#wanted to get this out there because its been a month since i updated it oops

[celestie0]

hi my friends! hope you're all doing well. just wanted to come on here and share a little updates w you guys (if you're still here lol)

i guess it's been like a month n a half since i formally went on hiatus, and it's been nice! i got kinda sick for a little bit lmfaooo which was tough to manage w school, but i'm better now

although i took time away from my blog, i still delved in writing here n there. i haven't written anything for kickoff since tbh i'm in such a slump w it. but i still have big plans for stuff that happens after ch13, so hopefully i can just push through this next chapter and get to a better place. thanks so much to anyone that is still interested in the story, it means a lot to me. i know i'm so slow w updates and the story has been going on for almost a year now, but the continued support is so sweet! even though i didn't work on writing it these past one n a half months, i still really love it and plan to finish it.

i'm not sure if many people remember that i had this sort of "apocalypse" gojo x reader au about an asteroid being set to hit the earth in three days, and reader n gojo are ex lovers n the impending end of the world makes them break no-contact...yeah i finished writing the first chapter for it and i really love it so far! it's like set in new york which is really fun haha i love stories where new york is kind of its own "character" if that makes sense...it will definitely be a limited series w only 4 chapters or so, but i kinda wanna finish all 4 chapters before i start posting it bc i don't want it to be a drawn out series in terms of posting since i think it'd be best enjoyed in frequent succession if that makes sense

as for ihm, i think i wrote the most for ihm during my hiatus. i finished three chapters for it, but they are shorter chapters (around 3-4k words). i kinda realized one of my biggest reasons for burnout w my fics were the reaaaaallly long chapters...like didn't i have a 22k chapter for kickoff or sumn lol. idk i can't remember. but anyways, yeah the mindset behind the longer chapters was bc i liked each chapter to kinda have its own conflict, build up, tension then resolution in a sense. but it was exhausting to write that way tbh lol. so i think moving forward, for ihm, i will have shorter chapters. i just don't wanna think to much about things anymore, and write from my heart, bc i have a lot of things planned for ihm, and among the criticism i've received for my writing choices vs my own vision for the story, i've realized during my hiatus that the only way i can finish ihm, or any of my storeis for that matter, is if i just.........stop giving a fuck about it. lol idk if that sounds strange to say, but like, i don't want to over-edit anything. i don't want to think too much about redundancy. i don't want to flower things up or cut stuff out. i'm at the point where imma just write a first draft, check for grammarly errors, and then post it. i guess the reason i'm sharing this is because idk if this means that people may enjoy my writing less since i will admittedly be spending much less time on it than i did before, but tbh i realized i find the most joy while i'm writing, and not while i'm editing. so i want to spend as little time on the latter as possible, and if that changes the quality of my work, then so be it.

anyways, hmm as for hiatus. i guess i'm off hiatus now? i really enjoyed being off of tumblr tbh this app has a lot of questionable content at times (esp in jjk community) and it also did wonders for my studying bc i wasn't spending time doomscrolling or shit posting anymore lmfaooo. but as for writing in particular, i think i will start to post ihm again exclusively. i can't say anything about kickoff or my other projects, but i feel comfortable to start posting ihm again.

sorry, i know that i have kept my replies and ask box off for a long time. but i will open them again once i start posting chapters because i really miss interacting with you guys.

anywho, these are my updates lol i'm like not sure how many of my readers are still here or which ones have moved on but that's ok, i'm grateful to anyone n everyone. hope to see you all soon again!

[canmom]

canmom.art is well overdue getting updated with a lot of posts on here. it still doesn't even have the music theory series, for example. plenty of other posts, book crit and such, needs to go on there. rpg posts are woefully behind current thoughts on all that.

unfortunately this seems to be slipping into the 'bin of large imposing tasks', which i rarely open, instead apparently preferring to say something about AI or some shit, which is easy to start doing.

the habits need to change. my relationship with reading and posting on this site (and other social media feeds like youtube) is not healthy - projects I want to continue have been backburnered for months of years, new ones barely get started, my work is not doing great rn. and yet it seems to represent something I need, because I keep coming back here for many hours when I planned to do other things.

I have tried other approaches, like keeping a personal journal that nobody else will read, but somehow I come back here, maybe because I will get a number for my trouble. the exact number isn't that important, if it isn't zero - sometimes it's less than 20, sometimes it's like 60, these are about equally satisfying. the rare numbers above 100 can be pleasing, but also slightly worrying, since they are more likely to bring in someone who comes in hot with an angry disagreement.

I do however have a lot of admiration for (presumed to be) autistic people who define their own little web corner full of blog posts, fiction, art, comics, manifestos etc. etc. etc. on all of their projects and scattershot interests. Jennifer Diane Reitz is the prototypical example. Schuschinus and xrafstar are powerful examples in the artistic sphere; floraverse is a more community-shape one; qntm is a more normie-aligned one; todepond is a newer flavour; bogleech is borderline, hewing a bit close to a consistent listicle Content(TM) flavour. they might deliver fiction, essays, or some other stranger thing. sometimes the material is quite inaccessible to outsiders, or requiring immersion in an insular but devoted community, but these are not totally inaccessible - they aren't timecube style crank websites. other times it goes to great pains to lay it all out and be somewhere you can get lost, and yet can't help but have its own specific character. it must be at least a little intriguing. you should be saying 'what's the deal with this' - it must have its own deal, but the more inscrutable the deal, the better.

depending on the person, the look and feel of such sites can be aggressively saturated and high contrast blast, or at the extreme end of programmer-driven cleanness and readability. what you should not find is ads. the site is paid for by a day job, or perhaps a patreon. it is personal. it accumulates sporadically over the years, more varied than your average webcomic site, by the whims of its creator.

very often people who run such a site will have strange opinions that interject unexpectedly into their work. JDR infamously positioned herself as the expert on 'transexuality' in the early internet, presenting a very partisan medicalist account best represented in the 'scientific' are-you-trans test called the COGIATI. today I came across someone from the ratsphere called 'gwern', whose site was among the most impressively featured static sites I've encountered with some very clever hover-based interactions, but they will also randomly drop into some bizarre eugenic parenthetical about the effect of mental illness on evolutionary fitness or some other condescending shit. baffling person. this is part of the character of such websites, though. you don't get to be a weirdo on the internet without being, well, a weirdo.

if you vibe with their flavour of weirdness, finding such a site is like finding a treasure trove, and feels more like getting to know someone's soul or whatever than most other encounters on this dreadful internet. even if this is as illusory as all other parasocial relationships.

this is what I want canmom.art to be. perhaps it already approximates it. and if I can make it the main nucleus of activity, then I am less tied to one or another social network. such is the hope...

when I die, I hope my website will serve as some sort of time capsule record of what I was, a place for someone to discover what one life was animated by in the early 21st century, and ideally a trove of art to fascinate them. but it is perpetually incomplete; for all the pride I take in making it standards-compliant web engineering, it's never quite there. some known issues: the comment field breaks the responsive design causing a huge horizontal scroll on mobile. it is not loading as instantaneously as a static site should, largely due to the large web font, with a warning about layout being forced that I have not solved. most images in the animation night archives do not have alt text, and may never. there are no pages which collate tags.

[turtles-allthewaydown]

Out of curiosity, what chapter of It Takes A Village (hurt/comfort, hotel residents helping Angel Dust in various circumstances) are you most interested in?

*already exists, click for Chapter One: Niffty

**already exists, click for Chapter Two: Vaggie

[dumpsterfireofsubtext]

Avatrice 1930s AU snippet

Easy, Beatrice thought, kissing Ava. Easy, she thought, tasting Ava’s faintly buttery lips. “Easy,” she said aloud, and ever so gently tugged Ava’s shirt up and out from where it had been tucked into her shorts. Her hands slid easily over Ava’s stomach; both of them were hot and damp with sweat from the humidity. The contact did not make Ava shiver, but rather it made her fall further into Beatrice and sigh.

In a move similar to the one she had done in the morning, Beatrice slipped her fingers between the waistband of Ava’s shorts and the skin of Ava’s stomach. Again, Ava felt the hard press of Beatrice’s ring against her flesh, except now it was warm from their shared body heat, when in the morning it had been startlingly cool.

“Easy,” Ava said back, and she smiled against Beatrice’s mouth.

The deep, verdant peace of the greenhouse was abruptly shattered by a voice yodelling through the greenery. 

“Yoohoo!”

Beatrice and Ava, in their collective shock, leapt apart like two tightly wound springs.

Beatrice dodged the irises behind her by mere centimetres and only slightly clipped her ankle against the table. With that catastrophe avoided, she then promptly stumbled back into a hanging pot of dangling red hot cat’s tails, whose flopping tendrils slapped directly into her open mouth and made her cough. 

Ava did not dodge the irises; she careened back-first into the plant pot behind her, making it rock dangerously on its plate and crumble dirt onto her shirt.

Someone was walking crisply, though cautiously, down the aisle towards them. Ava extracted herself from the plant pot, hastily brushing her shirt free of loose soil and tucking it back in her shorts. She had no time to check on Beatrice because just then Michael appeared, shouldering through the jungle of overhanging flora and smiling broadly.

As soon as she saw him, Ava relaxed her shoulders and practically wheezed out, “Michael. You scared me.” Though Ava realised, belatedly, that it really couldn’t have been anybody else; she didn’t know many people who actually said yoohoo with a serious face –well, apart from Michael, apparently. 

“Did I?” Michael’s brows locked together as he gazed from Ava to Beatrice.

Ava had gotten over her shock significantly faster than Beatrice, and so she turned and began tugging at Beatrice’s sleeve to get her attention. “Bea,” she hissed.

“Yes? What?” Beatrice replied absently. She was in the middle of the arduous task of methodically picking little red bits of flower fluff off of her tongue and hadn’t quite noticed what was going on around her.

Ava shot Michael a quick apologetic smile that seemed to say, Oh, typical Beatrice. You know how she is, always grazing on the Acalyphas. Then she turned her back on him to collar Beatrice. “Michael,” she whispered savagely out of the very confines of her mouth, punctuating the two syllables with icy insinuation.

Beatirce’s eyes widened, and she peered over Ava’s shoulder to smile uneasily at Michael, who, entirely unperturbed, waved back at her with a winsome smile. Beatrice hastily spat out a few more bits of flower and moved to stand beside Ava rather than in front.

“Well!” Michael said. “Beatrice and Miss Silva! I’m glad I caught you both.” 

Beatrice gulped down a final mouthful of cat's tails and turned a concerning shade of grey. “Caught?” she said waveringly. Her voice had taken on the tremulous quality of an innocent man receiving a guilty sentence.

“I heard noise coming from the greenhouse and noticed that the door was open. I thought the blasted foxes had gotten in again.” Michael, as oblivious and jocular as ever, was bouncing merrily on the balls of his feet, looking pleased to see them.

Beatrice, whose brief fit of terror at the thought of having been caught red-handed spooning behind the curtains had passed, cooled into irony, and she said, dryly, “Our mistake,” which Ava promptly elbowed her in the ribs for.

“Was there anything you needed me for?” Ava asked. “Something about my proposals?”

“Oh, yes,” Michael said, snapping his fingers. “I mean, no. I’ve come to invite you both for drinks this afternoon. We left off so strangely the other day. Besides, you two are jollier company than Koi fish.”

Beatrice blinked aggressively in Michael’s direction, but Ava, taking her to the side again, smiled lopsidedly and said under her breath, “Come on, Bea. Lets.”

Beatrice shot a few more hostile blinks at Michael before inclining her head and saying, “Five O'clock.”

Ava broke out into an irrepressibly glorious smile, and, forgetting herself (or rather, remembering herself and why she liked Beatrice such a tremendous amount), she bounced up and gave Beatrice a smacking kiss on the cheek. 

Michael turned from where he had been inspecting a slightly crooked iris and clapped his hands. “Five O’clock,” he said. “Excellent. I’ll tell Gordon to set up the terrace.”

And so Beatrice was left gulping and blinking amidst the cat’s tails, trailing slack-jawed after Ava and Michael as the two of them discussed what cocktails they would mix.

[californiaquail]

i'm about to break into my expired dental surgery vicodin stash boys

[starsiide]

if an artist says their turnaround time is usually a week and that they should be done with your specific commission by the end of the week, then goes nearly three weeks without saying something, is it OK to ask them for an update on your commission? I'm a bit torn on whether I should wait a whole month

[icewindandboringhorror]

Well! I started remodeling the house sooo long ago (original post of it back in 2018), then got distracted and forgot it in the closet for a long time, ignored it on and off, etc... Then, finally finished the house in 2022. THEN, I forgot about the pictures I took of it in 2022, and am now posting them in 2024.. A good example of how the timeline of my side craft projects usually go lol

But, at least I do have the photos now, so... finally sharing them ! 

I just used a blue sheet as a 'sky' and a green sweater with some fake flowers on it to try to look like it was on grass lol...

(more images under the readmore)

The bedroom-

The library/potion room -

The living room area-

Then the little kitchen

The pictures are not very good, but these are the best I could find? I filmed a video of me working on the whole thing (who knows when that will be out..if it took me TWO years just to post the photos lol), so I think while I was taking the pictures, I was thinking “eh, they don’t have to be great, since I’ll show it in more detail in the video :3″, but now I kind of regret not having more actual detail shots or anything.

(sidenote: I'm pretty sure I've posted better pictures of some of the individual rooms before though too? sometime before I had added the finishing touches but when they were basically done and looked almost the same as these. so maybe it's okay that these are kind of bad lol)

I think progress on it also stalled a bit due to the pandemic starting, since like 90% of the stuff in here is random things I found at the bins (giant goodwill donation center where you dig through tubs of various items all thrown together), so once I couldn’t go out to the bins anymore, I lost my method of hunting for new items, and just had to work with whatever scraps I already had or could make myself with very few materials/tools.  The bins is a really large and always crowded place, so it's still not safe for me to go with current community transmission levels lol... who knows when I shall be able to use it to get dirt cheap crafting supplies ever again.. T o T

ANYWAY! It was a fun little project, even though of course it's a little rough around the edges and not exactly as I'd envisioned lol. As usual, I always enjoy the MAKING of things the most, yet then have no idea what to do with the finished project, since the process is what's enjoyable to me.

I think I'm going to take all the glued down furniture out of it and then repaint it, then maybe donate the base house back to the same thrift store I found it at. Like completing some sort of crafting circle of life or something lol

slowly making some progress on the doll house I’m trying to remodel! 

[colleendoran]

Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

 Go me!  

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because  right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt. 

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back. 

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news. 

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work. 

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing. 

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful  eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work. 

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way. 

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry. 

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was  hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings,  enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year. 

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks. 

[the-saltiest-saltine]

Reservations and Repose

(Yan!Chrollo x Fem Reader)

@sukunasfavoritehole hopefully this is enough to tide you over until my ao3 finally gets an update hehe

Word count: ~7.3k

------

You’re naïve enough to believe Chrollo’s asleep. He loves that about you.

Warnings: NOT SFW, non -con thigh fucking, somnophilia, drugging, imagined not sfw scenarios etc

a/n: SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG IT WAS 3/4 FINISHED THEN I FORGOT ABOUT IT my sincerest apologies.

Also this is my first time writing smut so please go easy on me 😥

Chrollo is very disappointed in you.

You let him kiss your cheek this morning following a deep sleep. You didn’t reciprocate, though he continues to see your progress and knows that an ever-hopeful yet can be added to the end of that statement. To some extent, the allowance of such an act could be chalked up to his acceptance of you, flaws and all, willing to appreciate the neutrality of it as opposed to ardent rejection. In a matter of weeks, you’ll be returning the gesture. And in a matter of months, you’ll be doing it gladly. Warmth, or perhaps weariness, has slowly but surely seeped its way into your actions recently, your shaky hands finding a place in his, fingers interlaced.

Is that to say he was under the impression that you’d completely given yourself to him? Absolutely not. There’s fear in your smiles, as much as they may have metamorphosed from obviously and mockingly forced to meek and endearing. Chrollo has shown you all that you know he can do. This has been enough to keep you relatively restrained over the months. If he showed you all that he knows he can do, you’d most likely curl up into a ball and sob until you dried out. That’s not necessary, though. It’ll never be.

Like many things, it wasn’t linear. It was a path that went upwards and downwards and forwards and backwards and in cycles, cycles that would always leave you curled up, sobbing in his arms, grasping onto him for whatever comfort it would give. But progress is progress, right?

Ignorantly, he began to believe the crumbs of affection, of acceptance, of acquiescence. Stupidly, he thought you were making progress. It’s been a significant amount of time since he was last this naïve. If he wasn’t so disgruntled by your transgression, he’d most likely bask in the nostalgic feeling. But he can’t, for the time being, because you’re trying to do something very rash.

As unfortunate as it is, you’re trying to leave him.

It’s audacious, having thought that the monumental power difference between you two had been thoroughly demonstrated on multiple occasions, a well established and silently acknowledged fact of your travels with him.

It’s irritating, although regarded with the same irritation as one would have with a pet goldfish trying to jump out of its tank. You silly thing, why do you want to abandon the place in which you are safe?

It doesn’t particularly make sense, though. He’s checked his cards - nothing suspicious has been bought in his name. No travel tickets or prepaid car hire. He’s even checked the jewellery collection - maybe you’d snatched up a nice necklace or bracelet or pair of diamond earrings to pawn off. But again, nothing. No suspicious bags have been packed. No loose tiles or floorboards or ceiling panels to hide supplies in. Your clothes are all neatly folded and hung in your wardrobe. 

You’ve got something up your sleeve- something desperate and jittery and not fully thought out. Something that relies on luck and prayers far more than precision and blow-by-blow planning. He never particularly took you for a daredevil, but to see you get pushed to such a limit, to be forced against your own timid nature, is beyond satisfying. If he could pluck it out of you and analyse it under a microscope, he’d be elated. Or perhaps even, he supposes to himself, he’d be so fulfilled that he might abandon the current pathway of his life, aimless and bloody and cyclical, finally so consumed with his obsession over you that nothing else is valued in the slightest. 

He can’t say he didn’t expect an ulterior motive for your apparent benevolence, at least initially, but for it to be kept up for this long? The stares felt almost too natural. The gradual lessening of your flinches when he placed a hand on your shoulder, the way your gaze would be drawn to him rather than away, even if only to flick away immediately - the subtleties were downright impressive. To be able to track everything simultaneously, to be able to remember to exhibit so many behaviours at once…Perhaps he should be taking acting lessons from you.

Chrollo had watched you, humming a pop tune this morning, cheekily shaking your hips from side to side as you fried some eggs, over easy, the notes sometimes interrupted with a sharp inhale between your teeth when the oil spat just a bit too high and would burn you ever-so-slightly. A domestic sight.

You’d let him give you another kiss on the cheek before he shrugged his coat on, giving you one last lingering glance before he’d walked out the door and into the hallway of the apartment, locking it with warm Nen made of comfort rather than capture. He gave you another cheek kiss (despite his ever-growing urge to dip lower) when he got home to the smell of spices and vegetables and the bubbling sound of a low simmer. You don’t fight them anymore, and barely even recoil now, a result of steady but slight crossing of boundaries - his record was eleven times in one day (at least, his record for when you were conscious) when he was feeling particularly affectionate, although you’d definitely soured up by the end.

The…fantasies he’d had of domesticity…they were just that, weren’t they? Fantasies, mere ideas that were appealing enough to fully flesh out in his mind. Whatever actions you’ve taken, whether it be pecks to the cheek or folding his shirts, staining them with the scent of you, they’ve all been a means to an end. That certainly wasn’t part of the fantasy. 

You’ve been buttering him up like the thick slices of white bread next to his bowl. What a betrayal.

Tonight’s stew is spicy and chunky, served courteously by you. His palate is experienced from an adulthood of travel, wealth, and nights spent with gullible women who couldn’t tell the difference between a Prince Charming and a swindler. Truly, there is little he hasn’t at least tried. Including this.

So, if there’s no other signs of you wanting to leave the comfort of the apartment and the familiarity of his presence, then what could’ve possibly cued him into your motives?

It’s something tenuous, something that could’ve gone unnoticed to anyone else. It’s something subtle, buried under layers of rosemary and thyme and paprika. But diphenhydramine is such an acquired taste. And it’s one that’s made the past few weeks and months crumble to dust.

Oh, you sweet thing.

Acting as oblivious as ever, he spoons chunks of zucchini and carrot onto the bread, taking large bites, chewing and swallowing with purpose, the taste of the sedative lingering. He considers smacking his lips for good measure, to play around with you a bit, but eventually decides against it. That’ll come later.

You sit across from him, silence between you two. Normally, he’d fill it with tales from his busy day - but you’ve been so good lately, that he’s begun to refrain from doing that. Nowadays, he asks you what you’ve been up to, every painstaking detail from your dull days without him. But that’s only if you’ve been good, or at least if he’s under the impression that you’ve been good. As it turns out, you haven’t been good, you aren’t being compliant, and now he simply waits.

You stare into your bowl of stew, but he can tell you’re watching him in your periphery. It’s so very fascinating, the way you absorb each mouthful he takes, washed down with frequent sips of water (there’s no other substances in that, obviously). He takes another swill of the liquid, tilting his head slightly back, and in the corner of his eye, he can see the way you observe his Adam's apple bobbing with each gulp. Does it appease you, the sight? Does it intrigue you? Does it make you, even for a moment, reconsider what you’re about to do?

Chrollo pauses for a moment, before placing the half-empty glass back onto its coaster. He knows the smirk that comes onto his face is nothing short of wicked, but he truly can’t help himself. 

“Are you not hungry, my love? You’ve barely touched your food.”

Barely is an understatement. You haven’t touched it at all, in fact. Stupid, really. He knows that you know that he’s observant - but that information is irrelevant in this situation, considering it doesn’t take an keen eye to figure out your pattern of stirring your spoon around, picking up some carrot - even blowing on it for good measure - and nodding along with what few words he spoke initially, before giving an mhm! of agreement and letting it drop back into the bowl. You spend extensive amounts of time apparently fishing for just the right piece of zucchini, sorting through copious amounts of lentils (and seemingly taking the time to individually count them all), dragging chunks up the side of your bowl only to push them back down into the fray of assorted vegetables.

There’s almost a sort of jump in response to the words, ringing clear and well projected. But it’s contained above the shoulders - your head snaps to look at him, your eyes widening momentarily, staring into his own, trapped.

He can feel the shaky breath you take to steady yourself from over here, air stagnant and mouth dry.

“No,” you reply, “not particularly.”

He cocks an eyebrow at that, mouthing an oh before returning to his meal. It doesn’t matter whether you take the bait or not, his suspicions have long since been confirmed. Confirmed, in the sternest sense of the word, syllables enunciated with force, the knowledge of your true intentions well recognised. Whether that displays on his face or within his interactions with you is inconsequential to the known ending of your silly stunt.

The sound of you chewing is enough to bring his attention back out of the bowl. That’s not fake.

So you’re eating it too? It’s certainly a bold move, but one he wouldn’t dare put past you anymore. You were always a clever one, one to be placed a mere few tiers below his own intellect.

He hasn’t caught you swapping the bowl out for a fresh one. Maybe you’ve mastered the art so quickly that even he can’t notice?

No, not likely. Not in just a few months. That’d be impossible.

Your bites of pumpkin are preceded with the slightest hesitation, a quick breath to presumably psych yourself up to the self-sabotage. He hates to see you so scared when you’re properly sharing a meal with him like this, deciding to return to normalcy as a reward for your cooperation.

“Tell me, darling, what did you get up to today?”

Your eyes flick to his, momentarily ensnared in the grey, before looking up at the ceiling to aid in the process of giving a verbal description of what you read, how you cleaned, how you entertained yourself with rearranging your meagre book collection (not his, that would be asking for trouble). The response is practically identical to every other time he’s asked the question, plain and unindulgent. It’s boring, he thinks, even with the unacknowledged omission of the hours you spend staring at the walls and pacing around the living area. He’s tempted to pry into how you decided on tonight’s dish, but decides against it. Not for lenience or mercy, but rather amusement. To give away what he knows now would simply be a waste of a situation you’ll never attempt to put yourself in again.

If you knew what Chrollo knew, would you still bother to indulge him?

You stare at him for a moment, allowing him to draw things out, before nodding at the I see he gives in response. He gives a forward nod to your bowl, giving you gracious permission to eat again after starving you for the length of your interrogation, merciful as ever. Your fear is better contained behind a split second’s confusion before you register the nonverbal instruction, picking up your spoon once more and eating with more confidence this time, taking exaggerated bites of zucchini that barely make it past your teeth, chewed excessively into grey paste before being swallowed. Maybe you reason that if you chew enough, you can break the drug down into something that won’t knock you out. A cute thought.

The spices stain your lips an enticing red, the chilli making them plump up so deliciously. If he kissed them, would they burn him? Would the capsaicin leave his lips tingling, a reminder of your soft touch?

He likes to think he’ll know the answer soon.

Chrollo feigns sleepiness, furrowing his brows in mock confusion as he tells you that he can’t quite keep his eyes open - perhaps he overdid it at work today. 

Yes, work, as he loves to call it, like there’s the possibility of him spending his time away from you at a desk, punching in numbers on a computer, monotonous and repetitive and damn, couldn’t things just switch up for a day? Work, as in a beer-bellied husband whose idea of experimental fashion is changing which tie he wears with the same white button-up and black dress pants each day. Work, as in an assembly line employee who wakes up at three o’clock to be at the factory by four, ready and willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary to support his loved ones. Work, as in something at least vaguely respectable.

Work, as in literally anything other than stealing and slaughtering and scourging.

Chrollo relishes in the way your shoulders relax a little. It’s almost too adorable. Chrollo also relishes in the way they tense up again when he adds how it’s suspicious really. I don’t believe I’ve ever felt a tiredness such as this.

There’s an underlying anxiety in your pretty, pluckable, ever-so-slightly bloodshot eyes. Where others would be concerned for your health, he finds endearment, you precious thing. After admiring them silently for a moment, he announces that he’ll be off to bed now, darling. Remember to be there for me when I wake.

He leaves you alone in the kitchen to stew in your unease.

____________

Now he’s lying in bed, on the side closest to the door, limp as anything. It doesn’t matter whether his facade convinces you or not, he’ll have you in his arms by morning. The blinds aren’t fully down, leaving a pleasant blue hue that gives him a good visual of most of the room. Your side of the bed is still firmly tucked in from when he made it this morning, after running his hands up and down your arms until you’d given a great shudder and shoved him away - a pitiful attempt that he’d impishly gone along with. 

Anticipation tickles his nose and prods at his heart. Childishly, he wants you to get over with it already, to sprint in, swinging a knife wildly, or cue him to start the chase with a slam of the front door so violent that the hinges threaten to crack. It’s unfortunate how your faux compliance conditioned him to be unable to accept a halt, or even slowing, of progress.

Ah, some solace - he can hear your footsteps come up to the door, attempting, albeit poorly, to be quiet. Or maybe they are quiet, to the average man, but someone well-versed in the art of stealth can practically see the way you tiptoe closer. The faint sounds paint a detailed visualisation of your movements - the balls of your feet lifting from the ground, the flexing of your toes, the dorsiflexion at your ankles, the soft thud of your heels hitting the ground.

The bedroom door creaks open, a thin streak of light hitting his eyelids, making him see an ever-so-slight orange behind them. He might be able to visualise your walk accurately, but the same cannot be said for your face. Are you fearful, lips downturned and eyes wide? Are you determined yet cautious, eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a thin line? Are you smug? Condescending? Grinning from ear-to-ear, excited to finally have what you believe to be freedom?

You’re not, he discerns.

Instead, you huff a sigh, a sweet note that makes his heart jump, a small flutter that could only be instigated by you. It’s a sigh of relief. The door is shut. He expects another door to be slammed, too - the front door, hinges quaking as you sprint to the stairs as far as you can, too scared to wait for the elevator (and for your sake, he hopes you’ve brought a pair of running shoes - you’re on the 35th floor, after all). But that doesn’t happen.

Instead, he can hear the clanking of bowls and dishes, the smooth schwip as you push breadcrumbs off the chopping board into the bin with the back of the serrated-edge knife, and how you place said knife into the block without taking another one out.

So you’ve decided against stabbing him tonight? How agreeable.

In fact there seems to be no malice in the way you’re stacking the bowls, no scraps of extra force in how you shut the fridge. Whilst the sounds of your cleanup are nothing short of a ruckus to his alert ears, there’s an intentional tenderness he can hear. A conscious effort to be as quiet as possible with somebody sleeping peacefully in the next room.

It’s a gesture he’ll interpret in the best way he can. Even if he knows he’s deluding himself that you want to be quiet for his own peace rather than so you can escape, he’ll be sure to bring up the former as reasoning for your actions over the next few days, regardless of how you’ll spit venom at him, hissing that he couldn’t be more wrong.

Next is a movement he didn’t expect in the slightest.

You come back to the bedroom, with a pile of fabric in your hands - clothes, maybe? He thought you’d be off and away as soon as possible, or you wouldn’t get close to him again at the very least, standing patiently by the door until whatever you’re waiting for had occurred. 

The quiet-ish footsteps make their way past him this time, and straight into the ensuite.

There’s the soft sound of clothes falling, and then the tap is turned on.

You’re…showering before you leave?

You really are a good teacher of the quirks of humanity. Logical as ever, he’d most certainly take no time for hygiene practices if it reduced his chances of being able to go on a small, liberating adventure. But perhaps that’s part of the plan? Do you not want to have a speck of dirt on you so you don’t smell bad? Will you hide out at a fancy gala, and have to be as fresh as possible? Are you trying to wash off Nen, perhaps? 

No, that would never work, and he’s certain you know this too. Still, the idea of a little hopeless fire in you, taking a precaution you know is futile, makes his lips twitch.

So many questions, few of them answerable at present. His mind is stimulated so wondrously, for once not finding boredom in the predictability of human behaviour. He’s truly chosen well. 

And then there’s something else, rising above the sound of the rushing water, above the drain gurgling it down, greedily gulping it away.

You’re humming.

It’s relatively random, most likely improvised, and slightly off-tune, but endearing all the same. He can taste the notes, sweet and soothing, running down his throat smoothly and pooling warmth in his belly. 

You heave a sigh, and the tune changes. And then he recognises it.

It’s something he heard as a boy, back in Meteor City. He’d hear it at night, walking back to whatever semblance of a refuge he had with Franklin and Shalnark, past the hamlets of the younger children. Letting himself get lost in it, he can feel himself crawling to shelter on scraped knees, walking on calloused heels, eating stale bread, all accompanied by the faint smell of garbage, a smell that years of exposure had waned to a neutral accompaniment of the setting, rather than an inconvenience or hazard.

Despite the unhygienic nature of it all, it’s sweet. It’s these memories - memories of grime and rot and infection - that are the most pure. The most uncorrupted. They’re full of innocence and hope - just like you.

These qualities make you think you’ll leave him.

Upon remembering this, he’s tempted to barge in and ruin your peace, eager to hear your inevitable yelp and nervous laugh as he quizzes you about tonight’s events. But he doesn’t. Your lullaby is too enjoyable, the tune far too agreeable to stomp out yet. Resisting sin by committing another, he decides he doesn’t want to kill this mockingbird, if only to selfishly continue to hear it sing.

Few moments have come like this since you came to be with him. They’re all short-lived in comparison to the cold life he’s had, a firecracker popping on his tongue, fleetingly filling his mouth with syrupy sweetness before quickly dying off, barely an aftertaste to be savoured. He’s scratched them all down in an old leather journal with a quill and ink, lest he forgets what it feels like, or how to get that feeling again, but thankfully they’re scratched even deeper into his psyche. 

You’d been agreeable enough for a reward of a dinner somewhere several stories up, city lights shining behind you, framing your hair beautifully. You were reluctant at first, turning your nose up at him and the priceless food in front of you, opting for the bottle of red wine instead. It wasn’t supposed to be gulped down with such vulgarity like that, but that was part of your charm and by your second glass you were giggling and halfway through your third you looked at him right in the eye, cheeks tinged pink, and you smiled a smile that you’d forget by morning but he wouldn’t…

He’d returned to the villa after a long day to find the fans blasting, and you slumped over on the couch as credits rolled on the screen in front of you. He’d flicked the TV off, not before noting the rom-com’s name, and regarded you, with your deep, even breaths and singlet strap falling down. He picked you up and carried you to bed, laying you down on the thin blankets, fixing your strap despite the small voice that called to him to take off the thing entirely. Your head rested on the pillow, your face not scowling for once, and you’d huffed the sweetest of sighs…

That’s the kind of moment this is.

There’s no thought of what he’ll be doing with the troupe tomorrow, or in a week, or what move to make next depending on what you decide to do. Every nook and cranny of his mind, every convolution of his brain is filled with the thought of you. Tonight, it’s warm and viscous, slowing time and cutting both of you off from the rest of the world; the rest of its filth.

In this moment, he can see himself in the shower with you. He’s across from you, lathering body wash onto his shoulders, letting the foam run down his back. All the while, he keeps his gaze on you, watching how your hands run over your body, soap running along your sternum, between your breasts, along the curve of your hips, your ass, all whilst you hum that tune… shit, he can’t let himself get hard now. He manages to drag himself out of the daydream, barely, just managing to claw himself to the surface of reality.

Caps are popped open and the lathering of soaps can be heard over the course of your performance, with a finale of the tap being turned off. There’s a fumbling of fabrics before you come out, followed by yet another move he doesn’t expect.

You walk up to the bed, peel the sheets back, and lie down beside him. You then roll onto your side, facing him. After a few moments, you prop yourself up onto your elbow.

A moment of nothing. You’re frozen, as is he. Calm before the storm, he prepares himself to catch your wrist and hear you shriek.

You lean over.

And then there’s a featherlight sensation on his forehead, right in the middle of his tattoo. 

Had it been a split second later, he would’ve opened his eyes and turned to face you with a smirk as you screamed. But it’s not a split second later, it’s now, and now you’re kissing him. There’s no real benefit for doing such a thing that he can identify right now - perhaps you know he’s awake, and would like to make amends? Surely you know that that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him.

The contact sends an electric zap to every corner of his body, although he manages to not make himself jolt. Months of stifled desire bubble up from his insides, desire that’s spent so long smothered by rationale of better outcomes and forcing himself to think of his bloodied obstacles and late nights alone in the shower. As often as his lips find their way to your forehead, unfortunately the reverse doesn’t occur even half as much.

You pull away, like you’re hesitant about what you’ve done, like you’re waiting for him to snap his eyes open and sit up with inhuman speed, ready to pin you down or tie you up or even slap you for tonight’s inconveniences. But that doesn’t make sense, because hesitation is supposed to occur before such an intrepid act, not afterward.

After receiving apparent confirmation that you’re not about to be attacked, he can sense your head slowly but surely coming to rest on your pillow. You shouldn’t strain your neck like that, someone like you could get hurt over time.

The back of his shirt is peeled up, slowly, delicately, and he has to focus to keep his breathing even.

There you lie, staring at the twelve-legged spider etched into his skin, his number a pale contrast to the black ink, practically jumping out at you.

0.

It’s your reminder, he supposes, of what he is. Theoretically and legally nonexistent, practically traceless. Zero evidence. Zero remorse. Zero morality.

Zero.

Then-

One, two, three.

Your lips mark a trail up his spine, at the bottom of the abdomen, right in the middle of the zero, on its head. Don’t shudder.

Once your deed is done, you pull back. There you lie, staring at the twelve-legged spider etched into his skin, so silent that you’re barely breathing.

The fabric of his nightshirt is guided back down. You roll over and proceed to go limp, succumbing to the drugs intended for him.

What was that?

You’re not touching him anymore. He can sense the gap between your bodies, one that he would close every night, pulling you close. 

Was it a relief? To go to sleep without him touching you?

You’d always stirred up such a fuss about his arms being around you as you slept. 

It had always been a cause for seething rage on your part, later argument, later whining, and more recently huffing. Even last night, the stiffness before you fell asleep was a cause of his own discomfort. But you didn’t have to deal with that tonight, and now you’ve fallen asleep in record time. He can’t say it was just from the pills.

Did you change your mind on leaving after you felt their effects? It doesn’t seem likely that you’d ditch all that to sleep. Rather, that you wanted to sleep on your own terms.

He’d spent so much time concerned with stopping a potential escape, that he didn’t stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, that was never the goal to begin with.

And now Chrollo rolls over to face you, gently tugging on your shoulder to pull you onto your back.

You’re serene as ever, a sight to behold. 

He brushes the back of his knuckles along your hair, feeling its texture, so light that his calloused hands - hands that have seen many a bruise and burn and slice and hangnail caught and ripped on the job - almost can’t feel it. Your exhales come out more as huffs and sighs now compared to gentle breathing, and he allows a chuckle (one that he finds incredibly endearing, as much as you’ve let your disagreement to that sentiment be known, preferring to describe it with wounding words such as “condescending” and “grating”) to slip past his lips. 

It reminds him of you when you’re awake, when you used to try so hard to be difficult for him, when you used to scream and scratch as he’d spoon you, grip ironclad, until all you could do was huff and puff and plead with him (and as much as he enjoyed your attempts to compromise, this was something he simply could not relinquish) and eventually, your cursing would die down, your muscles would go limp, and you’d fall asleep. 

Sometimes the sun would be up by the time you relented, and your breaths would be the heaviest then. It was amusing, how quickly you’d switch. One second, you were cussing him and his troupe out, the next, you were a paragon of tranquillity, the visage of an angel before him. He’d pray you love him.

He wants to grab your jaw, hold it firm, and kiss your lips as hard as he can. He wants to tilt his head and take and take and take. He wants to keep taking even if your breathing lightens. He wants to keep taking even if your eyelids flutter open, hazy doe-eyes looking at him with dozy confusion.

Well, he’d never deny his own indulgence.

Leaning in, he presses a kiss to your forehead, just as you did to him.

The touch is as gentle as he can make it, as gentle as he can permit himself to be. There’s a split second of what he could almost call fear, an image of accidentally squeezing you too hard and hearing your bones snap flashing in his mind.

He rubs his thumb over where his lips previously were, feeling an unanticipated wetness left behind.

It’s then that Chrollo realises his mouth is full of his own saliva - whether that was because he was so entranced by your actions that nothing else mattered, body as limp as he could allow, or because, like some sort of filthy animal, he couldn’t help but drool at the contact from you, starved for it like a hyena, he doesn’t know. He swallows. That’s better.

And now for the main event.

He dips down to your lips, and lightly presses his own against them. The feeling is so heavenly, he wonders if you really are an angel. If you were one, would you bless him? Would you destroy him?

If you were to know what he’s doing, would you hate him more?

He pulls away. 

The journey to get here was sizable. Memories of tonight flash by; your cooking, your conversation, your shower. Your humming.

Ah. The tune he heard as a boy. Innocent, naïve, hopeful.

Well, he’s a man now. And far less innocent.

He lets out a hum of his own, deep and rumbling.

Chrollo moves to straddle you, peeling the duvet and sheets back, layer by layer, unveiling the best present he’s ever gifted himself. Just moving into such an intimate position is enough to send pangs of heat downwards, the hardness he fought against earlier returning with an urgency.

For a moment, he tries to fight against it.

Is it to save himself from your hatred? Is it to save you from what he’s planning?

It’s neither, he discerns, as the attempt was doomed to fail before it even started. He knows it was never meant to succeed.

His groin only throbs harder, aching for friction. It’s a spur-of-the-moment thing, the way he presses it against your clothed crotch, rocking back and forth, the slight relief just momentary as his desire only grows.

He regards your unsuspecting face. Stunning. 

Restraint is draining faster now, but still is present just enough to stop him from grinding any harder despite the urge. But if he’s to stop his movements, he’ll need a different kind of stimulation.

He bunches your shirt up, pulling, sliding a hand under your back so he can slip it off your arms and neck.

Now your chest is bare. How ravishing.

His fingers hook under the band of your sleep pants, dragging them off in a clean motion.

And now your legs are bare. How alluring.

He doesn’t take your underwear off - that would simply be crude, and he doesn’t need to tempt himself anymore. If he got the privilege (or right, considering your standings) of seeing you fully nude, as opposed to having a single layer covering the most tantalising part of you, he’d be oh-so-inclined to do something regrettable. His logic fights to win space within his buzzing thoughts, fingers daring to twitch as his imagination fills in the gaps of what the thin black layer forces to be left to it.

Chrollo parts your thighs for good measure, the maximum he can allow himself at this moment. It’d be impossible to not let his hands and gaze trail up them, observing how as he roams upwards, your flesh gets softer, warmer; how the flimsy fabric can’t hide all of your darker flesh; how your lower lips are pressing against the cloth, visible despite the darkness…

God, you’re so fuckable.

There’s a pretentious voice in his head, albeit muffled, that cries protests at the use of such a word to describe you. You’re something far more than that - beautiful, exemplary, one-in-a-million, ethereal. Surely your mouth would be better put to use having a fulfilling conversation with him, a conversation he can dissect and steer and puppeteer, as opposed to just opening as wide as it can to accommodate his cock, taking it as deep as your gag reflex will allow, barely able to breathe, much less talk. Although, he thinks with a faint, deep groan, twitching in his pants, that’s certainly a hypothesis I’ll have to test.

With the sight of your breasts, nipples hard and skin goosebumped from the chill of the room, it’s decided. Just because making his cheeks warm and his cock rock hard isn’t your most prominent trait, doesn’t mean that you aren’t absolutely exceptional at it.

Temptation isn’t something he’s inclined to resist, brushing a thumb over your nipples before leaning down to take one into his mouth. He swears he can hear your breath hitch as his tongue swirls around, breathing getting slightly lighter. An eager hand reaches for the other one, kneading as gently as he thinks he can.

Soft is the first thing he thinks. Your flesh is so soft, so delicate, so tender. If you were awake, he’d vocalise his compliments - and do so loudly, unrestrained.

Your breathing changes as he points his tongue to lightly flick at your nipple repeatedly. Chances are you’re being taken out of REM sleep, but your consciousness doesn’t matter at this stage. And some part of him hopes for it, brief images flashing in his mind of barely-open teary eyes slowly rolling to the back of your head. They’re obscene, so utterly immoral to even fantasise about, yet even the split-second thought makes his stomach jump, shivering a bit as he feels himself be almost overcome by them.

He can’t help but slightly wet his lips in anticipation, relishing in the knowledge that his instincts are being held back with the slightest thread. If he moves even slightly faster than his rational, calculating, non-carnal mind intends, then it’ll snap. He’ll snap.

Almost trembling, he reaches across to his bedside table. The movements are imprecise, but he’s sure this practice will allow him to execute them with much more grace for the inevitable time you’ll be awake. Yes, you’ll be awake and whining and he’ll wet his lips in anticipation and be met with your lingering taste and you’ll want him as much as he wants you- 

He almost falls forward as his own lust threatens to overtake him. Focus on the necessary steps.

Taking a shuddering breath, he leans down to pull open the drawer, to find a bottle hidden at the back, purposefully concealed behind an upright copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Quickly shifting his weight back, he pops the cap open, spreading some of the slick contents onto his fingertips. With his free hand, he pulls down the loose elastic of his pyjama pants, shucking them off, the cold air making him quiver slightly.

Time’s running out.

The movements are trembling, sloppy as he pours lube onto his length, and then onto your spread thighs. There’s a frantic inertia of sorts, a mad momentum - the more he does, the faster he has to go, the anticipation making his stomach swell and dip. He’s really going to do this. It’s really going to happen, and it’ll be amazing.

There. Done. Everything’s ready.

Chrollo takes a shaky breath, gripping just above your knees, and squeezes your thighs around his dick.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Your thighs are warm from the duvet, perfectly cosy and wet from the lube for his cock.

Little time is wasted as he begins to thrust his hips, trying not to give himself too much too soon. The steady pace is slowly increased, little by little, a fragile incline so he can drag this out for as long as possible. 

Can you feel it? Can you feel the warmth radiating from him? Is there some part of your mind that’s awake, but can’t do anything to stop him? Or better yet, is eager to please him?

He strains out a hiss through gritted teeth, peppering kisses over your exposed neck, trying his best not to bite. The pace increases yet again. His eyes are fixated on the mound in your underwear, a more sinister form of curiosity burning within. 

What does your pussy look like?

He won’t use En, that’s just cheating. He wonders and ponders and conjures up the most filthy images his mind can muster. A warm, tight hole that clenches for him as he slips in and out, teasing you. A pretty clit for him to tease with his fingers as you whine, for him to suckle on as you choke on sobs of pleasure. Folds for him to run his tongue through as you rut your hips against his face; for him to run his tip along, collecting your slick.

He imagines how his cock would look disappearing inside of your cunt, how your grip would be so suffocating, how your tits would bounce as he fucks it (because shit, they’re already moving so vigorously now, as he holds his strength, and he can’t even begin to picture what they’d look like if he loses control buried deep inside you, repeatedly stuffing you to the hilt as you cry out). He imagines how you’d tighten around him, babbling something incoherent as you wrap your arms and legs around him, and oh fuck, he can’t pull out now. He imagines the tension snapping, giving a rumbling groan as he shoves himself into you as deeply as possible, eyes screwing shut and burying his face in the junction between your neck and shoulder, riding out his high with a few shallow thrusts.

And finally, he imagines how his cum would look leaking out of your pussy, twitching and swollen from a nice good fuck. The afterglow. The squeak you’d give if he fingered it back into you, growling at you to not waste a drop, keep it all inside for me.

The thought makes his hips stutter a little, threatening to slip out of the plushness between your thighs. Once he regains his rhythm, though, they’re speeding up, relentlessly fucking himself into your thighs over and over, kneading the flesh as he squeezes them tighter and closer.

Chrollo cups your face with a single hand, and leans in. 

It’s the second time he’s properly kissed you tonight, and it feels fucking amazing. Your soft lips, your soft thighs, they’re all working together to make his head swim in bliss. You’re working to make him feel good. Yes, him. Nobody else. You’re his.

The thoughts run wild. He has as little control over them as he does his hips.

How would it feel to fuck you in some other position? How would it feel to flip you onto your stomach, pulling your hips back to meet his, as he stuffs himself into your sopping cunt over and over, watching your ass bounce? How would you cry out at the way his balls slap against your swollen clit, building up the pressure inside you until you just can’t take any more?

How would you grind on top of him? How would you moan as you bounce, tilting your head back as you stretch yourself on his length, panting? How many times could you do it until your legs trembled uncontrollably, forcing yourself to impale yourself on his cock just one more time? When he’d plant his feet on the bed firmly and thrust his hips up, grabbing yours and bouncing you in time, would you wail, or simply slump over, completely unable to form a thought as you cum around him for the nth time?

You’re flexible enough to fold into a mating press, right? How deep could he go? How fast could he go? How would your beautiful skin look covered in love bites?

The coil of pressure within him grows even tighter even faster, balls slapping against your thighs, hips pistoning rhythmlessly.

If he asked, oh-so-nicely, for you to get on your knees and please him with your mouth, would you oh-so-sweetly do it? Would you suckle his swollen tip? Would you tease him with a glint of mischief in your eyes? Would you find his most sensitive spots and exploit them? Would you trace your tongue along the veins? Would you massage his balls? Would you let him control the pace, a hand intertwined in your hair? Would you look up at him as you tear up, doe-eyes wide and eager to please? Would you rub your pretty pussy while he shoots thick ropes of cum down your throat, pressing your nose against his pelvis?

Yes, he decides as the coil begins to snap, you would.

Chrollo comes to a sudden halt, choking out a rich groan in a low timbre. The noise becomes more strained as he rides out the high, the overwhelming euphoria becoming just a bit too intense as it begins to morph into overstimulation. Once he’s sure the moment’s over, he lets go of your legs, pulling back to catch his breath and admire his work.

Ropes of cum paint your chest, some making it as far as your neck, your chin. It’s beautiful, the unruly mess he’s made - no, the mess you’ve made of him.

You’re a real beauty, you know that?

The bathroom tiles are cold against his feet as he grabs a washcloth to clean you up. It’s sad to see it go, to a primal extent, but it’s probably for the best to ensure he doesn’t get any ideas for a second round tonight.

For future nights, though? The chest he’s covering up will soon be exposed soon enough.

He’ll have to get more sleeping pills. You simply must try this again soon. 

Next time, he’ll taste you. The time after that, you’ll taste him. He can hardly wait, nor can he stop the dull throbbing starting up in his groin again.

He sates himself for the time being with the knowledge that the time after that, you’ll be awake.

[finelinevogue]

notes on love

summary - harry attends the football and you attend the baftas

pairing - fiance!harry x famous!reader

word count - ~1.5k

*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*

It was the first time Harry had made a public appearance in months.

Sans a hat on his head.

After braving a shave to solidify a new chapter in his life, Harry had decided that enough was enough and he just wanted to be seen again. Gain some new publicity.

“I can’t do this.” Harry’s voice rang through your phone.

Your phone was currently propped up on the vanity in front of you, whilst your stylist gracefully worked around you to get your hair and makeup done.

“H, baby. You’re going to a football match where over half the population there will be white bald men. You’ll blend right in.”

You took a sip of your apple juice in its carton as you suppressed a laugh. Harry rolled his eyes at you, taking the joke like the good sport he is.

“I actually have more hair than them. I’m not bald anymore.”

“See! Embrace the new hair, H. You look really good.”

Harry smiled at you then, his eyes which had previously been darting between watching you and looking out the moving car window were now permanently on you.

“Not as beautiful as you, though, love.”

“Don’t even have my makeup on yet.”

“Never needed it.”

You blew him a camera kiss for those words alone.

“Where are you now?” You reached for a slice of pineapple from the bowl of fruit you’d ordered from room service.

“About five minutes away I think. Are you still in the hotel?”

“Yeah. Don’t need to be ready until 5.”

You were getting ready for the BAFTAS, which Harry had hoped to be there with you for but you’d decided to take your nan as your date instead since she wanted to spend as much time with you as possible.

Harry was more than happy to let Nana, as he liked to call her, be your date to the BAFTAS. Plus, it meant that he could go see the football.

“You’re going to look so pretty.”

Harry had helped your pick out your dress, which was a sophisticated black to contrast the red carpet you’d be walking down. The dress itself was beautifully cut and shaped you in all the right places, making you look elegant and regal.

“I’m nervous.” You picked up your phone so the conversation felt a little more intimate, even though it was still over face-time.

“Why, love?”

“Don’t normally do stuff like this without you.” You pouted.

Harry wished he could kiss that pout away, “And yet the times that you do, you always end up winning! It’s like they never want you to win when i’m there.”

It was a running joke that Harry was your ‘bad luck charm’.

You didn’t believe that though. It’s just that other actors performed better and won, over you, because of it. If anything, you always won because you got to go home and drink hot tea and eat popcorn with your Harry.

“I’ll miss you.” Your face was so close to the camera that Harry could probably see up your nose.

“I miss you. Send me photos when you’re getting ready. I wanna see you before anyone else.”

“Okay.” You smiled. It was routine at this point to always show each other’s public outfits before anyone else.

“Have you got your ring?”

You held up your left hand and wiggled your ring finger in front of the camera. You blushed thinking about the moment that you got given the piece of delicate jewellery, with Harry on one knee.

“Always.”

“You going to wear it on the carpet?”

“Of course. Not going to draw attention to it though. I’ll let people discover it for themselves.”

Harry laughed at the thought. You two were practically the biggest, most A-List, celebrity couple around at the moment and so when people watch sight of you with the ring there’s no doubt it’s all people will talk about for weeks.

Someone told Harry they’d arrived at the venue, then.

“I have to go, honey, but text me updates please. Wanna see you get ready through photos, okay?”

“Okay.” You promised. “Text me to let me know you’re safely home later, please.”

Even though he was going back to his Manchester home, you still liked to know that he was safe and sound. Especially since you were in London and weren’t going to get to be with him tonight.

“Will do. I love you.” Harry kissed his fingers and then dotted them over the camera.

You returned the gesture, “I love you. Bye, bye, bye!”

•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•

You were just finishing getting ready and scrolling through Twitter.

Harry was trending worldwide for showcasing his new hair. His growing hair. No one had seen him like this since the end of Tour last year.

You pouted because you missed him a lot.

People were absolutely loving it. As always, a lot of people were losing their shit over Harry content. You were too, because you missed him.

“Oh, he looks so good!” Your stylist, Jamie, gasped behind you.

Jamie was currently fixing your hair and you had to say they had done an impressive job.

“I know.” You smiled to yourself.

“He looks like a sexy CEO.”

You laughed out loud at that, “When he puts on his glasses he does.” You agreed.

“Harry wears glasses?” Jamie gasped.

“Yeah, hang on..”

You started to go through your camera roll. It was only a few days ago that he had gotten new glasses, because he’d managed to lose his old ones. Typical.

You stopped on a photo of Harry sat in bed with the duvet up on his chest, a book in his lap and his glasses on. He didn’t realise you had taken the photo of him, but it was now one of your favourites.

“Oh damn…” Jamie gasped. “If your marriage ever goes south, tell him I’ll be available.”

You laughed again, shaking your head in dismissal but also approval.

You went back to Twitter to see if any of the Harrie accounts you follow have tweeted anything. You make yourself laugh as you look through their feral comments.

And just because you like to cause a riot on the internet you liked an insane tweet.

harriesmiles: the way that this photo makes me want to cling onto harry like a koala bear and never let go

It wasn’t long before you were trending with Harry.

Then the face-time call comes through from him.

“Am I done?” You asked Jamie quickly.

He nods, knowing you routine with Harry, and allows you to slip into the bathroom next to the bedroom.

You answered the call shortly after locking the bathroom door.

“Hellooo.” You said in a weird voice, feeling hyper from the Twitter craze.

“Hi, babe.” Harry was obviously outside and trying to watch where he was going, more than looking at you.

“Has the match finished?”

“Yeah.” And you honestly didn’t care enough about football to ask how it went. “Are you ready?”

Harry’s eyes flicked down to his screen momentarily, smirking when he catches sight of your glammed out makeup.

One thing Harry loved more than anything was you in a red-lip, so of course you had to make sure you had one for him - despite the fact he couldn’t kiss it off you tonight.

“What?” You giggled, watching him trying to suppress his smirk in public.

“You’re so annoying. I’m trying to act all cool and mysterious here and you’re making me smile like an idiot.”

You dipped your head and smiled, accentuating the blush that was already powdered onto your cheeks.

“H, honey, you’re walking through the streets of Manchester. No one cares about how you act. They’re probably all drunk anyways.”

“True, true.”

“Did you have a pint?” You propped your phone on the counter.

“Uh, yeah.” He said whilst trying to cross a road.

“Love, do you want to call me back when you’re at less risk of being hit by a car?” You sarcastically asked.

“No!” He yelped. “No. Needs to be now.”

You gave him a confused look but carried on regardless.

You shuffled back in the bathroom, giving him a full angle.

You watched in anticipation as Harry looked at you through his tiny screen, wishing it were ten times bigger.

“Wow.” Was all he said and you giggled like a girl having a high-school crush. “I love you so much.”

“So you like?” You swished your dress from side to side.

“Mhm. Wishing I wasn’t so far from you now.”

“Tomorrow. I’ll have all the kisses for you then.”

“Tomorrow it is, then.” Harry smirked to himself, kissing the camera.

Little did you know that tomorrow was coming a lot sooner. In fact, Harry had been running for the earliest train out of Manchester and down to London for the duration of the phone call. Because Harry was always going to show up for you.

[sofs16]

foodie

been obsessed with chicken shop date ep w lando so you already know…(this oneshot is really bad sorry)

sorry ive been ia:/ i will be updating let you break my heart again this week!!!!! hope you’re all doing well<3 love, sof!

ynfoodtrip

liked by landonorris, carlossainz55, and 6,383,282 others ynfoodtrip link in bio 🧡

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ynsfoodie

liked by 4,272 others

ynsfoodie no because wtf is LANDO NORRIS doing with my wife subtly FLIRTING WITH HER AND ASKING HER TO FOLLOW HIM BACK😭😭😭😭😭 SHE GAVE NO NOTICE FOR THIS VIDEO.

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ynsbabe she just followed him back😭

ynfoodtrip

liked by landonorris, and 2,188,282 others

ynfoodtrip Just a casual Wednesday, you?

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landonorris My boo😍

⤷ ynfoodtrip my pookie😘🧡

⤷ landonorris What’s a pookie

⤷ ynfoodtrip means you’re cute

landonorris Having a wonderful morning, thank you for the follow! ⤷ ynfoodtrip Good to know, hope it carries on that way!

ynsbabe … GET AWAY LANDO NORRIS SHE WAS MINE FIRST

user1 i can’t even blame Lando, look at her!!!

[ liked by landonorris ]

| MESSAGES BETWEEN YN AND LANDO

LANDO SPEEDY DRIVER

you think i’m cute?

YN FOOD EXPERT

Did i give off the impression I didn’t think that?

LANDO SPEEDY DRIVER

I don’t want to assume;)

| MESSAGES BETWEEN CARLOS AND LANDO

CARL IN CARLANDO

My pookie🥹😍❤️🤙😏

LANDO IN CARLANDO

Shutttupppppp

I don’t know how to flirt help me

CARL IN CARLANDO

You flirted for a good 10 minutes in your Youtube video, disgusting

LANDO IN CARLANDO

i really like herrrrr but i dont know how to let her know mate

CARL IN CARLANDO

Take her out to dinner

ynfoodtrip

liked by landonorris, carlossainz55, and others

ynfoodtrip 10/10

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user4 if i didn’t know better i’d think this was a date with lando norris….

ynsupdate THE TWO PLATES AND WINE 😭😭😭

landonorris’ instagram story | ♫ my girl • temptations

replies

user3 THIS IS SO BOYFRIEND CODED

user2 i see you yn….

user5 LANDO BF ERA

carlossainz55 I’m guessing the date 2 months ago went well😂

⤷ landonorris Very well

⤷ landonorris My rizz was enough😜

⤷ carlossainz55 Why are you lying...

ynfoodtrip

liked by landonorris, and 4,283,585 others

ynfoodtrip It’s so romantic in Parissss

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sabrinacarpenter 🧡🧡🧡

user1 so gf coded.

user7 we know it’s lando, yn… STOP SOFT LAUNCHING ITS BEEN 3 MONTHS

user8 would’ve been believable it wasnt lando if he continued commenting on her posts like he did for 10 months😭

ynfoodtrip

liked by landonorris, and 7,262,585 others

ynfoodtrip

view all 2,684,293 comments

landonorris my boo (for real this time)

user2 the no caption is so real

carlossainz55 Hello, sister in law! 👧

⤷ landonorris mate..

⤷ ynfoodtrip Hi, Carlos Sainz Brotha in law! 👶

⤷ user38 THE BABY EMOJI😭

landonorris

liked by ynfoodtrip, and 9,473,684 others

landonorris been in love with you before that video that further made me want to spend every millisecond with you

view all 3,372,281 comments

ynfoodtrip ngl ive been following your f1/ karting journey since you were 11…..

⤷ landonorris WHY AM I JUST FINDING OUT AHOUT THIS

ynfoodtirp i love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuüùúūûü:)

⤷landonorris i love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuüùúūûüuuuuuüùúūûüuuuuuüùúūûü too:)

[steddiehyperfixation]

don't you forget about me (part two)

(part one)

Steve doesn’t know how long they sit there in silence, waiting. It’s making him insane. The seconds pass too slow; the seconds pass too fast. His mind is a storm; his mind is empty. He’s feeling too much; he’s not feeling at all. He paces the room; he sits catatonically against a wall. He needs to get out of here; he needs to stay. 

He’s been here before, just barely over a week ago, tense and anxious and despairing and waiting for news. But waiting to hear if Eddie will ever remember him again really should not feel this much worse than waiting to hear if Eddie will ever fucking breathe again. Steve thinks there must be something wrong with him. He’s being selfish and stupid. His pathological fucking need to be loved is not what’s important right now. Eddie is alive and awake and okay and that’s the only thing that really matters. That’s the only thing he should really care about.

Steve’s pacing again now, yanking his hands through his hair as he does laps around the room until Eddie finally appears in the doorway. 

Eddie must’ve just cracked a joke or something because the nurse is laughing as she pushes his bed into the room and he’s got this adorable grin on his face. Steve’s heart twists in his chest and he nearly bursts into tears all over again because god does he want nothing more than to press a kiss to those dimpled cheeks. 

“Good news, boys,” Eddie announces. “My brain is fully intact.”

“There’s no physical permanent damage to his brain,” the nurse elaborates. “His amnesia is likely a result of psychological trauma and the temporary disruption of brain function from blood loss and lack of oxygen that occurred at the time of his injury. But there is no obvious reason why he shouldn’t regain his full memory, given time.” 

So there’s hope. Steve breathes a sigh of relief. 

“That is good news,” Wayne agrees. 

Steve asks, “How much time?” 

The nurse gives an unhelpful shrug. “Impossible to say. It could be anywhere from days to months, or even years. I��m sorry, there’s no way for us to know.” 

Years. “Okay.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. He can keep it together. He can. “Thanks,” he tells the nurse. “I, uh-” He makes the mistake of looking at Eddie who looks right through him, and Steve can’t keep it together anymore actually. “I gotta update the kids,” he mutters, backing his way towards the door. Wayne nods in acknowledgment; no protests this time at Steve’s excuse to leave.

“See ya, Harrington,” Eddie calls after him, casual, impersonal, like they're nothing more than acquaintances passing by each other in a high school hallway.  

Steve can’t get out of that hospital fast enough. 

He makes it to his car in record time, slamming the door shut and sinking heavily into the driver’s seat. A ragged sob tries to claw its way up his throat now that he’s finally alone, but he forces it back, staving off his breakdown for just a little bit longer. As much as it was an excuse, he really does have to update the kids. 

Steve fishes his walkie out of the glove box. “Code - whatever, I don’t know. Code Eddie,” he says. He doesn’t remember the kids’ system of codes, nor would he be sure which one this news falls under even if he did. 

“Is he okay? Is he awake?” comes an immediate, eager response from Dustin. “Over.” 

“Yeah, he’s awake, and he’s fine, except he’s got pretty bad amnesia. The doctors say it should be temporary, but right now he doesn’t remember anything since May of ‘85,” Steve explains, trying his best to keep his voice even.

“Steve, come pick me up and take me to see him,” Dustin demands, “right now. Over.” 

“Me too. Over,” Mike chimes in before Steve can respond. 

“And us,” Erica adds as well. 

Steve pauses for a second, both to steady his own breath and to make sure no one else wants to jump in on this too, before he reminds them, “He won’t know you, any of you.” 

“I don’t care,” Dustin says, bossy as ever. “Just come get me. Over.” 

“Jesus Christ, kid,” Steve mutters to himself. He sucks in another breath; it wobbles dangerously. He’s just about reached his limit on how long he can keep himself from falling apart. “I- I need a minute, alright?” he manages through the walkie. “Can you just give me, like, an hour? And then I’ll take you guys to visit Eddie.” 

Steve doesn’t wait for a response before he slams the antenna closed, tosses the walkie aside, and finally, finally lets himself shatter. That sob rips free from his throat, followed by another and another and another. Tears flood from his eyes; his nose runs. It’s an ugly, gross, visceral cry that leaves him exhausted and raw and aching to be held by the time the last sob shudders out of him. Drained and hollow, he craves the embrace of someone who knows him, someone who loves him. 

He sweeps up his broken pieces, wipes the mess of tears and snot off his face, and drives to Robin’s house.

“Steve, oh my god.” Robin pulls him into a hug the second she opens the door and sees the look on his face. Steve clings to her. “What happened?” 

“Eddie’s awake,” he mutters dismally. 

“Oh! Not the tone I’d expect you to deliver that news in, but okay.” Robin pulls back, looking at him with narrow-eyed concern and confusion as she analyzes his puffy eyes and red nose and swollen lips. “And you look like you’ve just been crying because…?”

“Because he doesn’t remember me, Rob,” Steve sighs. “He doesn’t remember anything from the past 11 months.” 

Robin’s eyes go wide now. “Shit,” she says, so plainly it startles a short laugh out of Steve. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Shit.” 

She asks him more questions as she walks down the hallway so they can talk in her room. Steve once again reiterates what was said at the hospital. 

“So you didn’t tell him you two were a thing?” Robin asks, closing her door behind them. 

“Of course I didn’t.” Steve flops back onto her bed. “I didn’t want to spook him.” 

She sits beside him. “You didn’t want to spook him,” she repeats, looking down at him with raised eyebrows, “but you told him about Vecna.” 

“Well, yeah. I just-” He lifts his arms to gesture vaguely into the air as he tries to explain himself. “I mean, imagine how you would feel if you woke up in a hospital and some random guy you’ve spoken to maybe twice was by your bedside telling you you’ve been in a relationship with him for the past 9 months.” 

“Uh, I don’t know, dingus, probably about the same as I’d feel if said guy told me I’d nearly died fighting some evil twisted creature from a hell dimension,” Robin retorts.

Steve drops his hands onto his chest with a huff, shaking his head. “No, trust me. He seemed far less surprised by that than he did to hear that we were even just friends,” he says, a bit bitterly. Tears are pricking at his eyes again as he looks up at his best friend. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me, Robin. All he saw was King Steve.”

Robin softens, snark replaced with sympathy. “That sucks, Steve. I’m so sorry.” 

Steve sighs in agreement that yes this really fucking sucks. He sits up and scoots back so that he’s slumped against the wall, hitting the back of his head against it. “I think I’m a horrible person,” he admits, just venting now, “because of course I’m glad Eddie’s alive and all I really want is for him to be okay, and I know the nurse said he should remember eventually, but there’s still some sick part of me that thinks maybe it would’ve hurt less if he had just died.”

“I don’t think that makes you a horrible person,” Robin assures him as she settles next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “I think you’re just grieving, and grief is weird sometimes.”

“It was one of the worst things I’ve ever felt,” he mutters, “when he looked at me without recognition. To see it on his face, just the- the absence of everything that we’d built. I’ve never felt so- so- I don’t know, it was like I couldn’t breathe. He just- he doesn’t know that I love him. He…he doesn’t know that he loved me...” 

Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s not that he’s lost someone that he loves, it’s that he’s lost someone who loves him. Because Eddie’s not gone, just his love for Steve is, and that’s what’s tearing him apart. It’s the fact that there’s one less person in the world who loves him. It’s the fact that Steve’s got this big gaping hole inside of him that’s always made him so desperate to be loved, liked, wanted, needed; and his biggest fucking fear is becoming obsolete. He could probably trace it back to his parents, the first to forget him, the first to stop loving him, but the fact remains that now Eddie has fulfilled that fear too. Now Eddie has carved that pit a little deeper, a little darker, validating the voice that whispers within it and tells Steve that he is forgettable, unlovable, so easy to abandon and erase. 

“Well, I love you,” Robin tells him, like she can read his mind (which, at this point, she probably can). She slides an arm around his shoulders, hugs him close. “And I’m not going anywhere.” 

Fragile as he is right now, Steve falls apart again in her arms, and she holds him together. Because she knows him, because she loves him.

It’s a quieter cry this time, soft and sniffly. Whereas the last one wracked through his body and left him fatigued, this one flows from him almost gently, and when his tears finally subside and he lifts his head from where it had been buried in his friend’s shoulder, Steve actually feels a little bit better, a little bit stronger. Which is good, because he’s gonna have to face Eddie again soon. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly as he pulls away from Robin, wiping at his eyes and glancing at the clock on her nightstand. It’s definitely been an hour by now, probably more. He stands. “I have to go, I promised the kids I’d take them to see Eddie.” 

“Then I’m coming too.” Robin stands with him. “For moral support.” 

Steve gives her a grateful smile. “I love you so fucking much, you know that?” 

“Yeah.” She grins at him. “I know.” 

~ 

The nurses have changed his bandages and upped his morphine, so Eddie’s considerably hazy now but at least he can raise his headrest and prop himself up a bit without nearly blacking out from pain. He’s boredly flicking through channels on the shitty TV in front of him, alone since Wayne had to leave for work, when Harrington returns followed by a very unexpected group consisting of Robin Buckley and four strange children. 

“Sorry,” Harrington announces their presence with an apologetic shrug, “I know you don’t know them anymore, but they insisted.” 

“Eddie!” a pudgy, curly-haired kid shouts before Eddie can even react, coming barrelling towards him and trying to hug him. 

“Ow!” Eddie yelps, pain flaring even through the extra morphine. “Fucking Christ, kid! Be careful!” 

The kid jumps back immediately, eyes wide. “Shit. Sorry.” 

“S’fine,” Eddie grumbles.

The kid looks at him expectantly for a moment before seeming to realize, “Oh, right, you don’t remember me. I’m Dustin.” 

“Ah, so you’re the guy I sacrificed myself for,” Eddie mutters, and Dustin looks a little sheepish. That means these must be ‘the kids’ Harrington had been talking about earlier. He surveys the group for a second. “Actually, I think we have met before,” he tells Dustin. “And you too.” He glances at a pale, dark-haired kid. The other two - a Black boy with a flat-top and a younger Black girl - look less familiar, though. “There was this, uh, open day thing at the high school for next year’s incoming freshmen; I talked to you about Hellfire.”

“Yeah!” Dustin’s whole face lights up, so bright and infectious it makes Eddie grin too. “Yeah, you did!” 

“So you guys joined the club, then?” 

This sparks a very animated conversation about D&D, the rest of the kids (Mike, Lucas, and Erica, as they soon reintroduce themselves) gathering around his bed now too to join in. It makes him feel a bit more like himself again, familiar, normal. Except, of course, for the fact that they’re not only talking about how they defeated Vecna in Eddie’s “totally epic” and “sadistic” campaign (adjectives courtesy of Dustin and Mike respectively), but also filling in more pieces of the story of how they defeated him in real life too. Still, it’s nice, fun. He totally understands how he could’ve gotten attached to these kids.

At some point, Eddie glances over to find Harrington hanging back and just watching them talk, fondly, wistfully. Robin whispers something to him and he sort of smiles, just a trace, and whispers something back. They seem close, intimate. Eddie wonders if they’re dating, and then he wonders why that thought makes him feel a bit sick. He waves them over. Harrington looks like he’s about to protest, but Robin gives him a Look and he allows her to grab his hand and drag him to join the crowd around Eddie’s bed. 

“So, what’s your deal, Buckley?” Eddie asks her. He doesn’t know her very well, they’ve only crossed paths a few times in the bandroom, but right now that makes her the most familiar person in the room to him. “Are you and Harrington a thing now? Is that how you’re involved in all this?” 

Robin wrinkles her nose and drops Harrington’s hand. “Ew, no. Definitely not.” 

“She’s my best friend,” Harrington says. 

Eddie snorts, doesn’t know why he finds that so comical. (He’s starting to get tired and it’s making him loopy. Or maybe it’s just the morphine.) “You've got a funny choice of friends nowadays, don’t you? Me and band geek Buckley and a bunch of nerdy freshmen.” He looks at Harrington with incredulous amusement. “Who would've thought, huh? Steve Harrington, collector of geeks and freaks.” 

Harrington doesn’t seem to find it as funny. He shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s better than King Steve, collector of asshole bullies and shallow one-night stands.” 

“Yeah, ‘course it is,” Eddie agrees through another huff of laughter that breaks off into a yawn. “Didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Stevie. Was a compliment.” 

“Alright.” The barest hint of a smile flickers across Harrington’s face now, but then he’s looking away and corralling the kids and saying, “We should head out, let you get some rest.” 

And Eddie kind of wishes he’d stay.

(part three!)

taglist: @romanticdestruction @daydreamsandcrashingwaves @paintsplatteredandimperfect @hallucinatedjosten @mugloversonly @estrellami-1 @alongcomesaspider @thatonebadideapanda @tell-me-a-secret-a-nice-one @dragonmama76 @wxrmland @nuggies4life @sirsnacksalot @myguiltyartpleasure @marklee-blackmore @vinteraltus @sebastiansstanswhore @0happyeverafter0 @scarlet-malfoy (only tagged people who explicitly asked to be tagged; if you would like to be added or removed from this list please lmk!)

[back2bluesidex]

Give Me A Taste - MYG (18+)

Pairing: Idol!Yoongi X Fem!Reader

Theme: PWP, SMUT, established relationship au

Wordcount: 1.3k+

Summary: Yoongi is down bad for you, he has been missing your taste crazily. Thanks to unexpected turns of events and a cancelled show, he can finally satiate his hunger for you.

Warnings: Titty fucking, yes, he fucks her tits, tit play (a bit), fingering, he cums on her chest, a heated make out, Unprotected sex (don't try this at home), NSFW!!

Minors are not allowed in this blog!!

A/N: It's been a minute since I have written anything for Mr. Min. so... here it is. also, this is an apology because I won't be able to update WDBHG this week. I'm so sorry.:(

You are trying your best to scrub off the burnt patch of your frying pan when you hear the door lock chiming its jovial sound. 

“What the –” muttering to yourself, you start peeling off the washing gloves from your hands. It’s only you and Yoongi who know the passcode of your shared home. You are inside the condo and Yoongi is out on a world tour still having three more weeks to come back home. So it’s definitely a trespasser, or worse, a burglar or a robber trying to break into your house. 

Your blood runs cold at the thought as you walk towards the door for taking a look at the doorbell screen. Your steps halt when you see your boyfriend putting off his shoes and slipping into home slippers. 

“Yoongi?” you whisper, your eyes fill with moisture at an instant. It’s been nearly three months since you last saw him, smelled his calming scent, traced his skin with your fingertips. You have been missing him crazily and a brief phone or video call a day does absolutely nothing to quench your thirst. 

“One of the shows got canceled due to extreme weather conditions, we have a week till the next one. So, we decided to rest for a bit.” Yoongi reasons in his usual calm voice, before you get to ask him. He comes to stand right in front of you as you keep on staring at him. 

“Oh. Have you-” 

“Are you just going to stare at me?” Yoongi cuts you off. His face is unreadable but his eyes are dark, which makes it hard for you to assume anything. 

“No, I-” 

You get cut off again but this time because Yoongi slams his lips onto yours, pinning you to the nearest wall. 

Your boyfriend is usually calm and collected but he becomes a beast when lust takes over his senses. 

He grabs your wrists with both of his hands, pinning those above your head as he presses his body on yours. 

He kisses you hungrily, as if trying to lavish your lips for all the times he was away from you. You kiss him back with just as much urgency. The make out session is so heated that it spreads heat all over your body, including your pussy that just started wetting your cotton panties. 

You realize Yoongi is on the same page when his semi hard bulge presses on your stomach. 

He bites down on your lower lip, pulling it with his teeth before leaving you fucked up with only kisses. 

Yoongi loves you. Oh hell! It will be underestimated to say that he just loves you. He is obsessed with you! He craves for you like a lunatic. He starves for you. 

This prolonged period of staying away from you has been taking a toll on him, that’s why he came rushing back to you as soon as he got the chance. 

He looks at you with hooded eyes, stares down at your swollen lips then at your perked nipples. Fuck! You look heavenly like this. He can’t wait to feel your warmth wrapped around his length.

“I’ve missed you,Y/N. I can barely control myself anymore.” Yoongi whispers as he latches his lips to your throat, placing soft and lingering kisses wherever he could reach. 

“You don’t need to control yourself, Yoongi. I am all yours. Do whatever you want. I am all yours.” You breathe out. Yoongi’s tight grip on your wrists arouses you by an impossible amount. 

“Yes baby. I am going to fuck you so good now. But before that.. Give me a taste? Will you?” Yoongi’s low voice sends a trail of goosebumps all over your body. You suddenly find an urge to shy away from him and his eyes which are currently boring in your chest, more precisely, your nipples.  

Yoongi finds it adorable the way you get a little shy whenever he asks for a taste of your tits. He loves your tits, he can never get enough of those and fucking your tits is one of his most favourite ways of ruining you. 

He leaves your hands and clutches at the rim of your oversized tshirt to pull it off of your body. His eyes turn even darker as soon as you are topless in front of him. 

He palms your tits for a few moments. You push your tits out to enjoy more of his touch by arching your back. Yoongi chuckles at your eagerness. 

“Guess you missed me too, darling?” he squeezes both of your tits at the same time to erect a soft contained sigh from your lips. 

“You have no idea how much.” you murmur while enjoying Yoongi’s rough hands on your soft supple flesh. 

His fingers find your nipples and he twists those to satisfy himself, “then you will let me fuck your titties today, won’t you?” 

“I will…” you voice somehow. 

Yoongi bends down and takes one of your nipples in his mouth. 

As soon as the bud is inside his mouth, he starts lapping it up with his saliva before sucking it hard. All of your breath is knocked out when he worries your nipple between his teeth, not quite biting it rather playing with it with practiced skills.  

One of your hands finds its way to his long dark hair, nails raking through his scalp, earning a moan from your boyfriend. Your other hand travels down to south, brushing through the rough material of his jeans, grabbing his bulge and rubbing it to satiate your burning need that has developed for him.  

Yoongi repeats his actions with your other nipple, arousing you more and more.  

You are far too gone with the pleasure to notice that Yoongi has smeared your chest with his saliva, seemingly preparing you tits to take his cock. 

“Should we head to the couch now?” he asks with his gentle yet low voice. You nod eagerly. 

He lifts you up effortlessly, carries you to the couch and lays you down. Swiftly removing the rest of your clothes and leaving you lying naked on the couch, he reaches for his own clothes. 

His cock springs out of his boxers, tall and proud and ready to fuck you. He smirks, feeling you eyeing him like the horny, hungry girl that you are. 

Yoongi climbs on top of you, places his knees on either side of you, and lines his cock in the middle of your tits. You squeeze your tits tightly to make a tight passage for your boyfriend’s greedy cock. 

His first thrust is a little messy, the head of his cock nudges you on your chin, painting your chin with his precum. 

The next thrusts are more stable and steady and soon you hear Yoongi groaning in pleasure. He is such a goner when it comes to your tits. You tighten your tits even more to rile him up. 

“B-Baby, ugh, Y/N! I will c-cum at this rate.” Yoongi whines. Your eyes roll back at the sensation of his cock being squeezed by your big tits. 

But you start seeing stars when you feel Yoongi’s fingers parting your folds and drawing tight circles on your clit. 

“Oh my– Yoongi” you fumble to make any coherent sentence. 

Arousal pools out of your hole and creates a mess down there.

Apparently, it’s too much for Yoongi to take in your fucked up state, your wetness on his fingers and your tits squeezing the hell out of his cock, all together. His dick starts twitching and before he could warn you, he is cumming all over your face, throat and chest. 

Your grip on your tits loosen as you bring your hand to wipe your face off. When your vision returns to you, you find Yoongi licking your juices off of his fingers while maintaining a steady eye contact with you. He definitely doesn’t look like someone who just cummed all over you. 

Repositioning himself, Yoongi lowers his head to the level of your cunt and chuckles in his breathy voice, “Next up is your pussy. Give me a taste, yeah?” 

And you know you are going to have a long day ahead.

Taglist:

@phenomenalgirl9 @variety-is-the-joy-of-life @sukunabitch @chimchimmarie @coffeedepressionsoup @meowstake @vonvi-blog @nochuel @chimmisbae

[tannieastrology]

Solar Return Observations #2🌻💛

🌼💛Just an update so far, I have a 5th house stellium in my chart this year and life has felt so carefree. Life made me get rid of my old crush and made me focus on myself for a while(Pluto) until just friday I met someone new unexpectedly(Vertex). I havent felt this feeling in almost 3 years its really exhilarating feeling like this and I actually have a good feeling about it. It felt like I was meant to cross paths with him at this point in my life right now because im actually focused on my higher self. I feel that Vertex along with other major planets like the Sun, Mars, Mercury, Pluto, and POF made meeting him feel fated because for one ever since Ive met him ive consequently crossed paths with him multiple times in just the span of 3 days. Its not a deep connection however(5th house) but I hope to beat the odds and make something out of it. So overall, Ive had lots of fun, peace, and new interests in love.

🌼💛So I recently just discovered this, but you can go and find your monthly/daily transit chart and overlap it to your natal or solar return chart to see how your school, career, family, or love life will be. I was wondering why was it that I never got the opportunity to meet someone in matters of romance but i did multiple times in friendships and then I saw that in my transit charts I never had Venus in the 7th house until last month. Venus had always been in like the 11th, the 10th, or the 3rd and school and friends was what was constant in my life. Sometimes even having Venus in the 8th can mean a change in your love life. I even looked all the way through 2022 and 2023 and all 12 months there was not one placement of Venus/Mars/Moon in the 5th or 7th until my transit chart of Febuary 29. Venus conjuncted Mars in the 8th and what happened? I saw the new guy who was exactly my type and I found interest in him. My next transit will be March 30 with Venus, Saturn, and Neptune in the 7th, and Mars conjunct the descendant. Im hoping that things will go well and I can get the courage to talk to him but we'll seeee.

🌼💛Having Jupiter in the 1st just means your whole year will be filled with luck youll just have things fall right into your hands.

🌼💛Uranus in the 9th house is lowkey feeling lost on what path you should take regarding school or just feeling disconnected from school in general. I have this right now and ive been having trouble locking in on my school work and i dont know how i want to plan my schedule for next year. Im just going with the flow atp.

🌼💛Venus in the 4th house means your family will spoil you and make you feel loved.

🌼💛Ok so im not really liking the attention ive been getting from having Lilith exactly conjunct the Ascendant. It feels like every where i go theres been men staring at me creepily and theres this guy on the track team who keeps touching me and crossing my boundries and personal space and it makes me so uncomfortable. Its so grimy and I hate it.

🌼💛Look at the dominant planet and see what house it falls in. Last year i had a dominant planet of moon and it fell in the 12th house conjunct mars. All imma say is that last year was one of the worse but strengthening years for me mentally.

🌼💛Venus in the 9th house means you’ll probably get a chance to travel. I had it in the 4th degree and i went to California from Texas because of a wedding on my moms side.

🌼💛Ive noticed that Vertex in the 5th doesnt always necessarily mean youll meet someone, it just means that youll get a lot of opportunities to go out and have fun.

🌼💛Saturn in the 6th/10th means standing on business.

🌼💛Chiron in the 5th may be a year where you feel burnt out. Make sure to take a break.

🌼💛Moon in libra will beautify a relationship depending on whatever house its in. Ex- first house: your appearance, 3rd: your relationship with siblings, 5th house: with your romantic partners or your inner self. It could also mean you feel romantic this year and could even have more opportunities given to you to express those feelings.

🌼💛7th house Neptune means having dreamy fantasies about people you wanna date. Could have your head in the clouds or you can just have high hopes regarding this area. Could be spiritually calming regarding partnerships but you can be manipulated and gaslighted too if your not careful.

🌼💛Venus in the 10th means being called beautiful all the time during that year. So many strangers used to stop me in the hallways to tell me I was pretty that year.

🌼💛Chiron and Neptune in the 1st means not being able to see your beauty.

🌼💛Venus or Jupiter in the 2nd means splurging on skincare, makeup, and clothes.

🌼💛Having Chiron in the 4th is not fun lol. Could mean family problems, struggling to feel at home when youre at home, and having trouble having a safe space.

🌼💛Leo Ascendant years will make you feel popular.

🌼💛Venus in the 6th could make you follow health, beauty, and workout routines or it could oppositely make you feel lazy and not wanna do anything. It also means feeling comfortable at work or find a interest at work.

🌼💛In 2020 when covid hit I had Saturn in the 5th house and it makes so much sense looking back. We were forced to be isolated and I couldnt go out because of the lockdown. Dont get me wrong though I still had alot of fun with my family but I feel like my middle school experience wouldve been alot different if that hadnt happened.

🌼💛Having a Cancer Ascendant back in 2015 was when my older cousin got married and that was a big event for our family that girl spent almost a 100k on her wedding. She was the first to get married out of the kids in the family. Even having Cancer degrees in the chart will mean change or some significant event in your family life.

Thats all for today hope yall enjoyed:)

[meazalykov]

its more than a game

lena oberdorf x bayern!reader

part one here - part two here - part three (requested)

summary: you have to explain your relationship to the other team you're apart of

a/n: quickly wrote this last night so sorry for any mistakes!

the new year has come and gone, and with it, a sense of freedom and joy you haven’t felt in so long. 

you and lena are together now—a couple, something you still find yourself getting used to, but in the best possible way. ever since christmas, it feels like you’ve been given permission to love fully, without holding back, and lena, for her part, has become your biggest fan, cheering you on from the sidelines during training and matches as she continues to recover from her acl injury. 

life feels... right for once, and you’re leaning into that happiness more each day.

a week after the season resumes, lena’s back to posting her usual tiktok videos, little glimpses into her life as she rehabilitates her knee and follows bayern around. one day, she records clips at training—joking around with the girls, rookie playfully doing tricks in her backyard, and then the next clip shows you. 

in the video, you're doing dumbbell step ups on the benches, your focus intense as you lift effortlessly.

“and here’s my favorite person doing some easy dumbbell step ups,” lena’s voice says in the background, teasing and proud. 

“which i’m jealous of because i can’t do that for... obvious reasons.” the screen fills with a playful wink from lena, clearly referring to her acl injury. 

she watches you with adoration in her eyes, and it’s so casual, so natural, that you don’t think much of it—until later.

a few hours after she posts the video, your phone blows up with notifications. most of the bayern girls are commenting, teasing lena and cooing at how cute she is. especially with tuva saying that being a wingwoman worked. 

they all know now, and they’ve been nothing but supportive, joking that it was inevitable that you two would end up together. 

however, it’s your national teammates' group chat that catches your attention.

“hey, y/n,” one of your national teammates, sophia, texts.

“hi, yes!?” you respond.

“lena oberdorf’s tiktok came on my for you page, you are in it. what’s going on there?” sophia says.

“what tiktok?” naomi texts. 

sophia sends the link into the groupchat.

it takes about a minute before the next person texts.

“yeah, you two seem... close. since when?” emily questions.

you stare at the messages, your heart skipping a beat. you don’t want to explain everything over the phone, not like this. you quickly type back, keeping it vague. 

“we’ve just been getting along really well recently.” 

a couple of the girls reply with skeptical emojis, and you know they’re not buying it, but after a few playful jabs and questions, they let it go. for now.

when the end of the month arrives, you have to pack up and leave lena for a few weeks to join your national team for friendlies against australia. you hate leaving her, especially since you’ve gotten so used to spending every day together, but she’s supportive, grinning as she wraps you in a tight hug before you go.

“go kick some ass, okay?” she whispers in your ear, patting your lower back before you leave for the airport, her breath warm on your neck. 

“i’ll be here when you get back. and we’ll make up for lost time.”

“promise?” you murmur, hugging her even tighter.

“always,” lena says softly, and with one last kiss, you head out the door.

during the camp, you and lena text constantly, squeezing in messages and video calls whenever you can. 

you send her pictures from training, she sends you updates on her rehab and cute videos of rookie, and each time your phone lights up with a message from her, you find yourself smiling like an idiot. 

one day, you’re sitting in the locker room, scrolling through your phone with a huge grin on your face, when emily nudges you, peering over your shoulder. 

“okay, spill,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “who’s got you smiling like that?”

you hesitate, but there’s no point hiding it anymore. “it’s... lena,” you admit, still smiling. “she’s... my girlfriend.”

the room goes quiet, and you look around to see varying reactions—trinity, mallory, sam, and emily fox have their mouths open in surprise, emily sams, sophia and naomi are beaming happily, and tierna and crystal exchange knowing looks. 

you can see the questions forming behind their eyes, and it doesn’t take long for them to start asking.

“wait, like... lena lena? the same lena who you—”

“—yeah, the one who made you so mad at the world cup?”

you laugh nervously, holding your hands up to stop the barrage of questions. “yeah, yeah, that lena. and... i know it sounds crazy, but... she’s changed. and so have i. we worked through all of that, and i actually... i really like her. a lot. it wasn’t easy, but... we found our way to this, and it’s... it’s good. really good.”

ashley, who was there for the infamous world cup outburst, shakes her head in disbelief but with a grin on her face. “so... what happened? how did it go from... all that to... this?”

you shrug, still smiling as you think about the months leading up to this moment. “i mean... a lot happened. we started spending more time together at bayern, and... i saw a different side of her. she wasn’t the person i thought she was. i guess we both... let our guards down, y’know? i finally saw her as someone other than a rival, and... she saw me as more than just the person to beat.”

“and now she’s making videos of you doing dumbbell steps,” lindsey jokes, and the room erupts in laughter.

the friendlies against australia go well—your national team wins both matches, and you score a goal in each. throughout the games and celebrations, lena is always on your mind. you keep texting, sending voice messages late at night when you can’t sleep, laughing at each other’s dumb jokes. 

being apart is hard, but it only makes you more excited to see her again.

when you finally get back to germany, lena is waiting for you at the bayern training facility, leaning casually against the wall with that familiar smile on her face. 

she wraps you up in her arms the second you step through the door, and it feels like coming home. after weeks apart, being in her arms is everything you needed.

you’re back to training almost immediately, and the first thing lena suggests is some light running on the treadmill. 

“all the girls need to get a bit of cardio in,” she says with a shrug, a playful glint in her eyes.

you go along with it, not thinking much of it as you step onto the treadmill next to her. but then, as you start jogging, lena steps onto the treadmill beside you—and you nearly fall off yours in shock.

“what are you doing?” you say, panic rising in your voice. 

“lena, you know you can’t run yet—you’re going to mess up your knee!”

but lena just laughs, picking up the pace to a slow jog, looking completely unbothered. “that’s the thing,” she says, grinning widely as she matches your running speed. 

“i can run. i got cleared last week.”

your eyes widen as the realization hits, and you come to an abrupt stop, hopping off the treadmill and grabbing her arm to make her stop too. 

“are you serious?” you ask, your voice breaking into an excited laugh as you look at her, trying to figure out if she’s joking.

“dead serious,” lena says, her face lighting up with pure joy as she stops beside you. 

“i can run again, y/n. i’m getting back.”

you don’t think; you just act, pulling her into the tightest hug you can manage, burying your face in her neck as the happiness rushes through you. 

“oh my god, lena, that’s... that’s amazing,” you say, holding her close, feeling like your heart might burst from how proud you are of her.

“surprise,” she whispers, laughing softly against your ear as she wraps her arms around you. and you hold her even tighter, knowing that this is only the beginning.

masterlist

[ohcorny]

so! it's been a year since i put never satisfied on hiatus, and 9 years since i started posting it, and rather than make you read everything if all you want to know is "when's it coming back?" the answer is still: don't know! but the answer has also shifted closer to "it isn't" the longer i've spent on break, and i think it's worth being up front about that.

i talked about it a little here a few weeks ago, but the long and short of it is that between taking on better paying work, writing better stories, and looking back at what i'd already done for never satisfied... i just don't think i want to continue it? the year off has been incredibly good for my mental health, and i can't see myself wanting to go back after the two-three years still ahead of me on my current project. that's not to say i never want to return to the characters or the concept, but if i did, i imagine it would be with something completely new, in a different form. after all, i started this comic when i was 21 years old, a lesbian, and a sophomore in college. i am now just shy of 30, a bi man, and overall a completely different person than i was, back when i was writing without a plan and putting all of my insecurities into the comic--insecurities i don't identify with anymore. lord i'm closer to rothart's age than i am to lucy's. hate that

anyway. you have all been extraordinarily kind for following never satisfied for as long as you have, for supporting it as much as you have, and being as patient as you have. whatever form never satisfied takes in the future (god willing, with a more cohesive story structure and A PLAN FOR THE ENDING, WHICH BY THE WAY I NEVER, EVER HAD) i hope to see you there!

in the meantime, as an update on where i'm at with the thing that made me stop working on NS: i finished it! all the pages for Hunger's Bite (if you remember it with a different title: no you don't) have been turned in and now it's just revisions and covers and then........ waiting a year until it can come out. because that's how it is in traditionally published graphic novels! nothing releases for a full year after you finished it! and you're even getting it earlier than was originally planned, because i'm a creature and finished it like three months ahead of schedule. i've also already started thumbnailing the sequel book which i can't talk about whatsoever and will now be working on that for the next two years and then HOPEFULLY the first book will have done well enough that i can sell a third! so you better buy it when it comes out next february!!!!!!

to ease you all into it, i wanted to do a little crossover to introduce the main characters. we have emery, whose design is fully and unintentionally just Seiji Again down to his color palette (but seiji would bully him if they met. like so hard. he's a wimp). then we have neeta, a girl who dreams of travel and cares deeply about worker's rights, and wick, a vampire agent investigating the mysterious and sinister new owner of the 1910s ocean liner emery and neeta call home. he's also gay. but sorry lucy, you aren't his type. you're not mean enough.

the best place to keep up with me these days is probably here, as this first book gets closer to release, i will probably be posting about it a lot. and i will certainly post about it here when there's an official release date and cover reveal! i hope you'll go read it. i really think if you liked never satisfied and its themes, you'll like hunger's bite!

thank you again for reading!!