#what we do in the dark

[helyiios]

that’s what he says right before he kills ppl

[lilithsaintcrow]

"Even people who lived relatively recently—those with candles, oil lamps, and early electricity—were far more familiar with darkness than we are today. Their nocturnal world simply wasn’t as bright as ours."

[amnevitahwritesstuff]

Sakura’s past is just as dark as the rest of Team 7’s. They just don’t know it yet.

Fandom: Naruto

Pairing: N/A

Rating: Teen

Triggers: Implied Sexual Abuse

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 5 (WIP)

[I posted this on AO3 years ago but am just now getting around to posting it here.]

AO3 Link

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Chapter Four: Truth and Confrontation

“Okay,” Kakashi said as the door to the office he had commandeered clicked closed. “Tell me what happened. Sasuke first.”

Sasuke’s eyes were stormy as he recounted what had happened only an hour before. “We were getting breakfast and then that man came up and...he was touching Sakura! He grabbed her arm and she just... let him !”

The girl in question looked like she wanted nothing more than to melt into the carpet.

“And what happened then?”

“I told him to stop. And when he didn’t, I shoved him away.”

“And broke his arm apparently,” Kakashi added wryly.

Sasuke just stared at him, silent and unrepentant.

Kakashi sighed and turned to the other boy in the room. “Alright, Naruto, anything to add?”

“He did something to her,” He spat, voice escalating until he was nearly shouting. “I know he did! I could see it! Sakura was afraid of him! And Sakura isn’t afraid of anyone!”

“Alright,” Kakashi said, voice deceptively light. “I believe you.”

Naruto and Sasuke glanced at each other, surprise evident in their faces.

“Wait...you do?�� The blonde asked, confused.

“Yep,” Their sensei remarked cheerfully, before opening the door once more and gesturing towards the hallway. “Now wait outside. I need to speak to Sakura.”

Sasuke’s eyes flicked to his silent, terrified teammate and then back to Kakashi and narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because I said so,” Kakashi replied, still overly calm and cheery. “Now out.”

And though the boys looked ready to protest, they weren’t given much choice as their sensei all but shoved them out with a blithe ‘she’ll be fine’ and then locked the door for good measure. Not that a simple lock could actually keep them out, but it was the principle of the thing. He sat down in one of the empty chairs with a weary sound and scrubbed at his eye with his palm.

Sakura just stared at him as if he was going to bite her.

Kakashi sighed. “I realize this is the last thing you want to do, but you’re going to have to tell me what happened.”

Sakura blanched and then mumbled quickly, “Sasuke and Naruto already told you what happened-”

He gave her a look . “You and I both know that isn’t what I meant.”

If anything, Sakura looked even more uncomfortable than before.

Well , Kakashi thought, this is going well . He’d never felt more like a scumbag than in this moment. Years of torturing enemies for information and listening to the begging of assassination targets and he’d never once balked, but forcing a 12 year old girl to confess her abuse? He was more than ready to just let her sit in silence for the rest of the night. But at the same time though...

“I get it. Really, I do ,” Kakashi began tiredly. If anyone understood the desire to never, ever talk about their trauma, it was him. “But if you don’t tell me what happened I’m going to have to go out there and let that man go free. I can’t keep him here without a reason.”

“I…” Her voice trailed off, barely more than a whisper. He could see the gears turning in her head, weighing her choices, fear warring with shame.

“Give me a reason Sakura.” He looked her in the eye, trying to convey everything he would do for her if she just said the words he needed her to say. “And you’ll never have to see him again.”

“I…I can’t ,” She choked, swallowing a sob. “You’ll hate me.”

Kakashi suddenly had to force down the need to smash something. “ No ,” He replied coldly. “It’s not you I’ll hate.”

Sakura only looked more skittish, eyeing his clenched fists with disbelief, so he stood, stepping towards her to crouch in front of her instead. He didn’t touch her, but she leaned away anyway.

“You don’t have to tell me,” He tried again, an idea forming in his mind. “So what if you show me instead?”

“Show…?”

He tapped the hitai-ate slumped over his left eye and her own eyes widened in realization. She was silent for a terribly long time and he didn’t dare break it, watching the idea turn over in that deceptively quick mind of hers.

“Will it hurt?”

He fought the urge to laugh, tension leaching from his shoulders. Of all the things for her to ask…

“No,” Kakashi assured her gently as he pulled up his hitai-ate and Obito’s sharingan began to spin. “You won’t feel a thing.”

And then he saw the scene in her mind. The towering form of the man from before, whispering to her soothingly to stay quiet and that she was ‘such a good girl’. The large hands that wandered into places they shouldn’t. He could feel the embarrassment as her nightdress was lifted, the crushing press of a man far heavier than her bearing her down. But most of all he felt the shame . The fear . The utter confusion . The feeling that she must’ve done something to deserve this somehow...

The sharingan snapped shut and Kakashi pulled away, deathly silent.

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The man (what had his name been? Kazuki?) almost didn’t notice Kakashi entering the office 15 minutes later. After he’d finished with Sakura he’d left her in the care of her teammates with instructions to take her elsewhere. Then he’d made two clones. One to inform Sakura’s parents of what was going on.

And the second to inform the hokage of what he was going to do.

Kazuki watched the jōnin curiously as the door snapped closed behind him. “So did you punish those boys yet?”

“No.”

He frowned, annoyed. He opened his mouth to say something but Kakashi cut him off as he sat across from him.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” He began with false cheer. “I’m going to give you a choice Haruno-san.”

The man stared at him uncomprehendingly. “A choice…?”

“That’s right,” Kakashi continued. “You see I can’t just kill you outright. Too much paperwork.”

Kazuki paled, horror dawning across his face. “K-kill me?!” He sputtered. “What the hell are you talking about?!!”

“Oh well, you see there would just be so many questions and the hokage looks down on just killing people in the village without his say-so. You understand.”

The man gave him a look that said he very much did not understand. “But you can’t-”

“I don’t know if you noticed Haruno-san but this is a military dictatorship. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

The sound that came out of Kazuki very much sounded like that of a man being hanged. Kakashi would know.

“You haven’t asked me why I want to kill you yet.” The jōnin prompted, clearly enjoying watching the man squirm. He stared at him expectantly until he realized that Kakashi expected him to say something.

“...Why do you want to kill me?” He sounded like it was just now dawning on him that this entire situation wasn’t just some bizarre fever dream.

“Well, it’s funny you ask that,” Kakashi said happily. “Because as it turns out, I just learned that you’ve hurt one of my students.” The atmosphere grew suddenly cold and claustrophobic and he continued, “And if there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s when someone fucks with my students .”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“Don’t bother lying to me. I do it for a living.”

“Those boys attacked me! I didn’t do anything to them!”

Kakashi’s smile grew positively feral. “Who said I was talking about the boys?”

Kazuki grew even paler, but then suddenly became angry. Like a cornered animal that knew its options were few. “You have no proof!” He spat accusingly.

“Ah, well there’s where you’re wrong Haruno-san,” Kakashi said, lifting up his hitai-ate and snapping open his sharingan. “You see, I have all the proof I need.”

And then he caught the man in a genjutsu, forced him to see what he’d done to Sakura from her perspective. And when he was done Kazuki was silent and still and terrified and all he could do was whisper, like a lifeline, “You said you wouldn’t kill me...”

“I did,” Kakashi agreed. “And I said you have a choice.”

The man looked as if he were afraid to ask, but he did anyway. “What...what choice?”

“Which do you prefer? Your hands?...Or your balls?”

[the-bad-batch]

Chapters: 2/10 Fandom: Abbott Elementary (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Melissa Schemmenti/Original Female Character(s) Characters: Barbara Howard, Melissa Schemmenti, Ava Coleman (Abbott Elementary), Kristen Marie (Abbott Elementary), Janine Teagues, Gregory Eddie, Jacob Hill, Original Characters, Gary (Abbott Elementary) Additional Tags: mentions of sickness, Sex Club, Mommy Kink, Fluff and Smut, Shameless Smut, Romance, breakdown - Freeform, Strap-Ons, Praise Kink Summary:

Forced to take time off work after a breakdown, Melissa finds herself taking her sisters advice and going to an sex club which her sister had mentioned, just to prove that Kristen Marie has terrible ideas. There she finds a new place to let loose and a woman she only knows by the name of El, who will change her life forever.

We have chapter 2! 

[lindsayribar]

If Nandor can have 37 wives (girl wives AND guy wives), Spanish Jackie can have 20 husbands (girl husbands AND guy husbands).

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[tooth-with-eyes]

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres: vampire

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[kayshasiemens]

Rising from the dead to share this painting and then disappear again

I have spent over 90 hours of my life on this thing because I have had the brain rot for the last 2 years of my life (almost 20 if you count when I first read the comics) and it had to express itself somehow

Hope this dramatic bitch feels appreciated

(A Dream of Morpheus, handmade egg tempera on panel, 12x18 inches...if by any chance you'll be at SDCC or Gen Con, I'll be at booth 934/936 at the first one and Art Show #13 at the second one - come see the original, maybe get a print, or just yell/cry about Sandman with me?)

And here, have some more details - I had fun combining some favorite elements from both the comic and the show ♡

[lyselkatzfandomluvs]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to *What We Do In The Dark*!!!

@realhunterswearplaid ♡♡♡

🎉 Happy second anniversary to @realhunterswearplaid 's amazing serie What we do in the dark! 💕

...☕?/Commission

[amnevitahwritesstuff]

Sakura’s past is just as dark as the rest of Team 7’s. They just don’t know it yet.

Fandom: Naruto

Pairing: N/A

Rating: Teen

Triggers: Implied Sexual Abuse

Chapters: 1, 2, 4, 5 (WIP)

[I posted this on AO3 years ago but am just now getting around to posting it here.]

AO3 Link

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Chapter Three: The Predator and the Prey

As it turned out, Naruto had absolutely nothing in the way of groceries (that weren’t expired or cup ramen anyway) and so Sasuke and Sakura dragged their whining teammate down to the market for breakfast.

“What about these? You like oranges right?”

Naruto made a face. “Meh.”

“I hate sweet things,” Sasuke added unhelpfully.

“Ugh,” Sakura rolled her eyes but bought the fruit anyway. “Fine, more for me then.”

Really , she thought snarkily. Boys .

As they were moving off to the next stall though, a voice rang out that made Sakura stiffen like a deer caught in a hunter’s line of sight.

“Sakura!”

No , she thought frantically. Not now. Not here. Her eyes immediately sought out an exit as a large, middle-aged man appeared and laid a hand on her shoulders familiarly. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

Sasuke sized up the man who had sidled up to Sakura and frowned. He behaved as if they were old friends and yet Sakura had gone from grumbling and rolling her eyes with them to looking as if someone had dropped a bomb on her house. Who the hell was this guy? He spoke to her familiarly, hands rubbing her back and shoulders and staring down at her fondly. But there was something...not right about him. Sakura was usually the most chatty of their team, always willing to engage friends and strangers alike in conversation but now...now she was silent . Unnervingly so.

Naruto, though...one look at the way the man’s hands lingered intimately upon his friend’s bare shoulders and her pale, terrified face and he knew. She looked exactly like some of the girls he knew when he was in the orphanage. The ones who’d been abused in the most unspeakable ways by those bigger and stronger than them. He felt the blood roaring in his ears as the man babbled on, oblivious to the turmoil he’d brought upon these children.

“There you are! I came to visit last night but your parents told me you weren’t home. Apparently you’re just too busy for your dear old uncle these days.”

And then, just like that, Sasuke understood too.

She had begged them not to send her home. Had sobbed on the training grounds and dug her fingers into the dirt as if it could keep her there. She’d been terrified. Hadn’t wanted to go home...because of him . Because he had been waiting for her. Like a predator .

“Don’t touch her.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

The man frowned down at the boy, as if he were a particularly annoying insect. “I beg your pardon-”

“I said don’t touch her. She doesn’t like you.”

Naruto and Sasuke’s eyes met and the look they shared made it clear that for once they were in complete agreement. Naruto’s nostrils flared as he glared back at the man before them.

“You heard him.”

Sakura’s uncle grimaced in displeasure. “I don’t know where you come off boy-” the man’s fingers clutched at Sakura’s arm until the skin under them turned white. She didn’t so much as flinch, just stared at the ground with a glassy, empty gaze.

Sasuke snapped.

“I said stop touching her!” And then he grabbed the offending arm and twisted .

And then all hell broke loose.

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“I’m sorry, say that again?”

“You’re genin team is being held at the administrative office for a prospective court martial!”

Kakashi blinked.

“ My cute little genin? Surely there must be a mistake…” he drawled.

“They attacked a civilian!”

“...I’m sure they deserved it.”

The chunin scoffed in disbelief but Kakashi was already tuning him out and slouching away in the direction of the administrative building.

Seriously though, how did they get into this mess?

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Ever since the untimely demise of the Uchiha Clan, Konoha’s local police work had fallen into the lap of the administrative office. Naturally this had only made things far more confusing and difficult for everyone involved but with no other group really qualified for police work the matter was left in limbo until the funds and manpower was available to start a new police force.

Thus Kakashi wasn’t all that surprised when he arrived to find his team sitting mulishly against a wall while an annoyed chunin presided over them looking as if he’s rather be anywhere else. On the opposite wall, a man stood shouting at a second chunin, pointing angrily in their direction. Said chunin looked less than pleased as he tried to make suitably sympathetic noises as the man screamed at him.

“I want those boys locked up! They’re a danger to everyone around them!”

“I understand you’re upset Haruno-san, but it’s not up to me as to how or when the boys get punished.”

“Then take me to whoever does make that decision!”

“Yo,” Kakashi exclaimed, happily cutting off the man’s tirade. “So would anyone like to explain to me what’s going on here?”

“Kakashi-san!” The relief the chunin radiated at his appearance was almost embarrassing. However, the relief radiating from his students was even more palatable and all three quickly began speaking at the same time.

“Kakashi-sensei!”

“Don’t listen to him Sensei, he deserved it!”

“I didn’t even hit him that hard!”

Kakashi raised a hand and the three immediately fell silent. “Now,” he said, turning to the man apparently known as ‘Haruno-san’. His eyes flickered to Sakura before settling back upon her relative. “I’d like to hear what happened from everyone here. You first.” Haruno clearly didn’t need to be told twice and furiously gestured to Kakashi’s students.

“Those boys broke my arm!” The man bellowed and, sure enough, the forearm he cradled in his left hand stuck out at an odd angle.

“I see,” Kakashi drawled. “And what led up to this act of aggression?”

Haruno stopped, as if confused by the question.

“Surely they didn’t attack you out of the blue?” He continued, face disarmingly genial.

“Of course they did!” Haruno replied, righteous anger billowing up once more. “I saw my niece and came to say hello and then these boys just started shouting and broke my arm!”

“Really?” Kakashi exclaimed but was cut off by shouts of indignation from his team.

“That’s bullshit!” Naruto shouted angrily, fists balled and teeth grinding. “He was touching Sakura!-”

“She was afraid of him,” Sasuke said cooly, cutting off his teammate. Anyone looking at him would’ve thought he was the calm one of the two but Kakashi knew better. Sasuke was furious .

Haruno balked, sputtering at the accusation and angrily defending himself but the jōnin wasn’t listening to him, eyes lingering on Sakura’s silent, pale face.

“You’re awfully quiet over there Sakura,” Kakashi said gently. “Don’t you have anything to add?”

Her eyes grew wide and then darted to the floor as she seemed to curl in on herself. She didn’t say a word. Terror evident in every one of her features.

Well , he thought as his eye darted to her relative. It seems Sasuke was telling the truth . The odd look on the man’s face said it all. The look of a guilty man trying hard to seem innocent. Kakashi wasn’t an idiot. There was no question as to who this person was to his student...and what he’d done to her.

“Well,” Kakashi said cheerily. “It looks like we have a lot to discuss.” It wasn’t his team he looked at as he said those words.

For a single moment, Kakashi thought he saw a trace of fear in the man’s face.

Checkmate. 

[the-bad-batch]

Hey guys.

I’ve had some bad news so I’m taking a break from writing whilst I get my head space sorted. What we do in the dark is something I’m insanely proud of and I don’t want to put out shitty chapters just because I don’t feel good. The story, the characters and you all deserve more than that.

Nice messages will be appreciated.

Pray to whatever gods you believe in too.

[frogchiro]

Also I was thinking about something slightly...darker i guess?? I'm in a very weird headspace rn and this is my therapy

cw: legal age gap, creepy Simon and generaly unsettling behavior, obsessive and possessive Ghost, he's a pushy dick in this and very much a scumbag, he kinda gets off on seeing you helpless

How about reader who got recently kicked out by her shitty parents, 'she's now an adult and needs to start acting like that', except now she's barely in her 20's with little to nothing to her name except her clothes, the little money she managed to save over the years and a job as a waitress in a small café.

Putting together the saving she manages to rent out an apartment that was almost suspiciously cheap, not to mention the shady landlord who only contacted her through the phone but she couldn't just crash at her friend's place forever.

The moment you arrived at the destination you knew why was the place so ridiculously cheap; this build was...something. An old dilapitating apartment building, four stories high with old wooden-framed windows, some of them smashed. Empty beer bottles laid smashed next to the stairs mixing with cigarette butts, graffiti covered the ground floor walls and a very sad looking patch of grass that you think was supposed to be a garden were solemnly staring back at you as if taunting 'come on, try and run'.

Imagine sleazy neighbour Simon, dishonorably discharged from the army and now living in this shithole too, who takes a deep interest in the pretty young thing that moved in recently, almost growling when he first caught your scent; fresh and kinda sweet, feminine and clean. Definitely not the smells that he's accustomed to here: stale cigarettes, the stench of alcohol and wet dirt and fuck knows what else those creepy fuckers are concocting in their holes in here.

You're clearly new to...this. Simon can almost taste it; you were probably kicked out after pa and ma decided they're done with you...But who could throw out a pretty flower like you? Soft, trembling body, wide doe eyes almost brimming with tears of fright, fuck it does things to him.

Simon sure as hell wouldn't mind the company of a soft young woman like you, and he's pretty sure you wouldn't mind being protected and taken care of by a big, strong male like himself, right?

Even if you do, it's not like you have any say in that.