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exceptionimagines · 5 months ago

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Out with the Old, In with the New

(Not my gif)

- Everything was perfect when you and your boyfriend first moved in together. A new house, a good job, a partner you were convinced you were going to spend the rest of your life with. You were finally starting to feel like an actual grown up. ...It was just a shame you were the only one who seemed to stay that way....

- Your boyfriend was never a freeloader; he never made you pay more than your fair share, but it wasn't anything monetary that you ever had to worry about. It was everything else that seemed to fall apart the longer the two of you were together. The chores, the quality time, the romance: it all seemed to drain out of him the minute the two of you started living together and now, almost a year later, you just sort of feel stuck.

- You know you can leave; everyone knows that they can leave, but what happens if or when you do? You push aside any remaining feelings you have for the man that you've loved for years in the hopes that you'll find the perfect man in his absence? You uproot your entire life on the off chance that things could be better?

- No. No, you just can't do that. At the end of the day, you convince yourself that things are fine, that no relationship is perfect and that you're comfortable; that comfortable is a hell of a lot better than being single and regretful. You convince yourself that you're happy and that he's never treated you badly: if he had, you'd actually have a reason to leave. There are times you wish he had….

- You suppose you get your wish once Jerry Dandridge moves in next door....

- Your neighborhood is full of empty houses, so it's no surprise when you catch sight of a realtor pulling into the driveway next to yours. You watch out the window as they victoriously plaster a "sold" sticker onto the for sale sign which has occupied the manicured lawn for months on end. A multitude of cars, moving vans, and dumpsters follow in their wake as the weeks go by, entering and exiting your quiet suburb in preparation for the new arrival.

- Your boyfriend doesn't seem all that interested in the subject; always just distractedly humming in acknowledgement whenever you bring it up. Which is why you're a little taken aback when you see him talking to an unfamiliar stranger after getting home from work one day.

- The aforementioned stranger is introduced to you as your new neighbor, Jerry. The two of you shake hands and spark up a conversation about how long you've been in the area before your boyfriend abruptly interrupts, excusing you for dinner as you glance at him somewhat scoldingly. Yet, the rudeness of the interaction seems lost on Jerry as he simply smiles at you, welcoming you to come by if you ever need anything and watching as your boyfriend hurriedly ushers you towards your front door.

"You didn't notice anything weird about him?" Your boyfriend, Ben, questions once you get inside, goading you into agreeing with him as he watches you make dinner.

“Even if he was being a little weird, it’s probably just because he’s so new in town. It’s always awkward meeting new people, isn’t it?” You try to insist, wanting to give the man you’re going to be living next door to the benefit of the doubt.

“He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to be awkward.” Ben grumbles.

- Jealousy, you decide after hearing his petulant comment. Your boyfriend is jealous of your new, conventionally attractive neighbor and doesn’t want you spending too much time with him. Funny how that ugly little emotion is one of the few things that's stayed consistent about him over the years.

- Alas, against your better judgement, you decide to be a good girlfriend and agree to keep your distance, though you do warn him that you aren’t going to be rude and actively avoid him. You figure that you won’t be seeing much of Jerry anyway: he seems like a busy guy, and you’re a busy girl. Even if you’re neighbors, how often will you run into him long enough to hold an actual conversation?

- Unfortunately or fortunately for you; depending on how you look at it, Jerry seems intent on becoming your friend. He seems to always be outside whenever you return home from work, and since you refuse to treat your innocent neighbor like a registered sex offender, you return his hellos and stop to speak with him a little whenever he starts a conversation.

- You find out that he works nights, which explains his seemingly odd sleeping schedule, and as much as you want to deny it, you also start to see how your boyfriend could find him a little strange. Jerry is intense, somewhat blunt and to the point yet also suggestive at the same time. He picks up on little things that most people wouldn’t notice or put two and two together on, giving off the impression that he knows things that he realistically shouldn’t. You still think your boyfriend is being a little dramatic when he insists that there’s “something off about him”, especially since Jerry has been nothing besides neighborly and sweet.

- You try to be a good girlfriend, but it’s getting increasingly difficult. Jerry is charming, and he’s helpful to boot, and you know what? You’re lonely! Your boyfriend is hardly ever home and, even when he is, he’s rarely spending time with you, and he’s certainly not helping around the house.

- You don’t go out of your way to invite Jerry into your home. You actively avoid it for as long as possible, even when he asks to borrow something and stands lingering in your doorway while you go to retrieve it. You reason to yourself that it’s crossing a line, that you shouldn’t be inviting a man into your home when your boyfriend isn’t around; especially one he doesn’t even like you talking to.

- But when he offers to fix something for you that your boyfriends been putting off dealing with for months, you just can’t help but accept his offer. It starts off with him fixing something in your car, then it’s the squeaky hinges on your door, your kitchen sink, your AC unit, your misaligned shelf, etc. It gets to the point where your boyfriend starts to notice that things have been remedied, and you’re forced to admit that Jerry was over.

- He doesn’t like it, but you insist that you’re not going to pay someone hundreds of dollars to fix something if your neighbor is willing to do it for a couple of beers. Ben insists that you should have told him to do it instead, and you simply inform him that you have. He doesn’t have much to say about it after that and neither do you: you’re tired, but when you go to bed that night, you find yourself struggling to sleep.

- Half of it is frustration and half of it is guilt. Frustration because your boyfriend is being completely irrational and has been so unreliable that you’re beginning to depend on your neighbor more than your actual partner. That you’ve become more like Bens' mother than his girlfriend, and that the only time when you’re being taken care of is when Jerry is over….

- And guilt because you’re allowing Jerry to take care of you. That you’re finding yourself wondering what it would be like to be with him instead. That you’re finding yourself being drawn to him, being attracted to him, being flustered by him. You know that you shouldn’t be having these types of feelings for anyone but Ben; anyone but your boyfriend, but you just can’t help it.

- But frustration always wins over all of your guilt because your boyfriend doesn’t know any of that. He has no idea about the depths of your feelings for the man, but he does know that you’ve struggled to make friends ever since you’ve moved here, and that you’re finally receiving said friendship in the form of your neighbor. When he insists that you should stay away from him, it’s simply because he’s being jealous and controlling. You can understand the fact that he’s jealous, he’s allowed to be, but he isn’t allowed to limit your friendships. He should trust you not to betray him by acting on them. He should know that you would never do that to him.

- Maybe that’s why you spitefully agree to finally come inside the next time Jerry invites you in. Why you find yourself sitting in his living room watching Desperate Housewives; of all things, while you nurse a cold beer, pushing your boyfriend and the usual time he gets home out of your mind. That you spend hours in that room, talking more and more, drinking more and more, until it’s late in the evening and your boyfriend texts you asking where you are.

- You text him “at Jerry’s” and in a matter of minutes he’s knocking on the door, ushering you out angrily as Jerry simply smiles and assures him nothing happened while helping you with your things. Your boyfriend ignores him, standing in the doorway and glaring at you as you thank Jerry for having you over, tipsily hugging him before your boyfriend physically pulls you out of the house.

- He’s hushed when he tells you that “this” is never happening again: that he’s not allowed in your house anymore, that you’re not talking to him anymore, that you’re not even gonna acknowledge him anymore; that he's dangerous and that you just have to trust him on this. Once you’re in the house, he orders you to go to bed, something you do without much of an argument, whining petulantly that nothing even happened as you drag your feet towards the bathroom. You settle into an empty bed once you’re finished getting ready and fall asleep in a matter of minutes.

- When you wake up the next morning, the bed is still empty. When you look out the window, your boyfriend's car is gone from the driveway, so you just figure that he’s gone off to work early and begin your usual day off routine, nursing a mild hangover in the process. It’s only when he doesn’t return home at his usual time that you finally start to worry. You try to text him, but you get no reply, so you figure that he's either out with some friends or staying late at work, something that isn't completely out of the ordinary. Because of this, you decide to wait until tomorrow before you take any drastic measures.

- Jerry meets you in your driveway the next day, somewhat jokingly apologizing for getting you in trouble with your boyfriend. You laugh a little and insist that it’s not his fault, but since he brought him up himself, you decide to ask if he saw Ben go anywhere the night you left his house. He tells you that he’s not sure but that he thinks he left again not too long after the two of you went inside. He asks if everything’s alright, and you confess that you aren’t sure, explaining everything that’s happened.

- He comforts you before the two of you say goodbye, assuring you that he’s sure everything will be fine, that Ben is probably just blowing off some steam somewhere. He tells you to have a good long talk with him once he comes back; not if, and that he shouldn’t just up and run away like that if he has a problem, that it isn’t right.

- You get a text later that night from Bens' phone, telling you that he’s at a friends and that he won’t be back, that he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. You ask him what’s wrong and question whether this whole thing is because you were with Jerry for a couple of hours, if it’s because you got a little drunk with someone you considered a friend. You insist that nothing happened, but you don’t receive an answer.

- As the days go by, Ben never comes home. The last text you receive from him is a short message that tells you he’s done, that you can do whatever you want with his things and that he doesn’t care. That he isn’t coming home and that he isn’t interested in talking things out. You furiously text him back trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but as the hours pass with no response, you simply come to terms with the fact that your boyfriend is not at all the person that you thought he was. You just count your lucky stars that you have a good enough job to afford a cheap house all on your own.

- The next time you see Jerry, you tell him what happened, but he doesn’t seem all that surprised. He asks if you’re going to be alright, and you insist that you are. He gives you a smile and an “attagirl”, insisting that if you ever need anything, anything at all, he’s still always happy to help. You simply smile at him.

- Now that your boyfriend is officially out of the picture, you start spending more and more time with Jerry, forgetting about all of the boundaries you previously put in place for the sake of your past relationship. It feels nice finally being able to relax and though you promised yourself that you were going to remain amicable about the entire thing, it isn't long before you start to reveal all of the things that went wrong during your time together; no longer protecting your ex's reputation in the eyes of your neighbor. It feels good getting it all off of your chest and Jerry is just so ...understanding, always letting you rant to him and reacting in a way that validates all of your feelings of frustration.

"You know, I hate to admit it, but I had a feeling things weren't as ...perfect as they seemed," He admits to you one night, his voice resembling something akin to a purr, his eyes locked intently on you; a sense of hunger in his gaze that you blame on the alcohol in your system. "No offense, but uh, I could sense it in him: that he wasn't ready for all of this. I didn't want to say anything, but he just seemed like more of a boy than a man, someone who didn't know how to handle a woman like you. There's a kind of neglect ...gives off a scent."

- It's later that night when he kisses you for the first time, in the middle of his kitchen as you go to wash off the sticky remnants of a dripping beer from your hands. You hear him enter the room, and you begin to say something before you feel him come up close behind you.

"You smell really good." He hums, leaning closer as you turn towards him, opening your mouth to innocently thank him before he covers your lips with his own, kissing you fiercely.

- Your eyes quickly widen, dripping wet hand making its way to his chest in order to hold him back, to stop him from devouring you whole. When you pull away, you swear that his eyes are blacker than ever before: dark and frightening and inhuman.

- You back away and hurriedly excuse yourself, claiming that you have to leave for one reason or another as he merely watches you go, eyes intently trained on you; their unwavering focus sending a chill down your spine. He says absolutely nothing as you leave out his front door, heart pounding as you try to forget how much he resembled a predator: not some kind of human creep but a wild animal, something that wanted to eat you alive.

- When you get inside your front door, you notice a message on your phone, one from Ben's mother asking if everything is alright, that she hasn't heard from him for a while and that she's worried about him. A part of you can't help but wonder if you'll be telling her the truth when you inform her that he's broken up with you....

- After that night, Jerry seems to have finally begun ditching his attempts at acting normal around you, his behavior growing increasingly unsettling and suspicious now that he senses that you're onto him. Though you try to avoid him; and though he's stuck to watching you from afar for the past few days, it's hard to completely evade him when you never seem to hear him coming; another trait of his that does nothing but unnerve you.

- You successfully steer clear of him for nearly a week, growing confident in your ability to avoid him until you go to take out the trash one night and are suddenly met face to face with the man.

"I'm sorry about the other night," he apologizes, acting as though he didn't just materialize from the shadows of your garden and scare you half to death. "I know I shouldn't have made a move on you like that, but I just couldn't help myself. Blame it on the alcohol, huh?"

- You force yourself to smile at his attempt at a joke, telling him to forget about it as sincerely as you can as you move to surpass him, wanting to exit out of your garden gate and go inside as quickly as possible.

"It's just, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I could have sworn that there was something...." He shakes his head, both trying to find the right words and trying to goad you into interrupting him with a response of your own, hoping that you'll agree with him as he tries to read your expression. "Something there, you know?"

- And though you want to deny it, you know that you can't. You're suddenly met with the realization that Jerry has known all along, that he's seen right through you the entire time and that all of his vague attempts to come onto you have, in fact, been attempts to come onto you. You suddenly feel a swell of guilt, guilt for your ex-boyfriend who you now realize wasn't as insecure or controlling as you thought.

"It's just too soon." You explain quietly, hoping he'll accept the excuse. He stares at you for a moment, scanning your face intently as he seemingly tries to read your expression.

"No problem," he replies after the brief silence, offering a smile that does little to ease the tension you feel. You hate that you still find it attractive. "I just don't want to ruin things between us, you know? I really enjoy your company."

"How about I come over tomorrow then?" You question quickly, offering him a hopefully convincing attempt at a sincere smile; hoping that he doesn't notice that you have ulterior motives in mind. He once again gazes at you for a long moment, far longer than what anyone would deem as a normal pause, looking you up and down as a smile begins to tug at his lips.

"Of course." He answers after a moment, and you contain your sigh of relief, feeling like he's actually fallen for it as he steps back and lets you pass him through the narrow gap of your backyards gate. You bid him goodbye, pausing briefly to smile and nod at him when he calls out a time, swallowing down your nerves as you continue to make your way inside and ignore the feeling of his eyes on your figure.

- And just like that, you find yourself sitting in his living room, nursing a beer and smiling at him when he puts on the show that you've both started watching together; "our show" as he would call it. You force yourself to act normal, even force yourself to move closer to him, silently allowing him to wrap an arm around your shoulders and pull you in, hand rubbing up and down your arm as the two of you sit and watch. You hate that it almost feels natural. You can only hope that it's enough to convince him that nothing is wrong, especially since it's only succeeding in confusing your feelings even more.

- You know that you don't have much time when you ask to use his bathroom, quickly taking your chance to snoop through the rooms that you've never entered, quickly finding one that's full of suspicious artifacts; exactly the sorts of things that you were hoping you wouldn't find. You pull out your phone to take a picture before you nearly drop it at the sound of a sudden voice.

"Seems you've discovered my secret." You jump at the interruption, quickly spinning around and locking your eyes on Jerry who's standing in the doorway, watching you as you scramble for an excuse, tilting his head.

"I was just looking for the bathroom."

"It's down the hall. ...Like every other house on this street," He responds, and you quickly realize that you've been caught, that he's not buying it one bit. He smiles reassuringly at you as he starts to speak again, his voice taking on an almost cooing tone. "It's okay. I'm not mad."

"You know, I was a little worried when you stopped coming by. I thought you didn't like me anymore," He jokes, watching as you glance around and try to find an opening in the room, somewhere that you can escape from. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Why not? You hurt Ben." You ask spitefully.

"As if you care about Ben," He answers sarcastically before he puts up his hands in surrender, smiling sheepishly at you. "That. ...I'm sorry. I know you cared. You were a very good girlfriend. It was him that was the problem. ...But that's besides the point. Why don't you just come downstairs and let me explain, hmm?"

You pause, scrambling to make a decision. "You're a vampire." You respond, not as much of a question as it is a statement. He simply smiles at you. "Right? That's why Ben didn't like you. Why he was so weird about everything."

"I imagine so," He replies as if you already know the answer, which you admittedly do. "Ben was a …he was a nuisance. See, I’m just trying to live like everyone else, keep to myself, survive. He was making that difficult, and worst of all he was mistreating you. It became increasingly obvious that he was only going to cause more trouble and more problems. So I was forced to ...deal with it, before it could become an issue."

"And I think I did you a favor by doing it too." He chuckles a little. You suck in a nervous breath. "Y/n, I'm not gonna hurt you."

"I find that a little hard to believe."

"Well, try to, because it's the truth. You're different, y/n. You're something special. I knew it from the moment I saw you. You weren't meant to be in some unfulfilling relationship with some little boy. You were meant for something more, something bigger. I think that, deep down, you know that too."

"What do you want from me?"

"I just want you to give me a chance." He smiles.

- And against your better judgement, you find yourself wanting to agree....

- You suppose you don't have much of a choice either way, you know that nobody would ever believe you if you decided to try and tell someone, and even though Jerry claims that he doesn't want to hurt you, all he has to do is sink his fangs into you and you're finished. So you hesitantly agree to hear him out, letting him lead you downstairs and back onto his new leather couch, smiling at you affectionately as he takes a seat in his armchair, thankfully giving you a bit of space instead of invading your personal bubble like earlier in the evening.

- He doesn't speak for a long moment, seemingly waiting for you to start the conversation, though you're so unsure of how to navigate a situation like this that you're momentarily at a loss for words. He starts the conversation instead.

"I'm not going to lie to you. I enjoy being what I am. You hear about ...my kind in movies and in books, and they're either one step above an animal or anguished," He chuckles at the description. "They go on and on about being cursed, but I don't think of it that way. Sure, it isn't easy, but you get used to it. You forget about the sun, forget about your past life. You change, and personally, I think it's for the better."

"So you can't go out in the sun?" You speak for the first time since getting downstairs.

He nods in response to your question, smirking slightly as he offers you a verbal answer. "I don't really work nights."

"And you drink human blood?"

"Of course."

"Did you drink Bens?" He looks at you for a moment, as if deciding if you really want him to answer it.

"It would be a waste not to."

"Do the people you bite turn into vampires too?"

"Your boyfriend isn't a vampire, if that's what you're asking. I wouldn't have had it in me to put up with him for the rest of eternity." He scoffs, seemingly more at the idea than at you.

"So you can bite people without turning them."

"Not quite," he responds. "Anything I bite turns into one of me, but it's up to me to decide whether they'll live long enough to see it come to fruition. Ben was ...gone, long before he turned."

"So whoever you bite has to become a vampire?" You confirm, trying to make heads and tails of it all.

"You seem interested," He replies, and your eyes widen at the comment, your mouth opening to deny the accusation. "There's a way for you to feel what it's like without fully turning. I just have to give you some of my blood and you'll get a taste of it. It's just like a dream."

- You quickly move on from the topic, ignoring the way that he smiles at you, at the thoughts that go racing through your brain as you try to envision what he means. You continue your little questionnaire for about an hour, bouncing back and forth between subjects as you try to get as much information as possible, hoping that he's telling you the truth whenever he answers you. He's incredibly nonchalant about the entire thing, and it only serves to unnerve you even further: the thought of him being so used to his little lifestyle that the concept of it no longer phases him in the slightest.

"I have work tomorrow," You finally say, feeling as though you're incapable of taking any more information in. "I have to get up early so I really better go."

- He doesn't seem worried about you leaving in the slightest, he simply rises from his seat and leads you to his front door, bidding you goodnight as though you've had a perfectly normal evening. It's like he knows you have nothing against him, like he knows you could never escape him or find a way to beat him. Like no matter what you do, you're still stuck in his control.

- But Jerry continues to stay true to his word, never actually harming you, even if he continues to occasionally scare you. A part of you starts to feel like he doesn't even do it on purpose, like its just a part of his nature and that he's simply no longer trying to hide it. Alarmingly, you begin to find some of these habits of his attractive....

- You were no stranger to finding Jerry handsome, but you were sort of hoping that these feelings of yours would fade away once you realized that he was a blood-thirsty monster who killed your ex-boyfriend for fun. Unfortunately for you, Jerry is still Jerry, and the feelings of fear that you recently began to harbor for him are beginning to mix into a confusing cocktail; one that has you wondering where your nervousness ends and your excitement begins.

- Emotions are strange like that. You try to reason with yourself, wanting to excuse the conflicting feelings you have for the man. But the more you see of him, the more you talk to him, the more you touch him: the less you can excuse. Jerry is just so ...raw: all muscle and power and masculine energy; the sort of intoxicating presence that's hard to stay away from even when you know that you should. A part of you wonders if that's part of his vampiric powers, but you're simply too stubborn and embarrassed to ask.

- While you tried keeping away from him for a little while, it did nothing to quell your nerves, and though he patiently allowed you to have some space and time to think, you knew that he wasn't very pleased. So when you find yourself struggling to open a jar, you deem it as good a time as any to allow him back into your life. And with little else to do, you begin to spend more time with him; the "man" that continues to be one of your only friends....

- Surprisingly, your life doesn't really change all that much. You'd think that befriending an immortal demon would have some effect on you, would make some catastrophic shift in your perception of life. But you still work a nine to five, and you still have house chores, and honestly, all that's changed is your willingness to believe in the supernatural. ...And maybe your love life.

- See, now that you're back in his life and Ben is completely out of the picture, Jerry has become increasingly obvious in his attempts to come onto you. And since you're beginning to grow more and more receptive towards him, there's very little stopping his flirtation. You typically brush him off or tell him to shut up, choosing to outwardly take his advances as little more than a joke. But he knows that you know he's that being serious, and your denial has become more like a game for him than an actual rejection; something he can work towards breaking down. It's a challenge, and boy does he like a good challenge....

- Jerry knows exactly what he's doing every time he provokes you. He knows that you ogle him whenever he's in his tank tops or that you can't help but watch the way that his back flexes whenever he wears a fitted shirt. He knows that your hands have a tendency to linger for a moment too long whenever you bump into him; i.e. when he makes you bump into him. He knows that your heart races whenever he effortlessly picks you up or moves you around, and he knows that it isn't from fear. He knows, and he loves it, and it becomes increasingly harder for him to contain himself whenever you're around and so close to letting him claim you.

- But he also knows that it's becoming increasingly harder for you as well. So he simply bides his time, smiling knowingly whenever you hurriedly change the subject or move away from him, loving the way that you grow flustered under his gaze. He simply hopes that it won't take much longer for you to make up your mind because he's beginning to grow impatient....

- There's one thing that's been on your mind ever since he first brought it up to you: the feeling of drinking his blood. He's vague in his description of it, but it still continues to entice you: the idea of getting to taste a fraction of what it's like to be supernatural. You're not sure that you're ever going to be willing to make the entire change; though you're sure that Jerry would happily turn you the minute you asked, but you don't see the harm in experiencing some form of it; just enough to quell your curiosity.

- So after a particularly taxing day, you find yourself over at Jerry's place, sitting quietly on his couch as the two of you watch television, deciding how to bring the subject up to him, or if you even should. He interrupts the silence that the two of you have formed, asking you what's you what's on your mind and giving you excuse to spill the beans. He's quiet as you ramble through your thought process, and just as quiet as you finish, sitting there silently as you stare at your feet in slight embarrassment.

- Finally, you happen a glance towards him, just in time to see him getting up from his chair, his eyes darkened as he makes his way over and seats himself beside you on the couch. He wastes no time in slicing his finger open, deep dark liquid pooling at the wound as he offers the digit out to you, pressing it to your lips as you move closer. His eyes never leave your face, pupils lost in the sunken pits of black as he hungrily watches you take in the taste and the unfamiliar sensation.

- You feel the urge to chase his hand after he pulls it away from you, but you don't have much time to focus on that thought before he's pulling you into him, covering your lips with his own and licking up the remnants of his own blood. This time, you don't have it in you to pull away from him, not that you even want to, kissing him back just as hungrily as he kisses you, his arms tightening around your figure as he lowers you further down onto his couch.

- You wake up the next morning feeling a little hazy, like the last remnants of sleep are still clinging to your mind and stopping you from facing reality. You register that Jerry's arms are wrapped tightly around you, that you're laying on his chest, and that you've spent the entire night with him.

- And you suddenly have the intense feeling that you're no longer a free woman, that after this, Jerry is never going to let you go. But the thing is, you're no longer sure if you want him to: especially not when you feel him begin to stir, his body pulling you ever so closer and his face burying itself in your hair....

- No, no you think you like the idea of never having him let you go....

#jerry dandridge headcanon #jerry dandridge headcanons #jerry dandridge imagines #jerry dandridge imagine #fright night 2011 headcanons #fright night 2011 imagine #fright night 2011 imagines #fright night imagines #fright night imagine

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insuke69 · 1 year ago

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What's in a name? P2

Part I, Part II, Part III

2/3

☆ Hobie brown × Rich!Osborn!reader

★ Synopsis: Osborn is almost a disgusting name because of the messed up things it has and the dirty money that holds it up by threads. And here is the child that sneaks out one night and meets a punk that goes directly against her father.

✩ Warnings: cussing, Some more angst, 'crybaby’ reader, misunderstanding, SMUT

★ smut: P in V, unprotected, pull-out-method, oral (F!receiving), pierced pp.

Rating—M

✩ 7,1k words

______

If one word could describe how the next few days of your life was, It’d be bittersweet.

Bittersweet Because of how sweet Spiderpunk was to you. Or rather, how sweet he was to who he thought was Emily.

So sweet while you couldn’t describe how you felt with him, with your own behavior more open and carefree with that dark mask you bare almost every night when you sneak out and ‘accidentally’ run into him. It makes you grin like an idiot when he stands close or when you see him webbing over to you as you chill around the bench.

That bench where you two met, where you always helplessly cried as a little girl now being a place you look forward to going every day. The second the sun sets you tell Roxy you’re going out and you stay out until any hour of the night with not even Roxy knowing about the special punk that makes your heart pound and your body ease with some kind of feeling that makes you want to be close to him physically and emotionally.

Something about how exhilarating and free you felt around him, his arm around you while you held onto him. You two often webbed some nights, to buildings you know inside out since you helped your dad design some, or some simple spray painting in canals, and if you were lucky: You two would end up on some rooftop talking while looking into the night sky with few stars because of light pollution.

One night you’re bent beside your bed with the collection of pictures with you and Spiderpunk, you’re wondering if you should show him who you are: But that's the bitter part.

Spiderpunk loves and is close to the masked street artist he simply knows by her fake name, Emily.

Bitter because he doesn’t care for the actual woman below the mask, yet he enjoys the mask and the personality below. Spiderpunk seems to despise y/n Osborn. He doesn’t make his rebellious habits too known since he didn’t do that for attention and was always his own unfiltered and blunt self. How the hell will you two ever know each other when he wears his mask for anonymity and you wear yours to not end up getting stabbed at every turn.

“I just.. I feel like she's always trying to act as if she’s so much better than her dad, when she doesn’t even leave her house to avoid the people who see her as she is.” you remember Spiderpunk shrugging since the topic had moved to ‘you’.

“Yeah? What a hot take.” You comment sarcastically with a chuckle. You couldn’t defend yourself/who is the true woman behind the mask since he would likely be offended that you would defend the daughter of such a monster.

Your small memory moment cuts short as you hear your door knock in the way you know exactly who is the one behind the door and quickly shove the shoebox full of pictures of Spiderpunk and you with the art you’ve been putting up on most osborn buildings under your bed and sit on the edge of it while the door opens and Roxy walks in.

“Hey, remember to get ready for the event.” She said as she looks away from you and goes straight to your closet. “This is important to your father, he needs his daughter there and he needs you to behave for it.” Roxy continued as she began picking out an outfit for you.

This was a christmas event where your dad made a whole thing just to show off he donated some money to a cause about homeless and unfed people around in Brazil, meanwhile he hates the needy people down in the city less than a ten minute drive away–and actively keeping them ignored.

“What's the.. Uhm..” You begin before pausing to think of the word,

“Schedule? It's from five to twelve.” Roxy chimed.

“What? Dude! I won’t be able to go out w-” You cut yourself off before rewording your words, “I don’t want to go.” you say as you lean back on your hands before adding with a scoff. “It’s a waste of time and we both know I just have to smile for a camera and look pretty like some display model.”

Roxy didn’t know about Spiderpunk, nobody did. You couldn’t let her know about Spiderpunk, it's one thing to sneak out and arrive home late with spray paint stains and smelling like an unfamiliar cologne and musky scent faintly drafting through the air you walk through–mostly because you have to hold onto Spiderpunk as you two swing through the musty camden air.

“Yes, but you also have to understand how important this is to your father, and I’ve been trying my very best to make sure your Mr. Osborn h-”

“My dad, Norman, I couldn’t care less.” you interrupt with a slight grimace, “You don’t have to ‘Mr. Osborn’ him to me.”

Roxy nods and clears her throat, “Norman,” She corrected, “In shorter words, I’ve trying so damn hard to make sure he doesn’t find anything out about whatever the hell you do when you go out, The least you can do is listen to me and miss what you do just this once.”

Her tone is a bit exasperated while still calm as if it were nothing while she rummaged through your closet and took out a sparkly low cut red dress with black edges along with lace over where cleavage would’ve been visible, along with black stilettos. She places the dress and pair of shoes onto your bed beside where you sat and moved over to your vanity for the jewelry to wear with everything, settling on a pearl necklace and a pair of white gold earrings and placing them in the middle of your vanity for you to put them on before makeup.

“I still don’t get why you have to pick out my outfits, still.” You murmur under your breath with snark as you look over what Roxy had set up for you.

“You are still dependent.” She answered bluntly while grabbing tights for you, fishnets to have below the skirt of the dress.

Still dependent.

You go quiet for a moment. So even Roxy thinks you’re a daddy's girl who can’t think for herself. She’s always picked your outfits for you for events, it always pissed you off how she never wanted to teach you about what colors clash or what is too tacky. How are you supposed to know if nobody has taught you anything?

“Your hair will be half up-half down.” Roxy adds as she gestures to what she had set up for you.

At least you had your own abilities to do your own damn hair, how generous. And with that, Roxy had walked out of your room to leave you get changed and ready for the event.

You roll your eyes and start getting changed, you look at yourself in the mirror and take a breath before testing your fake smile while looking at yourself, partially not really recognizing the reflection behind it.

Some dolled up girl wearing things that cost more than most people can wish for, your money that you don’t earn, you can't earn anything. You’re like some little girl who has to rely on the people who refuse to even teach you anything. Your face just feels as if you’re being forced to enjoy and display everything that holds blood and dirt, almost muddily dragged on your skin and collar bone.

You huff and rip your gaze from the mirror and move back to your bed to take out the balaclava and gloves hastily and shove the shoebox back under your bed and hidden away then moving over to your closet and grabbing a black and white purse–shoving in the gloves and mask before spraying on your usual perfume and leaving your room to start being on your way to the event.

_____

In summary:

The event is shit, the event has loud music, loud overwhelming music, the whole time you have to be stood with a smile that barely reaches your eyes and having to awkwardly hug or shake hands with the most random strangers you have to interact with.

There's good food and catering–but you for whatever reason was told to stay by the big decorative tree and some security guards around you since it's the usual thing at events, your father isn’t really loved by all so it's for your safety to have some random big dude hovering your every move and interaction.

“Hey, what time is it?” You ask the taller man who wore dark sunglasses and a serious look on his face that barely glance at you, almost protecting you like you were some safe that has to be observed because of secrets and riches it held.

“It’s..” He changed his statue-like position and checked his watch, “Seven o’four.” He answered while moving back to his earlier position and staring dead ahead as if you were medusa, he was still and cold as stone anyway.

You scoff and cross your arms over your chest at the time. Five more hours of standing beside some man who doesn’t care to at all speak or interact with ‘the goods’ or the product he's protecting? No. You glance around and see some double doors that are labeled with two signs which indicate a woman's bathroom and the dude bathroom with a smaller sign with some writing that you can’t read all that well.

You take a step to walk in that direction before feeling a hand on your shoulder like a chain around your ankle holding you back.

Oh right, the statue-bodyguard

“Where do you th-” The guy began before you shake his hand off of your shoulder and keep walking in that direction.

“Bathroom! Little lady Osborn has to go to the ladies room.” You say sarcastically while walking over to the doors you saw, the bodyguard letting you go after saying something about not wasting time and five minutes–you tuned him out because you already felt so free without him hovering.

You walk towards the doors and read small instructions that pretty much tell you/the one reading that where the bathrooms are.

Turn left to the second hall and third door to the right, follow the hall where the restroom signs are.

-Oscorp

You push the door and walk through to see some big hall where there are other rooms, an untouched area of the venue that seemed to be rooms to take care of kids, like some daycare or classrooms. The hall has a barely yellowish tint and has a hall that goes to the bathrooms. You explore a bit more to find an exit with a bright green sign to indicate exactly what it is.

You grin and clutch your purse as you head to the emergency exit and push it open–the cold air of the night hitting you immediately and you curse at yourself for leaving your sweater to the guard.

You take a deep breath and let the cool air flood your lungs before taking a few steps away from the building to find what part of the city you’re in and start walking more while taking out your balaclava and gloves then putting them on.

You zone out while taking the refreshing walk away from the loud party your dad- well, ‘oscorp’ has thrown, a wasteful event full of music and food to distract people from the ruined lives caused by this large and overrated company.

You then hear a familiar THWAP appear from behind you.

Oh god.

Not now-

Your mask is over your face along with your gloves but that doesn’t hide your expensive jewelry or dress, or heels or anything of the sort that shows you aren’t the lower middle class woman Spiderpunk should think you are.

“Emi’?”

A voice you always want to hear, whether it's asking or telling you something, whether it's called out or whispered in your ear, you love whenever his deep cockney words are directed at you. The nickname he gave you since he often joked about Emily being too much of a hassle to pronounce.

But right now it feels horrifying, heart full of dread at the possibility of him figuring out you aren’t who you’ve been saying you are- hell- your name isn’t even Emily, you just named yourself after your dead mother.

“Emily.” Spiderpunk said more firmly once he recognised that mask, the same mask he sees most nights–and to little of your knowledge..

Really want to see what's below it.

Really wants to see the face of the woman he's growing to love.

You swallow your pride and turn to face him as if you were a kid whose hand was caught in the cookie jar.

The lenses to spiderpunks masks widen a little as if to represent a bit of surprise once he sees the figure below what he usually sees, a worn out hoodie or random tee and some jeans. But now he's seeing a curvaceous colored figure in a dress that's glamorized with jewelry made of pearls and white gold, shining in the streetlight and faded moonlight.

You expect his expression shift of disgust or something at how you’re dressed, rich girl, looking like a classy brat whether there's a mask and gloves to seal something that's already leaking through your image. You’re ready to blink away tears at the feeling of your sinking heart, hands tensing and feeling like you’re holding the world's problems along with your own chained to your palms.

But to your surprise, he starts to shrug off his iconic leather jacket, before you can get a word in he passes it to you and puts it over your shoulders. “Its cold as hell tonigh’, what the hell are you wearing out here.” He says playfully with a chuckle as he looked over at you so the rhetorical question sinks in.

How the hell are you supposed to answer that?

“Uhhhhhhh..” You try to register the warm jacket now over you that had that lingering punk scent that a part of you wanted to steal genuine sniffs but you knew you couldn’t really other than subtle inhales, that scent so comforting for no reason beside the one who radiates it.

“I was at an.. ‘Important’ event but snuck out like usual.” You summarize as you adjust the jacket so you can put on the sleeves and snuggle into its warmth and scent.

His warmth and scent.

“So d’you wan’ to do the usual bullshi’ on rooftops or do you wan’ to jus’ want to fuck around Osborns buildings some more?” He asks with a grin in his voice as he lazily puts his long lanky arm around your waist like he did every night ‘platonically’, ready to tighten his hold the second you say yes for you two to swing wherever.

You smile and nod “Yeah no, I’m fine with whatever as long as it’s with you.” to which he happily shoots a web and you both begin swinging through the well lit streets of Camden, at least the part of town you both were in. The cold air soon felt a bit heavier, indicating the part of town less taken care of and more polluted. You two glide over several streets but Spiderpunk lowers and slows down around an alleyway, a familiar alleyway..

The Alleyway that started it all.

You could see the same gas station a bit down the street, bright and open. The same station where you had bought food for..

“Squaishy!” Spiderpunk greeted that same person as he let go of your waist and left you to come closer on your own accord instead of dragging you into the space, not knowing at all what has happened here for you. Little did Spiderpunk know that ‘Squaishy’ was the one who caused your tears that night. Squaishy seemed to be doing better but still with the worn out jacket but they were happy and glad to see Spiderpunk as they greeted each other with a handshake and small hug, A smile in Spiderpunk’s lenses. But Squaishy’s eyes darken as he looks over at you and recognizes your mask.

But Spiderpunk follows his gaze, not realizing the tension. “Squiashy! This is my friend, Emily.” he introduced as he put his hands on your shoulders and almost pushing you into the conversation.

A knowing amused smirk falls onto Squaishy’s lips as they raise their eyebrows, “Emily?” He echoed.

Fuck.

“I have to go.” You say abruptly before Squaishy can have a quip or comment about your name..

Or mentions that it isn’t your actual name.

Words couldn’t explain how Spider-punk looked as his head whipped to look in your direction as if you said something so appalling that it insulted his whole bloodline, “Wha’?” He asked as the lenses of his mask widened, looking almost like round ovals–but the important thing is that you suddenly feel his eyes burning into yours, as if he was shifting his attention onto you to not leave so soon. Squiashy’s smug expression shifts slightly when he notices how Spiderpunk when from seeming happy and in a good mood, to worried and uncertain.

“I was out on a walk.. You know, from where I escaped-slash-snuck out from, and I don’t want them noticing I’m gone or anything since I’m an ‘important factor’.” you say awkwardly, trying your best to say everything but nothing at the same time.

Hobie isn’t stupid though, he can always tell when there’s more to the story, especially now since your excuses are getting more vague and sloppy.

“I can take you back?” He offers, either wanting to spend more time with you or curious as to what you do or who you actually are. These half truths are starting to make Hobie more curious of the woman behind the balaclava every night. At his offer, trying to know more about you, not knowing that you aren’t the Emily you’re displaying yourself to be.

Emily is bold, playful, sarcastic, sweet, thoughtful and fun. She's the woman spiderpunk wants to hold close at night and would do anything to see her eyes below the mask smile.

But he didn't know the person who you have to keep hidden from him like how you keep ‘Emily’ from your father.

Y/n is quiet, keeps to herself, diffident, rich and spoiled. The woman who spiderpunk feels indifferent about beyond disdain and a grimace when he hears her, or the Osborn name in general.

“No, no. or.. Can you take me where you found me?” You request awkwardly with a small smile, hoping he’ll say yes, half knowing he will but won’t stop asking things. He’s as curious as a cat.. An adorable, tall, lanky punk-cat.

He nods and says a quick bye handshake with Squaishy and turns back to you, putting his arm around your waist firmly and holding your body against his then shoots a web, soon launching into the air and swinging, your arms and around his neck. Palpable tension beyond your face in the crook of his neck to shield your face from the cold air hitting you both. Tension now because of what even started this relationship..

His unanswered questions, and your half answers.

Once you arrive where Spiderpunk found you, when he sets you down he keeps a hand on your shoulder as if to keep you from leaving/running off. “So, would you mind telling me at least wha’ even’ you’re talking ‘bout?” He prompted as he looked into your visible eyes through the balaclava. It felt like he was looking into your soul, making your mouth go dry.

“..I mind? I’m- I’m sorry but I really do have to g-”

“Don’ start with that!” He cut you off with a scoff as he moves his hand off of your shoulder, letting you be able to go if you really wanted to, “You always have to end up disappearing, I understand your need to have your identity secre’, but at this point it's like you don’ trust me.”

He isn’t wrong but he isn’t right either. You do trust him, there's so much you know you have freedom of doubt in him but.. It's the one thing you can’t tell him about, the one thing that you can’t control and that you doubt he’d understand. The filthy name that comes after your first.

Osborn.

Tears make a glossy layer on your eyes, You’re stuck. On one hand, if you tell the truth, he won’t ever see you the same. On the other hand, If you still avoid it, you may slip up and he’ll find out the hard way.

“Not- not yet.” You whisper, “I’ll tell everything you want to hear, but I just can’t right now.” you murmur as you took off his jacket he lent you and passed it back to him before taking some steps back, as much as you didn’t want this argument to end on this sour note, you couldn’t risk anything going wrong with your father.

Spiderpunk watched with furrowed eyebrows under his mask as you went away, disappearing as you turned a corner. He cursed at himself under his breath as he put the leather jacket back on, a faint lingering fragrance of your perfume, conflicted thoughts and emotions circling his mind like a toy train. On one hand, he knows your boundaries and wants you to be comfortable and able to cry on his shoulder, on the other hand: He won’t let himself be manipulated and lied to, whether he's infatuated or not.

He shook his head and clasped his hands over his face.

“This is a breach of her privacy. This is a breach of her privacy, this is a breach of her-” He repeats in his mind as he shoots a web and runs up a building to arrive at its rooftop. He takes off his mask and stands by the edge as he looks out at the street you went down, his mind screaming at him and his heart telling him it's a bad idea.

“She won’t like that you followed her. She won’t trust you, you can just wait..” “But wait how long? What is so bad that she has to keep it from me? How long can she play me as the fuckin’ fool..” His mind debating against himself, but still looking out for you.

He spots you and jumps over buildings while running, his eyes on you to see where you’re going. What you’re doing. Why you are in such a hurry. Watching as you approach the venue, going towards the door you went out from. Osborn’s charity event.

It was dark but he saw your figure, the way your hands moved to first take off your gloves and shove them into your bag but something fell without you noticing, then your mask. It’s like Hobie was watching it in slow motion, your hands raising to the end of your mask and starting to raise it.

In a flash of awareness, he turned around completely before he saw your face. This wasn’t how he wanted it to happen, this isn't how he wanted to see the woman hidden behind that fabric, but the need to know was almost hurting his mind, but he remembered you dropped something so he put on his mask then jumped and webbed closer to where you were and strained his eyes looking at the ground to see what you dropped.

A gold bracelet with the names “Anne-Marie, Emily, Y/n.”

Spiderpunk read the names and recognized Emily of course, so it was clearly yours, he thought. But he also recognized the name of the offspring of the man he despised. He webbed back up to the building he was on earlier and took off his mask to inspect the bracelet a bit more.

Hobies gaze softened as he gently held the delicate gold bracelet in his hand, for as small and thin it was, it was heavy. It really was gold. Hobie didn’t know what to think. Who are you?

The Event ended eventually and he just watched everyone leave, blankly staring at Osborn and his daughter-

His daughter wearing the same thing you were. The same purse hung on your arm.

Hobie felt his heart almost drop.. The woman he wanted to keep safe and protect was the daughter of the man he wanted to protect everyone around them from. He clenched the bracelet in his hand so hard that he bent the gold ever so slightly with his mutated strength. He wanted to laugh at how badly you didn’t want him to figure anything out yet, scream into the sky until it shattered because of the betrayal, the anger, the hatred brewing, the hatred for the Osborn’s moving to ‘Emily’, a girl who he thought was someone humble, who he wanted to have by his side, in his arms, and in his bed. It hurt. The avoidant truths. The way that he couldn’t think straight anymore as his mind and hands were tense.

The car drove off from the venue where the Osborn’s were going home. Hobie was going to confront “Emily”, He couldn’t recognize them anymore. As if he was going to confront a stranger he used to know. He followed the car from afar until it parked, he waited by the forest beside your house, he was about to climb a random tree to get a better view without being seen, but his hand was met with some rough fabric, his first reaction was to clench and pull it down.

He sees that in his hand, is her backpack. The one he looked through naively having little to no idea that she wouldn’t have to be a drug dealer when she can easily buy whatever she wants whenever she wants.

A bedroom window lights up and it catches his attention, he thwips a web to the outside wall and quietly walks on the wall and peeks into the window to see you kneeling down beside your bed in front of a shoebox.

“How was the event, Emi’?” Spiderpunk asked sarcastically as he let himself in through the window, you flinched and eyes shot immediately towards him with your usually smiley and once gorgeous to him eyes as wide as glass dinner plates.

“What- what do.. Shit- I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you bu-” You began as you stood and began walking closer before he cut you off with his voice raised and clear distaste as he spoke to you. You’ve never heard genuine venom in his tone, he always spoke happily with the lenses of his mask beaming.. That was gone, all gone from his hateful gaze.

“Tell me what? That you’re part of a corporation thats forcing Millions of people in poverty? That you-”

“That I have nothing to do with!” You snap, years of verbal abuse from people who have always assumed the worst from you, and now it was even worse since he supposedly knew you internally. “Aren’t you someone who fights against stereotypes? Who fights against things that are unfair?”

“Don’ you dare. Thats differen’, you were actively Lying- Hiding the damn truth from me, Hearing me say all these things about Osborn- Your dad- Ugh.” He groaned while clasping his hand over his face, trying not to yell since he knew about your sensitivity towards being yelled at. “I have been nothing but caring towards you and it feels like you’ve stabbed me in the back.” he summarized, slowly taking off his mask to show his seriousness.. And to show that he still seems to trust you.

He felt betrayed, lied to, his trust was broken–yet.. He would tell you his plans, he would tell you which ones of Osborns buildings he was going to vandalize and on what days he planned to do it, but he’s never been caught.

He’s never been caught, you’ve never snitched.

You were there most of the time, you’ve had every chance to get him in trouble and caught, that means something.

Your expression softens, now wasn’t the time but he was handsome.. Stunning. His eyes shut and his eyebrows furrowed while pinching the bridge of his nose, the scowl showed that he genuinely felt conflicted and you had to know the actual reason why. It almost hurts that you are being the cause of his frown instead of the reason of his smile.

You shake off the pained thoughts and continue as you step closer so he could look at you, “Can’t you see why I never told you? Look at how you’re reacting. You know me, or you at least know ‘Emily’, so what makes (y/n) any different?” you ask with a gesture of your hand, “I’m still the same girl who would spray paint with you, who’d come with you to put up art over my father’s buildings, the same girl you laughed with and the girl you held as she cried.” You tell him as your voice trembles with tears threatening to roll down your cheeks, vision already blurred from them pooling in your eyes, looking away before he could see the effect all of this is taking on you.

He's silent for a second, he wants to yell, he wants to talk, he wants to sob, he doesn’t know exactly what to do for a moment so he swallows his pride and interrupts you right before you were about to break the silence yourself.

“Because I loved you!” He spat as if he never wanted to admit it himself, “I loved the girl who’d spray paint with me,” Hobie takes a step closer to you this, “I loved the girl whose art I’d put up on Osborn’s buildings, and I loved..” He trailed off for a moment as he put his hand on your chin to force you to look at him gently, “..The same girl who laughed with me and who I held as she cried.”

Loved.

“Loved”..

“So what? Not anymore? Because of an ‘asshole’ who happens to be my father?” You ask as you pull back from his touch, upset at the fact that Hobie was blaming you for your dad’s actions, “it’s fucking unfair.” You added under your breath as the crybaby in you was coming back stronger for ever, now the frustration from that night and every hateful interaction you’ve had coming back full force.

“I.. don’t know.” He answered honestly with an empty chuckle as if his own internal turmoil was funny as he looked into your watering eyes, knowing full well he was causing them, and that knowledge felt like a drill to his heart.

The water in your eyes thickens as you feel like he’s slipping from your hands, the one person who saw you as a person at one point now seeing you like a monster like everyone else did, always compared to your dad by everyone else, it wasn’t new.. But this just hurt so much more. So much more.

And Hobie’s heart is torn, this wasn’t how he wanted to find anything out, this isn’t how anything was supposed to go, he never wanted to make you cry. He closes his eyes and takes a small breath once your face scrunches up while choking back a sob, remembering how affected you probably are in this moment, recognizing your own heartbreak as he thought of your words.

Unfair.

It was unfair what your father was doing, unfair how many innocent people like Squaishy now sleep in cold tents in abandoned areas just to not be killed due to the cold or by other not as nice vagabonds. Nothing was fair in this moment, no stars were aligned, no god that smiled upon them, no luck in a single charm..

At this point you were on the verge of fully breaking down at this, everything just went downhill in a matter of moments. But the second you let out a choke sob, Hobie knew what to do. You suddenly felt his hand on your jaw and he pulled you into a kiss, a passionate yet soft one. His plump lips and warm piercing against your surprised ones, you fully thought everything was over and here he was: Spiderpunk/Hobie brown, kissing you with his neck craned to accommodate your height and his other hand moving to your waist to hold your body flushed against his.

He was beginning to regret having kissed you at all since you weren’t reciprocating but those thoughts were wiped once he felt your hand move to the side of his neck and an eager response from your mouth. This felt right. Whether you were some masked street artist, The daughter of a sadistic sociopath, or simply (y/n) Osborn, and if Spiderpunk was some masked Vigilante, a punk squatter, or simply Hobie Brown, this was right.

Hobie was clearly more experienced with his kissing skills, considering the fact he probably had more than quadruple the social life you did: He at least probably had much more than double the sex life too. And it doesn’t take long for the repressed emotions, repressed love and the electric tension when you two swung through the city catches up to you two. Hobie’s tongue mixing into the kiss tentatively and his hand that was on your jaw snaking into your hair and keeping you close in an intimate yet not-forced way.

This feeling was intoxicating, finally having him close and his lips slotted in yours, fitting together like some kind of perfect pieces from different puzzles. Hobie advanced ever so slightly which made you take some steps back until the back of your legs hit the edge of the bed, he then gently pushed you back and climbed on top of you before pulling you into another deep kiss, but more greedy and ever so slightly wanton, and this change of pace made your heart begin to beat a bit more quickly with your lips hardly keeping up with his, his tongue dancing an expert tango and yours swayed a newbie ballet. He probably thought you had some kind of experience but you really didn’t, nobody dared get close to you emotionally and much less physically.

And its like alarms went off the second his hands lowered to your hips and thighs, close to the edge of the dress you had been wearing earlier at the stupid event earlier. You pulled out of the kiss and your hands almost slapped onto his in a haste to stop him, quickly muttering a quiet “Oh shit, sorry.” Under your breath as you rubbed his hands where your hand had landed on.

“You alrigh’?” He asked as his eyes looked into yours, ignoring your apology and focusing on why you had moved your hands to stop him so quickly, not wanting to move past your boundaries–he's not that kind of man, no matter how upset he was at you moments or however badly he wanted you in that moment. He was ready to put you first, you and your comfort first.[a]

“I.. I haven’t really done anything like this before.” You tell him bluntly yet a bit quietly as you averted your gaze in slight embarrassment, he was obviously a pro and an expert and here you were: Hardly able to know what to do with your tongue while making out with someone. This information clicked into Hobie’s mind and he nodded, “You don’ have to do anything you don’ wanna.” Hobie assured you as he gently put a hand to your cheek and made you look at him, his eyes boring into yours with raw concern and care.

“No no- it isn’t that I don’t want to..” Its that you don’t want to disappoint him or underwhelm him, but how the fuck do you tell him that after crying in front of him and literally disappointed him earlier when he learnt who you really were. “..I do want to, but.. I’m no model either.” You say half-jokingly to try to lighten the intense mood.

Hobie nodded again before leaning in and kissing you again, he didn’t really mind as long as you could express your limit, “Alrigh’, but if you need me t’stop, just say the word.” He reassured you while practically looking in your soul through your eyes.

He then leaned in and began kissing your neck, his hand moving to your waist while the other moved to your back and slowly began pulling down the zipper of your dress, the feeling of his touch and his lips on your neck like a kind of blue electricity that went all through you. The dress soon lowered to your waist, exposing your breasts that simply had nipple pads due to the dress having been one of cleavage, Hobie carefully peeled them off and set them aside onto your nightstand and began kissing down your collarbone with one hand already massaging your tit and pinching your nipple, his other hand working to lower the dress more. Over your abdomen, past your hips, down your thighs, and off your legs and body.

He carefully let his hands lower and gently hold the band of your fishnets and panties, but he paused as he awaited a yes or no from you, everything was going to be on your terms.

Your heart was pounding in your ears, breath slightly shaking and his hands were calloused yet soothing on your soft skin, but you wanted more and so you nodded in approval and soon enough–Your panties were gone too, your cunt fluttering once exposed to the cold air and Hobie’s hungry gaze. In a moment of self-consciousness your thighs press together, or at least you try to before Hobie stops you with his hands on your knees and easing them apart, not at all forcefully but just enough to show what he wanted.

“Do ya trus’ me?” He asked softly, the exact same way that spiderpunk did all those nights ago, his hand once that lingered too long on your hip now on your knees, showing yourself and your vulnerability.

“Never stopped trusting you.” You answered with a small approving nod.

And with that, Hobie began to pepper small kisses into the plushy flesh of your thighs and slowly inching closer to where you felt you needed him most. After what felt like hours, he finally reached the lips of your glistening pussy and his warm breath touching your puffy clit. He kissed it once before licking a stripe from your hole to your clit then latching his mouth suddenly to your bud, blissfully making out with your lips expertly like he was with your upper ones earlier.

“Oh.. shit..” You moan breathlessly with your hand knotting into his hair. His hand moves from holding you by the knee to keep your legs spread towards the hole of your pussy, easing in a finger that entered with not too much effort due to his spit and your wet arousal welcoming him. Yet your hips squirming due to the intrusion, making Hobie slow down his finger and focus on your cunt.

He slowly pumps a single finger in your pussy while licking his name letter by letter on your sensitive bundle of nerves.. H-O-B-I-E B-R-O-W-N. You quickly feel yourself get more sensitive and your hips squirm, unsure of how to react to this new sensation, his fingers reaching places you never could and much less stimulation at the same time in your hole as it is in your bundle of nerves.

You quickly come undone and your thighs almost press Hobie’s head between them, but his hand remains on your inner thigh to keep it open, lapping up your juices with his tongue flat on your cunt and his finger pumping in and out a little more before pulling it out of you and licking it clean. Something about this lewd display makes you clench around nothing, maybe it was the fact that he hardly took his eyes off of you once, studying your expression for any hesitance or regret.

He pulled up to show his raging hard-on, straining his jeans and creating a beautiful bulge. You watch as he fumbles with his belt and lowers his pants and boxers, his cock springing free and leaking beads of pre-cum, proudly standing eight inches at least, a silver Alberts piercing. He lazily strokes it a few times and aligns it lower to your sensitive virgin hole.

“Please.. Be gentle?” You request softly as you put your hand on his abdomen as if to make sure he had stopped and listened. He nodded before leaning down and kissing your lips slowly and passionately as he slowly eased himself into you with his hands moving to your hips. You felt a slight sting or burn while he pushed himself inside, yet his lips stayed on yours for you to be able to keep your focus and sounds averted while tasting yourself on his tongue. His hips come to halt once he’s fully inside, giving you time to adjust as he separated his lips from yours and waited for your green light patiently.

At the second nod of your head, he slowly pulled out and went in once again, creating a steady rhythm with his hips with pretty groans and praises falling from his lips.

“Fuck.. pretty cun’ sucking me in- tigh’ as hell.. Shi’.” He mumbled beautifully into the crook of your neck while his hips began rutting more into you, as if desperately chasing for more with his piercing stroking your spongey G-spot and his high.

You feel yourself clench around him as your orgasm washes over you once again, Hobie quickly following suit, Pulling out and stroking himself a bit more before finishing and cumming on your abdomen, his hands quickly moving to the sides of your head to stop himself from falling onto you and instead falling onto the space on the bed beside you. He laid on his side with a protective arm around your waist and held you close.

“Emily fuckin’ Osborn.” He mumbled almost to himself as he looked up at your fucked out expression, a small layer of sweat on your pretty face, normally he had fantasized of whoever you were under the mask being an expert at everything including dick and cunt, meanwhile here he was laying beside the daughter of the man he always swore to destroy.

“...Is now a good time to tell you that Emily is my moms name?”

“..wha’?”

___________________________

★| Taglist!:

@craziblondi @fodmdk123 @vinxernica @muffinlovesfiction @jane-3043 @coffeeandtealol @alecmores @azuurr3 @nyumei @noharaaa @alisoncdariel @dailyhobiebrown @malatuadimadre @ziarah @i-want-to-be-hit-by-a-car @malyjohn @horrorcore2002 @jess-fae @bluupen

@eyesxxyou

______

I’m really sorry if this is bad/underwhelming/not as good as the last one, I was really rushed and I felt bad for not getting this out sooner :(((

I love y’all so much <3

#across the spiderverse #spiderman #hobie brown #fanfic #hobie brown fanfiction #hobie brown imagine #hobie brown x reader #spider punk #insuke #whats in a name #part 2 #part 2/3 #im finally done

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lu-is-not-ok · 4 months ago

Note

wait. of we can count PAST canto boroughs then there's a bunch more we gotta consider!

I was thinking why the sapling didn't manifest earlier, would not ahab be the prime example of pride, and again the league of sloth?

but that *changes* things. we do have sinclair's and ish's Boroughs too, which I'd claim sinclair has his line lust to a T, and ahab could fit pride too, which would break a new theorem unless...

what if they unlock not for the first resonance, that one just tunes them to it. but the second? which could still fit the envy theory for it responding to Heath's Borough!

So here's how I believe the Sapling of Light works in-universe based on my previous realization and what little info we have.

We see in Canto 7 that the Golden Boughs are parasites - feeding on the desires and consciousness within the heart of whoever they're stabbed into.

I believe that there is a two step process on display here - Resonance and Feeding.

Resonance is what the Bough initially does - it attaches itself to the emotional state of someone in the vicinity and alters reality to match that state. From what we have seen thus far, it would seem Resonance may or may not be required in some way to acquire a Golden Bough, but it's unclear if it's the same as Feeding it.

Feeding is what the Bough does when it is stabbed into the heart of an entity with consciousness. We know it fed on the First Kindred's desire for La Manchaland, as we see he only becomes concerned with his hunger for Blood after he's stabbed.

I believe the process of Feeding is what enables a Bough to be used as a Sapling of Light, with the exact timing of it activating potentially being reliant on Dante in one way or another. They do have a fragment of a Bough in their head after all, one deemed so important that they're advised to kill themself to not let anyone else get it.

So, let's see what Saplings are possible.

There are three other cases of a Golden Bough being stabbed through someone's heart (well, technically four), ones we initially didn't know the effects of when they happened.

There's the Golden Bough in Canto 4, which was stabbed into both Yi Sang and Dongbaek. The former seemed to have caused a hole in Yi Sang that only Dante could see, though at that point we didn't have any more info on what that could mean. The latter would kill Dongbaek, but also seemed preserve her consciousness for long enough for her to be able to give Yi Sang a final message by the end of the dungeon.

Then there's the Golden Bough in Canto 6, which Heathcliff stabbed into his own heart as that would connect him with the Cathy lingering within the manor itself. This Bough would then be stolen by Nelly after the whole ordeal was over.

...And then there's the matter of the Canto 5 Bough. Canto 7 brings up the idea that the Bough was in the Whale's heart because it was also acting as a parasite to the Whale. However, this is much harder to judge how important that is as we. Simply don't know just how sapient the Whales are. They're eldritch entities, we don't know if they even have the kinds of desires that a Golden Bough could feed on.

So, with all of that laid out, here's every Resonated Golden Boughs by Canto so far:

Unfed, held by N Corp

Unfed, held by LCB

Fed by Yi Sang and Dongbaek, held by LCB

Fed by the Pallid While (maybe), held by LCB

Fed by Heathcliff, held by N Corp (Coffin Bough is too burnt to be used but i'm mentioning it here for completion)

Fed by First Kindred, held by LCB

We can discount Canto 6 and Canto 1 Boughs being used for Saplings of Light for now since. We don't have them. We can also discount Canto 2 and Canto 3 Boughs as neither of them got stabbed into anyone and thus would be unable to feed on any heart.

This leaves us with:

The First Kindred-fed Bough, likely fed on his Prideful dream and thus being the source of the Binah ability.

The Yi Sang-and-Dongbaek-fed Bough, which we don't know what exactly it fed on but from the fact that Dongbaek's last message was notably less resigned than she was before being stabbed and dying, it likely fed on Sloth and thus could be the source of the Hokma ability.

The Pallid Whale-fed Bough, which uhhhhhh??????????

If we ever get a Sapling of Light ability from the fucking Whale, something tells me it will have to happen after it's confirmed in universe that this is in fact how it all works. Because. What. Would that even do. What Sin did The Fucking Whale commit in its desires that the Bough could feed on. Gluttony???? Maybe??????

But yeah unless we stab the Canto 2 and 3 Golden Boughs into people to feed them, or get the Heathcliff-fed Bough back very soon, I doubt any of them are gonna contribute to the Sapling of Light for now. Rather, we might be getting a lot more Boughs in the future by pulling them out of people who are already stabbed with them.

#ask #anon #lu speaketh #limbus company #canto 7 spoilers #lcb analysis #gonna try to slow down on the analysis posts regarding this particular subject #at least for now #i don't want to burn myself out on them the way i did with ego analyses

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nayziiz · 1 year ago

Text

No Way | LN4

Summary: Lando Norris, an F1 driver for McLaren Racing, faces persistent attention on his single status. In an attempt to appease fans and quell rumours, his management suggests a fake relationship with a popular Portuguese model. However, Lando's PR manager, Natalie, disagrees, believing fans would see through the ploy. As an alternative, Lando's management notices the genuine bond between him and Natalie and proposes they feign a relationship for authenticity. Initially hesitant, they agree, given their existing friendship and professional connection. The fake relationship takes an unexpected turn as Lando and Natalie grapple with burgeoning real feelings, attempting unsuccessfully to conceal their growing emotions.

Pairing: Lando Norris x Original Character (Natalie)

Warnings: Mentions of physical and emotional abuse; SA; fluff; crash

Masterlist

CHAPTER 9

As Lando prepares for his first race back in the car since the accident, the atmosphere is charged with anticipation and excitement. The British Grand Prix, his home race, adds an extra layer of significance to the occasion. The energy in the air is palpable as the fans, eager to witness their local hero back on the track, fill the grandstands with cheers and banners.

Lando's determination is a beacon, shining brighter than ever. The challenges and uncertainties that followed the accident have only fueled his resilience. The sight of his McLaren gleaming on the grid ignites a fire within him, a renewed sense of purpose that transcends the ordinary pursuit of victory.

The moments before the race are a flurry of activity. The team works meticulously to ensure the car is in optimal condition, every detail scrutinised to maximise performance. Lando, surrounded by the familiar faces of his dedicated crew, shares nods and words of encouragement. The camaraderie is evident as everyone rallies behind their driver, each person in the McLaren garage contributing to the collective aspiration of victory.

“Welcome back, Lando. You gave us quite the scare back in Monaco, but we’re pleased to see you back and smiling. How are you doing?”The interviewer asks.

“I’m feeling great. My body’s healed up nicely. I’m very thankful to everyone who played a part in my recovery, it’s not every day that something like that happens, but everyone did their best and I appreciate that.” Lando comments, his gratitude evident in his voice and smile.

“What’s your headspace like heading into your home race this weekend?” The interviewer continues.

“It’s a positive headspace. I kind of try to forget about the last few weeks, it was beyond anyone’s control, so heading into this week, it’s pretty much back to normal. I love racing on this track, and it’s home, so that helps.” Lando concludes before returning to the McLaren garage.

Upon Lando's return to the garage, a sense of normalcy returns as he seamlessly transitions into the routine of a race weekend. Without missing a beat, he joins Natalie, and together they delve into the intricacies of his race weekend schedule. The professional camaraderie takes precedence, temporarily overshadowing the nuances of their romantic relationship within the confines of the work environment.

In the controlled chaos of the garage, surrounded by the hum of machinery and the focused energy of the McLaren team, Lando and Natalie synchronise their efforts. Their interactions are marked by efficiency, communication, and a shared commitment to the tasks at hand. The dynamics between them shift seamlessly from the personal to the professional, a testament to their ability to compartmentalise and navigate the complexities of their dual roles.

“Lando.” Adam's voice rings out from behind him and Natalie as they sieve through his social media content for the race weekend. “I need to chat with you.”

Lando, sensing the urgency in his father's tone, follows him to his driver's room. As they enter, Adam shuts the door, creating a private space where their conversation can unfold without the prying ears of the bustling garage.

“What's wrong?” Lando immediately asks, sensing the gravity in his father's tone.

“We've finally found him.” Adam informs his son, the weight of the revelation evident in his expression.

“Who? What are you talking about?” Lando questions, his confusion etched across his face. In response, Adam pulls out his phone, showing Lando a photo of a man in a club.

"Is this him?" Lando asks, scrutinising the image on the phone.

The air in the room becomes charged with anticipation as the pieces of an undisclosed puzzle start to fall into place. The photograph holds a significance that raises more questions than answers, setting the stage for a revelation that could potentially reshape the course of their conversation.

“It seems like the barman spiked her soda at the club that night. She had one drink from what I could tell, and he was the one who handed it to her. She kept her drink covered the entire time, so the only time someone had access to spiking it was before she received it.” Adam explains, referencing the night in Shanghai when Natalie was drugged and assaulted.

The room tightens with tension as the implications of Adam's discovery sink in.

“But, why? He doesn't know her, does he?” Lando continues to prod, seeking to understand the motive behind such a malicious act.

“I had a friend of a friend go by the club and speak to him. And, you'll never believe what we found.” Adam explains, swiping to reveal a photo of Lucas, Natalie's ex-boyfriend.

“No way," Lando seethes, his disbelief and anger evident.

The revelation hits close to home, and the betrayal is twofold—first by the barman, and now by someone Natalie once trusted intimately. The shock and frustration emanating from Lando reflect the emotional turmoil of discovering that someone from Natalie's past could be involved in such a reprehensible act.

“He came in the day before, apparently he knew where she would be going, paid the barman a hefty amount to spike her drink. We suspect he has some hidden app on her phone so he can see exactly what she’s doing, when, and with whom. I’ll need to get her phone cleaned. Lando, Lucas was there that night in the club. I also got a different camera angle from the opposite side of the club and it clearly shows him watching her, approaching her, and then dancing up behind her. She spins around and immediately hurries away, likely to the bathroom where she called you from. There weren’t any cameras there for us to see if he followed her again, but he just disappeared.” Adam details.

The revelation unfolds with a chilling precision, exposing the orchestrated cruelty behind Natalie's assault. The calculated actions of Lucas, manipulating the situation and exploiting intimate knowledge of Natalie's whereabouts, paint a disturbing picture of betrayal and malice.

“He's insane. He's literally insane. He claimed to love her. Who does that to someone they supposedly love?” Lando argues, his anger palpable, a storm brewing within him that his father has never witnessed before.

“Son, it gets worse.” Adam adds gravely. “He has a paddock pass this weekend.”

“No fucking way.” Lando grunts, the shock and disbelief evident in his voice.

The sanctuary of the racing world, meant for competition, suddenly feels tainted by the presence of an ominous figure from Natalie's past.

“We'll do what we can to protect her, but she's bound to run into him at some point.” Adam replies, acknowledging the imminent threat that hovers over Natalie's safety.

“Please, Dad, don't tell her. I don't want her stressing about this, with everything the last few weeks, she's had enough to deal with as is.” Lando urges his father, his concern for Natalie's well-being overriding any desire for immediate confrontation.

“Of course.” Adam agrees. “But, we'll have to think of a way to keep her safe. If he can drug her that easily, who knows what he can do here. She's by herself most of the time.”

“I'll think of something.” Lando mumbles before a knock on the door interrupts them, signalling an intrusion into the private space where they grapple with the unsettling reality that has unfolded.

The impending challenge of ensuring Natalie's safety in the paddock adds a layer of complexity to an already emotionally charged race weekend.

"Sorry, I hate to bother. Lando, we need to finalise your content, please," Natalie sheepishly explains her intrusion as she pops her head into the room.

The transition from the weighty conversation to the demands of the race weekend is abrupt, but Natalie's professional demeanour glosses over any traces of the private matters being discussed behind closed doors. The racing world, with its relentless pace, demands a swift return to the immediate tasks at hand, and Natalie, aware of the intricacies involved, seamlessly switches gears. Lando, while grappling with the recent revelations, acknowledges the necessity to refocus on the upcoming race.

“Of course, let me be out of your hair.” Adam quickly excuses himself, sensing the need for privacy between Lando and Natalie.

“Everything OK?” She asks Lando, her concern evident in her gaze.

“Yeah, all good.” Lando lies, attempting to shield her from the weight of the recent revelations. However, the internal conflict is palpable, and he hesitates before admitting, “Actually, no.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, her confusion deepening as she senses a shift in the atmosphere of the room. The veneer of normalcy cracks, revealing a layer of unspoken tension that lingers between them. Natalie, attuned to Lando's emotions, waits for him to unravel the truth.

“I may or may not have tracked down the guy who drugged and assaulted you in China, with my Dad’s help, of course.” Lando admits.

“You did what?” Natalie exclaims, her surprise and shock evident. “Why would you do that?”

“I needed to know who it was, Nattie. He could have really hurt you.” Lando explains, his concern for Natalie evident in his words.

“So, who is he?” Natalie quickly asks, seeking an answer. The urgency in her voice reflects the immediate need to understand the identity of the person responsible for the traumatic incident in Shanghai.

“I don’t have a name.” He lies. “I just know that he’s been spotted in the UK in the last few days.”

“This is actually crazy right now.” She breathes, her heart racing.

The revelation adds another layer of complexity to the situation, leaving Natalie in a state of uncertainty and unease. The lack of a definitive name amplifies the mystery surrounding the person who orchestrated the assault, and the proximity of the threat raises the stakes for both of them.

“Please, Nattie, I’m asking you nicely, please do not do anything by yourself this weekend, even in the paddock.” Lando begs her.

“You don’t think he’ll be in the paddock.” She shakes her head in denial.

“I don’t know, but I cannot risk you getting hurt.” Lando tells her as he pulls her closer to him. “Please promise me you’ll have someone from the team with you at all times, just for this weekend while we figure out what to do about him.”

“Why did you do this?” She quips, her brain digesting the fact that he had purposely sought her assailant.

“I can’t let someone get away with hurting you.” He half explains.

“Yeah, sure, but that’s a lot of effort.” She shyly responds.

“I told you I can’t lose you. Hand-in-hand with that goes a promise to protect you, to the best of my ability. Let me do that. Let me protect you and keep you safe.” He finally admits. “No matter the amount of effort, or the time, or the distance - I will do what I can to keep you safe.”

The vulnerability in Lando's plea cuts through the complex emotions of the moment. The admission of his commitment to her safety, despite the challenges and uncertainties, unveils a depth of care that transcends the boundaries of their public personas. In this intimate moment, their connection strengthens, grounded in a shared understanding of the need for protection and support.

The weight of his words hangs in the air, a testament to the sincerity and depth of Lando's feelings. The realisation that he went to such lengths, confronting a potentially dangerous individual, solely to ensure her safety, leaves Natalie with a mix of emotions—gratitude, awe, and a growing awareness of the depth of their connection.

In the midst of the chaos surrounding them, Lando's unwavering commitment to her well-being becomes a beacon of support. The paddock, usually filled with the noise of race preparations, momentarily fades into the background as the significance of their shared moment takes centre stage.

“I feel like I should write that down.” He jokes.

“Why, so I can read it when I don’t believe you?” Natalie jokes back.

“No, so I can use it in my vows one day.” He responds, causing her to smack his arm.

The banter lightens the atmosphere, injecting a moment of humour into the seriousness of their conversation

“Please, just have someone with you this weekend, especially when I’m not by your side.” He reiterates.

“I promise.” She finally agrees as she hugs him tightly.

In the midst of the racing world's intensity, their love story unfolds, marked by the unconventional backdrop of pit stops, podiums, and paddocks. Lando, with his passion for speed and the vibrant papaya colours associated with McLaren, becomes the unexpected protagonist in the romance she never saw coming. His gestures of care, protection, and understanding create a narrative that transcends the confines of a typical love story.

As the engines roar on the racetrack, so too does the beating of her heart for the man who not only races with fervour but also loves with a depth that surpasses the confines of the fast-paced world they inhabit.

- LATER THAT DAY DURING THE RACE -

A missed call from her mom causes panic to hit Natalie in the middle of the race. She knows her mom wouldn't call her at work unless it was an absolute emergency. She rushes out of the garage, leaving behind the sounds of roaring engines and the intensity of the race. The paddock, filled with people moving up and down past the garages, becomes a maze of anxious anticipation as she presses the phone to her ear.

“Hi, Mamma. You were looking for me?” Natalie speaks into her phone, a sigh of relief escaping her lips.

“Sorry, my love, it was an accident. I wanted to message you and ended up calling you instead.” Her mom sweetly explains.

“That’s OK. I just thought-” Her sentence is cut short when she spots a familiar face further down the paddock.

“Honey, are you there?” Her mom asks.

“I’m here. I have to go, though. I’ll call you after the race, OK?” Natalie quickly speaks before hanging up.

With all the people around, she had drifted a distance away from the entrance to the McLaren paddock. The paddock, a buzzing hive of activity with team members, journalists, and fans, proved to be a labyrinth of twists and turns. In the midst of the race excitement, Natalie had momentarily strayed from the familiar path, drawn by the urgency of the call from her mom.

As she hangs up the phone and takes a quick scan of her surroundings, a sense of disorientation kicks in. Racing against time to retrace her steps, she turns to see where Lucas might be but couldn't spot him amid the crowd. Panic sets in, and her steps quicken as she rushes back towards the garage. The familiar sights and sounds of the paddock become a blur as she navigates the human maze, desperate to reach the safety of the familiar McLaren territory.

Frantic and without anyone by her side, as Lando had pleaded with her, Natalie finds herself caught in a moment of vulnerability. The realisation dawns upon her—Lando knew it had been Lucas and deliberately withheld the information. The protective instinct in Lando's actions becomes clear. He chose not to disclose the identity of the person who had caused her distress, perhaps to shield her from the heightened anxiety that such knowledge might induce.

In the midst of the racing world's chaos, Natalie grapples with the conflicting emotions of gratitude for Lando's protective gesture and the realisation that there are elements of her past that still hold the power to disrupt her present. As she hurries back to the garage, the intensity of the race is momentarily eclipsed by the personal turmoil unravelling in the paddock.

- AFTER THE RACE -

“Where’s Natalie?” Lando yells as he celebrates with his team on a P2 finish in the British GP.

“No idea.” Zak yells back as the crowd keeps growing louder.

The jubilation of the race result echoes through the paddock, but Lando's elation is tinged with concern for Natalie's whereabouts. Amidst the cheers and the team's celebratory atmosphere, her absence becomes a noticeable void.

The thrill of the podium finish momentarily takes a back seat to Lando's growing unease. The question about Natalie's location hangs in the air, creating a pause in the celebratory chaos.

Lando breaks free from the crew as he rushes into the garage.

“Where’s she?” He asks his father, but doesn’t wait for a response, he just keeps running. “Nattie!”

His voice echoes through the garage, filled with urgency and worry. The celebration around him fades into the background as he searches for the one person who matters most to him. The pit lane becomes a blur as Lando races towards a truth he needs to uncover, his mind echoing with the possibility that something might have gone wrong.

Natalie is locked in Lando's driver's room, hidden beneath the massage table, when she hears Lando's voice screaming her name. The sound reverberates through the room, heightening the tension in the air. As his calls pierce through the silence, the door rattles from his attempts to gain access, his hands banging on the door, urgently pleading for her to open it.

In the confined space beneath the massage table, Natalie can feel her heartbeat syncing with the frantic rhythm of Lando's cries. The fear of being discovered intensifies with each passing second. The room becomes a sanctuary of isolation, echoing with the outside world's chaos and the desperate plea of someone searching for her.

Unable to endure the mounting pressure, Natalie decides to end the charade. She gets up, her hands trembling as she unlocks the door. The door swings open, revealing a breathless Lando on the other side. His eyes scan the room, settling on her panicked expression and shaky hands. The relief on his face is palpable as he steps inside, shutting the door behind him, creating a momentary bubble of privacy in the midst of the paddock's tumult.

“It's Lucas... isn't it?” She manages to speak, her voice laden with fear and vulnerability. “He was in the paddock earlier, and then he was just gone. Please tell me it isn't Lucas.”

The revelation of Lucas's presence and the implications weigh heavily on the air. Natalie's tears stream down her face, dampening the fabric of Lando's fireproof suite as she seeks solace in his arms.

“I'm sorry, love.” Lando breathes as he pulls her against him, offering a comforting embrace.

“Why would he do something like that?” She cries into his chest, the pain and confusion evident in her voice.

The question lingers, an unspoken plea for answers to a situation that strikes at the heart of trust and security. The weight of the revelation, the emotions swirling in the air, leaves him momentarily speechless. Sometimes, there are no words that can adequately capture the complexity of the situation, especially when faced with the shocking reappearance of someone from Natalie's past.

In the silence that follows, Lando tightens his embrace, offering a silent reassurance that transcends verbal communication. His presence, a steadying force in the midst of turmoil, becomes a tangible anchor for Natalie as they navigate the uncertainty together. Sometimes, the absence of words speaks volumes, acknowledging the depth of the emotional turmoil and the unspoken commitment to face whatever challenges lie ahead, hand in hand.

After calming Natalie down, Lando continues to debrief with the media and the team, leaving her in the care of his father. As they get ready to leave the paddock, Lando wraps his arm around Natalie, keeping her tight against him. The physical closeness serves as both a shield and a source of comfort, a silent affirmation of their connection and Lando's commitment to providing her with a sense of security.

Strolling down the paddock in silence, the night has settled, and the once-bustling atmosphere has dwindled. Very few people still wander around, allowing the couple a moment of respite amid the shadows of the paddock. Adam, Lando's father, had departed earlier to arrange additional security for both Lando and Natalie. He had pulled some strings to ensure a heightened police presence outside the track premises, further fortifying their protection.

In the quiet of the night, with the paddock lights casting a gentle glow, Lando and Natalie navigate the aftermath of the unsettling revelation, finding solace in each other's presence and the unspoken assurance of shared strength. The night air carries a mixture of tension and determination as they make their way through the paddock.

“I always thought you two would make a good-looking couple.” Lucas' voice echoes as he emerges from the shadows, stopping Lando and Natalie in their tracks. The sudden appearance sends a shiver down their spines, the past converging with the present in an unexpected and unsettling confrontation.

Lando instinctively tightens his grip around Natalie, a protective stance against the intrusion. The paddock, once a place of celebration and victory, transforms into an eerie backdrop for a confrontation that neither of them anticipated. The ambient glow of the paddock lights casts long shadows, accentuating the tension in the air.

Natalie's gaze narrows, a mixture of fear and defiance in her eyes as she confronts the figure from her past.

“There’s no use in hiding her. She’s always been a scared little girl.” Lucas continues, his words slicing through the air with a cruel edge. The tension in the paddock becomes palpable as he attempts to exert control through intimidation.

“You don’t want to do this, mate.” Lando warns him, a firmness in his tone. The protective instinct in Lando intensifies, his posture reflecting a readiness to shield Natalie from any harm.

“Oh, but I do. Because I vividly remember you staring at her, pining after her, pretty much frothing at the mouth when she was around you. Now you have her, but is she really as great as you hoped she would be?” Lucas asks. “Have you not realised that there’s nothing special about her?”

Lucas' words are laced with bitterness and resentment. His attempt to undermine their relationship becomes evident, a calculated effort to sow doubt and discord. Lando's jaw clenches, and his gaze narrows as he absorbs the verbal assault. He remains steadfast, standing beside Natalie with an unwavering determination to protect her from the venomous words.

“I think you need to leave.” Lando continues to warn him, his voice firm and resolute.

The air becomes charged with tension as Lucas takes a step closer to the couple, his actions pushing the boundaries of confrontation. Natalie, feeling the threat escalate, clutches Lando's arm, attempting to pull him back from the brewing conflict.

“And, you. You naughty little whore. Did you really think I was stupid? You got so turned on whenever he smiled at you. I should have known when you suddenly started wearing shorter skirts when you knew he’d be around.” Lucas continues, his words cutting through the air with a venomous tone.

The accusatory remarks aim to demean and shame, further escalating the tension in the paddock. Natalie, stung by the degrading comments, feels a surge of anger and humiliation. She tightens her grip on Lando's arm, seeking solace and strength from his unwavering presence.

“That’s enough. You do not get to speak to her.” Lando barks, his voice carrying a stern and protective edge.

The line has been crossed, and Lando, unwilling to tolerate any further disrespect towards Natalie, asserts himself in the face of Lucas's venomous words.

“Did she tell you she packed all her shit and disappeared in the middle of the night? That she didn’t even have the audacity to leave me in person, she left a note on the kitchen counter.” Lucas adds, his bitterness evident in every word. “She left me without any warning.”

Natalie, caught off guard by the airing of their past, feels a mixture of emotions. Lando, however, remains resolute, refusing to let the past dictate the present. He wraps a protective arm around Natalie, silently conveying his support and determination to shield her from the ghosts of her past relationship.

“I don’t blame her.” Lando counters. “You drugged her and assaulted her, and we have proof.”

The revelation of Lucas's heinous actions shifts the power dynamics of the confrontation. Lando, steadfast in his defence of Natalie, draws a line in the sand, exposing Lucas's true nature.

“I did not assault her.” Lucas argues. “She was drunk and having a good time. Who would have thought she’d be grinding her ass up against me that night and not you?”

His attempt to twist the narrative adds a layer of manipulation to the already charged atmosphere. Lando's jaw clenches once more, his grip on Natalie tightening as he struggles to contain his anger.

“Mate, take one more step and it’s over for you. Did you honestly think you could come into this paddock after what you did in Shanghai and intimidate us? I have people all over this paddock watching us right now. I have video evidence being sent to the police where you’re paying a barman to drug a girl’s drink with the intention of physically harming her. You do not get to scare her any more. You do not get to look her in the face and cause her any more trauma. Do you understand me? You’re going to walk out of here and never look back.” Lando barks with a resolute authority, his words cutting through the tension-laden air. “Leave. Now.”

Lucas, realising the gravity of the situation, begins to retreat hastily. The collective eyes of the paddock, now aware of the unfolding drama, follow his every step. The atmosphere is charged with a mix of tension and anticipation as security guards shadow Lucas's exit.

“Get the fuck out of here.” Lando repeats, his voice cutting through the commotion.

The authority in his tone demands compliance, and Lucas, with a resentful glance back, continues his retreat, disappearing into the shadows of the paddock. As the tension gradually dissipates, Natalie looks up at Lando, a mixture of relief and gratitude in her eyes.

The distant wailing of police sirens grows louder, signalling the swift response to the emergency call. Within moments, uniformed officers arrive on the scene, taking control of the situation. Adam provides the evidence they gathered, including footage of Lucas orchestrating the drugging at the club in Shanghai.

Lucas, now surrounded by law enforcement, is met with stern faces and handcuffs. The seriousness of his actions sinks in as the officers read him his rights. The arrest is swift, and the atmosphere in the paddock shifts from tension to a sense of justice being served.

Natalie watches from a distance, her eyes fixed on the unfolding scene. Lando stands by her side, a protective arm around her shoulders. The weight of the recent events slowly begins to lift as they witness Lucas being led away by the police.

Lando, having fulfilled his promise to protect Natalie, looks down at her with a reassuring smile. The wheels of justice are in motion, and the dark chapter of Lucas's actions is now transitioning to a resolution that ensures accountability.

As they drive back to the hotel, the quietness inside the car is a comfortable one, devoid of tension and anxiety. The events in the paddock have left an emotional residue, but the shared silence between Natalie and Lando carries a sense of mutual understanding. The soft hum of the engine and the gentle rhythm of the road serve as a backdrop to their contemplative thoughts.

Lando occasionally glances at Natalie, his expression a mix of concern and relief. He reaches over and gently takes her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Natalie, still processing the recent confrontation with Lucas, appreciates the warmth of his touch.

The city lights illuminate the night, creating a calming ambiance within the car. The journey, though marked by the unexpected encounter, becomes a moment of reflection for both of them. The emotional rollercoaster they've been on seems to slow down, allowing them to catch their breaths.

In the dimly lit hotel room, the soft glow of the bathroom light spills into the space. Natalie takes a moment to compose herself, the echoes of the recent encounter with Lucas still lingering in her thoughts. As she emerges from the bathroom, she finds Lando sorting through their luggage.

Feeling a mixture of emotions, Natalie decides to embrace the solace of Lando's presence. Without saying a word, she walks over to him and wraps her arms around him. Lando, attuned to her unspoken feelings, reciprocates by folding his arms around her waist. In the quiet intimacy, he rests his head against her neck, offering silent support.

A moment of stillness hangs in the air before Natalie, moved by the comfort Lando provides, retracts slightly. Without a word, she pulls him closer and seals the moment with a sweet and reassuring kiss. The exchange speaks volumes, conveying a shared understanding and a connection that transcends words.

“What was that for?” Lando whispers once she pulls aways from the kiss.

“It was a thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for what you did.” She murmurs, her words carrying the weight of deep appreciation.

Lando, understanding the sentiment behind her actions, tightens his embrace and responds with another tender kiss.

“And, I’ll do it again. No questions asked.” His commitment to her safety is unwavering. “You know I love you, right?”

Natalie's heart skips a beat at Lando's unexpected confession of love. The shock registers on her face as she gazes into his eyes, trying to comprehend the depth of his feelings. The weight of his words hangs in the air, and a mix of emotions swirl within her.

In that moment, the room seems to hold its breath, enveloping them in a cocoon of shared vulnerability. Natalie, caught off guard, searches Lando's eyes for sincerity and finds a sincerity that resonates deeply with her own emotions.

“You do?” She asks shyly.

“Of course, I do.” He informs her, his voice soft and low as he caresses her cheek. “How could I not?”

She presses her lips to him once more as they shuffle towards the bed. She pulls him down on top of her, her legs instinctively wrapping around him as they continue to kiss. In the intimate embrace, their lips meet in a dance of shared emotions and newfound revelations. The room, once filled with tension, transforms into a haven where unspoken feelings find expression. Lando responds to her kiss with a gentle passion, savouring the warmth of the moment.

As they continue to kiss, a sense of comfort envelops them, transcending the events of the day. The weight of recent challenges begins to lift, replaced by the tender connection they've discovered. In each other's arms, they find solace, understanding, and the promise of something deeper than the complexities of their fake relationship.

The journey from pretending to love to acknowledging true feelings has unfolded in unexpected ways, leading them to this intimate intersection. The room becomes a sanctuary for their unspoken emotions, and time seems to slow down, allowing them to savour the sweetness of the moment.

---------------------------

Taglist: @noneofyourfbusinessworld @scopeiguess @tbsloneely @secretgal66

#f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 imagine #formula 1 #lando norris #lando norris fanfic #lando norris fic #lando norris smut #mclaren #mclaren f1 #lando norris x oc

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the-fandom-crossroads · 6 months ago

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Just read through A Glitch in Time for the first time and it woke up the Danny Phantom brain rot. I came up with this world building head cannon but I have no idea if it's already been thought up in the years since I was last in the fandom. So I figured I'd share it and see if there's like already fics or posts about it.

No A Glitch in Time spoilers in this!

So my idea is that the Ghost Zone isn’t so much another dimension but instead another location in Earth’s dimension. Specifically the liquid mantle of Danny’s earth isn’t made up of magma but instead ectoplasm. The Ghost Zone is the center of their planet.

That’s why if you blow up the center of the ghost zone the human world goes too. Or if you hit the human world with an asteroid the ghost zone goes. Because the human world is just the outer shell of the ghost world.

Fell down a rabbit hole and apparently this is already a physics question? Link It’s called the Shell Theorem and basically you’d float anywhere in the hollow shell planet because you are being equally pulled from the edge closest to you and farthest from you. In our case the hollow shell if filled with ectoplasm instead of like empty air.

It would explain why gravity is “optional” in the zone. Because the closer you get to the gravitational center the more the rules of gravity get wonky. If you’re standing on a floating rock in the zone there’s gravity to hold you to the rock, but jumping off of it means you just float there. The ghost zone rocks move because earth is spinning and that shifts around the ectoplasm soup the lairs are floating in.

The Ghost Zone is usually depicted with a spiral or spherical layout. Newer lairs farther out and the oldest lairs farther in. I know there’s already headcanons about what’s at the center or core of the ghost zone. But the point is everything in the zone is floating around this central point making it very easy to move the ghost zone map into the center of a globe. Easier than saying it’s a parallel dimension when one is confined to a flat plane and the other builds upward and outward in all directions. The infinity map always confused me with that fact that it's a flat scroll instead of like Treasure planet’s space map.

When someone dies the intangible soul is no longer anchored to the surface of the planet. The Soul is pulled through the solid crust layer pulled towards the center of the planet and if they have a strong enough “purpose” they gather enough ectoplasm to form a ghost around that core purpose. If a ghost core isn’t formed to collect ectoplasm around the soul to form a ghost body the soul gets pulled all the way to the center of the planet where it stops because gravity is pulling it equally from all directions. All the souls clump together to form KINGDOM HEARTS!!! Sorry wrong fandom. But it probably holds onto the souls until a new body is born in a form of reincarnation. Jack NightingGale is my only point for this. But like it’s literally Jack Fenton only 200 years ago.

Ghosts that finish their unfinished business or “fade” simply release their soul from their ghost cores so they can return to the core of the zone and rejoin the reincarnation cycle again. You don’t want to carry hangups from your past life into your next one so the zone is supposed to be a chance to work through those. That’s why even tho ghosts don’t “die” of old age there are more young ghosts than older ghosts.

The reason ghost activity was low to non-existant before the Fenton portal is because of how much energy/ectoplasm a ghost had to use to get through the solid crust layer. There isn’t a lot of ectoplasm on the surface usually so they couldn’t replenish what they spent on the trip. You had to be an insanely strong ghost or save up a large amount of ectoplasm to be able to make the trip and then make your form visible and physical on the surface. So the only ones who did were ones that had to come up because of their purpose which leads to the assumption all ghosts have “unfinished business”. They also had to pick and chose what they spent energy on. Physically touching things and pushing things over, or being transparent and slightly visible to the living. Willowisps or floating balls of light were only their cores visible with the ghost not having the strength to form a full body of ectoplasm in the human world.

Natural portals were basically random volcano explosions and rarely used because you didn’t know when the eruption would end. If the portal closes and you’re stuck on the surface you might not have enough energy for the long way back. Also they spit you out in a random location and time. Any ghost with a strong desire to return to the human world have a specific place in mind.

Amity Park is YellowStone. A place where a pocket of magma in this case ectoplasm is extremely close to the surface. The Fenton’s poked that pocket otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough ectoplasm for the portal to pull from initially. That’s why the college portal fizzled out so quickly it pulled in all the nearby ectoplasm and then just died off like a fire without wood. The Amity portal is a geyser spewing ecto energy into the town and an Express Elevator all rolled into one. Ghosts can now make it to the surface without spending all their ectoplasm to do it and then there’s enough ambient ectoplasm to keep them stable for a while before having to return to the Zone. So weaker ghosts like the lunch lady and box ghost use it. Ghost animals like the ectopi and Cujo use it. Ghosts like Ember and Skulker who could feed their obsessions just fine in the zone use it cause at the end of the day there’s more humans than ghosts on the planet.

But the “nice” ghosts stay in the zone because they don’t feed on feelings that are hard to get. Frostbite “feeds” on the feeling of safety or calmness of his tribe. There is no reason to leave the far frozen to accomplish this so he doesn’t. Pandora doesn’t feed on emotions but her soul purpose is to protect her box so no one ever opens it again. Again no reason to leave the zone.

The Next bit got a little rambly with me explaining my thoughts on ectoplasm=calories for ghosts and how that affects fights and danny’s powers. So I’m just gonna like make that a second post? Sorry this one got long.

Tldr; What if the ghost zone was the liquid mantle part of Danny Phantom's Earth?

Like I said I don’t know if folks have already talked around this idea. Heck I might have read a post about it years ago and forgot. The main headcanon I remember is the spiral ghost zone where lairs spiral out from the center of the zone like a galaxy. But I know the Phandom has combed over every frame of the show at this point. So I’d love it if ghost planet core headcanons are already out there and yall can share some links. Or if there’s any thoughts you’d like to add to the idea. Please do!

#danny phantom #ghost zone #dp headcanons #phandom #a glitch in time #i don't know what else to tag sorry #this all snowballed from thinking about how hades and hell are supposed to be below the earth #i then fell down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out #what would happen gravity wise if you were inside the earth #and oh look shell planet is apparently a thing that exists #either way guess i'm writing headcanons for the dp fandom again #i'll make the ghost calories post tomorrow lol

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dvilsdesire-a · 2 months ago

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// Now that I am somewhat settled in a bit more to the house, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me the other day when I wasn't feeling great <3 I think seasonal depression just kind of kicked in as well. Christmas is always a bit depressing and lonely for me as I live interstate and my partner's family is all still in the US. It's just us, and that's okay! but I do miss feeling like Christmas is Christmas.

I also wanted to actually say happy new years to everyone as well, and a big thank you for sticking by me.

Last year, I decided one day that I was randomly going to make a Haarlep blog after I was stalking some article about Raphael on the net, and hadn't yet KNOWN about the HoH and what happened (I was only in Act 2 at the time, but I already had my eyes set on Raphael lol). I went on YT and I watched the Haarlep encounter, and I laughed, and I thought this is amazing, and then I couldn't wait to encounter him in game.

This was entirely a case of "I didn't choose the muse, the muse chose me." Haarlep and I honestly just... clicked. I was in a pretty low place for a long while previously, especially since tumblr RP had generally been very slow since I used to RP in the DA fandom. Unfortunately, 10 years gone without any new things, and as an old timer in the fandom, it had died off exceptionally, and every time I went on my dash, it was just depressing and a ghost town. Everyone I knew pretty much moved on save for a couple of us, but even then, we were all so quiet and had all of our own real life stuff happening and other special interests starting to take over.

So I dabbled in the BG3 community with Sornin and made his blog, but Sornin is such a drastic change from my Inquisitor, Kaaras, who I had spent YEARS writing and crafting, delving into deep metas for him and putting a lot of heart and soul into him. Seriously, guys... if you know me from the DARP community... or if you were active like a good...7 years ago? I'd be surprised if you hadn't known Kaaras. He was a big muse with a lot of traffic, and I had multiple (amazing!) people tell me that he was their canon Inquisitor for their companion muses. The love I have put into him as a muse and character was well worth every bit to share that love in the community. He was a hero, and a big soft, lovable ram.

Sornin was everything that Kaaras wasn't, though. Sornin is a tough muse to write because he's very antisocial and doesn't really care to interact with others. So even though I had found comfort in a new fandom and RP community, Sornin didn't quite give me the unf I once had.

Then all of a sudden... Haarlep just... consumed me. He was this bright little ball of energy and fire for my soul, and this muse that I just was like omg should I? I'll probably write with like... 2 people with him, but that's okay! I was so fucking wrong.

Haarlep took the damn stage, and I have met SO MANY amazing and wonderful people through writing them. This wasn't a character I thought I would spend HOURS studying and delving into, despite the fact that we only see TEN FUCKING MINUTES of them on screen. But here we are, months later, and I'm so, soooo happy that I made him and that I've met so many of you through this silly incubus <3

Suddenly, I was writing replies almost every day again. I was scrolling my dash every day, loving and sharing content, and sending in silly memes. And I won't lie... if I hadn't started writing Haarlep here, then I doubt I would have started writing my long fic Raphlep series (which is now on 36 CHAPTERS!???).

So I just wanted to say, thank you all so, so much, for not only making me feel welcome when I joined a new community to RP in, but for putting up with such a naughty little gremlin of a muse and allowing me to throw Haarlep at you and getting all of that pent up energy out that he has in my brain, lol.

For weeks, I had wanted to make a Raphael blog, but I was too anxious and nervous, and insecure with writing a character that was so poetic and well spoken (and that I didn't KNOW a lot of lore about since the world of DnD is SO large). Haarlep was sort of a stepping stone I wanted to make to TASTE how far I could go and see if I could close that gap and finally write Raphael. But let me tell you, this damn incubus entirely stole my soul, and the centre of the stage. But I am thankful, so, so thankful, because without them, I wouldn't be learning more, reaching out more, and overall being creative again. <3

I hope to continue getting to write with you all in the new year, and I hope 2025 is kind to us all <3

#ooc #tbd

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arttrampbelle · 1 year ago

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Shang tsung x reader hcs

Reader is gn

*note: this isn't mk12 shang. Never will be. So.....sorry bout your poor taste in shang tsung iterations. Imagine any other version of shang. Thank you.*

Cw:mentions of nsfw(nothing heavy),fluff,mentions of a s/o who self harms and has mental illness/depression.

🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍💚🐍

Shang Tsung with a s/o that is.....

Shang tsung with a kind,sweet,gentle s/o. One that is shy,maybe a bit more of the demure side. Or even just a person who isn't an assertive type. Either way a s/o that is more softer and sweeter. A sweet gentle soul. Shang tsung would absolutely love you. It's a breath of fresh air to him. To come home to a gentle energy. Someone he can look to and see innocence in this cold and unforgiving world that is MORTAL KOMBAT. to him,you are his sanctuary. To him you are the closest to heaven he will ever get. And he is so so grateful for that.

Shang tsung with a more spunky,energetic and lively s/o. One who is active and maybe bounce off the walls goofy. Just a jovial little imp you are! One who shitposts memes at 3am and major crackhead energy. (I love you people fr) you are an absolute delight. You Make him laugh till his sides hurt. He's never felt like this in decades,centuries even. Never have you made him feel so alive,so youthful,and full of surprises. He loves your energy. He feels while your behavior can be annoying af at times. He appreciates your sincerity and despite the darkness around you you still find humor and life in everything. He has major respect for that. (You n johnny cage maaaaay get along. But hey i hc shang's cool with johnny,but like a silly puppy and moody dad kinda friendship. They could kill each other but they'd rather talk about kung fu cinema) you are absolutely precious to him.

Shang with a more aggressive,assertive,and angy(?) S/o. Maybe someone prone to easily be angered. Or even someone willing to throw hands and give out a can of whoop ass. Oh thank the elder gods he doesn't have to defend you! Not that he minds,he does love the praise he gets for that. But he feels relieved that you can handle yourself. Not to mention,its kinda hot to him when you get angry. Not at him of course....then again....the thought has crossed his mind....anyways. shang tsung loooooves sparring with you! Unf it's his bread n butter. He feels so alive with every kick and punch you throw. He always is sad when you are done tho. He always craves more. But both of you im sure are busy. But he loves you just the same.

Shang tsung with a s/o that is moody,sad,battles with depression,maybe self harm? He would be extra careful with his beloved. He would check in on you regularly. Pay extra special attention to your needs and make sure you take any medication you need to take. He would teach you techniques to help ease your inner demons. As he understands that struggle. He absolutely knows what to say,what to do,and how to help you. And if he can't help you. He will find someone who can. He will always be there to comfort you and give you advice when you need him to. He may be a dark sorcerer,but he is ruthless. NEVER HEARTLESS. especially with you. He loves you. And doesn't want to lose you. He cherishes you so so much. So whatever battles you face. He will be at your side,to crush any foe or neurosis that stand in your way to glory!

Shang tsung with a s/o that loves to cook. Omfg have his hand in marriage already! You make such amazing foods. Even if its simple. Even if it's just the most basic ass shit. The love you put into it. The fact that you even bothered to give him foods he loves! Unf. This man is over the moon! He absolutely loves you cooking for him. Better if its homemade,and a personal recipe. He absolutely loves you. He may even help you cook. Bonding time.

Shang tsung with a s/o who is chubby,thicc,and got some rolls on them.(this is gn but this is especially for fem persenting peeps. I see you. I got you!) Oh my god he would adore you. He loves your voluptuous curves. He loves how you always seem to look so flawless in everything. And even if you dont feel that way. He still loves you. Because he fell for your soul....not your body honey. Tho...he'd be foolish not to admit. He loves hanging onto every inch of you. Dragging his claws from his gauntlets across your skin. And the loveable little squees you make in response. Hee hee. What can i say my mans a glutton for a teasing. >:3c. But shang would absolutely adore you. Softness and sweetness. Perfect.

Shang tsung with a s/o that kinda is awkward with themselves. Not hating themselves,just awkward. He would totally gas you up! Especially if you get flustered and blush. Fave pastime is making you blush.

Shang tsung doesn't care about where you come from. Ethnicity,nationality,realm. He loves it all. He doesn't care. The man is 500yrs old. Do you think he gives a rat's ass?! Hell no. He would absolutely love to learn about you. He loves to learn. Knowledge is power. And what better way than to gain it by your side. He's stubborn but not to the point of reluctance to learn fron others. Sometimes he knows but not the extent. Sometimes he'll be surprised. Either way. He loves you. (Idgaf why would shang care about your ethnicity? Like there's so many different people in mk rosters anyways. So any x readers from any character that had this was dumb to me,and childish. Black,white,asian,American,European,lizard,shokan,dragon,rabbit person,mortal,immortal,doesn't fucking matter. If shang tsung likes you and wants to peruse you. He fucking will. And nothing will stop him if he genuinely loves you,unless you give him a reason not to. Which you wont. Also if shang genuinely loves you he will show it differently than if he's trying to gain something from you and get you riled up or if its not genuine. Biiiig difference but that's for another post)

Shang would love you in your best and worst of times. During the lows and the highs. He's in it for the long haul. He doesn't play when it comes to the matters of the heart. He's all in or nothing. He wouldn't bother perusing you if he didn't think you two would be in a long established relationship. Marriage or not. He is loyal to his beloved. Only to his beloved. He's a snek to others. Not to you. He'd burn all the realms to see you safe and happy and loved. He'll die for you,he'd kill for you. Either way what bliss? He's absolutely over the moon for you.

Shang tsung is basically a martial arts master asian gomez in love. Whatever and however you are. He will absolutely love you. Cherish you. Treasure you. Every moment. Period. I don't make the rules. He loves you sorry. And you are his,heart AND soul. uwu.

Hope y'all appreciate this. I wanted to make this to say basically tldr. Shang tsung loves you no matter what. And idc what people say.

💖💅🏻💋��🐍🐉🏝

#mortal kombat #shang tsung #self shipping #shang tsung x reader #shang tsung mortal kombat #mortal kombat x reader #villain/antagonist f/o #villain f/o #shang tsung loves you no matter what personality you have no matter what you look like he fucking loves you ok?!#like if anyone says otherwise i will personally throat punch them! shang tsung loves you!!!!#my mans is top notch husband material and that's on that fight me!#the only thing that you gotta deal with is he's a villain and he's a dark sorcerer and you're in mortal kombat so yeah danger zone #but if you can handle that you gucci honey 💅🏻💖#shang fucking loves you #mk x reader #mk shang tsung

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blemiria · 2 years ago

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that one line in lone trail

hello welcome to "she promised she was gonna go tl some fic but then got sidetracked thinking about lonetrail again and is now here" I want to go ahead and do a more comprehensive post talking about the three's relationship in detail with what happened in lone trail but uhh

I don't have that kind of time to reread it because I forgot which stories contain the parts that I need lol. So without further ado, lets spoil CW-ST-4

The title is "Pushing open future's door" and serves as the epilogue of lonetrail. Unlike most events, lonetrail actually has two post mission stories! CW-ST-3 is unlocked after CW-10 so you know this event is insanely long (iirc this is around the same character count as chapter 8, which is insane. This event is gonna be a monster to read through when it comes to global, I look forward to seeing what translation decisions they make so I have stuff to talk about haha). Also we get to see a hint at a professional relationship between Nastja(no I am not calling her nasti/nasty, I'm fairly certain they were going with a Russian name and Nastja was the closest)

Most of this epilogue is centered around Kirsten, now alone having won in her ideals and preparing to go to sleep. It's a very touching moment where her electronic system goes through her entire ship shutting off each room one by one, until she is left in her room where she is going to hibernate, given a couple minutes before that room will activate she records a log.

It's relatively simple, probably the most direct we will get from her talking about her philosophy and thoughts on society, wanting people to understand themselves, others, society, and where they are in the universe in order to determine how they should move on.

In the last minute she goes a bit more personal which is really what I care about. She comments on how the plants are still alive to her surprise, and laments being unable to give Muelsyse the data on them. It's a nice touch! She stayed with control, helping her the entire way, and it's clear that Kirsten means a lot to Muelsyse too given how close they were in the past between all three of them.

The very last things she says are directly to Saria.

In Kirsten's whole life, there were only two times where she felt truly alive. The first time, Saria, was when I took you back home, and on that hill I told you the start of everything. The second time, is now, when I have completed my parent's dreams. The seeds of what happens next, is only the beginning. On a clear night, find an open field and set up a telescope, there will be a star in the sky twinkling for you.

Then, goodnight, the sirs and madams of Terra.

goodnight, universe.

yeah just stab me will ya. I don't think there is any really other way to read this other than a goodbye letter to Saria, one that she will tragically never really get to hear (I think?). The long relationship they shared, the last line about the star twinkling for her is just so strong of an indication of just how deep they were intertwined together.

Actually, lets spoil CW-10 end too, just to see how even after Saria left Kirsten knew she could rely on Saria in the ways that it counted:

Saria... You always wanted me to take a good, clear look at this vast land. I saw it. It is also...very beautiful. You will take care of it and nurture it's people in my stead. I always knew this. Same as before, same as always. As for me... I was not really the type to lead people forward step by step. I was just a pair of eyes. A pair... to look up at the deep space in place of the people of these lands

It's probably the only way she knew how to move forward into the future, especially after she met Friston and had those conversations. Funnily enough after seeing the same kind of behaviour in some of the tech circles I am in... This kind of "I don't think I'm suited for leadership yet here I am" problem is real, and quite prevalent amongst the science types who just want to do their thing unfortunately. It's shocking almost how well this trope was written for Kirsten though I feel like I'm staring at a picture of some people I know of irl who are in the same situation.

Kills me how close Kirsten puts those in her heart yet keeps them pretty far away at the same time tbh

#saria #kirsten #arknights #muelsyse #lonetrail #i feel like i said a whole lot of nothing #oops #i hope the tl stuff was pretty insightful though!#im undecided if this counts as a divorce #is kirsten leaving saria #sure #but this reads more like a hero going to their final stand knowing they won't come back saying their final goodbye to their s/o #but thats not like a divorce #...right?#kirsten relies so much on saria even after she's gone god

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idliketobeatree · 1 year ago

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There are so many ways Aziraphale can go about as the Supreme Archangel now, and I've realised I want it all.

Being all in charge, bossy and bitchy and hurt, not taking anyone's bullshit anymore? Unf. Being incredibly insecure and flustered, not accustomed to Heaven's rigid ways after thousands of years spent on Earth, uncomfortable with the spacial office and the impersonal white desk? Trying to liven it up by putting up a souvenir, and then finding it has disappeared overnight? Gimmie. In the official meetings, actually chiming in with suggestions only to be shut down and realising his position doesn't change the angels attitude towards him? Trying a different approach instead of just being nice - commanding? Resigned? Assertive? Breaking down after a late night meeting, finally alone, with tears in his eyes and hiccups and sobs, because he... doesn't know what to do? Utterly ruined and cannot-stop-thinking-about-Crowley, plagued by the memories of what he gave up, and for what? P l e a s e. Distressed upon hearing about the Second Coming, then figuring out a plan to save them all, that may or may not include a certain demon? Scheming behind everyone's backs and lying to their faces because, well - "what are you going to do, fire me?". Trying to contact Crowley every way he can - through the celestial phone, through Muriel, actually going down to Earth to watch from a distance, or just observing the space where he'd be on the globe. Or maybe actively not. seeking. him. out, shutting down every possibility of connection, because if he gives in, he won't have the strength to carry on anymore.

God, give me Aziraphale re-evaluating his relationship with Heaven, with the angels, with himself. He's capable of so much power, let him use it. Let him be sure. Let him be horribly mistaken. It's going to be delicious, I know, I will eat this all up.

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ic4rus24 · 1 month ago

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Th heat beats down on me in waves one after another i hear a feint beeping or was it a chirping? I couldn’t tell the world was fuzzy to me i was slowly regaining consciousness

S.H.A.C : DANGER DANGER ITS REALLY FREAKING HOT IN HERE

The winey metallic voice of the back up AI slowly stirs me from what i assume is a concussion

S.H.A.C : LEITENENT ALTAIR DO SOMETHING PLEASE I DONT WANT MY GARDDRIVES TO BE MELTED AFTER JUST WAKING UP I HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR ITS UNF-

Altair: would you shut the fuck up Shac

I press my hands to my temple the fuzzy feeling slowly clearing away

Altair: status report what happened to me?

S.H.A.C : YOU MEAN WHAT HAPPENED TO US YOU FLEW RIGHT AGAINST A COLLAPSING SUN FOR PETE SAKE YOU DUMBY YOU GOT HIT WITH DEBRI AND SWALLOWED KNTO THE EVENT HORIZON

I start to look around the ship for the most part seems to be intact flashing lights show some damage on the outer haul but nothing major as of right now

Altair: Shac ship status please and stop yelling your going to make this headache worse

S.H.A.C: *hmph* the ship is 80% intact we lost a fuel bay so we are at 50% fuel capacity woth about a few hours of flight begore we run oit and inevitabley die well you at least ill just be floating in space alone

Altair: thank you capitan positve you just fully of help but thank you are we still in the Hyendual syste

S.H.A.C: did you miss the part where i said we were sucked into a BLACK HOLE

Altair: noted..

the heat was starting to get to me so i start moving the ship away from the sun we were thrown at luckily the ships heat shields activated sensing the extreme temperatures but they wouldn’t hold for long

Altair: i need a scan of the area so we can at least figure out where we are

Commander Orion will get a kick out of this story, speaking of commander i should try and reach out i pick up the clm device

Altair: this is Lieutenant Altair mark I4 i am stranded out in a unknown system dose anyone read me

S.H.A.C : oh yea comms are down too whoopsie

Altair: damn it Shac

I slam down on the com device and take in my surroundings for the first time fully. In the distance i see the black hole that spat us out it looks about a lightyear away or so maybe longer definitely dont have enough fuel for that journey theres 3 planets that orbit the sun ones this yellow and orange hue ones is pire green and the last is.. purple??

Altair: Shac what dose your scan say

S.H.A.C: my scan says we are lost and are hopeless

Altair: great just.. just great

If i can mange I’m fixing the primary AI before j die at least it would do its job properly

Altair: just scan those planets for me please im going to look over the ship to see if we can get coms online

(Just wanted to start on a little story i wanted to write out mainly what ill use this account for to post blurbs of this series and my girlfriends amazing series yes shes will read this :3 MWUAH i love you baby)

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greatbigbellies · 1 year ago

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2023 PREGNANCY KINK ADVENT CALENDAR (DAY 17)

McPreggo Mukbang Pt 3.

Pregnant with quads, overfull of amniotic fluid, and stuffed with multiple meals worth of fast food, Penelope wasn’t going to get anywhere quickly. Still, despite her heavily pregnant weight, she fought against gravity to try to stand up. She needed to test something.

She grunted deeply as she shifted forward onto her feet before slowly standing fully, her belly jutting out far in front of her. It hung so far forward that it completely blocked her view of the keyboard that was on her desk. She breathed heavily as she supported her extremely heavy belly with her hands, smiling halfheartedly at her camera as her chat exploded. She read none of it though as she instead relayed instructions to her viewers, now broaching the 1000’s.

“I’m going to turn by back to you guys, I need you to tell me if I look pregnant from the back,” she said, before rotating. She didn’t turn especially fast due to her weight, but the length of her belly still made it look like it swung quickly around. She faced away from her camera, holding her belly for about 5 seconds, before slowly turning back. She glanced at the flood of messages in the affirmative. Apparently her belly was so wide that you could clearly see the sides looming out, even from directly behind. She turned again, 90 degrees, to give her viewers a profile shot. “How overdue do I look right now?” she asked.

“Really really overdue.” “That’s the biggest tummy I’ve ever seen!” “Like you might fall over.” “Like a year pregnant.” “Penelope I think you might just be pregnant call it a hunch.”

Penelope read the chat, and caught a glimpse of herself in her streaming software. She was shocked that she could even stretch this far. She huffed as the strain of standing began to mount, and she dropped down into her chair again. The pood gamer chair creaked in protest under her immense weight, enough that she held her breath, afraid something would snap. When it didn’t she exhaled slowly and looked at the remaining nuggets. 12 measly chicken nuggets were all that remained of her mukbang, and she was ready to call it a day.

She reached for them before pausing, and looking at her monitor. She silently scrolled through the online menu before stopping on the nuggets, wanting to know what she was getting into. “Okay so, these are going to make the quadruplets I’m carrying 12% heavier, and… 24% more active. Good ones to end on I guess. I think 12% more weight and I would have fallen over. Lets see how they taste,” she ate a single regular nugget, and a single spicy one too. She chewed each thoroughly, really focusing on the flavors. “I mean, they’re chicken nuggets, they’re not the more complicated thing in the world. Still, they’re pretty good! I mean, the seasonings are nice and I will say that the spicy nuggets do have some heat. Nothing too intense but like… they’ll make your mouth tingle,” she said, before downing the other nuggets in rapid succession. Even after all of that food, and being so enormously pregnant, the nuggets were tasty enough that they disappeared quickly.

Penelope winced as one of the quantum babies in her womb began to squirm. Then the other, then the other, then all 4 were kicking and shifting enough to be visible from the outside. “Okay tha- UNF, that menu lied this is way more than 24% activity, they’re going crazy in there!” she complained, trying to shift in her chair but failing. “...and I feel more than 12% heavier, someone can’t do math,” she grumbled. Her chat pipped up again, reacting to the movement.

“Wow they’re really schmoovin’ huh?” “I’ve never seen it like that from the outside,” “Y’all seen the alien movies?”

“What does that feel like?”

Penelope panted slightly, the weight, and movement, and girth of her massive pregnant tummy was becoming overwhelming. “It feels like… I dunno, it’s just these heavy bodies moving around, independently of you. It’s really freaky, feeling something move inside you that ISN’T you,” she trailed off, staring down at her exposed, undulating belly.

She was massive. She was carrying four full sized eight pound babies inside of her, which were all moving, and even with the extra fluid from the polyhydramnios, still felt packed tight in her womb. Her belly skin was stretched tight, angry red stretchmarks adorned her curves. Her belly button poked out slightly, actually haven flattened with the addition of baby number 4 as she stretched too tight for a proper outie. Her tummy was wide, bowing out to the sides and brushing against the arms of her gamer chair. The entire thing was huge, heavy, and active.

She just sat, silently, staring at herself. Her chat peppered her with messages, but she missed them all. She swept her hands over her tummy. She pulled them down to her underbelly, giving her tummy a slight lift before letting it drop. She took in the texture of her stretchmarks, and ran her thumb over her belly button. She felt a tiny foot kick into her palm.

It was finally clicking, somewhere in her, she liked it. Some part of her was thoroughly enjoying these sensations. She felt almost overstimulated, and yet somehow almost yearned for more. She felt one of her babies lurch in her, and her stomach, despite all she’d put in it today, growled.

“So, uh, I’m going to take a little break, so use this time to get a snack or use the rest room. I think I’m going to… place a food delivery order.” she said, finally glancing up at her facecam. “I hear their milkshakes are very, very good,”

#2023 pregnancy kink advent calendar #long post #writing #mcpreggo

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theunfairmaiden · 2 years ago

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Family: Moments from Episode 10 that permanently altered my brain chemistry where they're just doing cute family shit

I promise I'll get to a more in depth look at this episode eventually, right now I just need to revel in the stuff that warms my heart before I address the absolute HEARTBREAK of that episode.

The fact that Rei joined in on the excitement for their last day together melted my heart. Not to mention that he insisted they have fun when Kazuki was down and he was trying to cheer him up. Rei really stepping out of his shell for their last day with Miri just unf

Papa Kazuki doing papa things with Miri. Look at how happy Miri is to be having fun with her papa.

Family climbing. Miri loves her papas so much. I love that they really embrace their family and do activities together.

WHEN KAZUKI SAID "OUR GIRL" I ABSOLUTELY LOST IT THIS IS SO PRECIOUS

Rei being goofy and dancing with Miri. Just doin their thing, playing video games together. He adores his daughter sm

They watch her so intently I can't. I love how much they adore her.

Papa Rei is so good! And clearly Miri has been picking up some pointers because she came in 2nd place and Kazuki is over there upset in 12th place lol

A happy family watching the beautiful view on the ferris wheel. I just know Rei and Kazuki were wishing that their time on that ferris wheel would never end. For them, this Ferris wheel was scary.

"I'll see you tomorrow Papa!" NO YOU WON'T MIRI. NO YOU WON'T.

"Guess we weren't able to change." NO STOP, YOU BOTH CHANGED SO MUCH WHAT DO YOU MEAN

The fact that we got to finally see Rei and Kazuki fully step into their roles as Miri's papas in episodes 7 and 8 after facing their demons and ultimately deciding to return home to their family; and then see them fully embrace their family in episode 9 only for it to be TORN APART in episode 10 is SO UPSETTING.

I have to hold out hope that this will turn around and they'll be able to get Miri back again. I honestly don't trust Misaki, sorry not sorry lol I just can’t believe that we’ve had this fun, bright, cheery show for 2 months just for it to end on a low note. It’s an action comedy – it’s not supposed to hurt this bad pls

#Buddy Daddies #Rei Suwa #Suwa Rei #Kazuki Kurusu #Kurusu Kazuki #Miri Unasaka #Unasaka Miri #Kazurei #Anime #Weeb #Buddy Daddies Spoilers #Buddy Daddies Ep 10 #Papa Rei #Rei Papa #Papa Kazuki #Kazuki Papa #Ship #Family #Found Family

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therecipecollector · 5 months ago

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Sourdough Popovers with Whipped Honey Cinnamon Butter

Ingredients:

Sourdough Popovers:

3 eggs, at room temperature 1 cup milk of choice, at room temperature 1/2 cup sourdough discard or unfed sourdough starter (active starter will also work) 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup all-purpose flour

Whipped Honey Cinnamon Butter:

1/2 cup salted butter, at room temperature 4 tbsp powdered sugar 2 tbsp honey 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven and muffin tin:

Spray a muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray, and place it on the middle rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400F while you make the popover batter.

Make the sourdough popover batter:

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs. Then, add the milk, sourdough discard, and salt. Whisk until just combined. Whisk in the flour until the large lumps are gone, being careful not to over-mix. Transfer the batter to a large measuring cup or glass.

Divide the batter in the muffin tin and bake:

Once the oven is preheated and the muffin pan is hot, remove it from the oven. Working quickly, divide the batter evenly among the muffin wells, filling almost to the top. Bake at 400F for 30 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.

Prepare the whipped honey cinnamon butter and serve:

While the popovers are baking, make the whipped honey cinnamon butter. Place the butter in a medium bowl. Using a hand or stand mixer, beat on high for 2 minutes. Then, add in the powered sugar, honey, cinnamon, and vanilla extract, and beat on high until well combined and fluffy. Save some at room temp to serve with the popovers. Then, transfer the rest to a jar or container and store in the fridge. Remove the popovers from the oven, let cool in the pan for about 2 minutes, then remove from the pan and transfer to a wire cooling rack. Serve warm with the whipped honey cinnamon butter and sprinkle of flaky sea salt. Enjoy!

Credits: wellmadebykiley

#baking #recipes #bread #sourdough #honey cinnamon butter #appetizer

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cameronfrye666 · 6 months ago

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How I Unf*cked Myself (a digestive health story)

TLDR (yes a very long TLDR, but this post is proportionally long)

Chronically fatigued and sick as a kid

Repeated courses of antibiotics (probably 20+) and 2x Epstein-barr infection between age 8 and 17

Around age 18 started noticing really weird food intolerances

Couldn’t drink alcohol without insane hangovers lasting 2 weeks+

Couldn’t consume foods high in refined sugar without going into days-to-weeks long episodes of hyperactivity, insomnia & extreme stress

Felt relatively shit eating most carbs

Tried fixing with diet change and vitamin / mineral supplements. Helped some symptoms but didn’t fix the issue.

Tried fixing with various probiotics. Incredibly mixed results - eventually found a regimen that worked for a period of time but, again, didn’t fix the issue.

After a hellish reaction to prebiotic fibre supplements, consulted a gastroenterologist and was diagnosed with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, Gut Dysbiosis and an active H. Pylori Infection. Significant Improvement of symptoms following:

10x 14 days Rifaximin (550 mg 3x daily)

H. Pylori Eradication Regimen (one week amoxicillin, clarythromycin, metrodinazole and omeprazole)

2 years of:

Keto / SCD Diet

Either Candibactin AR&BR, FC-Cidal, Dysbiocide & ADP supplements, or Allimed Neem & Cinnamon, alternating every 2 months between them (two caps of each product 3x daily).

Occasional use of natural motility agents depending on symptoms (ginger / artichoke formulations and iberogast).

This whole process sucked beyond description, if you have gut / digestive issues it is probably affecting your general health & wellbeing more than you realize.

Intro

I don’t really have anything left to say other than that it was a more painful experience than I think I could ever accurately describe. Gut health seems to be one of the last remaining big frontiers of human health, and I hope they figure it out so no one has to experience this again. I am still moderately lost in the issue but it has at least gotten a lot better recently.

Story

The Descent

February 4th 2012 is a day that I will likely never forget for the rest of my life. I woke up from a relatively short and disrupted sleep around 10am. A close friend of mine who had slept over the night before was sitting on the living room couch watching The Social Network with my dad. It seemed a sensible, logical thing to join them. So I sat down on the couch, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t. It's hard to explain exactly why I couldn't, but I just felt this immense inability to relax and settle down. Every bone in my body was vibrating, like this immense persistent energy rush.

I had also had a fair amount of red bull and other sugary soft drinks as mixer the night before, so I chalked this feeling up to a sugar / caffeine spike and decided to try and get on with the day. I had some breakfast, got showered etc., attempted to do some school work and participated in a family Sunday dinner. By about 10pm it began to become clear that this feeling of immense overpowering stress was not dissipating; if anything, it had gotten worse.

The next two weeks were an incredibly disorienting, painful and confusing experience. Rather than alleviate, the symptoms more or less persisted, although they would ebb and flow throughout the day. I started to notice that I felt the best first thing in the morning (important to note that "best" is a very relative term here) and worst from the late afternoon into evening, with a notable spike directly after dinner hour. I was living in a complete fog. I lost all emotional contact with the world around me. All I felt all day was this persistent restlessness and stress and a complete inability to get rid of it no matter what I did (showering, watching movies, lying down in bed etc.). I just felt like someone had mainlined adrenaline into one of my veins and wouldn’t turn off the tap. It is the most excruciatingly painful thing I have ever experienced, or think I am ever likely to experience. In some way, it is almost impossible to explain in normal words.

It was at the end of these two weeks that I finally decided to consult a doctor. Everyone here will likely be unsurprised to hear that he suggested I was suffering from a temporary bout of anxiety. Although I have certainly been anxious about my fair share of things in the past (studies, personal relationships etc.), I could feel that this was something quite different. On top of that, there was just nothing in my life bothering me at that time. I had great friends, had already been accepted to the University of my choice and was staring down the barrel of four months of school where my academic results didn’t matter anymore and then a three month summer break. I was offered some tranquilizers or anti-anxiety meds for my symptoms, but I wasn’t really interested in trying them as I wanted to get to the root of whatever the issue was.

The only other suggestion he had for me was to maybe take a look at my diet. He noticed I was twitching a lot and I offered that I had recently suffered some bad muscle cramps as well, so he suggested that after a bout of mononucleosis earlier in the year and a long winter with little sun, I may be deficient in a few things. He prescribed me a short course of magnesium and vitamin b-12 supplements and sent me on my way.

Over the next month, with the supplements only sort of helping and with me still watching my life essentially completely fall apart around me (barely able to attend school, permanently unwell, chronically stressed, insomniac etc., almost complete loss of social life) I consulted a few more doctors. They more or less all had the same response: you can try antidepressants and/or tranquilizers, but otherwise, sorry, we can't help you. A few also questioned the nutritional supplement prescription.

It was at this point that I started to feel I was more or less on my own in whatever this was.

Part II: Ascent #1

The three months following the initial onset of my symptoms were probably some of the worst of my life, which, considering everything I’ve experienced over the last decade+, is really saying something. I was in a completely emotionally disconnected state, basically felt only stress on a daily basis, and had no idea what was going on.

The only real nuggets of information I had that I trusted were that (i) it might be nutrition-related and (ii) caffeine and/or alcohol were clearly bad for me. I started doing a load of research into what causes nutritional deficiencies and imbalances, how to correct them, and what a healthy diet looks like. Prior to this I had been more or less unconcerned about what I ate or drank in a day, although my diet was reasonably healthy mostly just due to my mother's cooking.

My readings on diet led me to make a few changes. First, I changed from a magnesium oxide supplement to magnesium bisglycinate, for better absorption. Then, I switched to an entirely refined-sugar free, whole grain diet high in unprocessed meats and vegetables. Lastly, I started taking almost nightly electrolyte salt baths (either epsom salt or dead-sea salt).

Although none of these changes cured me by any means, very slowly, I started to feel somewhat better. I could feel moderate improvements on a daily basis. Some days were better than others, but overall things were on an upwards trend. From this point onwards I became almost completely convinced that my symptoms were the result of a nutritional imbalance and that I would cure them through diet and supplementation.

Then, something very strange happened, which, in retrospect, should have pointed me in the direction of my ultimate diagnosis. I went into hospital to have my tonsils removed (as mentioned I had been very sick as a kid), and when I came out later the next day I had a very strange level of emotional clarity. Somehow everything was less painful, and although the crazy stress symptoms weren't totally gone, the improvement in just 36 hours felt drastic. At the time I thought maybe it was painkillers I had been given, perhaps the IV drip they put me on post-op? In retrospect, it was most definitely the high-dose amoxicillin I had been taking since the operation for reasons I can explain later on.

Part III: Stasis #1

That summer things more or less stabilized. Nothing was ever quite as good as the days and week following the tonsillectomy, but the insane debilitating stress didn't come back either, so overall I couldn't complain. From a mental point-of-view I was sort of able to return to normal life other than having to watch my diet and avoid substance. I started university in the fall and was successful despite the obvious social constraints that came along with my new health regimen.

The years following this were pretty up and down. I was able to get through my university courses, have some semblance of a social life, and never returned to the manic stress state of my initial descent. That being said, I never felt "quite right" again. It is hard to place, but my health just still felt very poor. I had low energy, slept a lot, often felt quite irritable, and had very poor performance in sporting activities despite previously being a strong athlete.

The main salient point that came out of this period was that I started to notice that high-sugar foods could bring on shorter-term episodes that mimicked the time period of the original onset of my symptoms. In one instance, I almost failed a university exam after consuming a jelly-filled donut the day before and becoming almost literally incapable of processing information for a few days afterwards. Suffice to say, I completely cut sugar from my diet from this point onwards.

I also tried a few Myers' cocktail IV drips (basically a mix of magnesium, calcium and b-vitamins) during this time period as part of my thinking on the issue being caused by nutritional deficiency. I would feel pretty great for a few days following them (improved sleep, able to focus while studying, good energy for exercise) but then go back to my same poor-health state afterwards. This only compounded my belief that the issue was purely nutritional in nature. Alongside this I consulted some nutritionists and diet specialists, and they recommended me some further supplements and dietary changes, but none of it made that overwhelming of a difference compared to the changes I’d already made.

Part IV: Descent #2

For four years life went on in the position described above, at least from a health point-of-view. I had found a regimen that kept me functional and stable, and for the most part stuck to it and tried to forget about it all and get on with life. It was great to find some stability, but at the same time as an early twenty-something in University, having to stick to a pretty strict diet and lifestyle just wasn’t all that much fun.

So somehow I got the idea in my head that having found this stability, I must actually be cured of whatever it was and could go back to eating & drinking whatever I wanted. I got an 8-month research placement in France in 2016 and decided that I would just let loose and enjoy myself during that time. Upon arriving I quite quickly returned to being totally free with what I consumed, although perhaps still went light on very sugary foods. For the first few weeks, I felt great. I mean maybe not totally physical well, but it was just so mentally liberating to not think about this stuff anymore. I had a lot of fun going out with my new roommate, going on dates and just living life in a more free way.

Around the second month of being there I started to notice some chronic unwelness creeping back in. My sleep was starting to become quite poor, I had terrible focus at work and wasn’t accomplishing much, and would feel really unwell after most meals. I ignored it for a while.

By the third month, it was almost panic stations again. I don’t know why I didn’t react to this sooner, probably I was just trying to deny how bad it was getting again, but by mid-March (I had started worked in January), I was bordering on being physically non-functional again. I couldn’t do much other than spend most days in bed when I wasn’t at work, felt constantly agitated, was achieving essentially nothing on a daily basis (thankfully I was working in a French R&D centre where very little was happening at the best of times), and just felt constantly ill. It was not quite the return to the extreme stress of the first episode but I was still really unwell and uncomfortable most of the time.

I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I knew I really didn’t want to do another 6-months of diet control just to get back to a sort-of sufferable health state, so I started coming up with ideas for a quick fix. The only thing I really had was that those IV cocktails had made me feel pretty great, and since I was still in this mode of thinking it was all due to nutritional deficiency, I hoped that might be an easy solution (the logic being that alcohol and poor diet had lowered my micronutrient levels and I could just reverse it). It seemed this wasn’t available privately in Paris, so I went to London for the weekend just to get one.

What happened after that infusion is one part of this story that I still do not understand whatsoever. Within hours of getting the Myers drip, rather than feeling great, I felt catastrophically unwell. I did not sleep that whole night and for most of the rest of the weekend, and returned to Paris in a complete fog. The feeling persisted for some weeks. I have a few ideas of what it could have been - too much B-complex which can give you energy rushes, some kind of micronutrient overdose / toxicity since I was still taking lots of supplements on top of the IV at that time, or some kind of immune reaction - but really I don’t know. Suffice to say I never took one again.

Part V: Ascent #2

The terrible reaction to that IV drip started to put the idea in my head that maybe this whole thing wasn’t just related to nutrition and / or a micronutrient deficiency. So I started doing a lot of searching online about what else can affect digestion, intolerance to certain foods, and associated unexplained chronic health symptoms. The thing that kept on coming up was the gut microbiome. I had heard of probiotics before, and knew that yoghurt was supposed to help your digestion, but outside of that I was pretty uneducated. All I could really tell was that it might be worth a shot trying a probiotic supplement to see if it would help.

So, being me, I went online and found the strongest, highest-dose probiotic supplement I could find, or at least on amazon.fr . It was the Renew Life Ultimate Care probiotic with a dose of 200 Billion live cultures (I didn’t know about vivomixx and other 400Bn+ clinical products at the time). The night it arrived, I popped a dose and went to bed, and then another first thing in the morning. By the time I had eaten breakfast and arrived at work around 9am, I felt violently ill. I was sweating, had a pounding headache and felt like I was going to vomit at any moment. I managed to hold it together for the morning, barely managed to stomach lunch and then went home as soon as people started to leave (around 4pm).

I immediately went to google and started searching for what could cause this, and the main thing that came up was something called the Jarrisch-Herxheimmer reaction. I’m not sure what the clinical validation for this is, but the general understanding is that when something starts killing off pathogens in your body (which probiotics will do when they enter a pathogenic environment), they release toxins and inflammatory cytokines (can do a search yourself) into the body / bloodstream and you feel really unwell. Basically you are starting a fight between good & bad bacteria in your body and you feel the effects of it.

In some sense I was kind of excited that this had happened. The fact that I felt so violently unwell from taking probiotics perhaps pointed to the fact that I did have some kind of gut issue, which was a potentially useful revelation, although in the meantime I still felt horrendously ill. Most advice indicated that the reaction was temporary until you got “over the hump” but by day 7 I was still sick and things were only getting worse, so I stopped taking the pills altogether.

After looking into how I could manage this better, it seemed like low-dose pills or small amounts of probiotic foods could be a way to manage the reaction while still improving, and as there was a health food store on my street, I decided to start experimenting with Kefir. The first night just to see I drank 2 cups of the stuff and of course felt violently ill again. I then embarked on a months-long journey of upping my dose from just tea-spoons to being able to tolerate about 1/2 to 1 cup per night.

Within about six months I was able to dose freely with Kefir, and was eating other probiotic foods like sauerkraut and kimchi, all to positive effect. I managed to return to school following the end of my research placement, and although I still didn’t feel great, I would say I had made it back to another “stasis period”.

My next hypothesis for improvement was to switch from probiotic foods to a supplement again, although just because it was simpler to take than cups of kefir and / or plates of sauerkraut every night. I experimented with quite a few that I found online. I tolerated most of them that had a dose of 100Bn bacteria or less, although somehow still felt better eating the fermented food. Eventually, I tried the Renew Life Mood & Stress probiotic (no longer in production) because it had some strains that were clinically proven to reduce stress levels, which had been one of my main symptoms in bad periods, and it seems to work quite well. I wouldn’t say it completely changed how I felt on a daily basis but it kept me stable to the point that I could stop having to drink Kefir all the time and things felt mostly alright. I felt as if I had found the answer at least for a little while.

Part VI: Stasis #2

This period was the longest in this whole mess. For six years from 2016 to 2022 I just took my daily probiotic supplement, kept a fairly clean diet, and once again got on with life. In this time I graduated from University, moved cities within Canada, and then moved to London to found a start-up which I am still a director of (it has nothing to do with gut health). Until 2018 I would occasionally drink when social engagements came up, but I still always felt somewhat sick after. After feeling ill for almost two weeks after drinking heavily at a company Christmas party, I gave up alcohol entirely. I also never really returned to high-sugar foods for how unwell they had made me feel in the past and also just lack of need (I always found not drinking much more socially inhibiting that not eating deserts and the like).

It was in the spring of 2022 that, after 5-6 years of stasis, I once again became fed up with the whole thing. I was a young professional in my late twenties at this point and just didn’t understand why I had to take a probiotic supplement (of which I could only tolerate doses on the lower end) and eat a strict diet just to feel somewhat normal. I had considered longer-term solutions like getting a Fecal Microbiota Transplant to try and solve the issue once and for all, but most things like that were only offered privately, were expensive and the providers that did exist seemed a bit suspect (most FMT-type treatments are only available in clinical trials or for C-dificile infections at the moment).

Somewhere in here a nurse I spoke to at an FMT clinic I had called told me to try going keto and see if it helped. I did it and felt pretty awesome for four months but lost a ton of weight (I was already very skinny) and found it very hard to maintain (especially socially). I eventually gave it up returned to a whole-grain high-protein diet.

Part VII: Descent #3

After considering various options of how I reasonably could take action to improve my health and general life condition, I came up with the solution of finding a Nutritionist experienced in gut health issues. I had spent a lot of time avoiding medical professionals after my initial bad experiences with doctors and nutritionists either not being able to help or actually being actively unhelpful by questioning all of the symptoms and whether my reactions to foods were just psychosomatic, but I decided it was time to try again. I found a registered dietician in London who also had a PhD in gut microbiome research, which seemed like a great fit.

I shared my whole story with all of my symptoms and current condition, and although she had some questions about my sugar reaction and some of the weirder extended stress symptoms, she mostly accepted the story and that I clearly had some kind of untreated gut health issue. Her recommendation was that my diet was already positive (although could try introducing a few more carbs) and that the probiotic I was taking was as good as could be recommended by current knowledge in the field (noted that it is generally quite personal which ones work for some people and others not, and they don’t really know why).

In terms of path forward, she recommended that I try introducing some more prebiotic foods and potentially a prebiotic supplement. Going down the list of my daily diet, it was already quite prebiotic / fibre-heavy, so we decided to try a supplement. The idea is that the prebiotic fibre helps feed and grow more of the probiotics you are taking in the supplement, and will improve your gut health.

I started taking a daily dose (12g) of inulin, the best-validated prebiotic supplement available. The first few days I didn’t feel great and had pretty upset digestion, but nothing crazy. After about 3-4 days, I started having a reaction similar to the first time I ever tried high-dose probiotics. I felt pretty spaced out, generally ill, and hadn’t much appetite or desire for food. I interpreted this as being another Herxheimer reaction, so decided to stick with the supplementation. After about 1 month I still felt really unwell. Most days were a struggle to get through, I was in a total fog, and felt a lot of the extreme stress sensitivity of my initial low-points creeping back in. I spoke to the nutritionist and we decided that I would reduce my inulin dose or stop taking it all together. I reduced my dose by 1/2 and then by 1/3 but still felt increasingly unwell, so two weeks later stopped taking it all together.

The next month was very uncomfortable. I felt quite ill most days, had general nausea / feelings of disorientation, wasn’t really tolerating most foods, and wasn’t sure what was going on again. In a last ditch, I decided to stop taking all supplements (at this point just my daily probiotic). For about two weeks after stopping the probiotics I didn’t feel all that different, but then somewhere around 12-14 days in, things started to go seriously south. Day by day, or even hour by hour at one point, I started to feel things degrading at first back to the all-day stress symptoms I had in the very beginning of this whole journey, and then to a version like 100x worse than that.

At one point I didn’t sleep for almost five days. My heart was permanently bounding out of my chest, and I was just in excruciating pain every single minute of the waking hours. I had to quit my job for a period of time, and my life was otherwise completely turned upside down. Without going into too many specifics, as I have tried to focus at first on the health aspect here, this is also the closest I came to thinking that perhaps life had just not really worked out for me and it was time to consider giving up on it. For whatever reason I still don’t completely understand, I stuck with it and suffered through the worst.

The greatest intensity of these symptoms lasted for about a month. I went back on the keto diet just because I had felt well on it in the past and didn’t really know what else to do, and after 5-6 weeks I was able to return to work, although only part-time, and somewhat get a handle on my life. I still felt pretty unwell most of the time, and had become quite isolated personally and socially because of it, but at least it felt like the adrenaline tap had lowered a bit and I could mostly suffer through each day.

From a health-hypothesis point of view, I was a bit at wits end. I had contacted the nutritionist again and although she agreed the prebiotics can cause an adverse health reaction in some individuals for reasons not well understood, she didn’t really accept most of what I was saying around the extreme stress symptoms returning, and seemed a bit doubtful of me and what I was presenting. I decided that was about as far as we could continue together. Although I don’t deny I was in a terrible mental state at that time (which would be the case for anyone given the circumstances), I was completely convinced, and am unwavering to this day about the fact that the principal source of my issue was a serious, unadressed physical condition.

Part VIII: Ascent #3

All I felt I really had left was to go to a hospital and just accept whatever treatment they proposed (whether tranquilizers, sedation, some other drug or therapy I wasn’t aware of) or lay it all out for an experienced gastroenterologist / digestive specialist and just see what happened. I had often thought of seeking a specialist doctor, but was wary as pretty much all GPs and other doctors had been quite dismissive of my symptoms and assumed condition in the past. Here, however, we were quite literally in the “nothing to lose” position. With how things had gone the last months and my current life situation, I felt that if I didn’t fix this once and for all there was quite little point in continuing to live.

Luckily, I am at least somewhat a person of means, and in the UK there is quite an availability of private medical specialists who will see you for a cash fee. I went to one I had found from a private doctor review website who seemed to have some experience in chronic digestive and gut health issues. I explained to him this entire story, perhaps not quite in such detail and with such emotional weight around specifics of how bad it felt, but largely my reaction to certain foods, how I had tried to manage it over the years, and my current situation.

Firstly, he broadly accepted most of what I was saying, which was quite relieving in the first instance. His answer, although inconcrete, was that digestive health is, even for him and other experts, a very poorly understood area. He couldn’t say exactly why this was happening to me, but if I had the time and money he was willing to start looking into it with me and see if there were any potential solutions. For the first time, I felt as if an established member of the medical community was accepting their own blind spots in whatever this issue was , and willing to try and help.

His first suggestion was to run some tests to rule out more common and well-understood digestive disorders like Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. These all came back negative. Upon these results, he suggested that given my reaction to the prebiotic fibre and previous reaction to carbs and high-sugar foods, the most likely explanation was a chronic case of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth or SIBO. The way to diagnose would be a sugar or lactulose (another prebiotic) breath-test, and the treatment being a course of a choice of antibiotics to wipe out the overgrowth and try to correct the dysbiosis (gut microbiota imbalance).

I was quite open that I didn’t really feel comfortable trying a sugar or prebiotic-fuelled test at that time, given how precarious my health and life position was and my previous reaction to both of those substances. He suggested that since the point of the test is to see if either the sugar or lactulose cook up any bad bacteria and produce gas, and I had already shown a very negative anecdotal reaction to both with associated gas production, he was happy to just prescribe an empirical dose of the antibiotics.

This is now going back a bit, but as a child I was given a tremendous amount of antibiotics. I am fairly convinced that that is what caused all these issues for me, or was at least the main contributor. So naturally I was a bit wary of another doctor giving me more antibiotics, although I trusted this new one quite a lot. I eventually found online that there is some validation of natural antimicrobial and anti fungal substances being helpful in treating overgrowths and gut dysbiosis, so I decided to explore those options first. They are mostly all formulations of herbal oils and concentrates. It’s the sort of thing I would have been quite skeptical of before all of this started, but at this point I had had so many unexpected negative and positive reactions to different foods, supplements and treatments that I was more or less willing to try anything.

The best validated one is called Candibactin. It’s a combined treatment of mostly Oregano Oil and a Chinese Herb called berberine. I ordered some online and decided to give it a whirl. By my third dose, I was having an extremely intense version of what I experienced when I first took probiotics. Persistent headaches, sweating, lack of appetite, general unwellness and pain. It felt like an extremely intense flu and at some point I felt like I was spiking a fever. I chalked this up to the Herxheimmer reaction again and stuck with it. Once again, by about day 7, the symptoms were still extremely intense and I had to give up on the treatment. Interestingly, although I was in extreme discomfort, my digestion had normalized in this time (I will spare you the description). I didn’t really know what to make of this but it is interesting that the supplements had at least done something.

Following the experience on the herbal supplement which I had no desire to repeat for the moment, my symptoms somewhat stabilized although didn’t return to what they were prior to starting them. I wouldn’t say I felt notably better or worse but just “different”. I decided it was time to give the pharmaceuticals a go and see if I could tolerate them or if they were helpful in some other way, so I took a two week course of Rifaximin (the drug they give for SIBO). Being on Rifaximin was an extremely painful experience, but not quite as bad as the herbal supplements so I managed to push through it and by the end it had had quite a positive effect on me. I still didn’t feel great after the Rifaximin, and continued to work only part-time, but it had definitely done something.

Somewhere in here I also commissioned a microbiome stool test, which showed I had a quite significant dysbiosis (low levels of lactobacilli with almost undetectable levels of bifidobacterium, and a strong overgrowth of H2S-producing pathogens). It also showed I had an active H-Pylori infection and extremely poor absorption of fat and other macronutrients. Off the back of it the gastro prescribed me a triple-course of antibiotics to clear the H-Pylori and attributed the poor absorption to persistent SIBO. The triple-therapy for H. Pylori was a horrible experience and I actually ended up in hospital and was told to stop taking one of the drugs (Flagyl / Metronidazole) because it was giving me tinnitus, insomnia and general disorientation, which apparently can be a side effect, but the treatment otherwise worked.

After this latest course of antibiotics, I was, as before, not in a life-ending position, but my health was still quite bad. I was not accomplishing much at work, and I had essentially no social life. I decided something had to change, so I told my work I would take two months off after Christmas and do whatever I needed to do to solve this thing. The two remaining options I had before me were to try the herbal formulations again, or eat a completely liquid diet for 2-3 weeks to try and starve the pathogenic overgrowth (actually a clinically validated method of treating SIBO).

I first tried a fat-based version of the elemental diet first (most are sugar-based and I didn’t want to test that again), but it caused extremely painful stomach-burning feelings, which apparently can be caused by caprylic acid in the MCT oil it is primarily composed of, and I stopped after two days. After meditating on it for about five days I decided to just re-start the herbal formulations and endure whatever pain it caused me until this thing was hopefully cured.

So began two years of varied supplementation and antibiotics. I switched off the Candibactin formulation at one point to another called FC-cidal & Dysbiocide, as is recommended to avoid building resistance, although this is less common with the natural products, and also took multiple further courses of Rifaximin as things weren’t progressing as quickly as I’d hoped. The experience was painful but in different ways than it had been the first time around, and also took a lot longer than I expected, although I suppose after 10 years at it that shouldn’t have been surprising. I am not entirely sure why being on the herbals the second time around was less extreme than the first. I don’t know if they were less effective than at the first exposure, or that something about my situation had changed, but it was different in some way. It’s also worth noting that pretty much the whole time I was taking the herbal supplements & Rifaximin I stayed on a Keto or SCD diet (specific carbohydrate diet, basically no starches and reduced carb), although I’ve moved off this in recent months as I’ve started to feel better.

Part IX: Today

Something seems to have worked. I can’t point to it concretely or specifically, I am not a microbiologist or a gastroenterologist, but my life feels so much better now than it did when all this kicked off, and I feel very positive about the future. I am actually back on a 3-month course of Rifaximin that my gastro has prescribed me at the moment to see if we can totally kick the issue, and will probably follow-up with some kind of diet / supplement regimen for some time after that, but either way my symptoms are so much improved by what I've done in the last two years that that feels like a success. I can't say that the problem is gone forever or would never come back but I definitely understand it a lot better and have a lot of tools to make sure that my life doesn't fall apart again like it did those last three times.

I still don’t really know what this all means to me personally. The process of getting better (trying the prebiotic, having my health collapse, taking the various pharmaceutical & herbal antibiotics) almost destroyed me as a person. At some point I had distanced myself almost completely from my job, my girlfriend at the time, most friends and pretty much any semblance of a normal social life or any life at all. For the better part of a year life was really just an existence of suffering every day and hoping to make it to the next one. Despite that, and that of course things always can or could have gone differently, I unfortunately feel as if at a high level I had no other choice. I was completely unwilling to spend the rest of my life living below my full potential of enjoyment, and was always going to do whatever it took to get there. I am sometimes shocked that I managed to survive all of this, but I am here, still living and will try to deal with whatever the experience has done to me in the same way I dealt with the issue itself: by living it, experiencing it day by day, not turning away from it, and knowing that no matter how dark the world can become, so long as you are still here, it is not really over.

Although the physical symptoms were and have been excruciatingly painful, one of the most difficult things about this whole experience has been the level of misunderstanding and invalidation, both from the medical community and from some friends, family, other personal acquaintances and the general public, around what happened to me. I understand that it is a difficult story to follow, but unfortunately it was all very real and somehow I managed to find a route out of it for now. One day the medical community will figure this out and understand what happened to me and others like me (because they are also out there in very sad corners of the internet - links below), and share it with the world to build our collective understanding and compassion. Until then it is strange to be one of the few people to know all of this and what this experience feels like and has felt like, but I am trying day by day to come closer to people and understand why we aren’t yet equipped as a society to address these kinds issues on multiple fronts. I don’t blame anyone for not understanding what was happening to me, but the few who did and were willing to listen at the time are angels and I’m not sure I would have gotten through it without them.

Eventually I hope I will fully recover from all of this. Physically, mentally, emotionally, because it has touched every aspect of my life over the last twelve years. Until then I am just here living every day in this strange situation of being a survivor of such a horrible, confusing and largely misunderstood problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ibs/comments/jpkol3/how_probiotics_destroyed_my_health_long_storyrant/

youtube

#SIBO #guthealth #Youtube

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