"

"Oh, the mission. Not terrible at all, sir. Quite boring though."

"No," he huffed, "I meant how was it, with Ren."

You gulped, knowing full well you couldn't tell him of every tension filled moments, and the numerous times the Commander had left you bloody and bruised.

"Oh, it wasn't bad," you chuckled. "But, you know him! So serious!"

Hux gave a rather disingenuous grin. You bit your lip in fear, worried he might be onto you, and that maybe he had some hidden mind reading ability like the Commander did. But, Hux was simply just plain old Hux, and he moved on from that awkward discussion with the flick of his trench coat.  He turned back to the scanners, radars, all machines that scattered the control room. His breath was stagnant, almost forced. You watched as a single droplet of sweat pooled down from his forehead, down to his cheek before he abruptly brushed it away.

"General?" You asked. "Is everything alright?"

Hux looked over at your fellow pilots, who were plugging away into the ships database. "The Commander is, awfully frustrated at this moment. I'm sure you know that," he sighed. You shrugged, not quite understanding the difference between Commander Rens' frustration, or his overall anger issues. Hux finally managed to focus his gaze on you, and shifted his eyes towards your blood stained sleeve, staring at it with a completely mortified expression.

You tried to draw away his attention from that, shoving your hand quickly inside of your pocket. "When is he not?" You said playfully, hopefully halting him from asking any questions.

Hux gave you an awkward smile, he was never the type for jokes. "He's obsessed with finding part of a navigational chart that will lead us to Luke Skywalker," Hux said sternly.

"Like, Luke Skywalker the Jedi?!" You questioned far too excitedly.

Hux hushed you, placing his hand over your mouth in an effort to keep you quiet. "I thought the Commander would've told- never mind," he whispered. Nervously, he glanced around the room, surveying to see if anyone else heard what you had said and thankfully no one did. Placing his hands on your shoulders, he pulled you in close, whispering the last few details into your ear, his breath hot and trembling. "Skywalker is the only threat to the First Orders' rule. The Resistances' last hope ," Hux added, staring deeply into your eyes. "If we don't find and destroy him, it would be our end."

Hux continued to gaze into your eyes, like he was studying every part of your face. The tension kept building as he gazed at you so longingly, so intently. "Forgive me," he remarked, not once shifting his view away from your now blushing cheeks. "I thought I'd never see you again." Your heart thumped against your chest, feeling his hands gently press into your collarbones. His eyes glittered with passion, a look he had never given you before. He genuinely looked almost afraid, as if he meant what he said, the fear of never seeing you again.

"Hux-"

A loud, blaring sound rang through your ear, stopping you both dead in your tracks. Hux flinched, pulling himself away from you, and losing that shimmering glow in his eyes. "What is going on?!" He demanded, rushing over to the pilot overseeing the ships security system.

"Sir, an X-Wing flyer has been spotted heading towards a nearby planet. It could be our pilot."

A sinister smile wiped across Huxs' face, so horrific it sent a chill running down the back of your spine. He clenched his jaw, now turning back to the bridges large window overseeing the planet. "I'll alert the Commander. We'll end this now," Hux asserted, turning back towards you, his expression unchanging, until he saw yours.

"Cadet," he stammered. "What is the issue?" Hux and every other member in the bridge were staring at you with mixed emotions in their eyes. Most of them confused, halted until you gave Hux the answer he was desperately searching for. But you didn't know what the issue was, why you were looking upon your General with such fear in your heart. It was an unconscious look, but there had to be some reasoning behind it, an explanation for why that emotion had presented itself in your eyes.

You shook your head, dismissing the gazes of every pair of eyes that look upon you. Hux sighed, somewhat frustrated you hadn't given an explanation for your behavior. He turned back to the pilot, clenching the inner part of his cheek tightly between his pearly white teeth.

"Stand down until my return," Hux ordered the crew members, the tone of smugness high in his voice. He glanced at you one final time before exiting, his eyes showing instability in every corner of his pupils. You knew he was fearing the worst, that you'd be ripped from his clutches once more, and be placed into those of the Commander.

You stood, gazing off at the other members in the bridge, wondering if they held as much panic in their hearts as you did. Hux had left you there with no instructions, and not us much as a little bit of information. He had been so disorganized, so frazzled in his movements, and you knew why.

Hux didn't want you anywhere near Commander Ren for as long as humanly possible. You weren't sure how well that would work, since Hux just laid down and took it every time he was berated and abused by the Commander. You felt guilty, but it was rather hilarious to watch, and hearing Commander Rens' smooth, piercing voice, lash out at anyone while in your presence, it made your body ache with desire.

You smacked yourself in the face, catching the eye of two stormtroopers who were standing beside the doorway. They stared for a moment, then shrugged your behavior off as they continued their pointless conversation. Nervously, you bit your lip, embarrassed you had drawn that unwanted attention to yourself, and bitterly unhappy that your fantasies had not rid themselves from your mind.

It was a constant battle. Trying to maintain your professionalism, and fawning over the Commanders sensational touch. The brief, tension filled moments the two of you had shared controlled your mind, presenting themselves in the worst possible moments. Fantasies fluttered around every time he entered a room you were in, and you regretfully knew he could hear every bit of it. You wanted it to stop so badly, practically begged for it, but they just wouldn't go away. You hated him, despised him for spinning your life on its head, ruining every bit of certainty you had. Everything was so simple before he came along, and now, it was beyond confusing.

"Hello."

You shook yourself out of your entrancement, glancing to the side to see the young pilot, Simon, staring at you with the cutest pair of puppy-dog-eyes you had ever seen. "Oh," you stammered, not quite sure how to respond. "Hello."

"Do you know where Hux went?" He asked curiously, still maintaining a glisten in his eyes. You paused for a moment, losing yourself in his deep blue orbs, mesmerized by their beauty and majesty.

He waved his hand in front of your nose, inches from its tip in an effort to snap you back into focus. You let out a nervous laugh. "My apologies. As far as I know, he's gone to retrieve the Commander, informing him of the possible Resistance pilot." Simon nodded, placing his hand in a questioning manner around around his chin. His eyes scanned the room, almost as if he was looking for something. You stood nervously as his gazed moved from the divots on the floor to your feet, then sweat began to form on your brow as his eyes shifted up to meet yours, studying every inch of your body on the way up.

"Don't you think we should try and stop that ship from heading where it needs to go?"

"Uhm, what?" You hesitated, finding fear in his now cocky and smug expression. His tongue curled around his lips, sliding over his perfect, white teeth as a crooked smile formed upon his face.

"Well, we don't want that ship to get what it's looking for. So why don't we capture it?" He scoffed, now beginning to circle around your body. Your bones grew stiff, and blown ran cold. It was torturous what he was doing. Your legs ached, screaming at you to run, and you wanted to. Wanted to move, get away, do anything to escape. But Hux told you to stay put. You had to follow your orders.

A stagnant breath escape your mouth, not purposefully. You coughed as to try and muffle it, conceal the fear that obviously didn't want to hide. "We aren't permitted to debate this," you replied, hoping to sound as sophisticated and intelligent as possible. "General Hux gave no orders other than for us to stay put. Therefore, that is what we shall do."

"You follow him too blindly."

A lump formed in the back of your throat, almost sending you into a choke. "I-I'm sorry?" You questioned, no longer was there any sophistication in your tone of voice. He shrugged, "look I get it, you don't wanna go against his rules-"

He stepped closer to you, stopping inches from your face. Shivers rode down your spine as he looked you up and down, a sinister grin wiping over his face.

"But just imagine how proud Commander Kylo Ren would be with you."

Your body went numb, stiffening as he pulled away from your face, wickedly smirking as he turned back to the front of the bridge. "If you won't give the order, I will. But, I think it'd look a lot better if you did it."

You turned away from him, biting your lip so hard, blood to pool from where your teeth had sunk in to the flesh. It was unfathomable, how he was able to sense the sneaking desire in your body that you wanted Commander Ren to be proud of you, impressed by your abilities. So far, all he'd seen you as was a bitchy little secretary. But you wanted him to see more than that, more from you. It was terrible, frankly stupid that you wanted him to find you witty, radiant-

Perfect.

"Simon," you finally responded, dispelling the sense of uncertainty from your voice. "With all due respect, though your idea does seem rather brilliant, I will not go against my orders. That is not my job."

He scoffed, clenching his fist tightly at his side. "Fine," he huffed, marching towards the center of the control room. "Then I'll do it."

All eyes in the room were now on the pair of you, most of them searching your own for an explanation. No one understood what was going on, why the quarrel between you and an ex TIE-flyer was taking place in the middle of the bridge. You knew if Simon began barking out orders, no one would listen to him. But there was that worry, that when Hux returned with Commander Ren at his side, they'd both be disgusted with your lack of initiative.

"Well then," Simon proclaimed to the enter staff. "Why aren't we going after that ship?"

The men stationed at the blasters looked at Simon with disgruntled expressions, not showing any signs of following his orders. The two stormtroopers stationed at the entrance scoffed. Those two knew authority, and how a true leader was supposed to behave and act. Simon did not have what it took to lead, or give any sort or directions.

You stepped forward, positioning yourself next to Simon, which drew the attention back from those who had looked away. Though Simon towered over you in physicality, in spirit, and in status, you could've squashed him with the tip of your fingernails.

“Our instructions come from General Hux and Commander Ren," you stated firmly, digging back into those months of public speaking courses you took at the Academy. "I trust that none of you have forgotten that."

Simon rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to speak once more, when suddenly, he was thrown away from you, and into the nearby wall. The wretched sound of his bones smacking against the hard, metal desks and control panels was enough to make you sick. He flopped onto the floor below, and picked his head up weakly, staring first at you, and then shifting his gaze to the doorway, where even his pain filled eyes widened in pure fear.

Slowly, you shifted your body from the front of the bridge, to the entrance. There, standing with a fully extended arm which twitched with such a violent rage, was Commander Ren. Hux stood beside him, looking rather annoyed he had thrown one of the pilots like a rag doll across the room in front of the entire staff.

"Cadet," Hux stated plainly, not sounding like his usual self at all. His tone was more cross, and a lot more stuck up that in usually presented. "What is the meaning of this?"

You gulped. "Uh, sir. There was a debate about whether or not the rebel ship should be destroyed before landing on-"

Before you could finish your explanation, and tell both Hux and the Commander that none of this was your idea, Hux walked slowly, and horrifically intimidatingly towards you. He stopped inches from your face, and rose his hand up to strike you. You winced in fear, as it had been years since he had slapped you in anger. There wasn't anything to do in that moment, for if you tried to stop him, the punishment would only be worse. You stood there, prepared to have the life knocked out of you by his cold, pale hands, but there was nothing.

Too much time had gone by, and you knew when Hux was ready to throw a physically punishment at you, he didn't hold back. You slightly peeled open you eyes, looking up to see Huxs' hand being held back-

By the Commanders'.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, General," Commander Ren stated, his gloved hand digging into Huxs' weak and feeble wrist. Hux glared at him, ripping his hand away from the Commanders grasp, rubbing it gently. You knew what Hux was feeling in that moment, that pain. A feeling of remorse tried to rush over you, but it was expelled by gratitude. The Commander, as horrid as he was, had stopped Hux from hurting you. Maybe it was because he himself wanted to, but you didn't get that feeling from him. Not this time.

"You can't possibly think she was in the right to give out those orders," Hux hissed, still massaging his flushed hand.  Commander Ren looked at you, an instant pain rushing through your mind. You clenched your eyes tightly, trying to make it hurt less, but thankfully after less than a few seconds, it was gone.

"She did not give out those orders."

A small grin formed on your face. For once, he had read your thoughts when it was most important, when he actually needed to. Hux shuddered, looking at you with an apologetic glance. You knew he felt bad for not listening, and for behaving so differently towards you. The first guess you had was he believed Commander Ren would find him redeemable if he resented you, but that wasn't the case, not anymore.

"The girl is coming with me," Commander Ren ordered, his words so powerful the room practically shook when he spoke.

You went to swallow down the spit coming from your watering mouth, but after that statement, you choked on it instead. The Commander gave you a slight glance, then returned back to Huxs' gaze as you continued to try and muffle your cough.

"Ren, she is my secretary, and she belongs here on the Finalizer. That's been her job-"

"Her job as of right now is to fill in as my secretary," Commander Ren finished after cutting Hux off mid sentence. You couldn't help but hide the excitement on your face, but Hux couldn't help hide his disgust. "I won't be taking that traitor with me."

You looked over to Simon, following the Commanders' and Huxs' gaze. The boy had pulled himself off of the ground, blood seeping from a large gash on his head. He stares into your eyes menacingly, the once glistening blue orbs now pools of darkened misery. You pulled your attention away from him, afraid he might lash out at you. But Commander Rens' unchanging body language showed you if he so much as tried, the next thrown against the metal wall would ensure his death.

"Ren-" Hux begged, trying his best to keep you here with him. He knew he had messed up, showing violence towards you instead of being rational. Deep down, something gnawed at you, saying the Commanders had been waiting for Hux to slip up like he did today.

Then, you would be his and his alone.

"I've made my decision," Commander Ren stated. "She's coming with me."

A warm feeling flooded over your body, the same feeling you got the day Hux picked you to work in the control room of the Finalizer. It felt wrong, to have that strong emotion again, but this time, you were being taken away from Hux. The Commander ushered you to follow closely beside him, and you did as you were told. Hux turned away from the pair of you, looking back to the members of the bridge. You knew that watching you walk away from him with the man he believes you'd resent must've been beyond hard for him. It was hard for you too.

"You'll be back with him soon," Commander Ren assured as the pair of you approached the doors to the landing bay. You didn't respond, as there was nothing to be said. Hux would be stuck on that ship, without you until the Commander placed you back in his care. You didn't understand why this man couldn't just get another secretary. But you knew if he did, you'd despise whoever it was, hate them even.

The doors to the bay opened with a dramatic hissing noise following their unattachment. Troopers were lined up in formation, receiving orders from their Generals. You gazed out at the bay, thinking of how you'd be stepping off this vessel, your home, to be alone in a cockpit with Commandrr Ren for who knows how long.

You weren't ready, he knew you weren't. He could smell the fear and panic off your body every time he inhaled. Yet, he insisted, made a point to keep you near him. Technically, all you were was a fill in, but it felt like you were so much more than that. But that very well just could have been a dream, a made up reality you had created in your mind.

Commander Ren walked past you, heading down the ramp towards the Command shuttle. You stood back, gazing at the way he marched so powerfully, and so assuredly. Every person on that bay stopped dead in their tracks when he went by, not gawking nearly as much as you were. His cape swayed with every step he took, brushing past his shoulders to reveal the smallest outline of his body.

You gulped as he turned back to face you, ushering for you to follow him. The soldiers stationed on the bay looked up at you now, sending a burning sensation across your back, flooding into every part of your trembling body.

This is going to be rough.

[queenof-literature]

A Sick Wild Child - Chapter 9

Here it is! Thank you all so much for being so supportive during and after my break from writing. As many of you know, I’m struggling a lot with everything going on and it means the world to me that y’all are so sweet and supportive. I hope you enjoy the latest chapter!

Chapter 9 - The Eye in the Storm

Time didn’t just dread injuries because he grew worried. Of course he worried when one of the boys was injured, it was always terrible to see one of his companions in pain. But he also dreaded it because there was one emotion he truly feared for both himself and the others… boredom. 

Staying in one place for an extended period of time got all the Links restless in different ways. The only bright side of this situation was he didn’t have to worry about Wild fist fighting a bear for fun. He did however, have to worry about the others. He had to worry about Four and Legend disappearing and returning covered in flora and fauna they wanted to observe. He had to worry about Hyrule and Warriors getting a hold of fire weapons. He had to worry about Sky and Twilight going cliff diving if they were around an ocean. The same went for Wind if he got his hands on a raft, they might not see him for hours. He also had to worry about himself, the part of him that never disappeared after years of Termina and stasis and countless travels through time, itching to run away and become a child of the forest again, even if just for a day. Time worked hard to push those thoughts down. 

Sky had managed to throw together something that night after their small fight over what they should have. They had managed without Wild’s skills and slate before, they could do it again. However, it was obvious the antsy group missed their cook. Said boy was still curled in Warriors’ bed roll, cold clothes placed upon both his forehead and neck after his last bout of delirium. Delirium that Time truly wished he could forget.

Based on what the terrified boy had murmured, Twilight and Time, two of the eight people he should be able to trust most, practically tortured him. Time going as far to burn him with a torch. And Din above was that a knife to the heart. Time knows, he knows that fever dreams didn’t make sense, but weren’t all dreams from the subconscious? Did Wild think that would happen? Was he scared deep down that his allies would become his enemies? Time wanted to say no, but he was never one to lie to himself. After all Wild had gone through, parts of him would never be unscathed. The same went for every Link, after all they had been through. Time was more worried about what the boy’s Hyrule had done to him. Forced into battle before he was even a teenager, betrayed and murdered by the Guardians he was supposed to trust, constantly on the lookout for traitors sworn to Ganon, it was no wonder the boy was paranoid. And these fears were constantly in his nightmares. The fever dreams must have been Hell.

Twilight wasn’t taking it well either. He seemed to have calmed down a bit after his conversation with Warriors, but Time could tell this was all getting to him. The lengths Twilight would go to help his friends was admirable, if not terrifying sometimes. But no amount of healing, potions, and worrying would fix this, and that was starting to sink in for everyone. No matter how much Twilight did, all he could was try and make it better. Twilight didn’t cope well with not being able to help, none of them did, especially with Wild. 

Speaking of, Wild had been dead silent since he had passed out in Legend’s arms. Besides the small rasps coming from his mouth and the weak stutters of his chest, the boy was completely still. After some debate they decided to put Twilight’s pelt over him again. It had always been comforting to him, and who knows if he would even remember his panic over what Dream Twilight did to him. Hylia, Time hoped not. Time hoped Wild’s silence meant he was having a good enough dream, or maybe not dreaming at all.

The chatter around the campfire was scarce that night, no one having the energy to talk outside the small conversations they had with those near them. Legend seemed perfectly fine with shoving a groggy Hyrule back to bed as soon as he finished dinner. Hyrule certainly didn’t put up much of a fight, clearly tired from healing Wild throughout the day. It wasn’t the worst they had seen him after healing, but there was no reason for him to not sleep it off. As much as Time didn’t want to admit it, they may need Hyrule’s abilities later. Nothing else seemed to be helping. Time didn’t want to make Hyrule feel like they were exploiting him, but Wild needed water and the only time he was able to keep it down was when Hyrule healed him. Time wasn’t willing to believe that was a coincidence, they needed to get Wild to hold down any water they could. But Time truly wanted anything else than to wake up their exhausted sorcerer. It was quite a conundrum.

“I could hear you thinking from across camp.” Sky stated softly, settling beside Time. 

“I don’t want to wake Hyrule, but Wild needs water.” Time said bluntly, not having the desire to beat around the bush. 

“Hmm. Well.” Sky pondered for a moment. “Wild can go the night right? When I was little, I was really stubborn when I was sick. Sun tried to get me to eat, drink, or do anything really and I just wouldn’t.” Sky put his hand on Time’s shoulder. “ I know it’s not the same thing, but let’s give Wild the night, and as long as his condition doesn’t change, we’ll let Hyrule rest for a while. Now that we’re staying here for the time being, we can let Hyrule rest and help Wild a bit until he can keep things down. I know it’s not the best solution, but we all know you’re not trying to force Hyrule into exhausting himself.” Sky radiated comfort, and Time felt bad for subtly soaking it up. It wasn’t fair, he shouldn’t force decisions on the other Links. But Hylia, he was just so tired.

“Sounds like a good plan.” Time’s lips turned up slightly, and Sky knew that was a thank you. A thank you for taking some weight off of Time’s shoulders, even if it was a laughably small amount. But it was the least Sky could do. 

~

Wild was pretty sure he was stone. There was no other reason for his limbs to be so heavy. The only thing he could really feel was pain. He couldn’t be sure where it was the worst, he was floating. He just knew he was cold. So, so cold. Wild didn’t like being cold, not when after he learned there were ways to be truly warm. Another feeling reached him, weight on top of him that he appreciated, and the fluttering of eyelashes he struggled to recognize as his own.

“...think- waking up.” Voices drifted in and out of his mind. 

“-nother… -mare?” These voices sounded weird.

“-ild?” These were outside of his body. 

Opening his eyes took more strength than anything he had ever done, but he needed to see where the voices were coming from. Slowly his eyes pried open.

Everything was blurry, but he could see shadows moving around him. If they were enemies, he couldn’t bring himself to care. It wasn’t like he could move anyway. 

“Wild?” A voice filtered into his head, more clear than before. Colors swirled as he pried open his eyes, and Wild struggled to push down the nausea that rose, determined to find out where the voices were coming from. 

“Wild? Can you hear us?” The fog cleared slightly, the first thing he saw being a colorful tunic. He knew that voice… right?

The swirling subsided a little more, now resting on the edges of his vision. The shadows that previously surrounded him were replaced by figures he recognized. He tried so hard to remember their names, and why he suddenly felt like crying. He didn’t know anything in that moment other than the figures surrounding him being warm, and Wild was still so cold.

“C-c-ld” Wild croaked out pathetically, frustration creeping up to replace confusion. Something cold and wet was surrounding him, soaking his skin. He tried to move his head in a weak attempt to get rid of the cold, but all he got was vertigo.

“Sor-... -an’t. Fever i-” Ringing filled Wild’s ears.

~

“I think he’s waking up.” Four rushed out, bringing the idle chatter around the fire to an abrupt halt. Lo and behold, the boy’s eyes fluttered, eyes flickering beneath. 

“Do you think it’s another nightmare?” Wind called out hesitantly.

“I can’t tell. Wild?” Four called softly, placing his hands on his shoulder. Blurry eyes opened, revealing a sickly haze. But they weren’t frantic, just exhausted.

“I don’t think he is. He isn’t panicked. Wild?” Four asked again as the others gathered closer around him. Legend, Sky and Warriors gathered behind Four, while Time and Twilight stayed back, clearly uncomfortable with potentially sending him into another panic. Wind stayed back with them and held onto Twilight’s hand, squeezing when he noticed how much not being able to help hurt Twilight. The older squeezed back in thanks.

“Wild?” Sky asked. “Can you hear us?” The sick boy’s half lucid eyes flickered in their direction, and they could have thrown a goddess damned party over such a simple action. Legend almost went over and woke Hyrule to celebrate. Wild hadn’t been this coherent since he got smacked into that tree, not without being in a hallucination. His eyes were fogged and consciousness was barely there, but it was still the most awake he had been since this whole thing started. 

“C-c-ld.” Wild croaked out, shaking his head slowly. Four reached out and gently stopped the movement, worried for the headache Wild was probably sporting. 

“I’m so sorry, Wild but we can’t. Your fever is too high, we’ve done everything we can.” Sky tried to reassure, but he doubted Wild understood any of it. He looked to Four to confirm Wild’s fever still hadn’t broken. Four solemnly shook his head. Wild’s eyes continued to look around, seeming to search for something, but the others didn’t know for what. 

“W-lf.” Wild choked out, his weak right hand reached out, only making it an inch before tumbling back down against his chest, clutching weakly at the furs laid on top of him. 

“Wolf? Are you trying to say wolf?” Legend asked, glancing back at Twilight. 

“W-” Wild was cut off by a rough cough. Four was ready to roll him over for choking that never came. Time could see the relief the other Links had that Wild seemed to be better, if not slightly. He wanted to remind them that this was just an eye in the storm, that sometimes with illnesses it got better before it got worse… but he didn’t have the strength to crush their hope. Deep down they all knew this wasn’t the beginning of the downhill, it was just a lull. But they deserved to have a little joy after all they had seen Wild go through. 

“He’s the most coherent he’s been in awhile. We should give him water.” Warriors pulled a water pouch from seemingly nowhere. 

“W-w-lf.” Wild insisted. 

“Get over there! You heard him!” Wind whisper-shouted, shoving Twilight forward with a small snicker. Twilight hesitantly made his way over to Wild, eyes burned into him, watching to see what Wild’s reaction would be. He knew the other Links didn’t mean to freak him out, but they certainly weren’t helping. 

Twilight gently kneeled on one knee next to Wild on the other side of Four, ready to back track if Wild showed any sign of discomfort at Twilight being there. 

“Hey Cub.” Wild’s eyes stopped for a moment, and the entire world halted, everyone waited with bated breath. Slowly eyes flickered over to Twilight, and eyes that had been dull for so long finally lit up, if only just by a little spark. 

“W-ol-T-Twi.” Wild gasped, and the others could have sworn Wild’s lips twitched upwards. 

“Yeah, Cub.” Twilight’s shoulders relaxed, dropping completely to both knees as the other Links smiled. Legend thought about teasing the cheesy sight before him but thought better of it. Hyrule would love to see Wild doing better. Aw shit, Hyrule slept through this. Hyrule was gonna kill him-

“See if you can get him to drink some water. He doesn’t seem as nauseous” Warriors insisted, handing Twilight the water pouch. 

“What if he throws it up?” Sky questioned.

“He can’t keep going like this.” Legend nodded to Twilight to try. 

“Alright, Cub. This might hurt for a moment.” Twilight soothed, before lifting Wild’s back gently into his lap, the cub’s head resting against his lower chest. With only a small gasp of pain, Wild was situated well enough. 

“Small sips.” Twilight directed, carefully pouring some water into Wild’s mouth. The boy coughed a little, but soon strained to get more cool water into his sore throat. “Slow down.” Twilight soothed, placing his hand on Wild’s forehead to stop his squirming. Wild managed to drink half the small pouch before obviously having his fill. 

“Thank Hylia.” Sky breathed.

“Don’t thank her yet.” Legend huffed. “He could still heave it back up.” 

“Maybe stop talking about it around him and he won’t.” Warriors hissed.

“How ya feeling Wild?” Four asked, deciding now would be a good time for a change of subject.

“Ngh.” Came the eloquent response. It was better than Four expected in all honesty. Twilight snorted a little at that.

“That good huh?” Twilight chuckled. He went to put Wild down and let the boy get the sleep he obviously needed. But the cub reached up and grabbed Twilight’s hand where it had come to rest on the boy's chest. Twilight could have easily shaken off the weak hand if he wished, but Hylia hadn’t Wild gone through enough already?

Wild’s eyes flickered up once more, resting on Twilight’s face. The cub’s hand squeezed so light Twilight could barely feel it, and the man quickly covered their hands with his other one. Wild’s hands were cold and pale.

“S-stay.” Wild pleaded.

“Okay, Cub. I’ll stay.”

[masterthespianduchovny]

Early on, Severus learned that life wasn’t fair.

He knew that he either had to accept it or drown in things he couldn’t control. Life was hard and unforgiving, but he was a stubborn kid. He refused to accept his circumstances at home and refused to back down at Hogwarts.

Nothing was handed to him in life. Severus had to work for everything, which was fine by him. No one could ever say he wasn’t deserving of anything he earned.

He arrived in Norway with not enough money for food and board. Slept under a bridge until he got his first paycheck, and then rented the poorest, dingiest accommodations he could find with his first paycheck.

He grew up in poverty. What he lived in now was better than where he came from.

But it wasn’t easy.

Living on the streets and looking for a job.

Without an address, many didn’t want to employ him. However, he was determined. He didn’t leave his home and Hogwarts behind to die on the streets in a foreign land.

Severus applied for every apprentice position he could find. Every single one turned him down. Refusing for that to dissuade him working, he offered to do maintenance work. Clean the shop, put away items, and whatever miscellaneous work needed to be done.

He was hired on the spot.

Admittedly, Severus was severely underpaid, but it didn’t deter him. This was only temporary. He’d find something better.

Within a few months, something better found him.

He’d heard a group students arguing about the ingredients of a potions brew. One of the students lack confidence in their answer and the other had 100% belief that they were right. The group went with the confident person, which infuriated Severus.

“Idiots,” he spat. “If you’re the best Durmstrang has to offer, no wonder many parents are sending their kids to Hogwarts. Don’t worry about failing potions, you’ll be dead before the professor can even assess it. He may be a spineless fool,” Severus nodded to the kid who initially disagreed with the overly confident teen. “But at least his brew won’t kill the lot of you...unfortunately.”

Storming out of the deli, Snape prepared for a duel as he discreetly got his wind. Sourly, he chastised himself. This was the first day in weeks he treated himself out to eat because he had to penny-pinch to make ends meet. If the original brew wouldn’t have resulted in death, he would’ve kept his mouth closed. Now he had to fight a group of boys, which gave him a flashback of his time at Hogwarts.

As predicted, the boys attempted to attack him. As Severus prepared to defend himself, someone intervened.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” The man looked at the six of them.

“Nothing,” the man repeated. “Well, the six of you will be doing nothing or SOMETHING in detention with me for the next month.”

Severus pocketed his wand. “I don’t go to Durmstrang,” he said. “I won’t be doing shit with you.”

Assessing him, the man raised an eyebrow, and then glanced at the guy he’d been walking with. “You’re not a student and you’re not a local, there’s no accent. What are you doing here?”

Inwardly, Severus sighed.

When the school term started, he realized he was in the vicinity of where durmstrang was located. Although he didn’t know where the school was nor did he attempt to look, it was quite obvious. The shops that primarily existed for students, the crowding every weekend, the adults who appeared to be monitoring kids.

Naturally, since no one knew where Durmstrang was if they weren’t a student, teacher, or anyone directly affiliated with the school, those who were were suspicious.

“Looking for an apprentice position. I didn’t finish my seventh year, so no Master was interested in taking me on,” he groused.

“Ha,” one boy exclaimed. “You couldn’t even pass your seventh year and you’re calling us idiots?”

Fuming, Severus said, “I did not fail my seventh year, I left. Besides, there was nothing left to teach me that I hadn’t already taught myself. Your potion brew solution is pathetic and if you want to die as a result of incompetence, perhaps they’ll include you in lesson books as to what not to do.”

The other man spoke, “How was their brew pathetic?”

Severus noted the time. “Ask them yourself, they’d love to dazzle you with their stupidity.”

The man scoffed. “Just like I suspected. A bloke full of himself who has nothing to show for it. No wonder none of the masters wanted you as their apprentice.”

Scathingly, Severus explained how and why the potion brew was incompetence at its finest. That him brewing with dirty utensils would be a safer option than whatever this group of boys could do in perfect conditions. Severus cited his Hogwarts issued potions book, which he pointed out was outdated, and said that he’d trusted that over what he heard the boys discuss (and he’d stopped using the books as a source to brew from after his fourth year).

Smiling, the man said, “My name is Rodolphous Sweeney. I own the potions shop two blocks over. I’d like to talk to you more about your potions knowledge.”

“I need to get back to work.” Severus began to walk off.

“How about this?” The man spoke loudly. “If you come back to the shop with me and make three potions without any assistance or mistakes, you can be my apprentice. If you’re successful, you can start today.”

Severus stopped. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re right,” he said. “Their potions brew was pathetic. And a wizard that can thoroughly discuss the finer points of potion making based off of a passing discussion is someone I want as an apprentice.”

Severus followed him to the shop.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Severus Snape.”

Without breaking a sweat, Severus completed each potion with time to spare. In amazement, Rodolphous assessed each potion.

“They’re...perfect,” he complimented. “You’ve completed these in less time than any published books states.”

“I told you, the books are outdated,” Snape said.

“Or they haven’t been updated because there wasn’t anyone brilliant enough to modify any of these instructions to merit an update.”

Blankly, Severus stared at him. “It was obvious.”

“No. It wasn’t.” Rodolphous put the potion down. “What’s obvious to you isn’t apparent to most. You have a brilliant mind, Severus. With that being said, you do have a lot to learn. School only sets the foundation of what it takes to fine tune our knowledge and skill.”

Severus’ black eyes followed Rodolphous as he walked.

“We can learn from each other,” he continued.

As promised, Severus was immediately hired. Rodolphous explained the ins and outs of his business and what he expected from him. It all sounded reasonable to Severus as he shook hands with the potions Master.

In no time, he was Rodolphous’ top apprentice. Frequently collaborating on projects with him and trying experiments.

Severus lived in his dingy quarters for a year until moving into a modest apartment. Bought actual food, still cheap, books, and saved the rest. Unlike with his former employer, he was being underpaid. His time and skill was valued as he learned more about potions and how other disciples connected to it.

He felt like he belonged...somewhat.

When his mother became sick, Rodolphous gave him time to tend to her and promised he’d have a job to come back to when he took care of his personal business.

As he took care of his mother, his father was died. Tobias Snape was violently mugged and choked on his own vomit in an alleyway. His mother died little under three months later.

Complicated feelings swirled within Snape. His tormentor was finally dead. Although his father never put his hands on him, Severus still carried emotional scars. The baggage that continued to weigh him down even though his father was dead.

A weight was not lifted. He didn’t feel better or free.

He just was.

His mother was different and more complicated. He loved and resented her in equal measures. She could’ve left. Why didn’t she leave?

Why didn’t she get them out of there?

He held her hand as she laid dying in her bed. He hurt and wanted to forgive her. His anger pent up ready to boil over.

His heart breaking as her heart failed her.

What was the use in being angry?

At her at least?

Instead, they reminisced over the few happy memories they had. Severus got read his mother books and watched her favorite shows with her.

She died before the episode was over.

Another funeral in less than three months.

Severus was emotionally exhausted in a way he couldn’t deal with. In a way he didn’t want to deal with.

As he did years before, severus kept very little personal items. He sold what he could and threw away the rest. With the money he made from his sells, Severus fixed up the house and contacted a realtor about selling.

Keeping this house meant holding on to memories. Unpleasant memories.

Months later, he came back to Spinner’s end to finalize the deal.

He ran into Lily Evans—Lily Potter.

“Hi, excuse me,” she said.

For a moment, Severus was taken aback. Still beautiful. She always had kind eyes.

Ever since he left hogwarts, whenever he was at Spinner’s end, he used poly juice potion of Rodolphous. He didn’t want to risk anyone (Lily, really) recognizing him.

“Yes,” Severus said.

“Are you the new homeowner?” Severus looked at the sold sticker slapped on the for sale sign.

“No. Afraid not,” Severus said, carefully.

“Do you know what happened to the Snape family,” Lily asked. “I haven’t been around these last few years. I went away and...” she shook her head. “So, I haven’t been up on what’s been happening.”

Severus saw the wedding band on her hand. She couldn’t have married Potter, could she? And so soon?

“Unfortunately,” Severus began. “Tobias and Eileen Snape have passed away.”

Lily clutched her chest. “Oh my God, really?” Severus nodded. “Poor Severus. How is their son holding up?”

“No one has heard from him,” he said. “Apparently he disappeared a few years ago. Without a living family member to claim the house and no one paying the mortgage, the bank seized and sold the house.”

“That’s horrible,” she murmured to herself, tears welling in her ears. Lily wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “Their son and I used to be friends. We ended on a bad note before he disappeared out seventh year. I sometimes wonder where he is. If he’s safe. If he has anyone.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to wonder after him,” Severus said.

Lily furrowed her brows. “Everyone wants someone to wonder after them. Everyone. I knew Severus was having a hard time at school, but —“

“Lily, my dear, we have to go,” James said as he walked up to them with a baby boy in his arms. “You said it’ll only take a moment.”

Lily wiped her eyes. “Severus’ parents are dead and no one still has heard anything from him.”

Shocked, James looked at lily. “Snape’s a smart guy, he probably—“

“I have to go,” Severus said, walking away before they could speak.

When he returned back to Norway, Severus was quite and kept to himself when work was over. Seeing lily again was a surprise, but he still was grappling with the death of his parents. Why didn’t he feel any different? Well, better? His violent father was dead. Instead, he felt worse and aimless.

As Severus inhaled his cigarette, his co-apprentice Chorus joined him in the alley. Stealing the cigarette from his mouth, she inhaled.

“I was smoking that,” he grumbled.

“I know,” she said. Once again, she puffed, and then handed him the cigarette. “We’re having drinks tonight, join us.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“I wasn’t asking.” A smile played on her lips. Chorus looked at Severus sympathetically. “I know you’re having a tough time. I get it.” Chorus was very open about the unexpected and tragic loss of her parents. “But you won’t feel better isolating yourself from everyone. Have one drink. If you aren’t having fun by the time you finish it, you can go home. My orders.”

If Severus could smile, he would.

Three beers in, he managed to laugh. Privately, each apprentice spoke to him and expressed remorse for his loss. They appeared to be genuine and offered to help if he needed anything.

Throughout his entire ordeal, they consistently reached out to him while he took care of his mother. Looked in on his apartment. Didn’t touch his station.

Didn’t laugh at him.

Calling it at night, Severus said, “I’m heading out.”

“Can you walk me home?” Chorus walked beside him.

“Uh...sure.”

They chatted on their way to his apartment. Chorus wasn’t just easy to talk to, she had an interesting mind.

“For a world filled with possibilities, wizarding society has such a limited viewpoint,” she said. “Dark magic. It’s a fascinating field of study, but people think that just because you find it appealing it means you’re evil. Or the bullshit categorization what is it isn’t evil.”

Severus arched an brow. “Such as?”

“I understand that there’s levels to this shit,” she began. “However, shouldn’t there be more strict guidelines other than ‘you have to mean it?’ That’s a pretty low bar. Why can’t there be ‘grey magic?’ On a purely academic level, dark magic is interesting as hell. It’s a rich subject because of how intense, unpredictable, and powerful dark magic can be. Who wouldn’t want to study that?”

They moved on to lighter topics.

When they arrived to the front of Chorus’ apartment building, she said, “You should come up.”

Baffled, Severus said, “why?”

Laughing out loud, chorus covered her mouth. “I told them you were bad at this.”

Humiliated, Severus began to walk away when chorus grab his jacket and brought her mouth to his.

She waggled her eyebrows. “You should come up,” she repeated.

“I, um—I,” he stammered.

Chorus kissed his again. “It’s okay,” she promised. “Just follow my lead.”

Slowly, she led Severus upstairs and into her bedroom.

Chorus took her time and was patient with Severus to which he was appreciative of.

[aka-irish]

Apex Legends: The Top Predator Part 3. Voided

Inside of the unknown organization’s Traxler sits alone in the cafeteria, folding a napkin and sliding it across his grey whiskers and lips, cleaning up any crumbs and pieces of the egg salad sandwich he just ate. The hydraulics of large metallic doors can be heard whirring as a set opens and in walks Colonel Braxton with two armed men behind him. “May I?” asks the Colonel as he waves a hand in the direction of the empty seat in front of the sociopathic doctor. “Of course” responds Traxler as he takes a sip of coffee from the paper cup. Braxton takes a seat “get me a cup, will ya?” he nods to one of the soldiers. They nod in return and retreat off to a vending machine for said cup of joe. “You know, doctor, we seem to be doing quite a number on the Legends. In just two missions we have hopefully incapacitated three of them. The big-mouthed brat, the cocky holo-user and that thief of a bitch. All 3 very dangerous and very capable Legends.” The soldier returns with a cup of coffee and hands it to the colonel. “Thank you” as he takes it, gives the steam a blow off the top and proceeds with a small sip. “I believe it is time we start working on the creation of our own legend now. Given the opportunity we always gather more data, but I feel with three of them having undergone the experimentation, the other Legends have caught on to an extent that something is at least...amiss” explains the steely eyed war captain. The doctor nods in agreement. “Very well, Colonel, but I do however expect more research to be done. With more potential Legends being....diminished...in the way they have been, it will make it much harder to stop us when the time arrives, don’t you agree?” asks Traxler. Braxton smiles. “I very much do, Doctor, but time may very well be of the essence sooner rather than later. They are the Legends for a reason” states Braxton as he takes another sip of his coffee.

* Bmp-bmp..bmp-bmp..bmp..bmp........BMP...bmp...BMPBompbmp..bmp* ‘LEMME AT EM’, MATES!! I’m ready to crack some skulls!” yells the spunky Indian girl, almost completely ignoring the fact there is a stethoscope placed firmly against her chest. “Do ya even feel dat?” questions Lifeline, hearing the skipping beats of Rampart’s heart thudding and misfiring inside her ribs. “Of course I feel it! It just makes more angry that someone is trying to kill us!” she states excitedly. Lifeline slides the steth a bit further down the inside of her shirt, partially squishing against the small breasts of her. “Bloody hell, Lifeline, couldn’t ya have warmed it up a bit more first? It’s colder than a polar bear’s nips” she blurts out. “Oh, ya feel dat but you’re heart is literally kickin’ ya ribs” she retorts back. “You get used to the pain” Ramp exclaims as she crosses her arms. Lifeline pulls the stethoscope back and hangs it around her neck. “I’ll tell ya right now, ya at least handling it better than Mirage” (flashback to a scene with Mirage) “OO..AH...IT’S COLD!” Mirage dramatically flails about. “I haven’t even put da steth on ya yet, big baby” Lifeline bluntly states. “Oh..” Mirage stutters in embarrassment *thoom-thmp..thoom..thmp..thoomthoothoom...thmp..thoomthmpthmp...* Lifeline listens to his stuttering yet powerful beats.* (Returns back to P and Lifeline). “Ah, he’s a sissy, but a tough one. He’ll be ok” says Ramp assuredly. “How’s Loba?” she asks. Ajay sighs and puts her arms behind her head. “She’s more worried about us, believe it or not. I don’t think she wants any of us to get hit wit whateva dis is” Lifeline sits down in her chair. Rampart nods. “Welp, I’m off, Doc. Keep in the loop will ya?” She sticks out a fist and Ajay bumps it while giving a slight nod and leaves the room. She opens the door and Loba is out in the hall, waiting. “Loba” greets Rampart. “Rampart” Loba dryly replies, both knowing exactly what the other went through, they dare not push an issue and go on with their day. Loba walks in to the med-room. “How ya feelin, champ?” AJ questions while rocking in her office chair, hands still behind her head. “Better..but some still misfires, I can feel it kick. Like someone is punching me from the inside out, though more of a jab than a haymaker now” she explains. Ajay nods, “Ok, well ya we just gonna do a quick palpation and go on wit cha day. You know da drill” she states to the Brazilian. Loba removes her top and unhooks her porcelain white bra. Her tanned breasts drape down with a hard bounce before settling. AJ presses a hand firmly against her chest, feeling for the beats. *Thoom-thoom..thoom-thoom..thoom..thoom.* She feels the licks and leaps of Loba’s beating organ. “Lay down on your side” Lifeline directs. Loba leans on her left side, chest still poised slightly up. AJ brings her hand down under the heavy left breast, fingers pressing into the Apex. *THOOM* “ach!!” winces Loba from the skip as a large beat thuds against her ribs. AJ feels it kick and wriggle before resetting to a steadier beat, her hand bobbing slightly from the woman’s strong, beating pump. *RRRRR....RRRRR....RRRRR* The room is flooded with a loud wailing sound as an alarm goes off. “Oh no..!” both frantically reply. Loba puts herself back together, drapes the braids behind her while AJ already busts through the door. They, and the other legends meet in the main room of their home as Crypto stands at the center table. “I found something.” The faces of all the Legends slightly tense up. 

Crypto drops a hologram disc on the table, it makes a slight twink sound before flashing up two different screens with various shades of neon green and an almost black. “I went back to the incident with Loba during the Apex Games and compared it with the latest one with Mirage and Rampart” he points to the hologram as it shows a small line of dots coming and going from Mirage’s bar, and the arena of the Apex Games. “Is that...a trail” questions Bangalore, the veteran soldier of the group. Crypto nods. “By using my drone, Hack, and the satellite images of the Syndicate from the games, I was able to slide through different frequencies and discover an energy trail of some sort coming and going from the bar and the arena.My thoughts are...a micro-ship.” “Whoa...whoa..whoa..” interrupts Mirage. “A micro-ship?. As in a teenie-tiny ship?” he questions while pinching his index finger and thumb together. “Do we even have those?” He says puzzling. Caustic leans over the table from his seat, coughs and in his stoic dry voice “We have different planets, a Legend that holds a singularity in a small robot, teleporters, and one that walks between dimensions, but shrinking sizes is questionable?” Mirage is stunned “Uhhhh...my bad, please continue” he directs his hand back towards Crypto. “As I was saying...the trail is on a different frequency, but I was able to locate a similar set of trails between the two as they headed towards one location on Talos.” Crypto waves his hand and flips one of the current screens over to a large mountain like region on a desolate area of the planet.”They both converge on this location. Where this is...I don’t know. There is even a lack of satellite coverage, almost like someone doesn’t want it to be found, but Hack managed to uncover it. By tracing the coordinates and logging in the proper coordinates, we can find shadow base if you will, and perhaps take a look around. But who will go?” He asks the room. Loba speaks up “clearly, I would be the best choice. Breaking and entering is my specialty after all. And besides I have a score to settle with whoever is doing this” she declares while placing a hand to her chest, feeling the beats intensify from the recent revelation. “Absolutely not!” both Bangalore and Lifeline yell together. “You aren’t 100% yet, and we aren’t sending you into a completely unknown location where there are these people that can literally cook us from the inside out. I’ll go” says Bangalore. Wraith leans on the table “I should go. If anyone is going to have the easiest time getting in and out of a place it’s me. Void jumping seems like the most practical solution here. No offense to you, Anita.” Bangalore smirks and shrugs. “Fair I guess” she states reluctantly. “But I don’t want Wraith going this alone. She can infiltrate but we need someone on the outside in case things go south. But I also don’t to risk another one of us getting exposed to whatever is doing this” declares Bangalore. “I’ll go” Crypto interjects. I can send in Hack to obtain early enemy locations and also map a blueprint given the chance. I can wait on the outside and provide cover if necessary” he suggests. “Fine with me. Any complains Wraith?” asks Bangalore. “None at all. Alright you two, gear up. We’ll input the coordinates to the jump pods and send you in. Any time you need to be pulled, we do so at point of entry. Understood?” states Bangalore in her commanding and authoritative tone. Both Crypto and Wraith agree before heading off to the teleportation room. Wraith grabs her trademark kunai, an alternator, and a Mozambique shot gun with hammerpoint rounds. Crypto grabs a sentinel bolt-action sniper rifle and his own trademark weapon in the Wingman revolver. The two gather to the teleporter pods where Bangalore stands front and center with Wattson at the helm of the computer. “You both have 2 hours. If I don’t hear from either of you, we rush in and pull you out, no exceptions” she orders. “Understood” both reply in unison.

 “Portals ready” states Wattson. Both walk through the energy tunnels and are transported to a desolate area of almost nothing but rock and sand, but in their way is a large crater with a mountain like formation having sunk into it, like a meteor crash landed down. The only way out is up and the only way in is down. A large metal hangar door is visible on the outside. Crypto reaches into the sheathe on his back and tosses out Hack, his drone. The drone unfolds and Crypto sets up his link to see what the drone sees. “I’ll remain in position here" states the expert hacker.  “I detect two bodies down there, wait for them to enter and you have your chance” Wraith nods and begins prepping herself to jump down into the hole. She begins her descent and leaps down the edge. Pulling the kunai out, she digs into the side of the  hill-like wall and slides down into cavern. As she gets closer, she leaps off and lands behind a couple blocks of containers just outside the entrance, unknown to the soldiers getting ready to open the doors, their attention clearly lost elsewhere. They proceed in “Void jumping” Wraith states to Crypto over their comm-link. The ninja like warrior disappears, almost as if teleporting, before she runs into the entrance to avoid as much detection. Hack flies into the doors soon to follow. Wraith soon reappears inside of the door, having ducked behind a metallic door some large, opened supply bins. Crypto in his position types away at his wrist board. “I’ve successfully entered the mainframe. I’ll keep Hack inside to re-loop their security feed, but don’t take too much. We don’t know how long before they figure out someone is inside their system” he says. “I didn’t plan on it” replies the raven haired warrior as she dips deeper into the base. She follows the voices in her head that guide her, making sure she uses every bit of stealth she can. She ducks behind door frames, supply bins. She enters further into a large corridor and stands just outside the door way, against the wall as a voice warns her about an incoming enemy. A group of 3 heavily armed soldiers walk through the door, clad in their black tactical armor,  with black masks and red goggles adorning their faces. She void jumps and in a quick burst of teleporting, she lands hard elbows, chops, and knees to the back of the necks of the soldiers before they even realize what happened, knocking them unconscious. She pats down one of them for a security badge or key of some sort before finding a card. “Ok...where to now” she mutters under her breath before heading down another long corridor of this metallic and militaristic maze of a building. The voices speaking to her, she listens to for the ones that are making the right decisions. Back at the pile of bodies she just left, another soldier making his rounds walks through and sees them. “Security to the bridge...we’ve been breached..I repeat, we have an intruder” he yells over his comm-link. The voice booms over the speakers. “Uh oh..” she drops her words while continuing her navigation of the shadow base. “Crypto..where is that detection from Hack?” she chides over her communication, the voices only getting her so far sometimes. “I’ve had to maintain where he is at, the mainframe has almost a constant rotation of code to stay locked in” he explains. “Dammit” she mutters to herself. “An enemy has a lock on you” one of the voices say to her as she looks over her shoulder “OVER THERE!” a soldier yells as he and a group of his companions begin to open fire on Wraith. She ducks behind the nearest wall just as the spray of bullets pass her and splatter against the heavy metal walls. Waiting for a pause, she slides past the opening, unloading her own rapid volley of bullets from her alternator, stricking a few of the soldiers. The shots manage to hit a few of them, downing them. She void jumps between shots, emptying  more of her magazine at the mercenaries. Being able to avoid the lessening bullets, she gets closer to the soldiers. They charge in with knives drawn as the teleporting combatant gets closer in an instant. Wraith almost smiles as she pulls the kunai from her pouch and ducks under the swing of the first good. With his momentum carrying the arm forward, she lands a low snap kick at the side of his knee. A crunching sound is heard as he yelps, stumbling forward and is struck with an elbow to the spine, knocking him down. Two more soldiers come forward and attempt to hit her. She leaps over in a flip, hands on their shoulders as she lands behind them. One turns to throw a punch, she deflects and stabs him in the side with her kunai, pulls out the blade and lands a swift knee to his face, dropping him. The other pulls out his pistol and begins firing shots, she dodges the shots and weaves in closer. She throws a palm at his gun, but he pulls back. He throws a swing with the knife in his other hand and Wraith blocks with her kunai. Sparks clank as the blades clash. He fires another, she ducks. She goes for a leg sweep and he jumps, attempting to land a kick at her face while down there. She raises her kunai hand and impales the man’s leg. He yells in pain as she digs the blade across his achilles. He drops and she throws a punch to his face, knocking him out. The one guard previously whose leg she broke attempts to shoot her, weakly aiming the gun at her, she throws the kunai at the gun of the main, disarming him. She stomps down on his face, KO’ing him as well. Looking at the complete wreckage of downed guards she continues on her way. 

“Wraith, can you hear me?” asks Crypto. “Loud and clear” she replies. “There should be a door coming up on your left down the hall. Hack received a signal of a  large spike in energy there. I suspect that might be the main lab here or some sort of control room.” Crypto explains. “Got it” she turns down and uses the security badge she swiped to enter the room. Upon entering Wraith’s eyes widen. There inside the control room is a large computer with a glass wall, and monitors. Beyond the console is a large, cylindrical glass tank with a man floating inside whatever liquid is in there. As she ventures further into her room, her surprise becomes replaced with disbelief. She makes out more features of the man. He's quite large, having to be 6′6 in height. Broad shoulders, a well developed chest, bulging arms and legs that could fit on a Clydesdale.  Wires attached to his chest monitoring some sort of vitals. An oxygen mask is attached to his face, as numerous needles attached to robotic hands are placed inside the tank, attaching to his back. And Wraith notices something else..and that disbelief becomes once again replaced..this time to a feeling of morbidity. Next to him are 3 more tanks, much smaller, like the sizes of a small aquarium. And inside those jars are beating hearts, attached to their own wires. “THOOM THOOM THOOM* The sounds of the hearts echo from deep inside their tanks, and above them are monitors displaying footage of other hearts beating, but from inside a chest..and named on those monitors read Loba, Mirage, Rampart respectively. “What the hell?” she stares at them, stunned, completely ignoring the voices over inside her head. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voices asks from the entrance of the doorway. She turns and there stands half a dozen armed guards and Doctor Traxler himself. “Wraith...isn’t it?” asks the sociopathic scientist, almost in a mocking tone. His smile being shown, happy at the prospect of one of the legends in person is right in front of him. “Did...did you do this?” Wraith stammers..mouth agape. “I did” he says in an almost too proud tone. “What...is..this?” Wraith can barely spill out her words. “Progress, my dear. Simply progress” he says as he takes off his glasses, gives them a quick huff and wipes them with his lab coat. “What does that even mean?” she chokes out. “Oh, come on” he retorts. “I’m not some evil villain that is going to spill his entire plan in some delinquent filled attempt at a monologue” He declares. “Just know..you Legends have been a wonderful help” he says behind a smile. Wraith looks at him, confused. He turns to one of the soldiers and flicks a finger forward. The soldier pulls out a small canister and pulls a pin and throws it at Wraith. Despite her astonishment in this moment, her reflexes kick in and she slices it in half, but nothing seemed to be inside. The two sides of the canister hit the ground with a clank as they roll. The smile never fading from the doctor’s face. “What the hell was that..” *THMP-BOOM* her heart gives a sudden lurch in her chest. “HCK” she staggers forward but keeps her footing, hand reaching to her heart. “The hell”? she raggedly says to herself. *THMPBUMP* another wrenching beat as her heart rattles in her chest. “What..did you do to me”? she demands between her bated breaths. “Oh, that? Think of them as...nano-defibrillator spores. My own design in this current conquest of sorts. They enter the bloodstream and in seconds reach the heart where they are programmed to analyze a heart rhythm and shock accordingly. The ones I gave induce, not fix. Soon...you’ll be in full cardiac arrest and I’m just here to watch” he says with that smile still plastered to his face as he reaches a finger to adjust his glasses. “You bastard!” Wraith screams and void jumps aroundthe room in small bursts to get in front of Traxler. When she appears nearly right in front of him, she is about to stab him with her kunai, but a soldier intercepts her with a fist to the face. The blow sends her reeling and rolling along the floor. “Wraith, can you hear me!” Crypto worriedly asks over the comm-link, having heard the conversation between Wraith and the Doctor. “Tck..don’t come in here..I..can..handle this” she says weakly, pulling herself from the floor. *THMPBOOM* another hard beat rattles her. “GAH!” she yells in pain before falling to her knees, hand clawing at her chest..feeling rapid beats of the organ pulsing inside of her. She pants, sweat dripping from her face as she stands up. She rushes the doctor but the soldier again intercepts and uses the butt of his rifle to her face. She falls to the ground and is punted in the ribs, knocking her further away.

 Crypto hits his own comm-link “Prepare a portal and wait for my signal” he feeds back to the other legends. “Copy” Bangalore says over the speaker. Back inside the base, Wraith steadies herself “Ptoo” she spits blood before putting her hands up ready to fight. “This grows tiresome” sighs Traxler. “finish her off, please” “Yessir!” the lead one replies. Wraith pulls out her SMG and attempts to aim *BMBMBM*, more beats stagger her as she coughs off blood and drops her gun, her chest heaves with her panting. “I...I have only one shot at this..”she says to herself. She focuses...listening to the voices that plague her mind and puts a finger to her neck...she feels the beats. *thmp-thmp-thmp *BOOM** she ignores the pain. *thmpthmpthmp* BOOMBOOM* her breast quakes as she coughs more blood. *One of the voices in her head* “NOW!” Wraith waits for a beat and in between now and the next one, she punches herself in the chest, causing her heart to pause and skip a beat, giving no read for the inverted nano-defib spores..and she hits the jumps into the void.With her heart paused and jumping into the void, she teleports to in front of the lead soldier with her kunai, she stabs him in the neck, disappears and does to the next soldier, the next one and the next. The teleportation blitz is over in an almost instant, as Wraith appears back in the center of the room, the bodies of the soldiers collapse, blood pouring from their necks as their lives fade from them. Traxler looks at the woman before him, coated in her own and the blood of his soldiers as it drips from her face. A feeling of dread for his own life is quickly replaced with a twisted sense of amazement “Incredible..” he whispers. Wraith stands up knowing she needs to leave opens a full portal, she doesn’t have much time. She collapses through and is teleported outside the doors of the shadow base.

 Crypto gets a read and sees her appear. “WRAITH!!” he yells out, but  Hack notices the soldiers coming and the doors opening. “Portal” he yells. No response. “PORTAL!!” nothing. Wraith’s limp body just laying there. The soldiers open the doors and few start to clammer out. *Boom..chk-chk...boom!* Crypto begins firing his sniper at them, downing two of them. A few look up and notice and begin firing. He ducks back behind his high ground and controlls Hack back to him. The portal opens and out come Gibraltar and Revenant. “Throwin some covah for my bruddahs!” yells the jolly giant Samoan, as he throws an energy shield to cover Crypto. The 7 foot assassin  simulacrum in the blink of an eye is down in the cavern. ‘DIE..heheeh!” he yells and laughs at the soldiers, firing 2 of his flaming orbs at them near Wraith to hold them back. Landing, his hands switch to blades and he stabs clean through two of the soldiers, impaling them viscerally. He kicks another, stabs a fourth before launching one more fireball at the door, causing it to be blocked momentarily. He grabs Wraith’s body and hastily scales the cavern, reaching the top in almost frozen gutwrenching moments. “Hurry” he commands as they all rush through the closing portal. Back inside Mirage’s Bar, Rev lays down Wraith’s body. He cuts her bloodstained top, revealing the sizable breasts underneath. Lifeline gets to work and presses her ear to Wraith’s breasts. *thmmppthmmrhhoomp...thmphthmphthmp* the faint muffled beats can be heard and Lifeline gets shocked from the conducting current. “Yeow!” Wat was dat? she questions. “I overheard the man in the building, he said something like nano-defib spores...let me try something” he directs to them. “I’m going to use Hack and cast a small EMP. This way, Wattson doesn’t have to shock her and hurt her, we can just shut down the spores” he explains as he loads up Hack and charges an EMP. The drone glows with a blue current before releasing the charge. The lights and electronics in the bar flicker and shut off. Lifeline puts her ear back to Wraith’s chest and can hear her heart beating steadily. “Oh, tank God” she breathes a sigh of relief. Crypto stands up and looks at the ghostly, glowing yellow eyes of Revenant. “I don’t know why you’re here...but thank you” The simulacrum stares at him before turning and heading towards the exit. He stops at the doorway of the bar “I understand you guys and I don’t like each other...but I can’t have any of you dying. I’ll be around to help..but don’t get used to it...hehehe” he laughs before fading into the darkness of the blacked out night. A few minutes later the lights turn back and Wraith opens her eyes before sitting up and holding her chest. “My heart..” she says kind of confused to herself. “Is fine” Ajay interrupts her. “I know we cut it kinda close, but Rev showing up kinda confused us all” she explains. “I bet..” Wraith says solemnly..”I can’t believe I have to thank that creep” she mutters disgusted. “Well...he did and we owe him one” Wraith nods in response..”Yeah”. Mirage walks into the room with a bucket and a mop. “You know, I’m glad you’re safe now...but PLEASE...PLEASE go take a bath or a shower or something, you’re leaving bad guy gooey stains on my floor.” “Wraith looks at her reflection in the mirror and sees herself coated still in blood”..”I’ll get on” Ajay helps her up and takes her to the bathroom upstairs. Mirage dunks the mop in the bucket and starts wiping down the dried blood stains on the floor. “Stupid bad guys, bleeding up my bar,” he grunts and groans while the rest of the Legends get ready themselves ready for bed.