#will get wrapped up in the semantics of it!!!!

[oathofkaslana]

also. Hm. tbh'es. the idea of putting such ridiculous standards for what someone who wasnt a bigot would actually do is kinda. extremely fucking awful for anyone struggling w moral ocd lol.

[fulane-de-tal]

can we stop fightin about shit for one damn second and remember that we’re all alive and queer on this earth together and at some point no matter how insulated you are you’re going to have to get okay with the old school dykes and the big old faggy men and the genderfuckers and the transsexuals and the hardcore sadomasochists bc who the hell else is going to fight for you ?? huh! god damn you people protect your communities even the people you want to not be your community out of ignorance or puritanism or some shit come ON we’re all we have

[todayisafridaynight]

if i Hypothetically made a sequel to the epilogue of this cringe thing how many people would shoot me with a rail gun and how many people would line up with a bowl while i deliver grey-meat slop

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Police Officer Wes

"Excuse me, sorry, Mr. Batman, sir!"

That's definitely not a voice he knows. Bruce halts in his steps, aborting his usual retreat into the shadows, and turns back around. Commissioner Gordon, who was still in the process of wrapping up his small talk with Tim - the term 'grumpy banter' would describe their conversation more accurately at this point, but Bruce knows better than to argue with the two over semantics - also turns around, pausing in the middle of the sentence.

A ginger haired boy, wide-eyed and obviously either nervous, starstruck, or both, is staring at him from a few feet behind the Commissioner. Bruce can see a few more faces peeking from behind the half-opened door to the roof, all of them filled with anticipation. He knows two of them: detectives that work directly under Gordon, Isaiah Vasquez, and Tasha Kuznets. The third one, a black man in his forties, also looks vaguely familiar, but Bruce can't recall a name.

Yet, he knows absolutely nothing about the ginger, who hasn't blinked once since Bruce noticed him and is now biting on his lips. But he is wearing a police uniform, so, possibly, a new hire?

"Weston, get out," Jim sighs, waving a shooing hand at the boy with a look of barely concealed exasperation on his face. Definitely a new hire, then. That's the level of annoyance he reserves only for the overachieving rookies that he begrudgingly likes but never admits to.

"I-" newly named Weston starts but cuts himself off. Then, he takes a deep breath and straightens up, "Just one question, sir!"

"Weston, I swear to God," Commissioner pinches the bridge of his nose, lifting his glasses up a bit. But Tim tilts his head to the side, looking in the ginger's direction and raising his eyebrows. His domino mask hides it, but Bruce knows his menagerie of kids well enough to see that he is at least a bit curious about the boy. So he turns back around fully and inclines his head, giving Weston his attention. He doesn't mind talking with those rare few members of GCPD that Gordon likes.

Weston perks up like a very eager dog at the sight of a treat. In the contrast lighting of the BatSignal, his hair looks like it's on fire.

"If you don't mind, was the 'Smiling case' relevant to Joker in any sense?" The boy asks, loud and clear - maybe even too loud - with his unblinking gaze still glued to Bruce. Like he is afraid that if he closes his eyes for a moment, Gotham's vigilantes are going to disappear without a trace.

It's not a question Bruce expected, to be honest. The 'Smiling case' was closed just a few days ago, Gordon was still not done with the paperwork, as far as Oracle's records went. A murder of three, where all victims had some badly drawn clown makeup on them - post-mortem makeup, as it turned out, the murderer tried to deceive the investigation by trying to cover it up as Joker's doing. Only, he didn't do a good job at it, all the Bats were way too familiar with the Mad Clown's signature style. Not to mention that Joker was still securely sealed in his Arkham cell.

Bruce turns to look at Red Robin. He was the one working on the case, so Bruce gives him the choice of answering or not. Tim jerks his shoulder, looks the ginger boy up and down, and then shakes his head.

"Aside from a poor attempt at leading the investigation in the wrong direction, no, it wasn't," Tim shrugs, "The guy isn't even a Gothamite, he knew of Joker only from the rumors and media. And the clown faces were a makeshift cover-up."

Weston visibly deflates at the answer. Bruce watches in a slight amusement as Tasha nudges the other officer, one he doesn't remember the name of, in the shoulder, and stage-whispers, "Pay up." The older man huffs and disappears behind the door, followed by Isaiah.

"Thank you, Mr. Red Robin," Wesley nods politely and takes a step back, his eyes darting to Gordon. Tim snorts a laugh but doesn't correct him. Commissioner, though, gives the boy a long, dreadful sigh.

"Is that all, officer Weston?" He asks, not even bothering to hide his 'tired dad' voice.

The ginger nods again, "Yes, Commissioner Gordon."

"Then get out of my sight before I make all your shifts double," Jim commands, and Weston nearly runs back to the door with a speed that makes Bruce involuntarily think of speedsters. Must be the red hair.

Tim turns to look at the Commissioner right as the door to the roof slams shut behind both Weston and Kuznets.

"Who is he?"

Bruce is also a bit curious now. New recruits in the GCPD are nothing out of the ordinary, but Jim seems to know this one personally, and Kuznets, who is one of his trusted detectives, seems to also like the officer.

Gordon briefly huffs and stuffs his hands in the pockets of his coat. It's quite chilly today; Bruce makes a mental note to switch everyone to their more insulated suits. Scarecrow is currently out on the loose. It won't do any good if any of the Bats went down with a cold.

"Wesley Weston, fresh out of the Academy," Commissioner sighs, but, somehow, Bruce gets the impression it's not a sound of simple exasperation over a new officer eager to prove himself. Jim proves his assumptions by looking around the shoulder to make sure the door to the roof is still closed, and continuing, "Born and raised in the middle of nowhere, Illinois, but GCPD was his first choice. He explained it as having a few friends living in the city, which, unfortunately, proved to be right."

Bruce frowns and grunts, alarm bells ringing in his mind. Deliberately choosing to work in Gotham despite not being from here can be caused by many reasons, and nearly none of them are good reasons.

"Unfortunately?" Tim inquires suspiciously, also with a slight frown, but Jim waves them both off.

"No, he's got nothing to do with any of the criminals. It was the first thing I checked when he mentioned 'friends'. If anything, he's quite on the opposite; he'd make a great detective one day, what with his countless conspiracy theories, determination and the insane urge to dig up every single detail known to mankind," he laughs a bit, and Bruce notices a slight, teasing twinkle to the Commissioner's eyes behind his glasses. "On his second day here, the boy went and plain told me he knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne and that he's saying that because he knows I know and he is aware we're working together."

The alarm bells in Bruce's mind turn into sirens. They never discussed the matters of Bats' real identities with Gordon - Bruce had his suspicions that the man knew it and simply kept his status quo. In all fairness, James Gordon didn't make it to Gotham's Commissioner by sheer dumb luck, so all the Bats kind of expected him to figure it out one day.

But Jim knowing who's behind the cowl is one thing. A new, out of town officer is quite another.

"What did you answer?" Tim asks with an easy smile, but Bruce sees the barely noticeable tension in his shoulders.

Gordon nearly grins, "I didn't believe him, which turned out to be exactly what he expected. He also told me of some kind of a familial curse - he called it 'Cassandra's curse', I believe you're aware of what it means. And then, when I naturally expressed my doubts, proceeded to show it in action. Believe me, it works. Sometimes, it even works too well," the man looks to the side with an amused huff, "That's why officer Weston is strictly prohibited from voicing his opinions on any of the ongoing cases outloud. Detective Kuznets almost missed some critical evidence because of his input once."

Cassandra's curse, Bruce has heard of that saying before. Granted, he never thought it could be a real thing, and he is not intending on starting now, not before he investigates the matter thoroughly. But he does trust Jim - years and years of working together would do that to people - so he simply nods in understanding, leaving the matter of supernatural aside for now.

"What about his friends?" Red Robin asks again, and that causes Gordon to wince momentarily.

"That, I believe, was the cause of his performance just now. One of his friends runs an occult shop, and the other one loves to hang around our forensic scientists and coroners occasionally," the man waves their immediate frowns off again, "I don't go into the morgue often, but I heard he's good at finding out the causes of death by a few looks at the body. And they run a lot of bets between them three," Jim shrugs nonchalantly, "The last one was about the 'Smiling case', I take it."

"Any reason to worry about them?" Bruce can't help but ask. It's not unusual for people to be weird in this city, and running an occult shop and hanging out with pathologists are not exactly reasons to go through background checks when they've got much more pressing issues on their plate. Namely, Scarecrow: it's been more than a week since his escape, but none of the Bats have heard anything about him yet. Oracle is already busy enough with that and the current uprise of gang activity in the Narrows, there's no point in piling even more work on her shoulders just because of some gossip that rubs Bruce the wrong way.

Gordon, thankfully, doesn't take his question lightly and pauses, scratching his chin.

"No," he finally concludes after some thought, "They are a bit strange for non-Gothamites, I'll say that, but in terms of this city? They are no stranger than my neighbors from upstairs." Gordon doesn't tell them to leave it alone, Bruce notices. However, it's probably not because of any doubts he has; the Bats just have a habit of tripplechecking everything anyways, and who would know that better than Jim Gordon?

A quick glance to Tim proves Bruce's thoughts. Red Robin, despite the mask, looks thoughtful. How many cases is he already working on, seven? Bruce makes another mental note to ask Alfred to cut his caffeine intake. It might be a bit hypocritical of him, what with his own plans to send a few messages to JLD about the 'Cassandra's curse', but Bruce excuses himself as the adult in the family.

Commissioner Gordon clears his throat.

"Do you want me to turn around so you can make your mysterious escape, or-" he starts, but both vigilantes are already gone by the time he finishes, "-or not, okay."

[inkdrinkerworld]

i know u were asking for soft dom remus: reader cuts her finger after messing around with a knife or scissors after remus told her to be careful!

sorry this was such a delayed response, still I hope you enjoy <33

"Ouch, fuck." Remus looks up from his laptop immediately, finding you cradling your finger with a few tears streaming down your face.

"What's a'matter, dove?" he asks, already pushing out of his seat and coming over to the kitchen to see what's going on.

Your teary eyes flit up to him, nibbling on your bottom lip as you decide whether or not you should tell Remus.

In the end you don't have to, because your boyfriend spies the cantaloupe and the poorly cut rind on the floor and the blood on the knife.

"Cut my finger." you say with resignation, putting your hand in Remus' with a sniffle.

"My love," he murmurs, kissing your finger and then opening the tap. "C'mon, let's get rid of all this blood, hm."

You let Remus guide you closer to the sink, hissing as the water touches your skin and Remus tuts.

"You're okay baby, you're okay." Remus pulls the first aid kit from under the sink and holds two bandages up to you. "What d'you think, dove? Plain or cartoon?"

Remus is humouring you. You both know which bandage you're going to choose, but he likes giving you the choice regardless.

"Cartoons." he kisses your forehead as he rips the paper off it. "M'sorry I tried doing it myself and got hurt."

Remus rolls his eyes, "Dove you can do things yourself, I'm never stopping you from that," He wraps the band-aid around your finger, and presses a kiss to it. "But," Remus tips your chin up. "You know the melons are always tricky for you. I don't like when you get hurt, but I'm not upset with you."

You nod, tears pooling in your eyes again that has Remus tucking your face into his chest and rubbing down the length of your back. "I just really want to be able to do it myself. The rough skin never makes you cut yourself."

Remus chuckles, lips pressed into your hair as your tears slow down. "I can show you baby," he promises and you perk up, pulling away from him quickly.

The unshed tears hang on your waterline like diamonds glittering in the sun. Remus thinks even tear stained you look like an angel. "Right now?"

He smiles, "When haven't you gotten your way with me?"

You smile wide and bright like midday sun and Remus' heart warms under it. "Well, if you must know, when you banned me from having coffee past three in the afternoon."

Remus only shakes his head, hands on his hips as he props you up on the counter top and washes the bloody knife and cutting board. "I'm pretty sure you still get caffeine even after then."

"That's just semantics. It's not coffee though is it?" You rebut as Remus starts carving away at the rough skin of the melon with an ease you've yet to master.

"Brat," he mutters and your answering whine is too adorable for his smile not to break through. "Let's add another thing to that list, no cutting melons for at least two weeks."

You sigh like it's a travesty, but honestly, you're taking a break from learning how to do it. "If you insist."

Remus knows you too well, still he plays along. His voice alight with amusement, "I insist on keeping you alive until well after we get married baby, so no knives for the foreseeable future."

He feeds you a cube of melon before you can say much else.

[moonstruckme]

Hi 🥺 can I pretty please ask for a fic with emt!marauders treating and helping reader get through getting stitches? Maybe having a huge fear of needles and they always make her so faint and nauseous so the boys fix up their clumsy girl and coach her through getting them because it’s just the absolute worst time ever?

Hi lovely, thank you for requesting! These always get so long because I get wrapped up in the semantics haha. I don’t think this is an accurate reflection of how things work for paramedics, but for the purposes of fiction we’re gonna ignore that :3

Cw: needles, hospital, mention of nausea

emt!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 2.1k words

James is murmuring what you imagine to be placations into the side of your head, so quietly you can’t make them out, and you’re doing your best to keep your hand completely still as a nurse cleans the cut on your palm. 

Sirius is watching you from beside the small bed with tension written all over him. He’s digging his fingernails into his biceps and looking like he might actually jump the nurse if she makes a wrong move. 

“Where’s Remus?” he asks, not for the first time. 

“He’s just finishing up with another patient,” she answers again. “He’ll be here shortly.” 

As eager as you are to see your boyfriend, dread curls like vines around your ribcage. James, sensing this, presses his lips to your temple. 

Ordinarily, paramedics don’t handle stitches, but at your request and after some sweet-talking on James’ part, the director agreed to let Remus see to you. What was staunchly not allowed, however, was for anyone not currently on shift to step in, so your remaining two boyfriends are stuck providing emotional support. James seems to be taking this better, whereas Sirius has been antsy and overprotective since you’d arrived. 

A fraction of the tautness in his biceps dissipates when a familiar set of quick footsteps draws closer on the tiled floor outside your curtain. The nurse is the only one who doesn’t seem to notice, the three of you perking up like meerkats the moment before Remus pulls back the curtain, stepping inside. 

“Hi,” he says, a small, automatic smile curving his lips at the sight of all of you. 

The nurse finishes with perfect timing, tossing the wipe into the trash as she starts to leave. You and Remus both thank her, and once the curtain closes the four of you in together everything feels suddenly more right. You hear James sigh softly.

Remus gets closer than he was willing with a colleague present, wrapping a kind hand around your elbow and soothing upward from there. “Hi, darling,” he says again, softer now. “They tell me you’ve had a kitchen accident.” 

“Totally intentional,” James jokes. “We all just really missed you, needed an excuse to visit.” 

You try to laugh for his sake, and though it’s not fully felt it still helps to loosen the knot of unease in your chest. 

Remus smiles gently. His thumb strokes up and down the back of your arm. “How are you doing?” he asks you. 

You do your best to smile back at him, though from Sirius’ expression it must not be very good. “Honestly? I already feel kind of nauseous.” 

“That’s okay,” he promises, and you can tell he’s making his voice extra low and smooth on purpose. Any other time you might laugh at him for it, but actually it’s quite helpful. “It makes sense to be a bit nervous, yeah? But you won’t feel anything, and so long as you don’t look at it while I’m working I think we’ll be all right.” 

Remus looks you in the eyes for a moment longer to make sure you understand. His eyes are the color of tea steeped just the way you like it, warm and honey-sweet. And maybe you’re feeling vulnerable and mushy, but you think you fall a little more in love with him. 

You nod, letting him take your injured hand. 

“I have to numb it,” he warns you, “and that will likely be the hardest part, but once it’s done things will go fairly easily. Okay?” 

You press your lips together, nodding again not because you want to but because you know you don’t have much choice. James readjusts his hold on you, gripping you tightly with one arm around your shoulders and the other folding your head into his chest. You suspect it’s partly to keep you from moving and partly because he knows you need it, but it feels as though he’s just doing his best to give you a continual hug. You appreciate the effort. 

You follow the movement of Remus’ hand as he picks up a syringe from the tray the nurse had brought in. There’s that odd tingly feeling of the blood draining from your face, the awful queasiness in your stomach. 

“Don’t look,” Sirius tells you, voice just as caring as it is tense. You can tell he’s trying to calm himself for your sake, even if he’s not very good at it. You’ve heard from James and Remus that he’s cool as a cucumber when he works with other patients, but when it’s you or someone he cares about he can’t help getting a bit rattled. “You’re okay, baby, just close your eyes. Think of something else.” 

You can manage the first but not the second. When you feel Remus shifting his hold on your hand your breaths shallow. 

“Quick poke,” he murmurs, and your grip on James tightens as his does on you. 

Though you think you’re prepared for it, a mortifying pained sound rises in your throat at the sting. Both James and Sirius coo sympathetically, but then it’s done, and Remus is murmuring praises while James presses kiss after kiss into your hair. 

You open your eyes to find Sirius has moved closer. He passes you a vomit bag, and you take it thankfully, trying to breathe through the closure in your throat. 

“You’ve got it,” he tells you, brows knit together by both sympathy and concern. “You’re okay, it’s already over with.” 

“I don’t really feel like I’m completely out of the woods,” you try to joke. The truth to it tightens something in you nonetheless. 

“You won’t even feel the rest,” James assures you, still with his lips stuck to you like it’s his job. He smells nice, his eucalyptus shampoo cutting through the icky hospital scent. “You’ll hardly know it’s happening, lovie, we’ll just talk about other things and be out of here before you know it.” 

“I really don’t want to faint,” you say. “I feel like today has been bad enough without fainting.” 

“I’m inclined to agree,” says Remus. You’ve been avoiding looking at him, wary of catching sight of another needle or worsening your nausea by seeing your cut, but his gloved hands are empty. He cradles your injured hand in one, the other drawing a tranquilizing path up and down the side of your thigh. “You won’t faint, sweetheart. We’ll do our best to keep you distracted, and if you need to take breaks we can do that. It’s whatever you need.” 

You blow out a long breath, nodding. Remus gives you a small smile. 

“I only ask that you don’t hold any of this against me,” he teases. “I’m going to require lots of assurance that you’re not upset when I get home.” 

James coos, sounding like he’s considering pulling Remus into your hug as well. 

“No, I know this is all my own fault,” you admit. Sirius huffs his agreement. “I could never hold my clumsiness against you.” 

“I appreciate that.” Remus sends Sirius an intrigued look. “Though maybe I’ll have to make it up to you by cooking, since it seems like you could be barred from the kitchen for some time. Can you feel that?” 

You blink at him. “Feel what?” 

“Good.” 

Remus starts messing with things on the tray again, and both James and Sirius seem to come to attention, James putting his arm around your head again while Sirius pulls up a chair by the bed. 

“The medicine’s working,” Remus tells you, “so I’m going to go ahead and get started, okay? Just try and relax for me, sweetheart.” 

Your eyes go automatically to what he’s doing, but Sirius says sharply, “Hey.” 

That gets your attention, and he gives you an apologetic look, gentling his tone as he takes your good hand. 

“Just look at me,” he tells you. You don’t know if he knows it, but his thumb is tracing a line below your thumb that’s exactly where your cut is on your other palm. “Are you okay to talk, pretty girl?” 

You hum. It comes out high-pitched and shakier than you would’ve expected. 

“Why don’t you tell us about that book you want Remus to read?” 

For a moment, surprise eclipses your anxiety. “You really wanna hear about that?” 

Sirius grins. “No, but you’ve got a captive audience. If I were you I’d seize my chance.” 

You start to smile back at him, but then there’s an odd tugging sensation on your hand. Sirius notices the change, moving to block your view with his hand before you can look towards Remus’ work. Still, your stomach rolls uneasily. Your head feels unnaturally light. 

Sirius says your name firmly. “Tell us about the book, baby.” 

“It’s…” You fight to solidify your thoughts. “It’s a true story.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I thought it was fiction, but it’s not.” Another tug, and you whimper. “Sorry, I don’t feel well.” 

“You’re doing great,” James says, and Sirius takes the bag from you, opening it up in case you need it. “Just stay relaxed, we’ve got you.” 

“What’s the true story?” Sirius asks, trying to get you back on task. “What’s it about?” 

“This guy,” you answer. “He’s from Syria, but he lives in New Orleans and he’s there when Hurricane Katrina hits. I’m not that far in, but so far it’s about, like—” you swallow “—how he’s discriminated against even when he’s helping people.” 

Though you try to stop it, a tear skids down your cheek. Sirius wipes it away gently. “Yeah?” he asks you. “Are you liking it so far?” 

You nod, feeling more in your own body as you try to focus on the conversation. Even the panic is a bit of a relief, better than the strange weightlessness of your head when you’re on the brink of passing out. 

“I don’t think I would have picked it up if I’d known it was nonfiction,” you tell Sirius. He smiles wryly, which looks like it takes effort. “I usually only read fiction, but this was done really well.” 

“I think you’re right,” he replies. “Remus absolutely should read that.” 

“Not you?” James teases. 

Sirius shoots a mean look over your head, though you can tell he’s relieved at the familiar banter. “Are you volunteering?” he asks James. “No? Didn’t think so.” 

“Surely there’s a movie version we can watch instead. Lovie, do you know?” 

“I haven’t heard of one,” you admit, “but the book’s a bit older, so maybe the movie came out before I’d heard about it.” 

“We’ll have to look it up,” Sirius decides. “If it’s really that good, there’ll be a movie.” 

That’s something you could argue about forever, and he knows it, but just then you hear something snip and Remus says, “There.” 

“There?” you echo. 

Sirius looses a breath, and James hugs you tightly. “You’re all done, angel,” he says brightly. 

“Oh.” You feel, perhaps, not as relieved as you ought to, and Sirius chuckles at your confusion, taking your face between his hands and planting a kiss between your brows. 

“You really are done,” he promises you. “You killed it, babe.” 

James loosens his grip on you and Sirius moves his hand, letting you turn your head to see Remus securing a bandage over your palm. He looks up at you when he pulls off his gloves, pride and fondness mingled in his expression. His eyes narrow at the look on your face. 

“Hug?” he guesses, and you nod as you sit forward, wrapping your hands around his shoulders. 

It’s the closure you need, relief dissolving the tension in your muscles and gut as Remus’ thumb strokes your nape reassuringly. “Thanks,” you mumble into his shoulder. 

“You did it, darling,” he tells you. “Nothing to thank me for.” 

“Before I bled all over our counter, I was cutting tomatoes for pasta tonight,” you say. “I’ll finish it up when I get home so I can thank you with dinner.” 

Sirius scoffs loudly. “Yeah, fat chance. You’re not going near another knife for the rest of your life.” 

You roll your eyes as you pull away from Remus, but he raises an eyebrow at you, smiling faintly. “I’m with him on this one,” he says. “At least a temporary kitchen ban is in order.” 

You groan, leaning sideways until your shoulder rests on James’ chest. He wraps his arms around you automatically. “You guys are so lame,” you gripe. 

“Don’t worry, lovie,” says James, kissing the side of your nose lightly. “I’ll finish your pasta when we get home. Everybody wins.”

[youryanderedaddy]

Oleander

Summary: Nine months ago you killed a man. Now you're sharing a drink with his brother. Life works in mysterious ways. tw: female reader, implied murder, captivity, dub - con, hate fucking, degradation, cruel reader

Sometimes you wonder if you’re a good person. It’s nice, almost, to lose yourself in meaningless philosophical battles in your own mind - it reminds you of high school, of balding teachers making you read Kant and Plato, raving on and on about dead men that will never come back to agree or disagree with the countless pages they made you write about them. It’s easier now, though - easy to lose yourself in semantics, to water down hundred years of morals and ethics into a simple question. Am I, the way I am, the way I’ve always been, good? 

These thoughts always come back when the liquor hits your system. You can’t believe Devan let you drink with him tonight. He must be getting lonely, you realize. Your hands are too shaky and slippery to hold the glass, and you end up spilling half of it over your chest anyways. Your shirt soaks the liquor quickly, and the sharp smell of sanitizer makes you feel as if you’re running through a cold hospital corridor. If you squint, you can almost imagine the needle poking at your vein to draw fresh blood. 

Devan watches you with odd fascination - as if you’re a child learning how to walk, and takes a sip straight off the bottle. Were you any less drunk, you’d be disgusted, yet now all you think about is how he’s drinking more and more of the bitter medicine, leaving less for you. And you need it. God knows you need it.

“Messy, murderous slut.” He mumbles under his breath, reaching out to you with a disoriented shake of his hand. “You ruined my fucking life, you know?” He manages to take a hold of your elbow. You flinch impulsively but his hold, in all its drunken angst, is unrelenting.

“You ruined your own life.” You intend your answer to be playful, but it comes out venomous. Maybe you both need some sleep - too bad the bottle is still half full. You pour yourself some more. “You’re 27 with no education, job or any support network. Even your parents don’t call you anymore, because, well… what even are you without him?” You let yourself get closer to the man - so close you can see his eyes illuminate in fear. His skin is warm like concrete melting under the sun. Tonight you are cruel. Tonight you are free - even as the tears fall down your freezing cheeks. “Admit it.” You inhale so quietly you barely feel your lungs. “You fucking love it.”

Even as his hand connects to your cheek in an audible slap, you can’t help running your mouth off. You are absolutely intoxicated - and the sting feels like a kiss to your lonely, untouched face. How long has it been since someone held you?

“You fucking love that your brother died, deep down. I mean, it’s the perfect excuse, isn’t it? You finally have a reason to be this fucking miserable.” Your smirk, filling up with glee - just like a child torturing a helpless ladybug on the ground, it’s so wrong yet feels so right. ”Besides being a lousy loser, of course.”

“How fucking dare you!” Devin flips you over with ease, throwing you on the ground. There is a raw, animalistic sadness in his big black orbs bleeding into his rage, and it makes it impossible to be scared. Even as his thick fist wraps itself around your throat, it’s hard not to burst into laughter. All the good hazy feelings take over logic and now the bleak feels like a big joke of nature. “Joe was… He… He was…” Everything, he tries to say, but his voice breaks into a pained howl and his breathing shallows before the word can roll off his colorless tongue. For a passing moment everything stills.

“It’s all your fault.” Your captor hisses weakly, his hand trembling around your warm inviting flesh. “I should have killed you that first day… that first night.” His fingers dance around your throat, carefully avoiding your jugular. “It would have been so easy. You do have a beautiful neck.” His voice lowers. “It wouldn’t be hard to–” He squeezes again - tight, tighter, and you see stars. “Maybe then I’ll finally be at peace.” He’s staring at you, intently, but it’s himself he’s talking to. 

“Oh, please.” You roll your eyes. You can feel a certain fullness in your sides and a dull pain tugging at your collarbone from suffocation - but your mind can’t wrap itself around a single coherent thought other than to hurt him. It’s like the more you hurt him, the more it hurts inside you. “You can’t kill me.” There is no sass in your tone, no mischief - just plain cold acceptance.

Devin stops in his tracks to stare you down as if you’ve lost your goddamn mind. Then he laughs. He laughs so much his hand slips off your throat and you can finally breathe again.

“And what makes you so sure?” He finally collects himself enough to ask, leaning towards you. If anyone were to see you now, they would think you’re two lovers about to elope. “Because…” You avert your face away from his watchful eyes - there’s something about them, a wild flame that makes you sober up quicker than you’d like. “I’m the only person you hate more than yourself. If you kill me, the game is over.” You give him a sad smile. “And you’re all alone again.”

The man grabs your chin, forcing your lips to pucker up like a doll’s. “Like I need a fucked up bitch to keep me company.” He says, yet he keeps moving your head up and down as if he’s inspecting you for damage. As if he cares if you’re bruised, as if his fingers want to feel you for just a second longer. “Then let me go.” You bite back, and you watch his face go dark like a night sky. “No.” The boy - man shrieks, holding onto your arm for dear life. It hurts… but it’s also warm and tight - like an embrace, but not quite. “You deserve to suffer.” He quickly adds, pulling you closer to him. “Then torture me.” You add more fuel. “Do something. Anything.” You sink your teeth into his knees. “For once in your shitty miserable life do so–”

He kisses you. 

You don’t know how to describe the kiss. It’s neither passionate, nor aggressive. It’s desperate, yet it lacks strength. It’s a rushed thing. It’s a memory reminiscent of summer - in a quiet village, after an atom bomb. His lips are the flowers that eventually bloom before they’re stomped by soldier boots. You’re the half - lit match that turns it all to ashes. Your bodies are meant for destruction, and that’s why they fit together perfectly. 

“Let me have you.” He almost pleads once you separate, breathless, on the brink of insanity - as if he isn’t already there. His hands are on both sides of your waist, squeezing so hard it hurts, unstable fingers ready to grab and grope at any shape malleable enough. 

“No.” You wince, but your eyes remain cold and challenging. “Fuck you.” Devin replies, roughly spreading your thighs apart. “Fuck you.” He repeats as he rips into your throat, dragging his teeth against your sweet spot, making you really feel the sharp points tearing into your soft vulnerable skin. The thought of leaving his mark on you makes his stomach turn - and it terrifies him. You try not to look down, but you hear his belt hit the ground and soon his pants follow suit - and then you sense it right against your entrance. Sticky slick whiteness coats your white panties as it drips from the purpling tip so full it might burst by the friction alone.

His hard length rubs along your wet slit and with clenched teeth you anticipate the burn of the stretch, the way he’ll rip your underwear from you, your last protective shield - but it never comes. Yet you see it move in and out, in and out of you rhythmically. You can feel his warm breath on the back of your neck, his rasp groans into your ear, his hands moving your torso back and forth like a carousel. You finally look down. 

He’s fucking your thighs - through your panties, no less. 

“Hold your legs together.” The man barks at you, but his voice is so needy you can’t help giggling even as he manhandles you around like a ragdoll. “T-tighter.” You squeeze your thighs snuggly against his cock - and you hope it hurts him more than it hurts you. You throw your head back, leaning on his shoulder as you jeer gutturally, letting it all out in systematic bursts of laughter that sound more like black cigarette coughs. Or puffs. “God, you’re so pathetic.” You lazily stroke his shaft as it peeks down your stomach, oozing with pre - cum. “I bet your brother would have fucked me like a real man.”

He moves your head to the side with a brute slap, kissing you sloppily anywhere but your mouth - but it still does the trick of shutting you up. “Too bad he’s dead.” He leaves a trail of wet pecks down your throat. Your stomach is sticky. You feel disgusting. “Guess you’re mine now.”

You roll your eyes.

“Dream on.”

[girlleon]

SPACE BETWEEN

uncle!leon kennedy x fem!reader

warnings: uncle-niece incest, 18+. content below the cut, vomit (non-sexual capacity), age gap (early-mid 30s to late teens-early 20s). fingering, oral (f! receiving, piv, creampie… Leon’s kind of a simp and lame tbh. ddlg undertones, just a little. heaps of praise :3

i got inspired by uncle from nicole dollanganger tbh.

“I want to marry my Uncle Leon!” you said when you were seven, smiling up at him with two front teeth missing, chubby baby arms wrapped around his thigh.

Half-uncle, really, but that’s semantics. It’s like someone saying the sky is blue and another person saying it’s turquoise. They’re both right, one’s just really fucking annoying about it.

He also thought you’d say you wanted to marry your dad, because that’s pretty common with kids. Most girl’s dads or brothers are their first loves, so he was pleasantly surprised at the honor of being your chosen husband.

Unfortunately, you’re also seven, and that’s very illegal.

Your dad chuckles and doesn’t bother to try and peel you off. He tried that once and you went back to sticking to him like sweat, so he didn’t bother after that.

“Do you have a wife, Uncle Leon?” You ask him, smiling up at him so sweetly. You got those dimples from your mom, and he’ll never admit it, but they melt his heart just a little.

“No, sweetheart.” He reaches down and ruffles your hair. “I’m all yours for the taking.”

You beam up at him, even as he messes up your hair. “Good! ‘Cause you’re all mine!”

Your dad snorts, promptly looking innocent when Leon glares at him halfheartedly.

“That’s right.” Leon lugs you up into his arms, kissing your temple and giving you the faintest smile. “I’m all yours.”

He sees you a little less and less as the years wear on. He’s busy and you’re busy and grow from a sweet kid to a petulant preteen to an awkward teenager.

He’s still the first one you call, though, when you’re sixteen and drunk at a house party you shouldn’t be at. You’re swaying a little as he pulls up to the curb.

Leon leans over and opens the door for you—you toddle over and slam his door shut with a soft apology. “I didn’t wanna be there anymore.” You say, looking more than a little uncomfortable. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad, sweetheart.” He reaches over and rubs your shoulder. “I’m glad that you called me instead of your dad.”

“Thanks.” You’re a little tacky with sweat and smell like a brewery and some sickly sweet floral perfume when you lean over to put your head on his shoulder. Baby’s first grown-up perfume instead of the body spray they sell at bath and body works. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

“I’m still glad it was me.” Leon reiterates, kissing the top of your head. “C’mon, sweet girl, let’s get you home. Seatbelt on.”

You pull away reluctantly, buckling in your seatbelt with clumsy hands. “I know, I know. I got the riot act from my doctor when I got the physical done for the permit. Seatbelts yes, swerving no.” You grumble, pushing a sparkly hand through your hair.

He snorts, starting the car and pulling away from the curb. “Is that everything?”

“She said she’d pull my license if she caught me.” You reply, propping a temple on your fist. “‘Cause she’s a doctor and a mandatory performer—reporter. Mandatory reporter.”

Leon can’t help a quiet chuckle, even when you swat at him. “You got there in the end.”

The quiet roll of the car rocks you right to sleep, and he sneaks glances at you as he moves around pot holes and takes speed bumps slowly to avoid jostling you awake and fucking up his suspension. Cute, your nose still twitches like a bunny’s when you sleep. He thinks you got that from your mom too.

He gently wakes you up when he’s stopped in front of your house, reaching over and unbuckling your seatbelt before petting your head. “Gotta wake up, sweetheart, come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

You groan behind a closed mouth, face scrunching up. “No…”

He almost laughs. “Come on, I’ll help you up and out.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and jogs over to your side when he’s out of the car, opening the door and bodily carrying you out of the car.

The movement’s a little much and you gag, sweat breaking out on your skin.

Leon aims you away from himself just in time, rubbing your back as you puke loudly in your yard. He reaches over and holds your hair back with a grimace. “You’re alright. You’re okay. Just get it out.” He murmurs, rubbing your back once you stop retching.

When you straighten up, he wipes your mouth and his hand on his jeans. “You’ll feel a bit better in the morning.” Leon tells you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and leading you to the front door. You fumble a little for your house keys, but get inside after he kisses your temple and wishes you a goodnight. “‘Night, Leon.”

“Night.” He repeats, gently shutting the door behind you. He goes back to his car and drives home, that sickly perfume smell lingering on the seats like you personally cropdusted them.

Vanilla, white florals, he thinks he smells coffee before it lapses into a sort of acrid smell. Otherwise, perfectly inoffensive on you, perfectly inoffensive to anyone with a working nose, to be honest.

He wishes you’d wear something a little more offensive, strong, something definitively you. Florals tend to be powdery and come off as something an old lady would wear, and that’s not very sexy at all, is it?

Cherry, he thinks would fit you perfectly well. Strawberries. Maybe they make apple perfumes.

When Christmas rolls around, he does exactly that, after skulking around Ulta and eventually asking for perfume recommendations from an associate.

Leon comes back with something strawberry, something jasmine and red berries. He splurged a little bit on a gingerbread perfume, but he doesn’t mind, might as well have something festive to give you.

When it comes time to get the gang together, he tosses it all in a pretty, sparkly bag with blue tissue paper and a tag with your name on it because he’s shit at wrapping gifts.

You cling to him a little tighter with the greeting hug he gives you. Maybe you’re still grateful he didn’t snitch about the party.

Either way, Leon returns the tight hug and gives you a pointed smile as he asks, “How’ve you been?”

You, to your credit, barely flinch, though he can see in your eyes you know exactly what he’s talking about. “Been good, glad to be out of school for the next two weeks. Merry Christmas.”

He clicks his tongue, then disengages and steers you over to the living room and sits right next to you after depositing his gift for you under the Christmas tree. “Merry Christmas. Yeah, I bet. No more waking up at six in the morning for the bus at six-forty. Been staying out of trouble?” He gives you a sly look, head cocking just to the side.

Your eyes narrow at him playfully as you smile back despite yourself. “Yeah. I’ve been too busy with work to really get up to something bad.”

“Ah, that’s the way to keep it.” He slings an arm over the back of the couch, getting up after a moment to get himself a bit of eggnog, your mom’s recipe. “How much do you get?” He asks when he’s sitting down again, arm back over the couch.

And so it goes from there. You get the most of the spread of presents, being the kid and all.

Your mom and dad each got one another something and him some comfy clothes, he sorely needs them.

Whilst he was shopping for you, he ducked into some department store and got your parents some simple stuff. Soap, pajama sets and the like.

You look extremely surprised—and pleased? Leon’s heart might not take it if you hate the gifts—when you pull the perfumes out of the bag. “Whoa. How much did you spend?” You ask him immediately.

Leon scoffs, taking a sip of eggnog to hide a nervous shift. “It wasn’t much, they’re all samples.” The strawberries and cream one was like thirty-five bucks, so was the jasmine and red fruits one; he spent about fifty on the gingerbread one because he couldn’t find a smaller size than just an ounce. “Besides, I make the big bucks.”

Your mom sneaks a glance at Leon, then stealthily looks up the prices of the perfumes she can see, eyes going comically wide before she gives him a disapproving look. “Leon!”

“Yes?” He asks innocently, plastering on the most charming smile he has. Before she can start, Leon shakes his head, giving her a ‘don’t worry’ wave of his hand. “Come on, I make a hundred and twenty in a day.” More, actually, but still.

Your mom looks like she’s going to argue before your dad lays a hand on her shoulder and shakes his head with an amused look. “I’m putting a budget cap on the presents next time.” She decides after a moment.

Leon smirks, shooting you a wink. “Duly noted.” Then, he nods at you, manspreading because you’re on the floor. “What do you think?”

You pull off the caps of the perfumes and sniff them without spraying them, making faces with each sniff test. “Whoa.”

“Good?” God, he’s hoping you like them.

You nod, smelling the gingerbread one again. “Yeah. These are so cool.” Slowly, a smile spreads across your face. “Thanks, I love them.”

Relief loosens his chest a little. Leon gives you a smile. “I was hoping so.”

He stays over for dinner and maybe a little afterward, just catching up with the rest of you guys.

All too soon, it comes time to say goodbye, they hope he comes again soon to terrorize everyone with his extravagant presents.

He spends the most time hugging you goodbye.

You graduate in the spring and he makes sure to actually dress up for this occasion. Someone only ever graduates five times in their life—kindergarten, fifth grade, eighth grade, high school, college.

Leon’s wearing a suit that had a little dust on it when he dug it out of the back of his closet, the collar and tie is a little tight around his neck and he keeps fidgeting until nudged by your dad because you’re walking across that stage.

God, it’s so weird to see you all grown up.

He was one of the few to hold you after you were born before you started fussing for your mom. He babysat you a few times so your parents could go have a date night. He was over at your fucking house almost every other day because your dad wanted to hang with his half-brother.

He’s getting really old. He’s starting to reminisce the way their dad did about high school friends and the like. For fuck’s sake, he’s thirty-five, not sixty-five.

You get a picture from the photographer, grinning from ear to ear. It’s well deserved, you fucking hated high school, he remembers the complaints. Then you go sit back in your spot and wait to flip your tassel.

Finally, all the fucking pomp and circumstance is over with. Here endeth the high school.

He and your parents find you a bit afterward, all of them drag you into giant hugs before they go to the car and treat you to dinner before you get all your graduation cash with a side of birthday treats.

He got you another perfume, a sultry cherry scent.

Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ in the manger in the fucking Inn. Mary and Joseph above him. Leon might as well just go caving if he’s going to hell, getting trapped underground would be so much easier.

Leon has to put on sunglasses when he sees you in that American flag bikini the summer after you graduate, flapping his blanket out on the sand and posting his flip flops on opposite corners.

It’s a little on the nose for the holiday, but he’s more than willing to stand for the flag. He’s much more partial to kneeling, but standing works too.

He strips off his shirt and begins slathering himself in sunscreen because he’s gonna turn into a lobster in less than fifteen minutes, he’s calling it.

Your dad bets ten. Your mom bets five.

Lucky you, you got the tanning without burning genes, also from your mom. You go right in without worrying about sunscreen.

He sits there after taking off his sunglasses and spending an extraordinary amount of time trying to reach his back. Like he wants to be peeling the next time he has to go fight some BOWs.

At some point, you resurface from the water after he resigns himself to a burned back, picking up your towel and laying it around your shoulders to cushion your wet hair. “Need some help? You’re cooking.” You point vaguely at his semi-red back.

Leon stares for a second before wordlessly handing you his sunscreen and shifting so his back is to you. This is a sure fire way to avoid tempting himself.

He hears you snort when the bottle makes a funny noise, then the weird sound of your wet hands rubbing together as you warm up the sunscreen before applying it in broad sweeps around his back.

“You and dad burn so easily.” You mutter, still rubbing in the sunscreen. Your long nails graze his skin on occasion and he fights the urge to stiffen up.

“You’re lucky,” Leon says after swallowing quietly, “you got the tanning from your mom. Certainly didn’t get it from your dad.” His hands bunch up his trunks.

You snort again, rubbing away the last of the white streaks across his back before leaning back on your hands. “Or you.”

Well, he only shares about twenty-five percent of your DNA, that’s why. He learned that after an alcohol-fueled dive—and no less than five orgasms—in the incognito tab. In some places, if both parties are over the age of consent, incest is totally legal. Some can even get married.

He shifts so he’s laying down on his blanket, a soft and amused snort catching your attention. “True.” He crosses his arms behind his head, soaking up the sun now that he’s in danger of not burning to a crisp and missing the way your eyes linger just a little too long.

Turning twenty-one is a big occasion. You can get scratch offs, buy your own drinks, smoke if you damn well want to.

You, lucky girl, get two parties. One with family, one with your friends who can also drink.

Leon comes for the former that takes place the day afterward. Your parents and him didn’t wanna cramp your hot, early twenties style.

You guys go out to your choice of restaurant, then come back and have some celebratory drinks as you open your presents. Some cash, shirts, a new backpack, and some perfume, courtesy of Leon.

He went digging for the really niche ones and came back with one that smells like cat fur, cake, a bit of florals because female perfumes can never fucking escape florals. It was named for the ballet step, pas de chat. Step of the cat. He thought he’d try something out of the box.

You seem to like it, the way your face breaks into a smile. “Thanks. This is nice.” You spritz a little on your wrist and smell it, lighting up just a little bit.

Leon smiles back too, a tad softer than his usual sly smile he wears. He’s been told he has a bit of a smug face. “Yeah, you’re welcome.” He nods, raising his glass to you briefly.

He’s invited to stay over as long as he likes, or even stay in the guest bedroom if he wanted to, he’s informed by your parents as they go upstairs to bed.

Which is why he’s ruminating as he stares a hole through his glass, pondering the beer and the bubbles in it.

Leaving him defenseless to you slipping into his lap.

It takes him a second, but he gets there, eyes wide as he looks up at you.

Your perfume floats over once you sling an arm around the back of his neck, something sweet and warm that makes him want to tuck his face into your neck, your eyes remarkably clear despite the three margaritas you had. “What are you doing?” He asks after a second of just staring at you.

You give him a sly look, head cocking to the side. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Getting into trouble.” Leon’s empty hand lands on your lower back as he leans forward, setting his glass of beer on the side table, his once occupied hand landing on your thigh where your shorts rode up.

That feline smile remains on your face. “I’m rather good at that.”

He snorts, slowly rubbing your thigh. “I noticed. You’re welcome for not snitching to your parents that one time.”

You snort too, bringing him closer with the arm around his neck. “Yeah, I owe you my life.”

Leon nudges your nose with his, starting to smile slightly too. “You joke, but your mother would’ve killed you.”

“I think she knew.” You admit, shifting a little closer on his lap.

Leon’s hand slowly travels up your inner thigh, your legs parting for him just a little. He pauses, eyes flicking back up to you. “Are you sure?”

You nod, swallowing nervously. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

That’s that, then. He unbuttons your jean shorts one-handed, tugging down the zip gently, his grin widening when he sees the bit of lace visible on your waistband. “Planned this, did you?”

His eyes flick up to yours as he gently slides his hand between your underwear and shorts, gently cupping you through it, gratified when he sees you inhale sharply.

“Hoped, actually.” You admit near shamelessly, thighs spreading a little more.

“Well,” Leon can’t help feeling a little smug, slowly grinding the heel of his palm against your clit, “I hope you can be quiet.”

He dips his head down, nosing at your neck, down your collarbone and to your chest as his hand keeps slowly moving. He won’t be satisfied until there’s a wet spot.

The scent of your perfume grows a little stronger and his eyes flutter shut, his not busy hand pushing up your shirt at the back so he can rest his palm on your back.

He increases the pressure and you twitch a little, stiffening just a little. “Take this off.” Leon mumbles without lifting his head.

You tug off your shirt and he groans lowly, hiding his face back in your tits as he sucks and licks at the skin. He shifts his hand, gently dragging his fingers up before gently tapping your clit, then tucking his hand into your underwear, grinning fiendishly when there’s a puddle slicking you all the way up.

“Messy girl…” he can’t help taunting, biting down over your heart.

You whine just a little and he can literally feel all his blood rush south. It’s a surprise he didn’t faint, to be honest.

Gently, he pushes a finger in, cooing with a soft click of his tongue when you whimper. “Shh, shh, it’s ok.” He murmurs, pushing in all the way and waiting a little for you to get used to it as he messes with your clit so you stop clenching, chest heaving just a little. “You’re doing so good, sweet girl.”

Slowly, he begins pumping, making sure to graze your clit with his palm, getting himself all sticky. Maybe he’ll shake your dad’s hand with this one.

When you’re fucking yourself back, hips moving of their own accord, pretty mouth open, he adds another, curling them just until he feels that spongy spot and hitting it with precision. “There we go… that’s my girl.” Leon grins up at you, kissing your jaw as he fingers you open.

His hand is cramping just a little, but he’ll push through it for his girl.

“You’re doing so well.” He murmurs as he lays you on the couch, dragging down your bottoms as one hand slows down just a little. You whine and he clicks his tongue, pouting at you just a little before he kisses it off.

Once you’re naked, save for the bra—Leon likes the way tits look when they’re pushed out of the bra by a vigorous fucking—Leon whistles quietly, planting a kiss above your bellybutton piercing as he lays down between your open thighs. “So pretty, baby. So, so pretty.”

You have to slam a palm over your mouth when his own seals across your clit as his fingers keep moving inside you, speeding up just a little. He laughs, more vibration than sound, at least the way you feel it.

Watching you come for the first time will be seared into his mind forever. It started with the little things. Your chest was heaving, your thighs were starting to try and close around his head, your pussy starting to spasm.

Then, it happens. Your upper half snaps up, your eyes scrunching shut as you muffle what could’ve been a very incriminating noise if your hand wasn’t covering your mouth.

You sag back against the couch, chest heaving as Leon pumps his fingers and sucks you through it, leaning away and gently pulling his fingers from you when you start twitching.

“My poor baby.” He breathes, sucking his fingers clean before leaning up, hands bracketing the side of your head. “Good?”

You nod after a second. “Good.”

He gives you a soft smile, pushing some hair behind your ear. “That’s my girl.”

“I’m your girl?” You open your eyes, a little dopey smile across your face.

“‘Course, you’re my girl.” He leans down and kisses your forehead. “Always have been.”

Leon lives in fear of your parents finding out for at least a couple months. That’s what wakes him up in the night, not just memories from Raccoon City, Spain, Tall Oaks, et cetera.

God, he’d be hung by his toenails and skinned alive. Like when Willow killed Warren on Buffy, but a lot more drawn out because your dad would be in on it too.

You guys are at a vacation house the night you two first have sex.

It starts the same way him fingering you on the couch did. You slide into his lap long after everyone’s gone to sleep, he gets his fingers wet when you guys are in his room.

His room is a little further from your parents room than yours, hence the choice.

He lays you down and gets you off another time to hopefully make this painless, tangling a hand with yours. Only when you push at his head does he stop, grinning like a fat cat.

Leon doesn’t smile when he pushes in, watching you carefully for when he needs to stop and let you breathe.

Slowly, he’s seated balls deep inside you, hands on either side of your head. “Good, baby? Are you okay?” He pushes some of your hair back, relieved when you turn your head and kiss his palm.

“Good.” You reach a hand down and feel around, smiling slightly when he winces.

“Jesus, give me a moment. I’m not as young as I used to be.” Leon mutters, shifting a little so he can spread your legs a little more, hands dimpling the fat of your thigh.

You gasp quietly at the shift and nod, one hand over your tit, the same one he marked when he fingered you on the couch. “Leon…” you breathe, moving your legs to wrap around his waist.

“I know, baby, I know.” He whispers, gently shifting before drawing back and thrusting in.

Your eyes scrunch shut as you let out a soft yelp. Quickly, Leon settles his palm over your mouth, shifting so his weight is on his opposite elbow. “Hush, sweetheart. Don’t want your parents busting in, huh?”

You shake your head, face settling into a blissful expression as he starts moving, little sounds punched from you from each firm roll of his hips.

“That’s my girl.” He smiles down at you, leaning down and licking up the sweat from your neck all the way up to your earlobe, kissing it and hiding his face in your neck. “My pretty baby girl.”

Leon lifts his head up, his face hovering by the side of yours as he grins. “I got you. I got my girl.”

Ah, the praise gets to you, just a little bit. He can tell because you get a little tighter and he has to fight so this doesn’t end too early.

He’s a gentleman, he refuses to come before you.

“Can you be quiet, baby? Wanna play the quiet game?” He chuckles when you nod, removing his hand so he can play with your clit and get you just that extra bit closer.

This close, he gets to watch you pause before your upper half snaps up again, your arms wrapping around Leon as you gasp into his shoulder.

It’s your orgasm that undoes him, his hips stuttering before he fills you up, collapsing on top of you as he gasps, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead as his body to yours.

To mom and dad:

I’m really sorry if I worry you both. Leon and I know you wouldn’t approve, which, for obvious reasons, makes sense.

Trust me when I say we love each other. I’ll still be studying, it’s not like he wants me to drop out.

I love you guys so much. Please don’t be mad.

[clockwayswrites]

Cozytober Day 4: "Thank you for putting up with me."

masterpost

“Walls?” Danny prompted after another few sips. “Filtering?”

“Oh, sure. Stay upright for a moment,” Jason ordered.

He leaned forward enough to snag his work bag and rifle around for his tablet. Danny gamely stayed upright, but slumped back against Jason as soon as he could. To his credit, Jason juggled Danny, his own hot chocolate, and the table with ease.

Soon the wall’s specs were pulled up on the screen and Jason was chatting away about everything that worked and didn’t work with the current construction of the walls. There was no denying that Gotham had particular needs with freak weather changes, temperamental plants, and poisonous gases. But it was good to see Jason so excited about this start.

By the time that the mugs were long empty and Jason as running out of steam, Danny took a deep breath and it came easily. There were no more words or worries or frustrations clogging up his throat. There was just him. He closed his eyes and let out the breath slowly.

Jason stopped talking and pressed a light kiss to Danny’s temple. “Hey there.”

“Hey,” Danny said with a soft smile. “Sorry about the silent invasion. I know I didn’t exactly give you a heads up.”

“Coming home to find you in my bed is never a bad thing,” Jason said. He leaned forward to set his things on the coffee table before taking Danny’s empty mug too. “Besides, I didn’t add you to my door code for you not to visit. You’re always welcome here, boo.”

“A dangerous offer,” Danny said.

“I know what I’m getting into,” Jason replied. He pressed another kiss to Danny’s forehead before he took the mugs to the kitchen.

Danny stretched slowly. “Lies. I am a man of mystery!”

“Danny,” Jason said, giving a dry look from over the kitchen island. “You spilled being a Meta two weeks into us knowing each other.”

“I’m not a Meta, it’s a medical condition, and besides, you were so worried about me getting randomly killed on the streets of Gotham. I had to do something to reassure you!” Danny made himself get off the couch. He grabbed Jason’s work bag and took it over to where it normally hung by the door. He fished the folder out of the front pocket—work Jason would insist on doing over the weekend—and took it to the desk that sat in front of one massive window bays.

“Not a man of mystery.”

“I could have secrets! I could have lots of secrets.”

“Yeah, and what’s one of them.”

“I,” Danny started as he made his way to Jason, “would kill for your hot chocolate.”

Jason laughed and wrapped his arms around Danny’s waist. “Not a secret, and please don’t. I would be forced to cover up the murder and then various members of my family would give me that disappointed look.”

“Your family always sounds so interesting.”

“You could meet them yourself at dinner tomorrow.”

Danny froze. Danny froze and he knew Jason felt it by the the way his brows drew together and his mouth twitched almost into a frown.

“I’m sorry—” Danny started at the same time as Jason tried to say, “Forget I said anything.”

They both closed their mouths with a snap.

Danny broke the silence with a sigh. “I just… soon, okay? I just want to be… better.”

“You don’t have to be better, Danny. They’d love you just like this.”

Danny shook his head. “I just… can’t. I know you want me to meet them, but I just can’t yet. I know it’s… I know that… just…”

Jason quieted Danny with a kiss. “It’s okay Danny, when you’re ready.”

“Thanks for putting up with me.”

“I’m not ‘putting up with you’, Danny,” Jason said. “Giving you room isn’t putting up with you. I like who you are. And I know you aren’t ready, but my family would too. We’re all fuck ups, we’ve got no room to judge anyone.”

Danny gave a little startled snort of laughter. “You’re all Waynes.”

“And the Waynes are fucked up. We’ve been in Gotham too long, fucked up is part of the DNA.”

“You’re adopted.”

“Semantics.”

--- AN: Danny, poking at Jason's hyperfixation to have some calming chatter.

Gods I've missed writing these two ;-;

[fallenneziah]

Yes, they match each other's freak, but... Do you ever think Wade gets tired of stabbing Logan in place of affection? Stay with me here. Wade doesn't get a lot of positive affection, that's coming from Logan too, and it builds up.

Whenever he comes home from a mission Logan is used to starting an argument or stabbing each other on the living room couch until Wade feels justified in his frustration for the day. Logan doesn't care much, he enjoys it, stabbing Wade is fun.

Until one day when Wade comes home and he doesn't want to fight, he really doesn't want to get stabbed and he just wants a hug. He's tense, he needs a shower, he's tired, he's everything. And Logan tries to start an argument over some petty thing, as usual routine.

"You didn't take the garbage out this morning." He'd comment.

"Hm? Oh... I'll uh, take it out now-"

"Already did." Logan crossed his arms, turning to look at Wade.

"Ok then... Sorry, peanut."

It goes back and forth for a little bit before Wade's exhaustion becomes too much and he ends up breaking down. "God damn it Logan, I don't want to fight you! I don't! Just- just-"

Logan's arms wrap around his shoulders as strong and warm biceps pull Wade flush to his chest. Wade feels the beating of his heart, the shape of his muscle and bone, his beard on the side of his head, and he relaxes.

"Yeah..." He lets out a small breath and hides in Logan's shoulder, hugging him back, feeling warm tears sting his eyes, but does his best not to let them fall. He just needed a hug. No fighting, no stabbing, no semantics... Just Logan against him, a warm, stable body he can lean his tired form against. And, it's Wade - Logan wouldn't let anyone else do it.

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 13 - The Terror of Knowing

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I’d like to dedicate this Chapter to Eric Kripke. This one’s for you. Bitch. Chapter Title from Under Pressure By Queen & David Bowie.

Word Count: 21.6k (I'm crazy. I'm on a roll. I haven't slept more than 4 hours.)

Chapter Summary/Warnings: Ben get's a phone, and Victoria Neuman undergoes big changes. Usual warnings. Also somnophilia? Kind of? You'll see.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, fluff, angst, pining

Read on A03!

Chapter 12 - Chapter 14

This was going to be a very long, entertaining day.

You get up early in the morning, sneaking downstairs to grab the phones you’d left abandoned after last night’s fight and subsequent not-fight. Kissing. You’d kissed Ben.

A lot. 

It didn’t feel real. It had been real—you were sure of it—because you woke up on Ben’s chest and could still feel the ghost of his lips on yours. It was real because his arms were wrapped around your waist, and his hands were slightly under your shirt so his fingers brushed your skin. He hadn’t done that before, touched you like that in his sleep. He’d mostly rolled up to you like a very large dog, never touching your skin unless you fell asleep with him already doing so. You’d never been sure if it was purposeful, subconscious, or just something you were overthinking. Just coincidental, simply a byproduct of how he’d essentially throw himself on top of you, tangling blankets and creating natural barriers between your bodies.

But this touch felt purposeful. This touch felt important. Careful and low on your back and different. It was undeniable evidence that last night had been real and not simply another dream.

It took a lot of effort to get out of bed. There was the physical game, where you had to remove yourself from Ben’s grasp without waking him up. It involved slow and measured movements, a lot of stopping and waiting when he shifted or snored a little too loud, and several reevaluations of your methods when Ben just pulled you tighter against him.

Then there was the mental game. Where the question wasn’t could you leave the bed, logistically, but did you even want to? Was it really worth it for two stupid phones? Here you had to convince yourself that you’d woken up to Ben holding you many times before, and this wasn’t any different. This was the same, really. Semantically. You’d be back soon anyway. It would barely be three minutes to go to the living room, grab the phones, and return. But he wasn’t making it easy. He kept bringing you closer, kept making disgruntled sounds when you got a little too far away, and his warm and rough hands on your skin made it hard to do anything that would take them away from you. At one point you were pushing yourself away from Ben’s chest—so close to being home free and able to roll out of the bed—and you brushed up against his morning wood.

You had to take a few deep breaths before you could start moving again.

After a tremendous amount of mental effort, some very strategic and well-timed squirming, and another quarter hour you’d gotten out of Ben’s arms and fallen down to the floor. You’d stood up slowly, tiptoed to the door, and all but ran down the stairs. The phones had fallen under the couch and between the cushions during last night’s events, and you managed to fish them out in only a few minutes. The mission was successful, because you’d gotten the phones in faster than you’d thought you would and Ben was still none the wiser to your absence. Sure, your phone was dead and Ben’s was covered in dust, but you had a charger on your bedside table and Ben would have to just be grateful he got a phone.

Now, you’re climbing up the stairs in soft steps, both phones in hand. When you open the door to your room you start a little, because you see Ben sitting up against the headboard and giving you a frown that borders on a pout, narrowing his eyes at you.

“Good morning,” you say cautiously, scanning his face as you lean against the now-closed door with your hands behind your back.

“Where did you go?”

You blink at Ben’s grumble. “Downstairs? I didn’t mean to wake you-” 

“Why,” Ben snaps, and you realize that—despite the sleep lingering in his eyes—he’s upright, hands clenched at his side, leaning forwards slightly. You can even hear something edged into his voice as he continues. “What the fuck were you doing.”

There’s a warm, humming feeling of need and comfort in your gut. It’s trying to move you towards Ben, to pull the frown off his face with your lips, but it’s not stronger than the spark in your chest. The little, bright desire that makes you feel light. That feeds off of Ben’s deep voice and surly behavior and just him.

“Aw,” you tilt your head at him with a mocking smile. “Did you miss me?”

His frown deepens. “No.” 

“I think you missed me. I think you’re grumpy because you woke up and I wasn’t there.”

His scowl is almost adorable. “I’m not fucking grumpy.” You raised your brows at him with a light, teasing grin on your face. “Shut up.”

You hum. “If you keep whining I’m not giving you your gift.”

“Gift?”

You give Ben a grin. “Guess who earned phone privileges.” You don’t wait for his response before pushing off the door and presenting the phone dramatically. “It starts with you and ends with cunt.”

You throw the phone to him, walking towards the bed as you do, and he catches it with ease. “Brat.”

“Just for that I’m not telling you what your passcode is.”

 “Passcode?” 

“Oh shut up,” you give him a flat look, dropping on the edge of the mattresses. “You know what a passcode is.”

“Phones don’t have passcodes. You open them with your face.”

You snort at Ben’s indignant expression. “Your face?”

“That’s how you fucking open yours,” Ben glances between the phone in his hand and you, holding his gaze as you slowly scooting across the bed to plug your own phone in. “I’m not a goddamn idiot-“

“Then open it.” You nod at the phone, clenched in Ben’s hand. “If I’m wrong, just open it.”

He gives you one last glare, tapping the screen roughly. The phone lights on, displaying a picture of his shield where it's still resting in your bathroom. Ben blinks at the screen, before looking up at you with a frown.

“That’s my shield.”

“I know,” you scan his face, trying to gauge his reaction without touching him. You’d spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to choose a wallpaper for Ben’s phone. A band logo felt weird, you’d considered just a stock photo of the Grand Canyon several times, and there was no way you were about to just put his face there. That would’ve meant scrolling through a lot of old Soldier Boy promotional photo shoots, and you had already missed him enough. That would’ve just been cruel to you. Eventually you’d decided the shield was a safe bet, and just taken a photo of it as a placeholder. He could change it later, but you still really wanted him to like it. Which was annoying, because it was just a photo, and he didn’t even know—nor did he have to ever know—how much effort had gone into it. You’d deleted several angles you deemed bad and shots you thought were blurry. He better like it, because that was fifteen minutes of your life you’d never get back.

Ben looked back at the photo with a frown. “How did you get that?”

You blink. “What, the photo?”

He grunts in affirmation, still staring at the screen.

“I took it?” You say slowly, and he looks up at you.

“With what. How did it get there.”

“With a camera? You’re not that old,” you meet Ben’s surly frown with a small smile, nudging his shoulder. A mistake, because his confusion runs through you with something rough and easy that sits in your chest. “You’ve definitely seen a camera before. You lived in front of cameras.”

 “Cameras are big. I’d have fucking notice if you had one.”

“Welcome to the wonders of modern technology,” you reach over his body, flipping the phone over in his hand and tapping the lenses. “Phones have cameras now.”

 You look back up at Ben with a grin, and find him still watching you. The rough and easy thing is growing strong through where you’re touching, and your faces are a lot closer together than you’d realized.

“So, um,” you can’t make yourself move, the intensity of Ben’s gaze locking you against him. “I took the photo. I can show you how-“ 

From the corner of your eye, you see Ben drop the phone just before he kisses you. His hand moves up, cupping your face to angle it where he wants you, and you let him. Because this is real, and it makes your head spin happily. There’s no noise in your head about trying to notice everything around you and fit it into a puzzle, no reeling about what Ben’s thinking. Because you’re falling against his back, leaning over his shoulder, and his lips are soft against yours. All you feel is Ben.

When he pulls back, he has a smug grin on his face. “I can’t believe it’s that easy to shut you up. I should’ve done this months ago.”

“Fuck you,” you try and snap, but the words come out breathless and lustful. “Stop trying to distract me-“

“You don’t seem to be stopping me,” he winks, and you knee him in the back.

“Shut it. Open the phone.”

He rolls his eyes, but picks it up from his lap. He manages to figure out that you need to swipe up himself, and you feel the tight frustration grow in him when the passcode display pops up. You wait several minutes, letting Ben glower at the screen as he aggressively taps it. That frustration builds in him and you feel it move to coil in your stomach from where you still lean over his shoulder. 

“Ready to admit defeat?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” he grumbles, hitting another set of random numbers with a rigid hand. The words too many failed attempts, try again in 1 minute cover the screen, and Ben’s grip on the phone tenses, enough that you’re surprised the screen doesn’t crack. “What does that fucking mean.”

“It means you don’t know the passcode, so the phone is locked for a minute. If you get it wrong four more times, all the data gets erased.”

He turns his head to glare at you. “Fix it.”

“Say you were wrong.”

“No.”

You shrug, “then I’m not fixing it.”

“Brat.”

“Cunt.”

“You’re fucking annoying.”

“Right back at you, Pretty Boy. Say you were wrong.”

“I was fucking wrong. Fix it.” His voice is low, gravely and annoyed with clipped words, but you can still feel the jagged affection in him. So you smile sweetly, grabbing the phone from his hand as the minute ends.

You’re hanging around him, body pressed right against his back, head resting on his shoulder, and arms reaching around his neck as you hold the phone up for you both to see. “It’s 696969,” you enter each number as you speak. “Easy to remember. I can set up the face thing for you later, if you want.”

He grunts, taking the phone back as you return it to his hand. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with it.”

“Whatever you want, I guess. I put in all the contacts you need, and downloaded some apps-“

“Apps? What the fuck are apps?”

“Jesus,” you mutter to yourself, fully realizing you’re going to have to walk Ben through this like he’s a toddler. “Apps are an abbreviation for applications. You put them on your phone for different things, like texting or entertainment or shopping.”

“I don’t need entertainment. I have you.”

His words, paired with the firm way he says them—like simple and obvious fact—make you feel warm and dizzy, but you just hum. “Then just don’t use it for that. It’s your phone, Ben, you do what you want with it.”

“What do you use it for?” His hand comes up to hold your arm around him as he frowns at you.

“My phone?” You have to clarify, because he’s so close and there’s no way he’s not touching you like that on purpose. Trying to make it hard to focus on anything but him.

“Fucking obviously.”

You whack his chest with your free arm. “Shut up.”

“Answer my question.”

You try to tune out how his hand is starting to rub against your arm, now certain he’s doing it deliberately. “I don’t know, what does anyone use phones for? Texting, music, photos, social media, porn-“

“Porn? You use this for porn?”

“Everyone does. There’s lots of porn on the internet, and the internet is on your phone.”

“What kind of porn?”

“All of it,” you shrug. “If you can think of it, it’s a safe bet it’s on there.”

“No,” Ben tugs you forward a little further, grinning cockily. “What kind of porn do you use?”

You gape at him like a fish. “I, uh, I dunno. Regular porn?”

“You can be more fucking specific than that,” his smile is growing, and you can feel his amusement growing with lust. You have to stop yourself drooling as you respond, because his hunger in your gut is making you thirsty, and his face is so unfairly attractive and distractingly close to yours.

“I am not sharing my porn habits with you, Ben.”

“Why the hell not?” He says your name and it vibrates through you. “I can promise you, it won’t be something I haven’t fucking seen before. If it’s porn, I’ve seen it.”

That makes you snort. “I doubt that.”

The hunger in Ben grows, moving down, down, down into you. “What kind of freaky shit are you into that I wouldn’t have seen, Sunshine?”

“No, that’s not-“ you take a deep breath, because you need to defend yourself, and that’s hard to do when everything feels hot and aching. “There’s like, a lot of porn on the internet. A lot. And I can promise you there’s some shit that even you’ve never seen.”

“Promise?” You can’t meet Ben’s eyes as he teases you, because you can feel the strength of his desire and that alone is making you feel faint and feverish. Looking at him would be counterproductive. “That’s a dangerous fucking promise to make, beautiful.”

“Shut up.”

He hums. “I think you need to prove it.” You don’t answer, still refusing to let yourself look at him, and Ben tugs at your arm slightly. “Can you fucking prove it?”

“It is not my job to prove that the internet has porn,” you manage to mumble, and he chuckles.

“Maybe not, but I think we’re a little fucking past only doing things for our jobs.”

“Fuck you.”

Suddenly, Ben is pulling you around his body, using his hold on your arm to spin you into his lap. His other hand moves up, running through your hair and pulling your head up to look at him, and his whole face is alight with almost ravenous hunger. You can’t look away, even if you wanted to.  He leans forward, until he’s just a fraction of an inch from you, and whispers, “All you have to do is fucking ask, and you can.”

You can’t stop yourself from grabbing his shirt, forcing him forward to close the space between you. This kiss isn’t quite as brutal as last night, but that doesn’t mean it’s not just as desperate. Your legs wrap around Ben’s torso, trying to bring him closer as he tugs at your hair to make your head move further back. His arm is back around you, pushing you up against him as he groans into your mouth, and it makes you moan in response. You can feel him, growing hard against your ass as he sucks on your lower lip, and you’ve never felt a devouring need as strong as the one in Ben that’s climbing through your blood and up your spine. It takes every single sliver and bit of willpower you possess to not just give into him, let Ben just keep going until every part of you is flooded with just him and his body.

It’s just lust, a small voice ringings in your head. Not what you have. Only lust. 

But that sharp and loud feeling in Ben’s chest is still there. It’s pushing against the lust, making it bigger. And he’s right here, and breathing raggedly into your mouth. His muscles are rippling around you, and his whole body is controlled like he’s holding himself back. He feels so good, and all he’s doing is kissing you. It would be so easy to make him feel like this, to return all he’s giving you by touching him where he’s pushing into your skin.

But if you do that, you’ll just be falling further. You’d already failed to stop yourself just tasting him in the simplest way. If you reached down, even if you were just giving him your hand, that would be another thing you’d need to have forever. Another thing that made you need more.

So when Ben pulls back, first just taking a sharp breath before leaning back down for one last, wet, heavy kiss before resting his forehead against yours, you have to chose your words carefully, picking them out and saying them slowly.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?“ You ask, your heart still pounding in your ears.

“Okay with what?” He grunts, and you almost moan just from his voice. Deep and hoarse and just as needy as you feel.

“This being it right now. Not, you know,” you glance down pointedly. “More.”

“Of fucking course I am.” Ben sounds offended, like the answer no is unfathomable to him. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be.” 

“Because, uh,” you lean back a little to fully meet his eyes, your voice unsteady. “You’re you.”

He scowls, and you can feel his frustration return like a train crashing into you. Tight and sour in his chest. “What the fuck does that mean.”

It’s hard to keep looking at him. “You founded herogasm. 40% of what you say is some sort of innuendo. It’s not bad,” your own voice is anxious, because you think, know, that you want Ben—just physically, not to mention the other part—more than he wants you. If this pushes him away, makes him stop kissing you until your mouth is slightly swollen and you’re aching, you’d hate yourself for taking that away from you. “It’s really not. But I just, I can’t do the uh, bigger stuff,” bad word choice, because you can still feel him against your thigh and now all you can think about is shifting to bring him closer. “So I just, I just want to make sure this is enough. For you.”

The sourness is still in him, but his voice isn’t bitter or angry when he speaks. It’s almost stern. “You fucking trust me, yeah?” 

“Of course I do.” The words had barely left his mouth when you answer, your response almost instinctual.

“Then believe me when I say that I’m more than damn fine with this.”

You shake your head. “It’s more complicated than that, Ben-“

“No it’s not. I want this, you want this. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t also want to fuck you, because I’m not a damn pussy and I really fucking do.” He pushes his hips upwards to emphasize the evidence against you, and you have to bite down a whine. “You don’t have a goddamn clue how fucking bad I want you. But I’m not going to make you do a damn thing you don’t want.”

“I do want,” your words are weak, and you can’t stop them falling out of you. “Want you. I want you. But it’s just, I can’t-“

“Is this enough for you?” Ben says your name, scanning your face with that look that strings every piece of you apart for him to have.

No.

“Yes.”

He nods roughly, moving you a little further up against his chest. “Then stop asking stupid questions.”

Being so close to him makes every part of you a little higher—a little—and it’s easy to say, “make me.” 

Ben laughs, and it’s loud and smooth and comfortable. “Brat.”

You open your mouth to say something, probably, but any and all words are forgotten when his mouth slams back into yours. In only a heartbeat his arms tighten under yours as his knee is pushing you further upwards by your ass, standing up off the bed with one steady and fluid movement. You can hear the sound of his phone falling to the ground, but can’t really bring yourself to care because Ben’s dropping his head to your neck and sucking at it as he walks you backwards, sitting you with surprising care against the dresser. He’s running his hands up your back, into your hair, holding you still while his mouth finds your collarbone. Kissing a line across it and making you moan right into his ear-

A small, annoyed sound escapes your throat when he pulls back with a lazy grin. “Yogurt and toast?”

“Wha…” You trail off, your brain struggling to return to speech in the fog of Ben still holding your thigh and tracing a thumb across your cheekbone. 

“Yogurt and toast.”

“I heard you,” you frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ben moves forwards just a quarter-step, and you’re made aware of the fact that he’s standing between your legs. “Breakfast. What the fuck else could I be talking about.”

“I don’t know, I just wasn’t thinking about breakfast.” 

“What were you thinking about?” 

You shove at his chest, and he doesn’t even pretend to be affected. “Fuck you.” 

“I could’ve guessed that,” Ben winks, and your whole face becomes heated. 

“You can’t just make that same joke every time I say that,” you manage to grumble. “It’s not going to get funnier.” 

“It’s not supposed to be funny, it’s supposed to make you horny,” he scans your body slowly, leaning into his, thighs pressed together, hands grabbing at his shirt. “And I’d say it’s doing its job real fucking well.”

“Fuck-“ you scowl as you cut yourself off. His eyes return to yours, glowing with the smug, satisfied feeling you can feel near his gut. You stick your tongue out at him as a backup plan, which immediately backfires because Ben nips at it quickly before kissing you one last time. It’s messy and long and the moment you completely give into it he’s gone.

“Get changed,” Ben tells you as he walks towards the hallway door. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“You’re a fucking tease!” you call after him, and his snort echoes through the house.

It only takes you a minute to change, time that is mostly spent collecting yourself and checking your now-charged phone. There’s a testing message from Mallory that you give thumbs up to, a simple hi from Kimiko you respond to with a smile, and a very long and detailed text from Annie about the details of Stand Edgar’s deal that you decide to read later in favor of Butchers more to-the-point words.

William Butcher: Worst Boss Ever

Soldier Boy’s blasting Neuman for Edgar. Need a day to set it up, then we move. Can’t let word get to her.

You pick Ben’s phone up from where it had landed just under the bed, and make your way downstairs. Ben is waiting for you in the kitchen, sitting at the counter and glaring at the doorway before he sees you. His mouth opens to say something when you come into view, but before he can you’re throwing his phone to his face without warning.

He catches it—You’d hadn’t bothered to worry about if he would, because you’d see him catch a knife out of the air while stomping up the stairs—and gives you an annoyed frown. “You changed too slow.”

“You didn’t give me a time limit,” you walk around to sit beside him as you speak. “Butcher says they only need a day before we move on Neuman.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Lovely. Open your phone.” 

“Why,” he grumbles, and you shrug.

“To prove you were listening and remember the passcode.”

Ben rolls his eyes, but glares down at the device in his hand. You watch in amusement as his face draws into a focused frown, angrily smashing the numbers on the display with his forefinger. When it unlocks he looks at you with a self-satisfied grin. “Fucking piece of cake.”

“Uh huh,” you give him a mocking nod and smile. “Now send a text.” 

“A text?” 

“If you’re such a tech savant, send a text,” your smile becomes genuine and toothy as his eyes narrow at your teasing. “One, simple fucking text. Whatever you want, to whoever you want.”

Ben holds your grin with his glower before glancing back at the phone. “Whatever I want?”

“That’s what I said. I can help if you ask very nicely.”

Ben looks back at you, his expression remarkably determined. “I can do it my fucking self. Shut up and eat your breakfast.” 

Only as Ben’s pushing the food closer towards you—attention now entirely focused on the phone—do you see it. He’s put yogurt on a plate, something that he’s done several times before and seems to have no interest in stopping, no matter how many times you tell him it’s just plain weird. There’s a slight improvement in that he has made some sort of attempt to separate the yogurt from the toast, laying the spoon between them in an attempted barrier. The result is almost nothing, if anything now you just have to deal with a yogurt-covered spoon, but it’s still confusingly heart-warming. The gentle feeling that grows in your chest is only spurred on by glancing at Ben’s plate—hardly touched and forgotten in front of him—and seeing that he has just a little less yogurt than you and that there’s no jam on his toast.

“Ben?” you ask slowly, and he grunts in a signal to keep talking. “Where’s your jam?”

“What the fuck are you talking about. Is this slang I’m supposed to learn, because I’d rather you shove a fucking bomb up my ass-“

“It’s not slang, dummy. Your literal jam. That you always put on your toast. Where is it?”

“We ran out.” 

You stare at your own toast, almost drowning in red jam. “And the yogurt?” 

“What about the yogurt?”

“You barely have any.”

He’s not looking up as he responds, “Out of that shit as well.” 

You blink at him. “We got groceries yesterday.” 

“It’s not my goddamn fault Mallory’s a terrible fucking shopper-“ 

“No, I don’t care about that. I can just text her later. Why’d you give me all the stuff?”

“You need to eat.” Ben’s answer is flat and bored.

“So do you. You have the metabolism of a hummingbird-“ 

That makes him look up. “A hummingbird?”

“They have famously high metabolism, they have to eat two times their body weight daily. But that’s not the point-“

“Why do you know that?” He sounds bemused, frowning at you.

You give a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t know, why does anyone know anything. Ben, you need to eat as-“

“You know so much weird shit.” You can’t read his tone, and have to fight the urge to touch him and find out if he’s annoyed or bored or amused-

Shaking your head, you manage to move on. “You’re trying to distract me.” 

“Maybe.” Ben’s shoulder nudges yours. “But it’s not my fault it’s real fucking easy to do it.” 

You’re gaping at him a little—he’s looking at the phone again with a thin-lipped frown of concentration—because all you felt when your shoulders connected, arms brushing, was simple affection. Pure and sitting in his chest and head like air. It’s making the small voice reminding you not to try and make this go further harder to hear, making you need to know more. You’re about to say something, push him for what he meant by his comment, why he put the extra food on your plate, maybe circle back to the question pounding in your head of why are you okay with just this. I’m glad you are, I’m unspeakably grateful, but why. You shouldn’t be. Fucking hell, Ben, I’m barely okay with this. I haven’t told you why I need this, not really, so why in living hell are you happy with just this?

But your phone buzzes before you can. 

Ben looks up at you with a pleased, cocky smirk. “Check your phone, Sunshine.” 

You pick it up off the table—angling the screen away from Ben so he can’t see his contact name—and glance up at his straight, self-satisfied posture and smug face before you read his text. 

Benjamin: Handsome Fucking Dumbass Cunt

You look hot when your being annoying 

You read it a few times before you look up at him. “You used the wrong you’re. It should have an apostrophe, it’s a contraction.” 

“That’s all you have to say?” 

“What am I supposed to say?” You raise your eyebrows at him. “Thank you?” 

“Or that I’m hot. Return the fucking compliment. I worked hard on it, and texting is fucking stupid.” 

You roll your eyes. “Your compliment sounds like you're a teenager who just found out his dick wasn’t just for pissing.”

Ben frowns, picking up his phone again. You watch him type at little faster this time, still one finger at a time but with an almost zealous focus. Your phone buzzes again, and he looks up at you with an intense gaze and speaks with sharp words. “Read that one.”

You sigh, but do. 

Benjamin: Handsome Fucking Dumbass Cunt

You are so beautiful that if I got to fuck you a thousand times it would only make you more beautiful so I’d keep fucking you forever 

You stare at it for a second, because it’s so shockingly sweet and graphic it’s making your body incredibly confused. Half of you is moved, and wants to kiss him gently and smile at him until he says something like that again. The other half want him to fuck you right here, then on the floor, then in the hallway, then on the stairs, and on and on until you’ve covered the whole house.

“Better?” He grunts, and you look up at him with a heated face.

“Yeah, um. Yeah.” You give a dry laugh. “And here I thought I wasn’t your type.”

That makes him scowl, and his voice is an annoyed grumble. “What made you fucking think that.”

“For one, all my teeth are real and I can walk without a cane.”

Ben’s face becomes a little lighter. “I fuck one old lady in front of Butcher and Cocksucker and all you dumbass idiot pussies think I only fuck old ladies.” 

“No, I just think it’s hilarious.”

“Well, you’re not a fucking idiot,” He mutters, and your smile must look downright insane.

“And your compliment game is getting better by the second,” you bite into your toast, speaking through crumbs. “Am I allowed to teach you about internet slang? Or are you going to shove a bomb up your ass.”

“You’re allowed to do whatever you fucking want, Sunshine,” Ben shrugs.

“So that’s a yes?” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

You roll your eyes. “Ben,” you exaggerate his name in your drawl, leaning forward as you swallow. “If I were to try and teach you about the internet, would you listen to me or be a huge fucking baby about it.”

He rolls his eyes. “I am not a fucking baby-“ 

“I said huge fucking baby.” 

“Shut the fuck up. And you couldn’t make me learn about internet slang if you cut off my dick,” Ben winks. “Which, as I’ve been damn telling you, would hurt you more than me.”

“I don’t think you know how pain works,” you mutter, taking another bite. 

“My point still fucking stands.” 

You examine Ben carefully. “What if I asked nicely? Would you listen then?” 

“No.” 

“What if I said please.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“Why not?” You pout. “What if I said it’s important to me?” 

Ben snorts. “This isn’t fucking important to you.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“Yeah, I do.” Ben leans forward until he’s only a breath away. “You just want to try and teach me shit. Even though it never fucking works out for you.” 

“Really?” You hum. “Because you just sent me a text on a phone, Pretty Boy. Could you do that in December?” 

“You sure think mighty high of yourself, Sunshine. I could’ve figured it out my goddamn self.” 

“I think highly of myself,” you smile, moving close enough that your lips are brushing Ben’s but never fully touching. “Because I’m right.” 

Ben grunts, staring at your mouth like he can will it to be closer. “Brat.” 

You don’t miss a beat. “Cunt. You know, I wouldn’t just teach you about slang. I could show you where to find the porn.”

“I thought that wasn’t your fucking job?” 

“It isn’t,” Neither of you will close that final gap. You’re not touching, but you can feel the heat from Ben’s body, hear his breathing turn heavy. “But I can see a few ways in which it could benefit me.”

Ben’s eyes shoot to yours, and his voice is a growl. “Like what.” 

“I could tell you, or just show you,” you twist your face in mock concern. “But that would be teaching you and that never works out for me-“ 

You know you’ve won—the game you’d fallen into and the argument—because Ben kisses you. Rough and consuming, pushing his mouth to yours with a feral sound and holding your jaw with a firm hand. You let him pull you closer, relaxing into his touch and taste and smell and everything. It’s all just Ben. Picking you up with one arm, standing without ever parting from you, letting your hands scratch at his back and neck as he only kisses you more. You might be grinding against him because he groans, and his grip starts to crush you into his body. You whimper when he bounces you further up his body, making you angle your head down to stay connected to his mouth. To keep that hunger eating you in the best possible way. To keep the roar in your heart climbing up into your head and making everything so simply Ben. Coffee and salt and strawberries and Ben. 

He pulls back so abruptly you whine, and scans your face with narrow eyes. “We’re going to try something.” 

“How specific,” your grumble is breathless, but your glare at least feels strong. “Are you going to tell me what that means?” 

“If you would be patient for once in your damn life, I’d have told you already.”

“Fuck yo-“ His splits into a wide grin, and you know you didn’t cut yourself off in time.

“That’s actually a part of this, Sunshine.” Ben starts to walk out of the kitchen, still holding you slightly above him. “Aren’t you just a fucking genius.”

You frown at him. “I thought you were okay without-“ 

“I told you to stop fucking asking that,” Ben snaps, squeezing his grip around your waist and on your thighs. You can feel the resolved stone feeling running around you with that same bitterness from before. “You told me you trust me, prove it. Stop asking stupid questions about if I’m okay with this when I obviously fucking am.” He stops in the middle of the dining room. “Understood?” 

“Understood,” you mumble, and Ben rolls his eyes before kissing you again. This one is quick, and even though it only lasts a second you’re still burning when he pulls away. 

“Try again, like you actually fucking mean it this time.” 

Even as you wrinkle your nose at him, your voice becomes louder and you believe you more. “Understood.” 

“Good,” Ben nods, but still doesn’t let you go. “We’re going to do a new reward system.” 

You blink at him—your head still in a little of a daze—unsure if you heard correctly. “What?” 

“No more favors. You keep using them for stupid shit like TV and making me read.” Ben’s face scrunches in disgust at the very memory of books. “This will be more effective anyway.” 

“You still haven’t told me what this is. It might be dogshit. It might get you burnt a lot today.” Even as you snark at him, you have a feeling you know exactly what he’s talking about. And you will never tell him that he’s right. If this is going where you think it’s going, it will definitely be effective. 

“It’s not,” Ben lowers you down his body, not letting go until your feet are steady on the ground. “And I’m not too worried about burns. We’re not working on that today.” 

That catches you off guard. “We’re not?” 

“Nope,” Ben leans down to your eye level with a wide, cocky smile. “You’re going to sing, whatever the hell you want, and you’re going to control it.”

“I can’t-“

“Yes, you can.” Ben’s tone is firm. “You will. Even if it takes us a hundred goddamn years, you will.”

You want to argue. You might just literally not be able to control it. That might simply be a part of the power. But Ben also said a hundred years. A hundred years that you would get to have him. So you can only mumble a protest of, “I really can’t control it now. I might, uh, make stuff happen you don’t want to see.”

“What could I possibly not want to see,” Ben says, giving you an incredulous look. “Sex? Death? Torture? Which of those do you think would make me gasp like a pussy grasping their fucking Sunday pearls.” 

“That’s not what I meant, you dick. It might be emotional. More than just lights and dancing. Intim-“ You stumble over yourself, because that word might be too much. “It might just be parts of me you don’t want to see.” 

“I think I’ll fucking manage,” Ben drawls, and you sigh. 

“Benjamin-“ 

“Don’t Benjamin me,” Ben snaps your name. “There’s not a thing you could show me that would make me walk away now. You burn, I burn. Not controlling this is something that makes you more afraid Homelander.” 

Not a question, but you nod nervously. “I guess, yeah.” 

“Then we’re going to make it better.” Ben takes a large step back, and you tilt your head at him. 

“You still haven’t actually told me what the new reward system is.” 

He winks, “do one thing on purpose, and I’ll let you teach me two things about my phone.”

“You’ll let me?” You scoff. “That feels like it’s more beneficial to you than me.” 

“Well, I’ll also suck on your beautiful fucking face until you’re begging me to fuck you. And then I won’t, because I’m a gentleman. And you wouldn’t be of sound mind.” 

“Cunt.” You grumble, and he just shrugs with a smirk. 

“Brat.” 

“How will you know I did something on purpose?” You cross your arms, wrinkling your nose at him. “I could just lie.” 

“What a good fucking point,” Ben says your name, grin never dropping. “This is why you’re the brains.” 

“I thought I was the beauty. You were very bitchy about that.” 

“You’re all three, and I’m the pimp. Tell me what you’re going to be trying to make happen.”

You scowl. “I don’t fucking know, I didn’t have time to prepare an idea-“ 

“It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just whatever pops into your damn head.”

“But-“ 

“We can fight about this all fucking day,” Ben shrugs. “Or you can say what you’re thinking in three, two-“ 

“Strawberries!” You blurt, glaring at him. “Fucking strawberries.” 

His brows raise. “Strawberries?” 

“You said whatever pops into my head. I’m making a grocery list, fucking sue me.”

“You think you can make strawberries work?” Ben watches you, trying to pick you apart with slow words and a stupidly handsome face. 

“No. Because this won’t work.” 

He rolls his eyes. “Can you fucking try to make it work?” 

“Maybe.”

“Then get a move on.” 

You cross your arms. “What the hell am I supposed to sing?” 

“Whatever the hell you want,” he grins. “But could you let me know ahead of time if my clone will be joining us?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” you snap, and Ben laughs, leaning back against the wall. “Are you just going to watch me?” 

Ben shrugs, still smiling widely at you. You told me to shut up. Deal with the consequences, Sunshine.

You stick your tongue out at him, flipping him off at the same time, and he just snorts. 

It takes you a full minute to choose a song. Can’t do a sex song, can’t do a romance song, can’t do any that opens up the chance of Fake Ben showing up again. Not when Real Ben is watching you on the other side of the room and might explode if his ego gets any bigger. Can’t do a song about pain or abuse, can’t do Smash Mouth, can’t do anything that makes you think of Homelander. You could do a recession-type pop song, but that just feels weird.

There’s—as there always is—an easy and obvious solution. Moon River. You know, at least in theory, what will happen. Ben knows the song, knows about what it means to you. Moon River, plain and simple. 

You don’t bother trying to look at Ben when you start. You have no interest in seeing him, seeing his reaction or demeanor as you do this. So you chose a scorch mark on the wall, glue your eyes to it, and sing. Quietly at first, but you find a rhythm and it builds until your voice feels clear and strong. The instrumentals kick in faster this time, smooth guitar and strings and cymbals. The changes to the world are a little different this go, however. You’re not in your childhood bedroom, but a distorted version of the safe house bedroom. The horse paintings are blurred, and it’s not clean anymore—small signs of both you and Ben scattered across the area in shirts and towels, a book on your nightstand and a ben’s supe suit across the bed—but it feels more comfortable. More natural. The sky does open again, flooding the area with light from stars that are a little closer than they should be, and you can feel a warm breeze moving in from above. You can smell pine trees and rain and coffee and the ocean and strawberries- 

Strawberries. The song is almost over and you haven’t even tried to make strawberries appear. You could write off the smell as your attempt, Ben doesn’t know how this works and you could likely sell it, but you want to win. You don’t want to trick him and come out on top. You want to win and fucking earn it.

Which is really annoying. Cheating is easier.

You try to focus. Strawberries. Maybe a field of them, maybe just a large vine of their flowers that climbs up the wall. Anywhere they want to be, as long as there’s strawberries. But no matter how hard you think strawberries. All across the room, or on the floor, or sprouting out of your face, strawberries, nothing happens.

The song draws to a close, and the world fades back into you and Ben in the dining room.

“It didn’t work,” you say flatly.

“Go again,” Ben pushes off the wall, walking to sit in one of the less-than sturdy chairs in the corner of the room. “We’ve got all fucking day.” 

You sigh. “It’s only 10:30.” 

“And we’ll be here until you get this.” 

“You’re a fucking cunt.” 

“You love it, brat. Go again.” 

You scoff, even as your heart becomes a little faster in your chest, and start the song over. This time, you glare at Ben the whole way, and nothing happens. 

“Again.” 

It takes seven hours. You don’t bother changing the song, half because you’re stubborn and half because it’s established a clean pattern of events. Bedroom, instruments, sky, wind, comfort. Over and over and over, slowly becoming more solid, the images and sensations in less of a haze. It’s not purposeful, so you haven’t won, but the practice is—annoyingly—making you stronger. Ben notices, you can tell by his stupidly pleased smirk, but doesn’t say anything. Around 1, he leaves the room with only a short order for you to keep going and returns with two bagels. He passes one to you wordlessly, and when you drop to the floor—eating with your legs crossed beneath you—Ben scoffs. But he also lowers himself to your side, inhaling his bagel with his knee pressed against yours and a hand on your thigh. You can feel that content, smooth and effortless in Ben’s chest. Flowing in time with that stone resolve wrapping around you, around him. Neither of you speak—you don’t really feel like you need to—and when you finish your bagels within seconds of each other, Ben squeezes his hand once before standing and returning to his chair.

It’s 5:30 when it happens. You’ve been at this all day, you’re tired, but you kept going and going and now, when your illusions have become a clear and perfect replica of the world, it happens. A single strawberry flower, sprouting in a glowing rainbow mist on the mattress. You can hear Ben’s chair squeak when he sees it, even if the sound only echoes distantly over your orchestra, and you almost stutter to halt in shock. But when you push forwards—voice becoming a little frantic, a little off-pitched—the plant grows. Overtaking the bed, covering the sheets and pillows until it’s all green leaves and blooming red fruit.

When the song finds its natural conclusion, you look over at Ben with wide-eyes. He’s staring at where the bed was, now dissipated into a colorful mist through the dining room. 

“How the fuck did you do that?” His voice is gruff, looking at you with an intense, unblinking stare.

“I don’t know, it just sort of happened-“ 

“Can you do it again?” 

“I don’t know, Ben.” You rub your face, your eyes becoming heavy. “I’m tired-“ 

He stands so suddenly it almost makes you start. Without warning Ben crosses the room, picks you up, and carries you out of the dining room.

“What are you-“

Ben cuts off your mumbled protest. “You look like shit.” 

“Rude,” you grumble, shoving his chest. “You’re the asshole who made me work all day.” 

“And I’d fucking do it again,” Ben holds you a little tighter as you climb the stairs. “You got stronger. You controlled it. And now you’re going to take a shower, because you look like shit.” 

“Again, that’s rude-“ 

Ben kisses your nose, pushing the door to your room open with his foot. “Beautiful shit. But shit.” 

“You’re real lucky I don’t kick your ass, Pretty Boy.” You huff, and Ben chuckles against you. 

“I don’t think you’ve got the energy to kick anyone’s ass right now,” Ben drawls your name as he sets you down on the mattress. 

“And whose fault is that?” 

Ben ignores you. “Go shower, Sunshine. I’ll bring up dinner, and then you’re going the hell to bed.”

“You’re a dick, Benjamin!” Your voice raises to a half-hearted shout as he leaves the room, and you can hear the amusement in his voice when he shouts back.

“Fucking shower!” 

You roll your eyes—sticking your tongue out at the empty hallway—but stand and walk to the bathroom. Not because Ben told you, but because you’re sweaty and gross and somehow sore despite only standing. It’s a tight feeling running along your muscles, stronger under your arms and circling your forehead, aching behind your knees. You take your time with the shower, letting steam fill the room and simply standing in the hot, gentle fall of the water until you hear Ben’s loud steps re-enter the room.

When you leave the bathroom, changed into a sleep shirt and your hair wrapped in a towel, Ben’s standing tall and rigid in the middle of the room. There’s a plate of something that might be spaghetti in one hand, and your phone in the other. 

“You got a text from Hughie,” he grunts, passing you both the plate and the phone. 

“Oh, what did he-“ you stop yourself, looking up at Ben with a gaping smile. “Did you just say Hughie?” 

“Shut up.” 

“No, no. You said Hughie. You’ve never called him Hughie.” 

“Shut up,” Ben mutters, stomping past you to the bathroom. “I’m going to shower.” 

You set the plate down on the dresser, spinning to grab his arm. He stops, turning to look at you with a glare, and you push through the haze of his care and hunger and annoyance and there’s that strange tightness again- “Are you okay?” 

Ben scoffs. “I’m fucking fine. I’m not a weak-“ 

“Pussy, I know. You’re being grumpy again.” 

“I’m not grumpy.” 

“Uh huh,” you raise your brows at him, letting disbelief coat your voice and cover your face. “Why’d you call Hughie his name?” 

“Am I not allowed to call people their damn names?”

“Not when you’ve only called them Cocksucker before.” 

Ben yanks his arm from you, taking a long, labored breath before grumbling, “That kid is the only one of those pussies who seems to genuinely mean it when he says shit. I can respect that.” He walks into the bathroom, glancing back at you once. “Read his fucking text.”

You stare at the door for a second after it closes before picking up the fork Ben had stuck into the spaghetti, taking a large bite as you open your phone. 

Hughie Campbell: Not Allowed to Speak On Fall Out Boy

Are you okay? Just wanted to check after all the Tek Knight shit.

I’m really sorry about that. I should’ve pushed Butcher.

Kimiko wants to know too, but she threw her phone at The Deep during a fight and it broke. 

You smile softly at the screen. 

I’m good. Really. I’ll see you tomorrow for Neuman.

Tell Kimiko I hope she kicked The Deep’s ass. 

“Ben!” you call, knocking on the door. “The shower’s not on, I know you can hear me!”

“What?!” He snaps, opening the door just enough for you to see his bare chest. 

“Um,” you swallow, trying not to look further down. “Do you want ice cream?” 

He scans your face. “Vanilla?” 

“Sure, old man,” you grin, and Ben scowls. 

“Shut the fuck up.”

He starts to close the door, but you stick your arm forward to stop him. “Thank you.” 

“You fucking volunteered to get me the ice cream, I don’t have thank you-“ 

“No, you dumbass.” You whack what you can reach of his shoulder. Mistake, because powerful heat and desire and something loud that makes everything sharp pieces through you. “I’m saying thank you.” 

He frowns, leaning forward a little. It takes active effort not to drop your gaze. “For what.” 

“The food. Bringing my phone up,” you give him a teasing grin. “Sitting with me tomorrow for internet lessons.” 

Ben snorts, opening the door to stand fully before you. By some sort of miracle, his pants are still on. He lets go of the door for a second, cupping your face in his hands and he examines your face. “Fucking brat,” he mutters, and you scoff. 

“I’m starting to you’ve forgotten my name-“

He all but picks you up off the ground, and this time he’s gentle. Every part of this kiss is soft, from his mouth to his hold on you. It’s long and careful and so tender it might break you. When he pulls back, he draws circles along your cheeks, smirking down at you. 

“Two things,” he says your name in that low, deep way that makes everything spin a little. “You get to teach me two things. If you try to pull three on me, the sucking face is off the table.”

He retreats back into the bathroom, closing the door, and you’re left dumbfounded in the bedroom, swaying slightly to nothing at all.

You go down stairs after inhaling your spaghetti, returning with two bowls of ice cream. You sit on the bed as you eat your small helping, having put practically the remainder of the pint in Ben’s bowl, which is waiting for him on the dresser. Taking the infinite amount of time provided by Ben’s shower, you run over the day in your head, trying to pin-point what had changed. How you had controlled it. Any small shift in the late afternoon that you could use. Implement further. But it only devolved into you playing Ben’s words and actions on loop in your head. How easy he was touching you, like it was the most absurdly natural thing for him in the world. How quickly he had, you had, fallen into the habit of it. Because it was natural. It was easy and everything, and you’d expected it to feel different. To be tense, or awkward, a strange dance you didn’t know how to navigate.

But it felt the same. Your thirst was stronger, trying to take root in your brain and make you pull Ben into you, but everything else felt the same. 

And that was terrifying. 

You hear the shower turn off, a chew at your tongue as you stare at the door. The moment it opens, Ben walking through with wet hair falling across his eyes and a bare chest, you speak. Because if you don’t blurt out your words now, you’d just get lost in him and his stupid face and stupid body and he smells so good- 

“What if I fucked a dog?” 

Ben stops in the middle of the room, staring at you in confusion. “What the actual fucking hell are you talking about.” 

“You said there wasn’t a thing that could make you walk away. What if I fucked a dog?” 

“Did you fuck a dog?” 

“No, that’s just an example.” 

“Why the hell is that your example?”

“I don’t know,” you shake your head nervously. “That’s not the point. If I did fuck a dog, would you that make you walk away?” 

He snorts, picking his ice cream. “Are you going to fuck a dog?” 

“No, but that’s not the point-“ 

Ben says your name, bumping your thigh with his as he sits at your side. “If you fucked a dog I would have a fuck ton of questions. But I wouldn’t walk away.” 

“Really?” 

“I might check you into an asylum,” he shrugs, taking a large bite of ice cream. “But I’d make sure it’s one that offers conjugal visits.” 

You give a flat look. “I would not attend conjugal visits with the man who checked me into an asylum.” 

“You’re the one who fucked a dog in this scenario,” he speaks through his mouthful, and a little ice cream dribbles onto his beard. “I’m just being a responsible, upstanding citizen.” 

That makes you laugh. “Oh, fuck off. You’ve never been an upstanding citizen in your life.” 

“I work for the CIA, Sunshine.” Ben says smugly. “Not much more fucking upstanding than that.” 

“We both work for the CIA,” you try not to stare at where drops of ice cream are smeared on his face. You want to lick them off, but you are also not moving first. “And, as I’ve told you before, we don’t actually work for the CIA. We don’t get paid.” 

“We need to fucking talk to Mallory about that,” Ben grunts. “We’re carrying her whole pussy fucking team on our backs. We deserve to be paid.” 

“What part of legally dead still isn’t getting through to you?” 

“The part that means we don’t get paid. It’s fucking exploitation.” 

You snort. “Yeah, you’re really suffering in this arrangement. All you get is a free phone, free internet, free food, and a free house.” 

“And you,” he winks. “Free you.” 

That makes your whole body loose and hot. “Shut up.” 

“Are you going to show me porn tomorrow?” He muses, ignoring you. “I’ve well fucking earned it.” 

“Fuck you.” 

This time it’s purposeful. This time you can’t stop staring at Ben’s full lips, covered in vanilla, or stop leaning into his study, warm body. This time you’re setting him up, dangling the bait in front of him, daring him to take it. 

He does. 

Ben tugs you forward until you’re tucked right at your side, his arm around your shoulders so his hand can tilt your mouth up to his. You don’t hesitate to lick his lips when they find yours, taking the sweetness of the sugar combined with just him onto your tongue. Saltier, stronger, better than anything you’ve ever tasted before. He bites your tongue lightly when you do it again, pushing back with his own until you whimper, your hand darting to his face to try and get more. You’re vaguely aware of Ben setting the ice cream to the side, and suddenly he’s pulling you down, then over his chest once he’s flat on his back. You slide one hand into his hair, letting your weight rest entirely against him and grinding down on his abdomen until he groans your name. His hand grip your hips, stilling you completely, tugging you down just enough that you can feel him hard, prodding into your thigh. 

Ben looks down at you, eyes hooded, voice gravelly. “If you don’t want more right fucking now, you need to stop that.” 

Nothing is more difficult than nodding, trying to get a hold of your body and not just letting yourself crash forwards. Letting Ben take everything. “Sorry-“ 

“Don’t apologize,” he snaps, moving one hand up your back until it’s holding the back of your head, running fingers through your hair. “Never apologize to me.” 

You smile at him, toothy and careless. “Even if I fuck a dog?” 

He snorts. “Way to ruin the fucking mood.” 

“It’s a talent.” 

Ben lowers your head onto his chest in a slow movement, and you don’t stop him. When he speaks, you can feel his voice everywhere. “I think it’s bedtime for you, beautiful.” 

“Just because I ruined the mood?” You mumble a protest, but he’s warm and secure around you. Making you sleepy. 

“Because you’re actively fighting to stay the hell awake. Sleep.” 

You try to keep arguing, but all that comes out is an incoherent hum. This might become a problem, how if Ben just kisses you and holds you, your body will listen to him more than it ever listens to you. But it doesn’t feel like one now. It just feels safe, surrounded by the smell of pine and still tasting vanilla.

Just before your eyes close you feel Ben press one last kiss to the top of your head, and that’s all it takes for sleep to find you. 

You’re on the floor of the dining room, Ben above you, your hands scratch his back as he laughs against your mouth. 

“Ready for more, Sunshine?” His voice rolls through your whole body, and you nod almost manically. 

“Yes. Fuck, yes.” 

He pulls back, watching you lust-blown eyes, and everything is life and green and good and Ben. “Beg.” 

“You dick-“ 

He leans down so his nose is bumping yours. “Convince me you want everything. Beg.” 

“I hate you.” 

“No, you don’t. Try again.” 

Dignity doesn’t really feel important right now. Not when you want everything. Not when Ben is offering. Offering everything. “Please. I want this. I’ve wanted this. Just fuck me, you fucking cunt.” 

He chuckles, kissing around your mouth. “That’s not very nice.” 

“Please fuck me. I want you, Benjamin, you insufferable asshole. I want you, I need you, I-“ 

That’s all it takes. He’s falling back onto you, into you, almost eating you because he’s everything and why did you even bother trying to fight that. Who cares if you can’t go back. Why would you even want to? You just want him, and now you have him, and he has you. Right now he has you, and maybe he wants to keep you the same way you want to keep him. It’s just you and Ben, and nothing else is real except you and Ben. 

You’re woken suddenly by Ben bucking up into you. When you blink away the fog of sleep from your eyes, he’s fast asleep, still holding you with his head pressed back into the pillow. You’d somehow moved up his body in the night, finding your head on Ben’s shoulder, your face pressed into his neck. 

He’s not having a nightmare. There’s no building light or heat in his chest, no pain or distress moving from his body to yours. Only hunger. Vast and aching hunger that moves between your legs. A deep, growling sound leaves Ben’s mouth, paired with another rough jerk into the air and his hand fisting into the ends of your hair. Then he moans, right into your ear, and any lingering drowsiness is burned out of your body. Because that moan was long and borderline incoherent, but it sounded like a word. Like your name. And this time when he pushes his groin into the air you can feel him, long and hard, poking against the lowest curve of your ass. 

Someone is out to get you. Some hidden facet of the universe has an agenda against you, because Ben is having a sex dream and moaning—as far as you can tell—your name. Because his sex dream just woke you up from your sex dream. About him. And you’re still horny and wet and thirsty and he’s hungry and his cock is only inches from where your desire for him is becoming painful. And to top it all off, Ben’s holding you against his body with such a confusing combination of reverence and strength that not a single chance you can wiggle away without waking him. 

And if you wake him, there’s nothing in the world that could stop you from giving every single part of yourself to him. So you have to ride it out, unable to fall back asleep, as Ben continues to fuck the air against you. Making the most pornographic sounds you’ve ever heard, sounds that echo through your body from where you’ve pressed your face into his neck, and leave imprints in your gut and heart and head. This qualifies as torture, you decide, because right now if Ben asked you any question, you’d tell him whatever he wanted to hear. You’d do whatever he wanted you to do. Anything to make him give you relief. Anything to turn this into something you don’t have to endure, your brain running wild with fantasies of giving Ben everything and him offering you even half as much. 

You’re dizzy with lust and need—your thirst fed by Ben’s unyielding hunger—when he finally makes the best sound you’ve heard in your life and satisfaction crashes through your body like a wave. Ben’s grip on you loosens, and you frantically roll off of him, climbing out of bed and moving to the bathroom on long but quiet steps. Locking the door, you fall to the floor and shove one hand into your shorts as the other raises to your mouth, biting down to stifle your moans and breaths of Ben’s name. Your back presses to the wall—unable to care as the fire starts to seep out of your skin—fingers moving fast against your clit because there’s not time for anything else. Not when you feel like you’re about to explode, and the aftermath of Ben’s own desire is still planted in your body. 

You double over when you cum, knees shooting up to your chest as you stare at the floor, eyes wide and heart racing. When your basic cognitive functions return—the chorus of just Ben fading into the back of your head and the smoke clearing the room—you realize that’s never happened before. You’ve never felt someone’s orgasm like you’d feel anger or joy or fear. To be fair, you hadn’t been with anyone since the empathy had become a part of you. Except Homelander, and that didn’t count. 

Some evil, loathsome part of you still goes there though. Back to the lab, where Homelander would- 

You can’t think about it. But he’d done it. After the empathy. And you hadn’t felt it. 

You’d also never felt pain from someone. Not like when you touched Ben in a nightmare. But Ben’s emotions were weird. You couldn’t decipher them on a normal day. This probably wasn’t something to note or worry about. Not worth dwelling on at all, not when you were already tearing yourself apart trying to figure out what the massively repressed, ancient man-child in the other room wanted from you. What you could afford to give to the impossible, frustrating, perfect man you- 

It wasn’t something to worry about. 

Collecting yourself off the floor, you realized you couldn’t go back to bed. You were wide awake, and even if you weren’t Ben had definitely stained the sheets, enough that he’d notice when he woke up. Guilt started to stab into you, because Ben might not have meant you to be there. That was private, his, and you’d just jerked off to it. You’d tell him. You had to tell him. But not right now. When he woke up.

So you move silently back to the bedroom, grabbing your phone before creeping into the hall and descending into the living room. You fall onto the couch, reading the text from MM, telling you that they’ll be at the safe house around noon. You give it a little thumbs up, and try to distract yourself from how remarkably horny you still are.

It’s another hour and half before Ben wakes up and walks down the stairs, his hair messy and eyes blurry as he squints at you. 

“How long have you been up?” Ben’s voice is hoarse, and he’s not moving to the couch, standing rigid at the foot of the steps. 

You shrug, playing it off in the way you’d been rehearsing over and over. “A few hours.” 

“What woke you up?” He’s still watching you intently, looking slightly more awake.

“Um,” you can’t lie. It feels wrong to lie. You couldn’t have moved or stopped it, but he needs to know you had been there. “You?”

“Me?” 

“You had a, uh, a wet dream? And weren’t letting me go, and I would've tried to go, because you were asleep, but you’re really strong and weren’t letting me go. I’m-” 

“Don’t say sorry.” Ben grunts, and finally walks to sit beside you. “And I don’t give a shit. It was about you anyway.”

“Oh.” You hadn't expected him to just say that, but you probably should’ve. “That’s doesn’t mean I get to just stay though-”

“Maybe not. But you didn’t chose to, and I don’t give a shit.” Ben leans back into the couch. “I’d fucking tell you if I did. And it sounds like you didn’t have a choice.”

“I’m still sor-”

Ben says your name firmly. “You told me. That’s what fucking matters. No lies.”

You nod slowly. “No lies.”

“You done freaking out?”

“I wasn’t freaking out-”

“I get why you were, with the shit that happened to you.” Ben shrugs. “But if I was worried about you seeing that I’d sleep in my old room.” Suddenly his eyes narrow at you. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

You answer fast. “No, I uh,” you shake your head. “No.”

“If it did, you need to fucking tell me. I know you don’t want more-”

“I didn’t mind,” you mumble. “Really. Promise. And it’s more complicated than not wanting more. I kind of, um.” No lies. “I liked it.”

His eyes flash. “Liked it?”

“Sorry-”

“Don’t fucking apologize.” Ben looks you up and down. “What did you like?”

“All of it.”

“How much.”

Stupid fucking handsome man and his deep voice that makes you answer. “A lot. I um, took care of myself?”

His voice is somehow deeper, and he won’t look away from you. “Took care of yourself?”

“In the bathroom-”

“Did you cum?”

You swallow. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Ben grins, and you think he’s going to keep pushing. “I changed the sheets.” 

“Oh?” You feel a little lighter—it’s a little scary how easy this all is, how fast you feel better—and your tone becomes teasing. “Without me asking? Who even are you?”

“Shut up. I’m not making you change my cum sheets.” 

You poke Ben’s side with your foot, grinning and the disgruntled sound that escapes him. “You kiss a man a few times and suddenly he’s doing chores without being a bitch.” 

Ben catches your foot, yanking you forward until your legs are across his, leaning down until his smirk is hovering above your slack jaw. “You didn’t kiss me just a few times. You just told me you liked me dreaming about you. And as far as I recall, I owe you one more. But a pussy fucking bitch wouldn’t give you what you want, Sunshine, would he?” When you don’t respond, just staring at him in some sort of horny shock, Ben leans just slightly forward. “Would he?” 

“Cun-“ 

Ben catches your words with his mouth, and you gain just enough control to snap at his tongue between your teeth. Not biting it off, but drawing enough blood that the metallic taste overtakes the taste of Ben. He pulls back with a hiss, and you cross your arms across your chest. 

“I told you I’d do that, Pretty Boy.” You taunt. “You have no one to blame but yourself.” 

He gives you an incredulous look, but you can feel his sharp amusement, and his hand has dropped to hold your thigh over his legs. Tracing small patterns on your bare skin. “You’re a piece of fucking work,” he says your name in something that sounds like awe, and something is leaving a mark inside you, on your ribs. 

“Would you have me any other way?” He snorts. “Fucking hell, no.” 

You smile at him, and he smiles back, and if the world ended right now you wouldn’t mind. Not when this is everything. “Good.” You lean back into the armrest of the couch, your eyes never leaving Ben’s. “Ready for your lesson?” 

“Right now?” Ben raises his brow at you. “It’s 8 in the goddamn morning.”

“And we have a long, busy day of internet lessons and hitting Victoria Neuman with your special sauce ahead of us. Might as well get started now.”

Ben glares at you. “Don’t call it special sauce."

“Hm,” you pause in mock thought. “No.”

“Brat.”

You knee his chest lightly. “Go get your phone, Benjamin.”

With a series of low grumbles and a strong pout on his face, Ben removes your legs from against him and stands, disappearing back up the stairs. You hum to yourself, foot tapping as you wait for his return, and don’t even realize what you’re doing until Ben’s voice sounds behind you. 

“Why does the whole room smell like vanilla.” 

You feel the flush of your face, freezing as you tip your head back to meet Ben’s eyes. “I dunno.” 

“Did you leave the ice cream out?” He walks back to his seat, glaring at your legs pointedly until you press them to your chest. “Because I could smell it upstairs as well.” 

You give an over exaggerated sniff. “Well, it’s gone now.” 

“No it’s-“ Ben pauses, scanning your body and face as his nose twitches. “You were fucking singing.” 

“Maybe,” you mumble, hugging your knees. “Shut up. Did you get your phone?” 

Ben scoffs, but shakes his hand, displaying the phone. “Your faith in me is astounding,” he grumbles your name, and you sit up a little with your shrug. 

“I know you’re being a dick, but yeah, it is.” You lean against your bent legs. “Open the phone.” 

He starts to enter the passcode, but looks up at you with a frown. “Are you going to stay over there?” 

“Um,” you blink at him, and shake your head slightly. “No?” 

He doesn’t say anything, just waiting expectantly for you to scoot over to him. Only once you do—thoroughly invading Ben’s space as he pulls your legs back up, making you half on his lap and half pressed into his side—does his attention return to the phone. When he opens it—after three tries, but who’s counting—Ben looks at you with a cocky grin. “That it?” 

“Nope,” you lean over him, taking the phone from his hand. “We’re going to learn about cameras.” 

“I fucking know about cameras-“ 

“Well, you clearly don’t, because you looked like you were going to have an aneurysm about your lock screen yesterday.” You swipe through the phone, keeping it in Ben’s view, and find the camera app. “That,” you point to the screen, finger hovering over the small, gray button. “Is the camera.” 

“That’s not a fucking camera,” he snorts. “That’s a button.” 

You roll your eyes. “And what, Benjamin, do you think the button does?” 

He scowls. “Shut up.” 

“Answer my question.” 

“Camera.” Ben’s answer is through gritted teeth, but—as far as you can tell from where you’re touching him—his annoyance is more for show than anything else. So you keep going, holding the phone a little higher up. 

“Press it,” you prompt him, shaking the phone slightly. 

Ben does so, his aggressive tap of the screen pushing your hand back slightly. The camera opens up, flipped to the self-view, and Ben starts backwards. “Why the fuck is it doing that.”

“It’s the front view.” 

“Why in living Christ would you need a front-view.” 

“For selfies.” 

“Selfies?” 

“Photos of one’s self,” you explain, not bothering to hide the amusement in your voice. “It’s pretty self-descriptive.” 

“Why would you need that.” 

You sigh. “It’s not something you need to do. Most of this isn’t going to be stuff you need to do. It’s for fun.” 

“For fun,” Ben repeats slowly, still sounding like he doesn’t believe you. 

“Yep. And I think you’d like selfies. You get to pose, and stare at yourself. It’s right in your wheelhouse, Pretty Boy.” 

Ben huffs. “What would I do with them?” 

“Whatever you want,” you shrug. “Jerk off to them, print them out to hang around the house, post them on social media-“ 

“Social media?” 

“I am not explaining social media to you today,” you say flatly. “Cameras are already going to be a lot.” 

“It looks pretty fucking simple from here,” Ben grumbles, pulling the phone from your hand. “That big white button takes the photo, yeah?” 

“Well, yeah,” you try to push down a giggle as he presses the button repeatedly, taking a large amount of selfies from a low angle. He’ll still probably look hot in all of them, because he’s Ben and life is unfair, but that doesn’t make it less funny. “But there’s more to it.” 

He stops, giving you a frown. “What the hell do you mean more.” 

“Turn the camera.” 

Slowly, Ben angles the phone so you’re looking at your reflection on the display. 

“No,” you reach up, returning the screen to face him. “Turn the camera. It can switch between the front camera and the back camera,” you tap each one in turn for emphasis. “So switch them.”

He does. After almost eight minutes of swearing under his breath—and very much not under his breath—Ben finds the right button and flips the camera around. From there you make him stand, take several photos of random objects until he can do it without totally messing up the focus, then teach him about zooming. That takes a whole half hour, because he can’t seem to figure out how to get any sort of middle ground, either going all the way out or zooming in for far you can’t even tell what he took the photo of. You forgo filters, that’s a battle you don’t have the energy to take on today, and instead focus on flash—how to turn it on and off, when it needs to be on and off—and video. That one takes two hours. 

You start to wander the house, taking him to the kitchen and explaining how food photos work. 

“That’s fucking insane,” Ben mutters as you conclude your small speech. “Just eat the damn food.” 

“You’re still going to eat the food, this is for the memory of it. So you can look at it later and remember hey, that was a fucking delicious quiche.” 

“That dumb.” Ben snapped. “Just remember shit with your fucking brain.” 

You snort. “You’re going to hate Instagram.” 

“What the hell is Instagram.” 

You don’t explain or elaborate, simply linking your elbow through his and pulling him into the hallway, up the stairs. From there you spend a while in the bedroom, making Ben take photos in lower lighting to practice the flash and teaching him about mirror selfies. He takes that one a little easier, though it results in a lot of sex jokes about how mirrors are for two hot people fucking and how he’d be open to showing you what that means, beautiful, if you say please. 

When you enter the bathroom, making Ben take about three or four videos of the running water, you notice he keeps looking at his shield. Before you can ask what he’s doing it for, he looks at you in the mirror, “How did you put it on the screen?” 

“The shield?” You ask for clarity, even if you know what he means. He grunts, and you continue. “I set it as your wallpaper.” 

“How?” 

You pause, narrowing your eyes at his reflection. “If I show you, it doesn’t count as part of my winnings, because you asked.” 

“Fine,” Ben thrusts the phone into your hand. “Just do it.” 

You do, Ben hanging over your shoulder as you navigate to settings, then wallpaper, then slowly walk him through the functions. Eventually—after another hour or so of pointless photos and videos—you feel a little more comfortable in his capabilities, maybe even bordering on confident, and tug him back to the couch. 

“That’s thing one,” you take the phone back from Ben’s hand, scrolling to the app store. “Ready for thing two?” 

“That was more than one fucking thing,” he snaps. “That was a least damn fifty.” 

“Nope. That was just cameras. I get one more.” 

“Not if I just walk the hell away-“ 

“Ben,” you look up at him. “Just trust me. You’ll like this.” 

He scowls, but waits for you to return the phone to his hand. Ben’s eyes scan the screen for a second before he looks back up at you. “What the fuck is this.” 

“Candy Crush.” 

“What.” 

You scoot a little closer to him, resting your head against his arm as you look up at him with a smile. “It’s a game. Senior citizens everywhere love it.” 

“I am not-“ 

“Yeah, you are.” You dismiss him, drumming your fingers against his skin. “It’s a silly, stupid game with bright colors and an addictive design. It kills time, and-“ your grin grows until it’s toothy and covering your face. “If you spend money, it’s out of the CIA’s pocket.” 

“Spend money?”

“In-app purchases. You fail a level, pay to try again.” 

Ben says your name, a long drawl that sits in your stomach. “I am not playing this shit.” 

“Sure,” you shrug. “But if you change your mind, the app looks like that.” You return to the homescreen, pointing at the logo. 

“Doesn’t matter. I won’t fucking use it.” 

“Okay.” 

“I’m being serious.” 

You grin. “And I said okay.” 

“Brat.”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Cunt.” 

Ben drops his phone to the side, attention entirely scorching through you. “You want the second half of our deal?” 

“Yes,” you answer a little too fast, and your voice is suddenly weaker. You blame Ben’s lust, climbing into you, intertwining with your own, sitting happily in your gut and above your lungs. He’s almost on top of you, and you can see just a slight ring of green in his eyes. Watching you, coming closer. Closer, still closer. But not close enough.

You don’t think Ben could ever be close enough. Not when he finally touches you, not when he sucks on your mouth and tongue and neck like he’d promised, not even when he fully rolls on top of you. Because everything in the world is nothing compared to this. Just Ben. Touching you. Close, but not close enough. 

Your alarm from your phone barely breaks through your ears into your brain, because all your thoughts are being overtaken by just Ben. 

“Fuck,” you manage to pull back, grabbing your phone to turn off the repetitive ringing. “We need to get changed.” 

“Changed?” Ben frowns, still holding you. “The hell do we need to get changed for?” 

“Neuman,” you start to stand up, but Ben’s hand falls to grab yours, keeping you from leaving the couch. “The Boys will be here in like twenty, Ben. Probably more like ten with Butcher’s lack of respect for speed limits and police.” 

“And you’re coming on this one.” He scans your face, hand squeezing yours. 

“Yeah, I should be. We shouldn’t really be in public for this, so I don’t see why I can’t.” Ben nods, but still doesn’t let go, so you squeeze his hand back. “I’ll be fine. But we need to change.” 

That seems to get through to him, because he nods, rising from the couch. Still holding your hand. “You change first. I need to shit.” 

“Charming.” 

You start to move away, but Ben doesn’t let go of your hand, spinning you around into his chest. This last kiss is long. He’s taking his time, pulling you closer and closer, not stopping until you whimper, and then pulling back with a smirk. “You have seven minutes.” 

It takes a few seconds of blinking away the burn under your skin to understand what he means. When you do, though, you shove his chest and stomp up the stairs, yelling over your shoulder. “You’re a piece of shit, Benjamin.”

He doesn’t respond, but when you look back for only a second, he’s smiling after you. A toothy, content, easy grin that makes his eyes sparkle and face look like all he’s ever felt is joy. Never any cold Russian nights or sour, consuming revenge. Just joy. Warm, simple joy. 

You’ll never tell him. He’d hate that you used the word sparkle, because he’s a fucking man and not a glittery pussy, but it’s accurate. And it doesn’t matter, because you’ll never, ever tell him. You’ll keep him close, but not as close as you want, and touch him until he grows bored of you, and taste phantoms of vanilla and salt and strawberry forever. You’ll have him like this, and make it be enough. This will be enough. Because Ben is everything, and you don’t deserve everything. He wouldn’t give you everything anyway. 

So you’ll have this. You’ll have his joy and let it carry you everywhere. And that will fucking be enough.

————

Ben had never been so satisfied by just kissing. He didn’t think it was fucking possible to be this satisfied by just kissing. But it was Her. And she was perfect. Kissing Her was perfect. Hell, he’d even start to develop a strategy for how to kiss her. Ben was filing away every sound she made—the loud whines and quite whimpers and moans, and this one thing where she’d make a throaty, high noise that was half his name and half a squeal—and spending a lot of time trying to figure out what triggered each and every one. If he sucked on Her neck she’d make a hissing, needy sound. If it was her chin, the noise would become more breathless and she’d lean into him. If Ben was gentle the sounds were soft, when he let himself go just a fucking fraction, they were loud and desperate. 

He wasn’t going to stop until he had it all memorized. Until he knew every single thing that made Her tick and why. The why was fucking vital, because if Ben could figure out why She liked something, he could find a million new ways to do it. And keep going and going until She was singing for him, and he could play Her perfect mouth—and whatever part of her perfect body she’d offer him—like the symphony it was. Where he was the only conductor in the world that wasn’t a pretentious fucking pussy, because his orchestra was the most fucking perfect woman to ever exist. And then, unless She made him, he wouldn’t ever stop. 

Because kissing Her was addicting. Ben had thought that touching her was like a drug, but She had an annoying habit of making Ben look like a fucking idiot. If he hadn’t been so absorbed in touching Her before, he could’ve seen this coming. He could’ve realized that just brushing against Her skin was better than any kiss he’d ever had. He could’ve put together that kissing Her would feel like goddamn sex, hot and wet and savage, the most natural thing he’d ever done. Kissing Her made the Thing so big that it was no longer just in Ben’s chest. It was all over him, rooted where it had always been but burning through the rest of his body. 

If just kissing Her did this, made Ben become overtaken with an almost pious desire to keep going forever and ever, actually fucking Her might kill him. 

And he was okay with that. It would be a worthy death. 

She was still upstairs, and Ben could hear the even pattern of Her heartbeat as she changed, hear the shuffle of clothes falling to the floor and moving in the drawers. She was probably fucking naked up there, just a floor away. The Thing wanted to go to Her, just fucking offer more. But he wouldn’t because She didn’t want more right now. Ben didn’t have a goddamn clue why, not when She was kissing him back and fucking cumming to the thought of him. The Thing had almost exploded inside him when She’d told him that, and Ben was trying to just pretend he was very calm about it and not trying to figure out ways he could keep Her doing that without hurting her or pushing her away. Even if he couldn’t figure out why that was needed. She seemed almost as desperate for more as Ben was. Not as desperate, because that wasn’t fucking possible. Ben felt pretty fucking confident in saying that nobody had ever been this filled with need for another person in history. But everything he was throwing at Her, she was throwing back at him. Like she always fucking did.

Because She was perfect. 

The door to the safe house opened before She returned to the living room, and it occurred to Ben that he still needed to shit. That he’d been standing at the base of the stairs like a goddamn idiot, waiting for Her like a fucking puppy. He could only be more pathetic if he was right outside her door. If a single member of the Pussy Brigade commented on it, asked why he was just standing around like he was lost, he’d tie their tongue into a knot then cut it out. 

He heard Butcher first. “You two twats ready to go?” 

Ben glared at him down the hall. “Obviously we’re fucking not.” 

“Did MM not fucking text like I told him to?” Butcher’s eyes raked over Ben, taking in his sweatpants and wrinkled shirt. 

Wrinkled from Her, the Thing hummed in content. She did that. 

Ben told it to shut up. He was well fucking aware of that, and didn’t need the Thing to remind him, because it made him hard and he had no interest in explaining a boner right now. 

MM entered the safe house, saying Her name as he walked to stand beside Butcher. “Got the text. She even gave it a reaction.” MM scanned the living room with a frown. “The hell is she?” 

On perfect fucking clue—Ben was starting to think She had a fifth power that made her do everything better than anyone had any damn right to—the bedroom door opened and She descended down the stairs. 

“Ben, where the hell did you put my sunglasses? Because I definitely left them on the dresser and they’re not there anymore-“ She froze at the bottom of the stairs, spotting Butcher and MM. “Uh, hi.” 

“Afternoon, Love.” Butcher looked between Her and Ben, a taunting smirk tugging at his lips, and it took everything in Ben not to step forward and block Her from Butcher’s gaze. “You ready to rumble?” 

“Um,” She looked at Ben, addressing him solely, and it made the Thing swell through him. “Can you change fast?”

He nodded, shrugging. “Whatever.” Ben started to push past Her, but she caught his arm. Still only looking at him. 

“Sunglasses?” 

Ben knew exactly where those sunglasses were. They’d fallen under the bed yesterday morning when he’d swept half the dresser's contents to the floor to put her down, and he’d seen them this morning when he’d been cleaning up his mess. He’d cum in his sleep like a fucking teenager, and moved faster than almost any other point in his life to cover it up. But Ben didn’t say any of that out loud, because he didn’t know if She wanted the Pussy Brigade to know that he’d been eating her mouth like a feast for two days and fifteen hours. Ben didn’t give a shit if they did, he’d fuck Her in front of them if it made it clear to them that he wasn’t going anywhere. But this seemed like the type of thing She’d care about, and he didn’t want to risk her taking away what she’d given him so far. 

So he just said, “I think I remember where I put them.” And retreated to their room. 

Ben gets the sunglasses first, propping them back up on the dresser where he won’t be able to miss them when he leaves. He shits quickly, puts on his supe suit—if the Pussy Brigade had a problem with that they could suck his dick—and stared at his shield in the bathroom for a second before deciding to leave it. He’d just be blasting Neuman and leaving, no damn point in taking it where Cocksucker would try and pick it up again. He checked his hair in the mirror, and failed to not think about fucking Her against it. Or fucking Her on the bed. Or on the stairs. Maybe in the kitchen. Defiantly during training, and if she ever made good on Her promise to show Ben porn-

He grabbed the sunglasses and stormed back downstairs, shoving the Thing and his desires to let it—Her—keep consuming him deep, deep into him. Ben had a fucking job to do. She’d still be there to dream about fucking until the bed broke after. 

She was waiting for him, talking to Kimiko in silence with a smile splitting her face. MM had left, Butcher was watching them with a look like he’d tasted shit, and Ben didn’t think anyone would miss the asshole if he somehow got slammed, face first, into the wall over and over. Especially as She heard Ben’s step, looking up at him with the same smile she needed to stop giving him. The smile that Ben couldn’t stop himself from reading as oh, it’s you! Hello, Benjamin. I adore you and if you wanted to give me every fucking piece of you, covered in blood or not, I’d take them and keep them safe. 

But that didn’t sound like Her at all. For one, she’d never say every fucking piece of you. She might say every part of you, or all of you, good, bad, and ugly, but she wouldn’t say every fucking piece of you. Ben would say that. 

Also, She didn’t think that. She gave a shit about him, Ben knew that much, but she didn’t adore him. Not like he adored Her. She didn’t want to keep him safe, not like Ben needed Her to be safe. The Thing would keep every bloody and dark part of Her safe if she’d give them to him. It would hold them carefully until she wanted them back, and then care for the place She’d put them until they returned. 

So Ben just took Her smile as best he could when he wasn’t allowed to pull it up to his mouth, make it open into a moan, and keep going and going up he learned what Her orgasms sounded like.

If She ever let him hear what her orgasms sounded like, it would take a damn miracle of God to stop him from hearing them every single fucking day.

He took Her smile, returned it with his own, and passed her the sunglasses. “Found them under the bed,” he grunted, stopping at Her side. 

“Oh,” She frowned, opening them and placing them on her brow. “I thought I checked there.” 

“Did you say the bed.” Butcher’s voice was mocking and cold, but lined with what Ben pinned to be genuine, morbid curiosity. “Are you two sharing a bed.”

Ben is more than fucking ready to cut out Butcher’s tongue. Maybe stab him in the throat to finish damn the job. But She speaks first. 

“Yeah, we are. Because some of us have nightmares about Homelander raping us and feel safer when we're not alone. So shove it up your ass.” 

The Thing was boiling in Ben. Overflowing with warmth and power for Her. Her, Her, Her, it chanted, making the continuing conversation a little fucking hard to hear. Ben could see Her look at him from the corner of her eyes. Giving him the tiniest smile that says thank you for not leaving me alone. 

Ben couldn’t stop himself smiling back. Wouldn’t fucking dream of it. You’d be lost without me. 

She wrinkled her nose at him. You can’t even use a phone camera without my help. 

Not anymore, he winked. And you have not one to blame but your damn self for that, Sunshine. 

She stomped on his foot, hard enough that he sort of feels it, Ben had to cover his snort with a cough. 

Butcher wasn’t fooled. “Something funny, Gov?” 

“Not to you, you boring fucking pussy,” Ben drawled. “Are we going to actually fucking go or just wait for you to jerk yourself off?” 

“Suddenly his head is in the game,” Butcher sneered. “I wonder what fucking did it?” His gaze turns to Her. “Can I borrow your tits, Love? I think they might be bloody magic.” 

“Stop being a cunt, Butcher,” She snapped, just in time to stop Ben throwing Butcher out the door hard enough to break the Pussy-Mobile Ben could see in the driveway. “And Ben’s right, we should get moving.” 

Butcher muttered something that sounds like horny fucking bombs shouldn’t be allowed within ten miles of each other, and stalked out the door. Kimiko signed something to Her with a smile, and she signed back with a laugh. Before Ben could even ask what the fuck they’re saying, Her arm was linked through his and she started telling him. 

“Kimiko says my tits are magic, but not as magic as Butcher’s. Which proves he’s just a dick, because if it was about magic tits he’d have the game on lock.” 

“Huh,” Ben frowned, trying not to let the Thing overtake him with thoughts about how right it feels to be walking with Her looped against him. “I wouldn’t have pegged Butcher to have good tits.” 

“That’s because you,” She bumped her shoulder with his. “Are very unobservant.” 

“I’m incredibly fucking observant. I clocked your tits the first time we met.”

“I remember. You weren’t listening to Hughie because of it. Which is very unobservant.” 

“It’s not my fault you have such good tits,” Ben grumbled, savoring the way Her heart flutters as she tried to fight her giggle. Looking up at him with fucking perfect, happy eyes. “They’re fucking weapons of war.” 

She fully snorted. “I think your compliments are regressing again.” 

Ben rolled his eyes, just offering a hand to steady Her as she climbs into the van. She takes it with a grin, and doesn’t let go when Ben follows her.

“What’s the plan,” She asked, and the Thing hummed as she still didn’t drop Ben’s hand, pulling him into his place at her side. 

Butcher’s answer was short, clipped. “Blast Neuman.” 

She blinked, her body tensing against Ben. “And?” 

“That, um, that’s kind of it,” Cocksucker said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “We don’t have a huge window before Vicky gets word we’re up to something-“

She raised a hand, and Cocksucker fell silent. “What, exactly, did you use yesterday for.”

“Getting Neuman’s schedule,” MM answered this time, voice stronger than Cocksuckers but still lined with fucking guilt. “Those motherfuckers run a tight ship, we needed to know where she’d be-“

“But you didn’t come up with a plan. For when you would, inevitably, know?” 

Nobody answered this time, and She gave a long sigh. Her heart was fast in her chest, but it wasn’t the stumbling, unordered beat that signals fear or panic. It was moving because Her brain was moving, her perfect face scrunched in thought, the machine that was her brain practically audible. The Pussy Brigade even had the nerve to look afraid, despite the fact that She wasn't smoking or making the air of the van wave with heat.

She turned to Kimiko—sitting at the French Prick’s side—who was the only one watching with plain curiosity. They started to sign at each other—the French Prick jumping in to add something that was received with a frown and a nod—and when She turned back to the group her face was drawn in determination. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” She said slowly, staring ahead at the wall with her brows knit. Ben pulled Her a little closer into him, and her heart slowed slightly. “We’re catching Neuman at home. Off-guard. Do we know if other people live in the building?” 

“Only some other bureaucrat fuckers,” Butcher answered from the front, and Starlight shook her head. 

“And their fucking families, Butcher.” 

“Okay,” She nodded slowly. “Frenchie, you burned off your fingerprints a while ago, right?” 

“Oui,” the French Prick holds up his hands for display. 

“Good. You’re going to pull the fire alarm. Hughie,” Her sharp gaze turned to Cocksucker. “I need you on the cameras. Make sure everyone is out. MM will be on standby if there are stragglers. Kimiko and Annie will cover the exits, Butcher,” She paused, and Ben could hear the gnaw of her lip. “Scratch all of that. Annie can’t be seen participating in this, she’ll be on the cameras, and Butcher will take her spot on the exits. Hughie, you’ll come with Ben and I. I’ll cover you when he goes off.”

There’s a second of silence, and then the van erupted in protests. Butcher shouting about how he’s not going to cover a bloody exit, he wants to see Neuman get fucked. Starlight whining about how she doesn’t want to be useless in the van, she can really help. Cocksucker fretting about how he’s not sure this is a great idea, and might be better staying on the cameras. The French Prick and Kimiko are silent, exchanging a look with subtle gestures at Her, Kimiko’s face determined, gestures growing and growing until the French Prick raised his hands in surrender. Finally, MM seemed to be trying to do what he considered reasoning with Her, that they couldn’t just go off with only Hughie, what if you need backup, what if Soldier Boy goes nuclear. 

Ben opened his mouth—ready to defend himself, defend Her—but She caught his eye and shook her head. I can handle this. 

He gave a curt nod back, not hiding the scowl on his face. Fine. But don’t be fucking nice to them. 

Shut up, Her eyes narrowed at him before she turned back to the group, who was starting to tire themselves out like the fucking children they were. When the van was quiet once more, She spoke in a clear, bored voice. 

“Butcher, we’re not killing Neuman, so you’re not invited. Annie, I know you want to help. Staying here is helping. You’ll draw attention, and if the public realizes you’re associated with Soldier Boy then we’ll be assfucked. MM, Ben won’t just go nuclear. We’ve got it under control. Hughie, you’re the only one Neuman won’t try to pop on sight. She’ll talk to you, and it’ll be good to have a friend there for when Ben’s done. And-“ She sat up a little straighter, glaring around the van. “If any of you don’t like my plan, I’d love to hear your alternatives.” 

“How do you plan on getting into the bloody building?” Butcher snapped. “They ain’t just gonna let you in.” 

“Fire escapes are very real, dumbass.” She retorted. “And Hughie can do that shit where he makes their cameras play the same video so they don’t see us. We’ll corner Neuman, then Frenchie will pull the alarm, and Ben will go off once it’s just us and her and Zoe.” 

“What’s your escape plan?” Starlight asked, giving Cocksucker a worried look. “You two can just leave, but Hughie-“ 

“I can redirect Ben’s blast. Make sure it doesn’t destroy the building. Hughie will be fine.” Ben stiffens beside Her, because as far as he fucking knows she’d only done that once. And it had ended in Her small and sad and broken, curled up into herself and alone. 

She has you this time, the Thing reminded him. If this goes to shit, she’ll always fucking have you. 

“Are we good?” She was asking the van, and Ben saw each of the fucking pussies nod. “Awesome.”

She leaned back into Ben, and he frowned down at Her, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “You can redirect my fucking blast?”

She shrugged, starting ahead with empty eyes. “Hypothetically, yeah.” 

“And you’re going to risk Hughie’s life on hypothetically?” Ben didn’t give a shit about Cocksucker’s life, but She did. And Ben gave a shit about Her life, about her not breaking down and tearing herself apart about accidentally killing Cocksucker.

“It’s an educated guess, Ben.” She muttered. “It’ll work. It has to. And don’t you dare say-“ She shot Ben a glare, voice dropping into her dogshit impression of him. “But what if it doesn’t.” 

Ben scoffed. “I wasn’t going to fucking say that.”

“Yes, you were. You always say that.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Ben felt the Thing become a little lighter as a smile tugged at Her mouth. “Do I have to do anything in your plan besides hit Neuman?” 

“You have to not be a dick to Hughie, let me do the talking, and stand around looking pretty until I tell you to be useful,” She counted her answers off one by one on her fingers, and Ben chuckled. 

“Be pretty, huh?” 

“Don’t fish for compliments, Benjamin,” She teased. “It’s unbecoming.” 

“If I give you one, will you give me one?” Ben leaned forward a little, fighting every instinct in his body to soothe Her lips where she’d been chewing them with his tongue. Any marks were gone, so he couldn’t really fucking pick out where She’d been biting, but that just meant he’d have to cover all his bases. Soothe Her whole fucking mouth. “A quid pro quo?” 

She hummed. “Good use of quid pro quo.” 

“Is that a fucking yes?” 

“Fine,” she sighed. “You look very nice in your stupid suit.” 

“Nice?” 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she gave him a flat glare. “Handsome.” 

“Say the whole thing.” 

“My compliment better blow Shakespeare out of the fucking water,” she muttered, but looked up at him with batting eyelashes and an over-sweet voice. “You look very handsome in your stupid fucking suit. Your turn.” 

Ben started to stall, because he couldn’t think of anything good enough for Her. “We should get you a suit.” 

She snorted. “I am not wearing a costume.” 

“It’s not a fucking costume, Sunshine, it’s a uniform.” 

“If I can buy a semi accurate version of it at Spirit Halloween, it’s a costume.” 

“What the fuck is a Spirit Halloween.” 

“It’s a costume store. Stop stalling and give me my compliment.” 

Ben sighed, scanning Her face and trying to make the Thing come up with something a little more fucking poetic than you, you, you it’s just you and if you liked we can go right fucking now and leave forever and I’d keep you safe and happy and smiling and fuck you wherever the hell you want whenever you want because it’s you and you’re perfect. 

“You…” Off to a remarkably fucking shit start. “Are…” Ben was going to find it, if it was the last thing he fucking did. He was going to keep staring at Her until he figured out exactly what say that would make her face all flushed and thighs clench and heart stutter.

“I am?” 

“You’re good.” Ben settled for simplicity. Poetry was not his fucking strong suit, and that was more than okay by him. 

“I’m good?” She frowned at him, and for a second Ben wanted to bring her into his chest, just show Her what he’d meant. He couldn’t show her with just words, and she was frowning, and just fucking showing her would be more fun anyways. It would make Her smile, make her understand, he was goddamn sure of it. “Are you going to elaborate?”

“You’re good,” Ben repeated, shrugging and his hands fisted to stop himself from grabbing Her. “It’s pretty fucking simple. Your pretty brain should be able to figure it out.” 

“Well congratulations, you’ve stumped me. Can you please be just the tiniest bit less cryptic.” 

“You’re good.” 

“Yeah, I heard you the first two times-“

“No,” Ben said Her name, too lost in trying to make her get it to stop himself grabbing her chin. “You’re good. You’re not what these pussies say you are. You’re a lot fucking more than whatever Homelander thinks you are. You’re better and more important than any politician, supe or no. You’re good.” 

“Oh,” She whispered. “Thanks.” 

Ben’s hand was still against Her jaw, and she wasn’t pushing it away. If anything She was leaning into it, keeping Ben touching her as if she didn’t care about the useless fucking onlookers either. And She was staring at him, keeping Ben with her just by fucking looking at him, her mouth just slightly open. If he wanted Ben could move his thumb up, trace Her perfect lips, see if she’d let him push it into her- 

Someone who Ben was going to have to kill later said Her name, and she looked away. 

The Thing was so absorbed in Her, in try to get back to Her, that Ben missed the entire first half of the conversation. MM was crouching in front of Her—holding onto the seat at her side to steady himself from Butcher’s fucking terrible driving—and talking without sparing Ben a glance. 

“-Even if Butcher doesn’t tip her off, what makes you absolutely so goddamn certain Soldier Boy won’t blow his load early and screw us,” MM was hissing, and Ben scowled. 

“I never fucking blow my load early-“ 

She caught his eye, her own flaring slightly to tell him, Shut up, Pretty Boy. 

Ben grunted, but fell silent with a clenched jaw, shooting Her a look of, I don’t blow my load early. 

She rolled her eyes. Now is not even remotely the time to start measuring your dick. Let me handle this. 

Fine, Ben winked. But you’re welcome to help me measure it later. 

She kicked Ben’s shin, addressing MM. “He won’t. I’ve been working on it.” 

“You’ve been working on it?” MM scoffed. “Just because you’re all smiley and gross at each other doesn’t mean you can control this motherfucker’s PTSD.” 

“No, but my fucking healing powers mean that I can get rid of it.” 

MM blinked at Her, glancing quickly at Ben before speaking in a low tone that Ben, for one, didn’t fucking appreciate. “You've been healing him.” 

“Allegedly,” Ben muttered under his breath, and earned a dirty look. 

“Yeah, well, you’ve only blown your load once this month. So shut the fuck up.” She looked back at MM. “He can control it.” 

“It’s your ass if he can’t,” MM snapped, and She rolled her eyes. 

“I’m aware. He can.”

Both Ben and the Thing were big fans of how clear and final She said those words. Ben could control it, that was it, no room for discussion. She had faith in him, she trusted him, and if anyone had any issue with that she’d defend him. Just like Ben would defend Her. To the ends of the fucking earth, until they burned together.

“Do you know where we’re putting Neuman and Zoe after this?” She was still talking to MM, but Her voice had raised enough for the whole shit team to hear. “She can’t just keep being Vice President. Homelander will kill her.” 

“About that,” it was Cocksucker who answered, rubbing his hands together like an anxious pussy. “They’re going to the safe house.” 

“The safe house?” She repeated with a frown. “Like, our safe house?” 

The Thing liked Her use of our. Ben did too. He did not like where this conversation was headed. “I am not living with Head-popper and her kid.” 

“Well, I’ve got fantastic fucking news,” Butcher drawled, standing and turning as the van came to a halt. “You ain’t gonna. You two,” Butcher pointed between Ben and Her. “Will be moving.” 

“To a different safe house?” She asked, and Butcher shook his head with a snake-like grin.

“To the new FBSA HQ,” Butcher winked at Ben, and Ben wanted to sew his eye shut. “In Jersey.”

“I am not living in fucking Jersey either,” Ben snapped, and She sighed. 

“Why not a new safe house?” 

“Because.”

She snorted at Butcher’s useless fucking response. “What, does the whole CIA somehow only have one safe house?” 

“Listen,” MM grunted. “You’ll get an apartment. Just a little fuckin smaller than the house. You’ll have more freedom-“ 

“We both still won’t be able to leave the house.” She pointed out, and MM shrugged. 

“But you’ll be able to fuckin order food. Get packages delivered without texting me or Mallory about it. Have visitors. Anything you order will have to be under a fake name, and visitors will have to be approved, but it’s more than what you have now.” 

“Why now? That building was finished in January, I saw it on the news. Why move us now?” 

“Because,” Butcher crossed the van with a shrug. “We bloody said so. Now are we ready to get a move on? Time is of the essence in this shit plan.” 

“Okay,” She took a deep breath. “Hughie, can you-“ 

“On it,” Cocksucker gave Her a thumbs up, starting to tap of his little laptop. “I’ll let you know when I’m good.” 

“Thanks. Just so we’re all on the same page, Butcher, what are you doing?” 

Butcher rolled his eyes. “Watching the exit. Why am I getting fucking cold called-“ 

She ignored Butcher’s whiny bitching, and turned to Starlight. “Annie?” 

“Stay in the van, make sure the building’s clear.” 

“MM?”

“Standby to help Annie get people out.” 

“Frenchie?” 

“Fire alarm.” 

She signed at Kimiko, who responded with a smile. 

“Good,” She looked around the van, and Ben realized she hadn’t asked him. 

Because She trusts you, the Thing rumbled. She isn’t worried about you fucking it. 

“Any questions?” She asked, and when she was met with shaking heads she nodded. “Hughie?”

“We're good. Annie, do you need help-“

Starlight shook her head, taking the computer from Cocksucker. “I’ve got it.”

Cocksucker gave a small nod, and turned to Her. “I’m ready.”

“Alright,” Ben could hear the tap of Her fingers in the familiar pattern, her heart speeding up as she took another breath. “We’ll go first. Annie, find exits for Butcher and Kimiko, and send them fast. If Neuman sees us coming we need to have our asses covered. I’ll text when Frenchie’s good to pull the alarm.”

She stood on unsteady feet, and Ben’s arm shot out instinctively to catch her around the waist. He was rewarded with a grateful smile and Her heart slowing ever so slightly. “Ready?” 

The question was for Ben. He knew it, because She wasn’t looking anywhere but him and her voice was soft. “Fucking born for it.” 

She huffed a small laugh, dropping the sunglasses onto the bridge of her perfect nose, and Ben didn’t bother to remove his arm from her as he stood. The Pussy Brigade’s confused and judgmental stares could go suck each other off if they wanted. She gave a small gesture to Cocksucker, who left Starlight’s side to follow them out the van and into the cold alleyway. 

They were silent for a second as She took in the tall brownstone building before them. Cocksucker kept shooting them both anxious fucking pussy looks as Ben held Her against him—using his body to block her from the chills of the wind—and would look away frantically whenever Ben held his gaze. 

“Ben,” She looked up at him with sharp eyes, over the frames of her sunglasses. “You need to throw us.”

“What?” 

Ben and Cocksucker spoke in almost perfect unison, though Cocksucker’s words were more panicked in comparison to Ben’s disbelief. 

“I am not fucking throwing you,” Ben snapped Her name. 

“You have to,” She looked back at the building, pointing as she spoke. “We can’t go through the emergency exit, alarms will go off. That,” Her finger moved to the iron stairs and grates lining the building. “Is our best bet. You can jump, me and Hughie can’t.” 

“Then I’ll go first and lower the damn ladder.” 

Cocksucker nodded. “I second Soldier Boy, that’s a better plan.” 

“No,” She elbowed Ben’s ribs, shaking her head. “It’s not. That’s something people might notice. We need to leave as little a trail as possible. Ben’s going to throw us. Me first, then Hughie, then he’ll jump.” 

Ben wanted to argue—tell Her that there had to be a better idea that didn’t involve Her just being chucked into the fucking air—but She had already detangled herself from Ben, and was moving towards the building. So Ben followed, Cocksucker stumbling behind him, and stopped at Her side. 

“This is fucking stupid, Sunshine.”

“Uh huh,” She looked up at the fire escape. “Whenever you’re ready, Pretty Boy.” 

Ben huffed, but picked Her up carefully, locking his arms firmly around her body and balancing on one leg as he propped up a knee. “Don’t die.” 

“Couldn’t if I tried. Go.” 

Ben squeezed Her slightly, then threw Her up. The half-second before she grabbed the rails—where she was suspended almost fucking cartoonishly in the sky—sucked all the air from Ben’s lungs. But She was fast, finding a grip and hauling herself onto the platform with only a small grunt that was carried away by the wind.

“All good!” She called down. “Send Hughie up.” 

Ben looked at Cocksucker, whose face was like a fucking deer about to be mauled by a wolf. 

“Uh, I’m not sure this is a good idea-“ 

“Shut up,” Ben grunted, walking to pick the gangly fucker up. “I’m not going to fucking kill you. And she’ll catch you.” 

“But-“ 

Ben grabbed Cocksucker under his arms and tossed him into the air with a yelp. As promised, She grabbed Cocksucker’s hand in the air, holding him steady until the little pussy got a hold on the bars himself and pulled up to Her side. Ben sighed, rolling his neck and trying to measure the jump as he backed up. 

“Ben-“ 

Her call was cut off as he lept into the air, landing pretty damn perfectly on the platform. Right in front of Her. “Yes?” He winked, tone mocking, and She wrinkled her nose at him. 

“Show off.” 

“You fucking told me to do that.” 

“Fuck you,” She turned away, and the Thing started brainstorming ways to get her back later for those words. “Hughie, what floor is Neuman on?” 

“The top one, I think.” 

“You think?” 

“I’m like 98% sure.” 

She sighed. “Then we better start climbing.” 

The walk up the stairs was silent, Her leading the way, Ben at the rear, and Cocksucker moving in small, quick steps between them. The wind was biting, howling in Ben’s ears louder and louder the closer they drew to the top, drowning out the sound of Her heartbeat. When they stopped, one level from the roof, She crouched below the window. Cocksucker followed suit, and Ben gave Her a flat look.

“I’m not-“

“Benjamin, get your ass down before I make you.” 

He glared at Her, only because this is important, and hunched to the floor.

“I’ll go in first. Ben, I’m going to have to keep my eyes on Neuman, so you need to text Butcher.” 

“I don’t have my fucking phone-“ 

She tossed it at Ben wordlessly, raising Her brows. 

“Shut up,” he grumbled, and She stuck her tongue out. 

“Ready?” 

Ben grunted, and Cocksucker gave a barely perceptible nod. 

She exhaled through puffed lips, moving the sunglasses into her jacket as she looked at the window. “Here we fucking go.” 

Neuman’s apartment was nice. Cozy. If Ben didn’t have a fucking job to do, he’d ask for her interior decorator. Especially if he’d understood MM correctly and was going to be getting his own apartment soon. To share with Her. Their apartment. 

Would she like that carpet? The Thing was fixated on a deep blue, stupidly damn fluffy carpet thrown across Neuman’s floor. No, it’s blue. Fucking pussy color. She’d like the texture though- 

Job to do. Ben had a job to do. The Thing needed to shut the fuck up, because Ben had a job to do. 

A job that walked right into the hallway they were standing in. 

Neuman’s eyes widened, talking a stumbling step back as she yelped. “Hughie? The fuck are you doing here? In my home?” Nueman’s eyes darted to Ben, then Her. “With Soldier Boy and the Anomaly?” 

“It’s complicated,” Cocksucker rubbed his neck nervously. “You should, uh, you should get Zoe.” 

“Stay the hell away from my daughter. Whatever you’re doing here doesn’t fucking involve her.” 

“Vicki-“ 

Cocksucker’s pleading words were cut off by Her, tone firm. “Neuman, we’re not going to hurt you, or Zoe. We just need you both. Now.” 

Neuman laughed disbelievingly. “You’re not here to hurt me, but you brought Solider Boy?” 

“We’ll explain,” She answered, voice calm even as Her heart started to pick up. “But please get Zoe.” 

“Fuck no-“

“Neuman.” She crossed her arms. “You can’t pop me or Ben. You won’t pop Hughie. I swear we aren’t here to hurt you. Go get Zoe.” 

There was silence for a second, Ben could see Neuman looking around frantically, trying to find a way out where there wasn’t one, and eventually giving in. “Zo, baby? Can you come here please?” 

A girl, couldn’t be more than fucking twelve, entered the hall. “Mom, what’s-“ The kid’s words died with a gasp as she saw Ben, Cocksucker, and Her in the hall. “Mom?” 

Neuman moved the kid behind her, holding her hand with a white-knuckled grip. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” 

“What is Hughie doing here, with Soldier Boy?!” The girl's voice was frantic, and Ben could hear her heart race. “And Homelander’s girlfriend? What the fuck is happening-“ 

“She’s not Homelander’s girlfriend,” Ben hissed, and She slapped Ben’s arm. 

She’s just a kid, Her glare said. And you said you’d let me do the talking. 

You’re not Homelander’s anything, Ben glared back. She should fucking know that. 

Just a kid, Ben. She gave the phone in his hand a pointed look. Text Butcher that we’re good. 

Ben scoffed, but opened the damn phone to tell Butcher that the French Prick needed to move as Neuman continued to comfort her daughter. 

“Don’t worry about it, baby. I can’t explain right now, but we’re going to be fine. I just need you to stay behind me.” 

“Mom-“ 

“Zoe,” Cocksucker said gently. “We’re not going to hurt you, or your mom. We just need to talk.” 

“About what?” Neuman hissed. “I’d have taken a meeting, you didn’t have to resort to breaking into my home, Hughie.” 

“Well, uh-“ 

“And I fucking know you visited Stan on Monday. So don’t lie to me and say you’re not up to something-“ 

Neuman was cut off as a wailing, deafening siren rattled through the building. Turns out the French Prick moved impressively fast. Ben had barely hit send two seconds ago. 

“Ben,” She mumbled, eyes not leaving Neuman’s fearful expression. “Can you break the alarms?” 

Ben nodded with a grunt, walking to the red light above them as smashing it with his fist. That seemed to be enough, he could hear everyone’s breathing and heart again, so he returned to Her side. 

“Hughie, tell me when Annie says we’re good.” 

Cocksucker nodded, pulling out and fidgeting with his phone, and Neuman took a shaky step back. 

“Don’t try and leave, Neuman,” She said, voice tired and face bored. “I really don’t want to hurt you, so please just wait.” 

“Wait for what?! What the fuck is happening?!” 

She sighed. “As you probably figured out, we cut a deal with Edgar. He’s going to help us out, as long as we talk you and Zoe out of the game.” 

“Out of the game?” Neuman’s face twisted in determination. “You lay a hand on me, on Zoe, and I’ll blow Hughie’s brains up.” 

Cocksucker paled, “Vicki-“ 

“I phrased that poorly.” She addressed Neuman firmly, standing her ground. “We’re removing the V from your system. So you don’t have to be a part of this shit show. The CIA will keep you safe, and we’ll get what we need.” 

“No,” Neuman shook her head, taking another step back. “Fuck no. You’re not touching me, or Zoe, and whatever Stan said he’d give you I can give you as well-“ 

Neuman’s words choked him her throat as fire spread slowly along the floor. Controlled, careful flames that blocked the exits and never rose above a foot. 

“We’re not asking.” She said softly, almost fucking apologetic. “It might hurt for a second, but you’ll be fine. I promise.” 

“Um,” Cocksucker said Her name, looking up from his phone. “We’re ready.”

“I’m sorry,” She said to Neuman, and Ben knew She fucking meant it. Her heart was bouncing around in her chest, her breathing was labored, and her face was full of guilt when she looked at him. “Now, Ben.” 

Ben called the drums, pulling them as fast as he fucking could into his chest, into time with his heart. It was building, growing louder and brighter, and he angled his chest at Her right before everything fell in place inside him, and the world exploded. 

The Thing roared as the bomb caught Her, even if every conscious part of Ben knew she’d be fine. She was strong, she could handle it, she’d fucking told him to hit her. But that didn’t stop the Thing from trying to climb out of him, to get to Her as she floated off the ground, surrounded in golden light and fire with her eyes shut. Ben couldn’t hear Her heart, couldn’t read her face, couldn’t give shit about Neuman trying to run or Cocksucker backing up to the window. It was just Her, burning alone, impossible to reach. Impossible to help. 

She went out. For only a second all the light died, and Ben could hear Her heartbeat again. Then Her eyes opened, fucking wild and glowing, and everything exploded. Light shot from Her chest, hitting Neuman and Zoe head on, moving through their bodies as she levitated further off the floor. Ben even fucking stumbled, because the world shook. The ground moved and everything seemed to come to a screeching halt, suspended in time as She grew brighter. Time only resumed when the light—as fast as it had appeared—died, and She collapsed to the floor. 

Ben fucking dove to catch Her, grabbing around her chest right before she hit the floor. Her eyes were open, and Ben could see the exhaustion in them, hear the slowing of Her heart as the energy drained from Her body. He heard Cocksucker run past them, checking on Nueman,  but didn’t look away from Her. 

“Ben,” Her voice was weak, breathless. “I’m fine. Make sure it worked.” 

“I’m not fucking leaving you-“

“All you have to do is turn your head, check that Neuman and Zoe are alive, and tell me,” She gave a soft laugh. “Fucking drama queen.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” Ben muttered, but glanced over his shoulder to where Cocksucker was standing awkwardly as Zoe climbed her feet, Neuman pulling her into a hug. “They look fucking fine.”

“Okay,” She sat up slowly, not trying to leave Ben’s hold as she called over him. “Hughie, are they-“ 

“We are,” Neuman answered. “I can’t feel it. Your blood or hearts. Zo?” 

The girl’s hands moved to her face. “They’re gone.” 

Neuman nodded, and looked back at Her. Ben could hear the race of Neuman’s heart, almost smell her fear. “Now what?” 

“Butcher and Kimiko are on their way up,” Cocksucker said, glancing at his phone. “We’re going to get you somewhere safe.” 

“What about my life,” Neuman shook her head. “Zoe’s life-“ 

“You both wouldn’t have fucking lives if Homelander decided you weren’t useful anymore,” Ben snapped. “You’re fucking welcome.”

Neuman looked at Ben with a frown, her eyes scanning over how he was still holding Her, keeping her carefully upright. “What did Edgar offer you.” 

“Help,” Ben hissed. “And it's not your fucking problem now.” 

“We need to move,” She tugged at Ben’s shirt, voice even quieter than before. “Homelander will have noticed this, we need to go-“ 

Ben nodded roughly, and scooped Her into his arms. Ben turned to Cocksucker as She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Tell Butcher you pussies better fucking haul ass to get Neuman out.”

Cocksucker nodded nervously. “Um, where are you-“ 

“The van. We still have shit at the safe house, we’ll need to get it before you move us. But I’m not fucking waiting here until Butcher arrives.” Until Homelander arrives. Not when She’s about to pass out. Ben spoke the last words through gritted teeth. “I did my job. Do yours.” 

Ben didn’t wait for Cocksucker’s response, climbing back out of the window and studying the drop down the alley. He could just jump—it would be faster and they’d both be fine—but it would be loud. Crack the pavement. 

Get more unwelcome attention. 

So Ben climbed down the stairs, keeping Her secure against his chest. He jumped down from only the last platform, making sure Her hold on him was firm before did he, and moved to van in long, fast steps. He vaulted through the doors, dropping against the walls—not bothering with pointless fucking greetings to MM or Starlight—and listened to Her breathing fall, becoming slow and easy as her eyes drooped. She passed out in Ben’s arms, and he rubbed small circles on Her back because he fucking could. Because they had done it, She had done it, so Edgar would come through and she’d be safe.

It took a few minutes, but the remainder of the team—now joined by Nueman and her daughter—returned to the van. The door slammed behind them and MM took off, hightailing it away from the alley, from where Homelander would surely arrive any minute. But Ben didn’t give a shit, didn’t bother to listen to Butcher, Starlight, and Nueman talk about next steps, because She was here. Holding Ben, heartbeat in rhythm with his own.

She leaned against Ben the whole way back to the safe house. Face smushed into his chest, hair tickling Ben’s chin as she climbed up just a little closer in her sleep. Curled in his lap, a little bit of droll falling from her mouth. Ben had never seen something so fucking perfect in his life. She deserved to be like that for the rest of fucking time, comfortable and peaceful. Against Ben, if that’s what she wanted. 

Ben moved slowly, careful not to disturb Her, and pulled out his phone. 696969 was a fucking stupid passcode, but he’d noticed Her fight a giggle every time he had to enter it so it would stay like that forever. It took him a minute to find the camera app—there had to be a better way to navigate this piece of shit—but when he did he raised his free arm, holding the phone down at Her perfect face, and took a photo. It might be fucking creepy, he might be getting weird looks from the Pussy Brigade, but Ben didn’t give a single fuck. If She ever decided to leave him, if he had to let Her go, at least he’d have a memory of this. Of Her just needing him, just wanting him. 

Something of Her, forever.

End Note: My wife (Victoria Neuman) is home from war (s4 of the Boys)

Thank you guys for 100 followers!!! I want to do something but have literally no clue what. If you want to throw a snack into my writer enclosure, leave a comment with any thoughts or jokes or angry words for me about cockblocking our favorite horny idiots again. And if not just being here is always more than enough!

Taglist

@lordofthunderthr @kritara @sukunassfinger, @justiceforquentin @acciditties

@c1gs-coffee @manicjk @artemys-ackles, @a-cup-of-nightshade, @bitchykittenconnoisseur

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@deansbbyx @s0urw00lf @ciuguapa @ilyaasansaif @whimsicalcherry

[absolutebl]

10 BLs That Shook Me

@trribledelight asked for "BLs that made you think or learn smthg or shook you culturally? Eg the political considerations in Not Me..."

Let's get the rough ones out of the way first, shall we?

1 2gether

Green. One of the most egregious reps for punching down humor against femmes in BL (and there sure are a lot out there). Seriously GMMTV? Must you?

At the time we all watched this because there wasn't anything else to watch, and it's been a long time since I bothered with a rewatch, but Green is one of the reasons I just can't with this series.

I'm not knocking the actor, but the character and how the other characters behave around him, and the director with regard to this aspect of the plot and portrayal was rough going.

What shook me was how casually homophobic 2g was. It was just so odd to watch a gay romance gloss over and degrade queerness. I was like, wait, aren't they supposed to me on our side?

(Ah, the before times.)

2 Fish Upon the Sky

Shall we address the head wrap in the room? This BL has some of the most shockingly racist content I've seen in a long time. Also punching down humor. I fast forwarded through it and I still don't want to think about it. GMMTV should be throughly ashamed of themselves... Again. I was shook, but in a bad way.

Okay, now for the ones that shook me in a good way.

3 Until We Meet Again

I watched this early in my Thai BL journey (while it was airing) and I had no idea what to expect. Frankly, you could watch it now and still not know. It's just very unusual for a Thai BL.

The plot twist about how they each ended up reborn. Just so brilliant. I still can't get over it. So simple. SO CLEVER. So punishing for the families.

Fantastic!

4 Secret Crush On You

This one kinda shook me all along but that Daisy & Touch scene. It lives on in my head rent free forever. Just because it was so beautifully sweet and genuine and kindly towards a femme character.

I still don't like this BL.

But I love that scene in it.

5 My Beautiful Man

I went on a JOURNEY with this show. Mostly because I didn't think Japan had it in them to land something this complex. But they managed it beautifully by not shying away from the delicious messy ugliness of it all.

Possibly the greatest final episode in all BL.

And from Japan. Usually so bad at endings.

I remain gobsmacked.

6 Unknown

I shouldn't have been shooketh by this one but I really was.

The style of it while staying so down home and gritty.

How old school Chinese BL it felt yet it still managed to be very modern BL about it.

The execution and quality of the acting.

How it was aired (available in YouTube?! we NEVER get that from Taiwan!)

Also the pair branding. We haven't gotten this level of pair brand from the leads in a Taiwanese BL since SamYu.

I'm was absolutely riveted by everything about this show and its production.

I loved seeing it. I hope we get more BLs like this from Taiwan as a result.

But I ALSO hope they realize that a big factor in the popularity and the success of this show was in distribution.

It's what's for dinner.

Along with the stepbrother trope.

KOREA'S SUPRISES

I watch a lot of Kdramas as well as BL, and have done for a really long time. I'm riveted by Hallyu, from an entertainment industry perspective (what I wouldn't do to get my hands on some of their proprietary data). I also listen to a ton of Kpop.

Therefore, Korea dominates the P'ABL gets shooketh list because I had (and have) more expectations firmly in place around Korea's media product sfyle than anyone elses. Even before they started to make a big play into the BL scene.

My favorite BLs from Korea, like Semantic Error and Light on Me are EXACTLY what I expect from them, manufactured perfection. But I was also shook more times by Korea than other BL nations because I had such rigid expectations.

7 Color Rush

Yeah yeah. But it starred an idol. It started out pretty and stiff and everything I was expecting and then the concept hit me up side the head and I never recovered from the CLEVER of this show. I'm not used to my Kdramas or my BL being this high concept and SMART about their sanitized perfection.

8 Blueming

What with the 8th Sense and others since, Blueming seems to have been somewhat forgotten about. But at the time, I was shook by the down home grit of this show. By the actual pain from the characters. By the higher heat concept. By Korea actually going THERE.

And then these babies came along...

9 The 8th Sense

I just didn't think Korea had it in them. Yes, I realize now that it was a bit navel gazey, and we were weighted heavily towards the seme and his pain. I would have liked a better balance between the leads, but that's in retrospect.

At the time I couldn't believe it. A KBL dealing with mental health?

And can we talk about those sex scenes? How insanely comfortable the actors were with each other? How easy in each other's personal space? I've not seen anything else quite like that from Korea. It's super rare. I had assumed they, culturally, just didn't do casual intimacy, or if they did, it wasn't allowed on screen.

Of course now I know the CAN do it, I want more.

10 Love for Love's Sake

Okay, lots to unpack with this one. A genuine isakai BL, in the original sense of the term. The death twist didn't shake me up, but the execution, acting, open gayness, and a couple other things did. Enough to make me still think on this show with fond surprise and affection, despite its undercurrent of darkness.

I like to be shooketh.

(source)

[tragicdruid]

Lost Love (2)

Pairings: Wanderer x Reader

Contains: Fluff, lots of yearning, platonic relationship, post-Archon quest

Word Count: 600+

Summary: After erasing himself from Irminsul, Wanderer thinks it will fix all of his problems. Instead, he finds himself with regrets.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

"You know I love you. Is it too hard to love me back?"

Those words continued to haunt him every time he sees you walking through Sumeru City's marketplace. That smile, those eyes --- he hates how much he misses them; how much he misses you. There's a tug in his chest whenever you look his way, but he refuses to meet your gaze. Maybe it's shame. Maybe he's just a coward. Neither of which he'd ever admit to.

Despite this, his heart continues to yearn for you. But it's too late, he decided. You have no memory of him. He is nothing to you, and you seem so at peace that he doesn't have the heart to break it.

It's the afternoon when he happens to come across you buying some baked treats for lunch. There's a lightness to your movement that comes from abandoning the Fatui and living a free life. Without his influence, he wonders what Irminsul has replaced your motives with to leave you alone here in the city. Wanderer stands at a nearby stall, casting you a subtle glance as he watches your hands smoothly take two wrapped pieces of bread. Pretty hands he wishes he could hold one last time.

"Just two will do, thanks. Well, actually, can I also get..."

Your voice is mostly the same, but there's a peace to it that he doesn't recognize. You sound happier without him; less stressed. Content. It's a pleasant sound that makes his chest clench. Would you have sounded this lovely had you not approached him back when he was Scaramouche? It's something he doesn't want to think about.

Wanderer snaps out of his thoughts as you thank the baker once more, turning away with a smile with a bag of baked goods in hand. Despite his noble intentions, he is not a noble man. Neither is he selfish, but he can be so so greedy.

As you begin to walk down the path towards another stall, he intercepts you. Your shoulders bump lightly, enough to catch your attention.

"Ah, excuse me," you exclaim apologetically, a polite small smile on your lips.

It's not enough. He wants to see that affectionate smile you once gave him. The one that makes your eyes twinkle.

"Be more careful," he responds coolly, tipping his hat slightly forward to avoid your gaze.

But he simply can't help himself. He turns his head upward once more and catches your raised brow, eyes curious as you take in his expression. Your eyes were always beautiful up close, especially when lit up by the sun.

"You bumped into me," you reply, tone both accusatory and amused. "But I'll let it slide though since you're cute."

Wanderer feels a familiar heat in his cheeks. It's something so childish to be flattered by, but it's only because it's coming from you. He can only scoff in turn, glancing to the side as he tries to focus on anything other than you...but his eyes finds their way back as they lock onto that smile. It's full of mirth and sweet amusement. He's the only one you should be smiling like that for.

"Trying to use flattery to divert blame? How childish," he chuckles, crossing his arms nonchalantly.

A huff of a laugh leaves you as you roll your eyes. "It's not flattery if it's the truth." You look him up and down with interest and curiosity. It's clear that he's not from the city; though neither are you.

"Do you want to have lunch?" You offer with a small smirk. "We can argue semantics over some treats."

You hold up your paper bag, giving it a light shake.

He knows that he should say no and let you go on your merry way, but the chance to be this close to you is too tempting to pass up.

"I don't have anything better to do. Why not?" His voice is cool and collected, but he feels anything other than that. Had he a heart, it would be pounding in his chest.

Maybe this time, he could do things right.

[spreadyovrwings]

Honey, I Can Feel Your Pain

A late night heart-to-heart before the end of the world. Or, two idiots try to talk about their feelings but they’re both demons and not very good at it.

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: my writing/me trying to navigate a complicated character, i cringe therefore i am

A/N: literally just ignore me lol i wanted to see if i could write Alastor well so this is something of a personal challenge and a warm up for me (and i’m obsessed with him) so hopefully i’ve done him justice. there’ll be a part two if anyone wants one!

//

Chapter One

The door to Alastor’s studio was always locked to everyone but you. You weren’t sure how he did it. He was a complete technophobe, so a hidden camera was out of the question. Perhaps he’d cast some sort of spell or could sense you coming. You weren’t sure. All you knew was that if you needed to see him, and Alastor permitted it, his door was always open.

That night, the radio tower was dark and still, the only sound a slow, jazzy number sent oozing over the city and into people’s homes.

You found Alastor at his sound desk, one long finger poised idly on a bakelite dial, as if debating whether to alter the sound his tower produced. His ever-present smile was fixed in place but his lips were closed, his deep red eyes focused.

You tapped your foot against the floor, once, twice, three times, announcing your presence as gently as you could so as not to disturb him too abruptly. It didn’t matter that Alastor had to let you in in the first place, it always seemed impolite to come barging in.

He didn’t look up as you approached but you could tell you had his attention, and when you put your hand on the back of the chair next to his, a question, he answered with a short nod.

“Are you alright?”

Alastor barely moved, his eyes fixed on the glowing buttons and dials in front of him.

“Fine, fine.”

He spoke faintly, airily, with no hint of static, as if he were lost in thought. You couldn’t help feeling like you’d interrupted a private moment.

“It’s just you’ve been locked away in your room for days now.”

“Hard at work! Nothing more.”

As if to prove a point, Alastor wrapped his long fingers around the dial and adjusted the volume, then slid his fingers along the desk to conjure up the next song.

This tune was a lot more uptempo. It wasn’t like Alastor to be so sloppy, you must really have caught him off-guard.

Alastor seemed to realise his mistake too. He turned to you, leaning back in his chair, exuding a confidence and poise that many envied and few saw through.

“Is there something I can help you with, my dear?”

His attention was yours. Too late to go back now.

“You’ve been quiet ever since Charlie came back from Heaven.”

“Well, I-”

“And you don’t go quiet,” you pressed on, refusing to let him chart the course of your conversion. “So what’s wrong?”

The two halves of his face told two different stories. Alastor’s eyes were fiery and guarded, he didn’t like being questioned but you’d cornered him. Below, his smile stretched his skin. You wondered if it hurt.

“I’ve been reviewing the situation,” he said after a thoughtful pause, every word considered and weighed.

“You’ve missed dinner four nights in a row for that? I made all your favourites to try and entice you down, you know.”

Alastor hummed. He wasn’t listening.

“Do you know, for almost one hundred years, I have lived here quite happily. I’ve carved out a nice little niche for myself. And then the princess started getting bright ideas…”

Alastor’s long fingers danced over the faders again but he didn’t move any of them. It seemed to be the habit of a lifetime. Two lifetimes.

“The angels… Unsettled me. And you’re quite right, I don’t get unsettled. It required meditation.”

“The angels unnerved you?”

“Unsettled. But I suppose there’s not much point arguing over semantics. Either way, the result n’est pas bon, cher.”

“What did they say that unsettled you?”

One of Alastor’s ears flicked in irritation. It was a rare thing for him to give away even that much. It was a particular kind of personal hell, for him to have a body that could betray him so visibly. He could rattle everyone with his big grin, he could even hide pain behind walled eyes, but the attributes given to him, gifted to him, shackled to him, when he fell, weren't so easy to control.

“It’s not quite that simple, my dear. The angels are all bluster and hollow virtues. I care very little about what they have to say, the self-righteous...”

He took a breath.

“But then they halved the time till the next Extermination. It’s of little consequence to me. They’re clever enough to leave me alone most of the time and if any angels do try their luck, well, they’re quietly done away with. Plus, it’s just plain old good sport to watch the show.”

You smiled.

“Might have to disagree with you there, handsome.”

Alastor laughed humourlessly, a dry, sharp sound like a bow pulled roughly against violin strings.

“That’s just it, I might too. The issue is… Now it’s only a few weeks away…”

The song changed. Low, smooth, like sand through an hourglass, a single trumpet groaned into life, filling the room before disintegrating and travelling along the airwaves. Was it a distraction? Was Alastor struggling to hold his focus? Who knew? Maybe not even him.

“Alastor,” You leaned forward in your chair, undeterred by his hesitancy. “What’s wrong?”

His gaze slowly slid to you. The close-mouthed smile was back. It was the closest he ever came, or ever could come, to relaxing his expression completely.

“It usually doesn’t bother me,” Alastor murmured, his words barely audible over crackling static.

You frowned.

“But this time it did?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Alastor’s nose wrinkled.

“Because before, I didn’t have you. It was easier. I’ve never relied on anyone or had anyone relying on me. Now there’s the hotel, its inhabitants…”

You remedied the sting with a vacant smile of your own.

“When you say ‘you’, you mean all our friends?”

Alastor shook his head.

“No. No, I was attempting to obfuscate.”

“Oh.”

Alastor stared at you. You stared back. Then, with a clang, the penny dropped.

“Oh!”

“Mm.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Quite.”

You smiled at his sour expression. Your own face was burning but you bravely ignored it.

Your relationship with Alastor had been a nebulous, vague sort of a thing. He was a terrifying colleague to have at the hotel, and at first, you couldn’t be sure why in Hell he was there. He liked to watch others struggle, suffer, and fail miserably, it was all just good entertainment for him. But that couldn’t be all there was behind his sudden interest.

As soon as you figured out that Alastor served himself and himself only, things became a lot clearer, and it was a lot easier to like him. You didn’t have to worry about trusting him, because you couldn’t. You didn’t have to question his motives, you knew they were ill-intentioned and that you were better off not knowing. He liked to pretend he was oh so mysterious, but Alastor was perhaps the most honest person in the hotel.

Mutual respect grew into friendship, into something more. You often went out with Alastor when he required assistance or just wanted some company, and you were always the first person he came to when he got home.

Slowly, incrementally, that trust bloomed. Alastor began to ask for your opinion. You would sit together in companionable silence, reading by the fire long into the night. He didn’t need to ensnare and trick and manipulate you, because you did things for him happily and without question, though within reason.

He was always honest with you, or at least, as honest as he could be without it endangering his own self-preservation. And you respected that. It was a harsh world, you had to look out for yourself, but slowly, so slowly that neither you nor your friends had noticed until it was too late, Alastor had bound his life to yours.

You hadn’t appreciated the depths of that connection. You’d always known you had a soft spot for him, ill-advised as it was, but never in all that remained of your afterlife could you have anticipated a requited affection.

Alastor interlocked his fingers and rested them in his lap, keeping his composure well considering the situation.

“It pains me to think of you in danger.”

You couldn’t help it, you laughed quietly.

“Steady now, Alastor. You sure know how to sweep someone off their feet.”

He’d never rolled his eyes at you, he was far too refined for that, but Alastor gave his equivalent, waving an airy hand at you and soldiering on.

“We have always been close, you and I. Right from the start.”

“That’s not how I remember it but…” You smiled. “I like to think of us as a little team.”

He brightened, his pained smile morphing into something a little more authentic.

“Exactly! A team! But what was once companionship and, admittedly, amusement-”

“Do you mean we have fun together or do you mean amusement at my expense?”

Alastor waved his hand again.

“A little of column A, a little of column B.”

“Wonderful.”

“What I mean to say is… My feelings have evolved somewhat.”

In all the time you’d spent with him, you’d never known Alastor to be so hesitant. In fact, you couldn’t remember a time when you’d seen him show any sign of apprehension. His stitched-on smile was still intact but his clawed fingers drummed against the sound desk and his gaze had been lost in safer ground, somewhere over your shoulder.

“Evolved into what?”

Though your heart was thudding in your ears, you didn’t hesitate to push him. You thought one of the reasons Alastor had grown to enjoy your company so much was that you liked to talk, as well as listen. He got bored so easily and he’d always been a chatterbox; you were one of the few people in his life who could match him in that without any sign of fear or an ulterior motive.

Alastor’s ear flicked again. This was a hard conversation for him.

“The Extermination meant nothing to me before. But now, the thought of it…”

You watched his eyes grow unfocused as his imagination consumed him. His fingers stopped drumming. The song on the radio rose by a few decibels.

“Alastor, it’s okay-”

“It frightens me. And it’s not about self-preservation this time. When I consider how our companions may fare…”

“They’ll be okay.”

“What if I can’t protect you?”

Sensing you might need to ease off, take a breath, anything, you leaned in closer, reaching out for him but never, ever touching him without asking first. Instead, you rested your hand beside his on the desk.

“I don’t need protection, Alastor.”

“Still, I want to keep you safe, my darling. There’s a… A sharp tug here…”

He pressed one clawed hand against his empty chest.

“And here…”

He dragged the same hand down to the pit of his lean stomach.

“When I think about you in any kind of danger.”

How did he always manage to be so charming, even when he didn’t mean to be?

You barely held back a pleased smile. Like Alastor’s, it tugged at the corners of your mouth, threatening to spill over into a stupid, happy grin.

He didn’t have the language for what he felt, that was fine. You and Alastor had always found a way to communicate, even without words. He’d told you more with one gesture than you ever could have expected him to say aloud.

But it wasn't just unexpected, it was completely astonishing. You couldn’t let him sense that though, it might make him retreat into himself. So instead, you turned it back around on him, letting Alastor choose how much he wanted to give away.

“What do you think that could be?”

“I have an idea. But I dread to think.”

Alastor’s eyes narrowed slightly, and you knew you were on the same page.

It would be difficult for him, far more than it had been for you, to pin down and explore and accept the feelings you had for each other. You hadn’t been able to figure out a better word for whatever it was that fizzled between you, though, like Alastor, you had a sneaking suspicion and it terrified you.

Nothing sounded right. Logically, you knew there were some words that ought to fit, but acknowledging them felt like wearing someone else’s shoes.

You couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Alastor to come to terms with it all. So it surprised you when he slid his hand over yours.

It wasn’t the first time you’d touched, he was always holding out his arm for you, patting the top of your head, often even lifting your hand to his lips when he greeted you in the mornings or bade you goodnight. But this wasn’t a fleeting brush of his hand against yours, this was sustained, purposeful contact, and it meant something, to both of you.

Alastor’s gaze still couldn’t meet yours, so he stared at your hands, his close-mouthed smile back in place.

“I’ve grown quite fond of you,” he said quietly, and it was just his voice you could hear, no static, no sound effects, just Alastor.

You smiled.

“I’ve grown quite fond of you too, handsome. I get the same feeling.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, all the time.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring, at least.” Alastor finally met your eyes, his head tilted quizzically to one side. “Have you told anyone?”

“What, and admit I’m in love with the Radio Demon? No thanks, I’d never live it down.”

Feedback shot through the room, a grating, warped sound, like someone had held a microphone too close to a speaker. It was hard to tell if the sound emanated from the mixing desk or from Alastor himself, but his scarlet eyes were wide.

His hand tightened over yours, though it was more likely out of surprise than him trying to give you comfort. The tips and edges of his sharp claws dug into your skin, not enough to hurt, but it still made your jaw clench.

Alastor, to his credit, didn’t seem as put off by the admission than you might’ve expected. Maybe he wasn’t surprised by the actual sentiment, just that you’d finally said the words out loud.

You smiled.

With just a week or so left until an Extermination that would surely kill you all, there wasn’t much room left in your damned soul for shyness. It wasn’t an all-out ‘if this is my last chance to say it’ confession. You and Alastor had always appreciated candour, and with so little time left, why not say what you were both thinking?

“Have you spoken about it with anyone?”

Alastor shrugged.

“Well, yes, I’m doing it now.”

“No, I meant someone you can trust. Someone you can talk about your feelings with.”

Alastor watched you blankly.

A second penny dropped.

“Oh.”

You had to resist the urge to shiver under his heavy stare.

“You couldn’t talk to Rosie?”

“I considered it but, bless her heart, my old friend can be a sentimentalist. No, best just to get to the source of the problem.”

“Alastor…”

You huffed, pretending to be insulted, and Alastor’s smile once again looked a little more real. It met his eyes, open, unguarded and calm.

“So, what would you like to do about it?”

“Hmm,” Alastor raised the hand that had covered yours to tap one long finger against his chin. “Any chance you’d let me lock you away in a secret, impenetrable bunker?”

Your smile grew.

“Sorry, honey.”

Alastor tutted.

“I thought as much.”

“Do you have one of those?”

“Hm?”

“A secret, impenetrable bunker.”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out, my dear. You’ll just have to be particularly careful. And perhaps this… Feeling will go away with time.”

You smiled, barely resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Perhaps it will.”

“When I’m right, I’m right, my darling.”

”That’s not the expression and you know it.”

//

Master List

[rd0265667]

Minji x Reader: Mercy, The Fool's Errand

TW!: Warning, there is quite alot of Violence and a slight bit of Gore(but there will be a TW before hand) A/N: Trying a more action oriented fic with Spiderwoman Minji, maybe will spring into something more 👀 Permanent Taglist: @cwpiqwon @justme-idle

Dropping down silently, Spider Woman landed behind a thug who was struggling to light a cigarette. Before the thug could react, Spiderwoman snatched the cigarette away, punching the thug in the gut. As he yelped in pain, she lit the cigarette, tossing it into his mouth, before webbing his mouth shut

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you smoking kills? Lucky for you, I’m way more effective than lung cancer. And a sucker for irony too.” Seeing more thugs, Spiderwoman webbed this thug up, swinging him and throwing him at the incoming thug. Jumping at the nearest thug, Spiderwoman webbed his mouth shut and gave him a quick uppercut, sending him sprawling into a pile of crates. The commotion caught the attention of two nearby thugs, who turned around, guns drawn. Spiderwoman launched herself at them, twisting mid-air to avoid their shots. She landed between them, delivered a rapid-fire punch to the first thug's gut, then spun around and kicked the second thug in the chest.

“I don’t get it—do you guys buy bullets in bulk? Costco membership? And seriously, where’s your safety training? Is there even safety on this gun?” Spiderwoman asked, before smacking him across the face with the butt of the rifle

The other thug staggers up, reaching for a knife. Spiderwoman webs the knife to her hand, tossing it straight into his chest. “Knife to meet you! Ha, I’ve been dying to use that one. Okay, technically I’m not the one dying, you are, but yada yada, spare me the semantics”

Another thug tried to surprise her from behind, swinging a crowbar. Spiderwoman ducked, then flipped backward, landing on the thug’s shoulders. Wrapping her arms around the thug, she jumped up, smashing his head into the ground as his neck jerked with a sickening crunch

“Crowbars? That’s cute. Didn’t know I was fighting a gang of Home Depot employees. You guys got discounts on those, or…? Meh, I don’t think dead employees get discounts. Oh well.”

SpiderWoman noticed a group of thugs at the far end of the warehouse, raising their guns. She shot a web at a nearby crate and swung it into them, knocking them down like bowling pins.

“Strike! And the crowd goes wild! Well, not really. But hey, you should see my high score at the arcade.”

As Spider woman landed, a thug swung a chain at her. She caught the chain mid-swing, yanked the thug forward, and clotheslined him.

“You know, I read somewhere that chainmail is making a comeback. But you, my friend, are not pulling it off.”

A thug sneaks up behind her, swinging a bat. Spiderwoman’s spider-sense tingles, and she ducks just in time. She webs the thug’s feet to the floor and yanks the bat out of his hands, twirling it like a baton.

“Batter up! Or should I say, ‘batter down’? No? Wow, tough crowd. Maybe I should stick to knock-knock jokes.”

She swings the bat, cracking it against the thug’s head, sending him spinning. The thug drops, twitching. Spiderwoman exaggeratedly raises her hand, running around the spot like a baseball game “And the crowd goes wild! Okay, nobody’s awake…or alive, but still. I’m a hit!”

Another thug tried to charge him with a bat. Spiderwoman sidestepped, grabbed the bat, and broke it over her knee, using the broken pieces to jab the thug in the shoulders, before a last one right in the stomach.

“Another goddamn bat? Really? What is this, amateur night? I’m expecting Joker to pop out and tell me this was all a prank.”

The last thug was backing away, visibly trembling, his gun shaking in his hands. Spiderwoman took a step forward, then another, until she was right in the thug’s face.

“Relax, man, I’m not gonna kill all of you. You, I’ll probably just ruin your evening. And maybe your dental work.”

Before the thug could respond, Spiderwoman webbed his gun to the ceiling and delivered a quick jab to the thug's stomach,followed by a punch to the face, the impact causing a crack in the ground Seeing the last thug left in the warehouse, Spiderwoman swung over, landing on the boxes next to the thug “I surrender, Don’t kill me!” The thug shouted out, dropping her gun to the ground. “Alright, but only if I get to tell you a joke.” Spiderwoman quips, twirling around a karambit she had found. “Okay!” The thug responded excitedly, relieved to have a way out. “Knock knock.” Spiderwoman started “Who’s there?” “Death.” Spiderwoman deadpanned “Death whrrg.” The thug began, before Spiderwoman dropped down, swiping the karambit across the thug's neck as she dropped to the ground, holding her neck as blood spurted wildly from the wound. “God I love Rowan Atkinson.” Spiderwoman chuckled to herself

“You know, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got a hot date. And maybe some takeout. Do bad guys even eat? I mean, it’s like you’re always here, doing the crime thing. You must have terrible Yelp reviews.”

Spiderwoman started walking toward the exit, then paused, looking back over his shoulder.

“By the way, if you’re thinking of sending more guys after me, here’s a tip: maybe hire a better interior decorator. This warehouse looks like the set of every bad action movie ever. Seriously, a potted plant wouldn’t kill you.”

She shot a web, swinging up into the rafters and disappearing into the shadows, leaving behind a warehouse full of groaning thugs and shattered crates.

As she swung away into the night, she muttered to herself, “I should really charge for this. Hero work, witty banter, interior design tips… Talk about multi-tasking.”

Her swing back to the rooftop was an uneventful one, thankfully. You were gonna kill her if you were late again, and she didn’t want to deal with that today. With a final swing, Minji soared into the air, landing with a final forward roll, jogging into the small shed at the rooftop. As she rushed into the shed, she smirked, leaning on the doorframe. “Just in time.” Minji said with a chuckle. Your eyes narrowed, staring at Minji, before shaking your head with a small sigh. “You’re cutting it close Kim. And to think I made your favourite for tonight.” “Ice cream?” Minji’s smile spread wide across her face. “Yep, mint chocolate.” You teased, Minji’s face dropping in horror. “You might be the worst person I’ve ever met. And I’ve literally met every villain in this city.” Minji said in horror “I’m kidding, its that cheesecake flavour you told me you liked that once.” You rolled your eyes, seeing Minji’s eyes widen, sparkling with excitement. “So what’s the special occasion? You even broke out the ice cream maker Auntie bought in that one garage sale?” Minji asked as she dug into the ice cream as if it was about to disappear. “If I recall, that was the garage sale you were supposed to help out in, but disappeared. Ahma was so pissed at you.” You jabbed with a chuckle, Minji wincing as she remembered those piercing, disappointed eyes that seemed to eat at her soul. Ghost Rider could never. “Not answering the question honey.” Minji teased, once again digging back into the bowl of ice cream before her. “I wanted to talk to you about reinstating your no kill rule.” You sat next to Minji, putting her hand in yours. “Nope.” Minji quickly replied, continuing to dig into the ice cream as if you had not said a word Taken aback, you quickly snatched the bowl away from Ice Cream away from Minji. You were well aware that if she wanted to, you couldn’t have taken that bowl from her if your life depended on it, but at least this proved she was listening. Somewhat at least. “I’m serious.” You gripped Minji’s hand tighter, trying to look her in the eyes “Ralph Dibny. Caitlin Luz. Joseph Wiegand. Corey Steele. Rachel Ong. 5 Dead, 236 people injured.” Minji stared at you dead in the eye. Your grip softened, you knew those names, you knew those numbers. The casualty report from the Goblin’s last attack, “If I had put the Goblin down the first time she tried anything, they would still be here. Rachel…She would still be here.”  Minji seethed in rage. “Kim Minjeong.” You rebutted. “What about her?” Minji asked, clearly irritated at this line of questioning. “You fought her at Silph Labs a month ago, when she tried to steal some tech prototype.” “And?” You walked over to the computer, all it took was some typing to pull up some articles. “Have you heard of this new hero in Moapa Valley? Winter Flare? That’s Kim Minjeong.” You brought up a new message tab of communication. “I’ve been in contact with Crimson Banshee, the vigilante at Moapa Valley. She figured out what Minjeong was using that prototype for.” You took a small brown file, handing it to Minji, who looked at the file in apprehension. “Open it.” You nudged, Minji sighing before opening the file. “Her name is Yu Jimin. She was suffering from a rare genetic disease, and it was fatal. That prototype was the only thing that could save Jimin, and it did. A few days ago, the prototype was found in the office, frozen in a block of ice, and now, Moapa has a new protector.” “Your point?” Minji asked, going back to the couch.

“Some of them deserve a second chance. Not all of them, of course. The Goblin, The Chuuker, the mass murderers, the monsters, put them in the ground. I have no moral argument about that. But some of them deserve at least a shot at redemption. Like Minjeong. Good people, forced by circumstance to do bad things. That doesn’t make them villains, they’re just desperate, lost. You’re a hero, Minji, children look up to Spiderwoman everyday, but parents are afraid, Minji. They don’t want their kids to think murder is the first answer to everything. Just killing them may seem like it’s the right way out, but it’s just the easy way out. Some of these people deserve a second chance, a shot at redemption, but if they choose to turn bad again, you’ll be there to stop them again, my amazing spiderwoman.” You placed your hand on her cheek, attempting to reassure her. “But what if they change, attack again, and I can’t stop them? The lives that they’ll take, they’re on me.” Minji’s tone lowered, hands trembling as fear overcame her. “I know it’s difficult, baby, but killing isn’t the answer. It’s chipping away at your soul. Please. Think about it?” You pleaded, to which Minji nodded. “Now, I believe I promised you movie night. So what movie shall it be?” You asked, cuddling into Minji on the couch, remote in your hand as you turned on the TV. “Well, I’d say Lilo and Stitch, but I’m not paying fucking 13 bucks a month Disney.” Minji said, turning to look into what was seemingly thin air. “Who are you talking to this time?” You asked amusedly, not new to Minji’s antics “Let’s just watch the Titanic for the 20th thousand time.” Minji said, causing you to giggle. “It’s a good movie, and I expect a little more leeway with movie selection after I spent the whole day after class churning your goddamn cheesecake ice cream.” You playfully rolled your eyes, causing Minji to roll her eyes in mocking response, before pulling you in for a cuddle. “Jack would have fit on that goddamn door by the way.”

Spiderwoman clings to a steel beam high above the construction site, her eyes scanning the ground below. She had heard chatters of a new self proclaimed Genius Villain in town. Smartest in the world. “How many Smartest people in the world are there? It’s like how many first Baptist churches I see around this city. Like, one of them got to actually be first right?” Spiderwoman grabbed the screen, pulling it toward her mouth like a mic to talk to the people on the other side. “Okay okay, this is what you readers came here for. It’s showtime, grab your popcorn, turn off that music you’re playing in the background. Shits about to get real.” Spiderwoman lets go off the screen, pushing it back into the air, before cracking her knuckles

“Alright, Scipio,” Spiderwoman calls out, her voice echoing through the empty site. “Time to settle the score. And before you ask, no, I don’t have a coupon for this ass-kicking, so you’re gonna have to take it full price.”

A shadow moves in the darkness below, and Scipio steps into the light. He’s dressed in tactical gear, his posture calm and ready. A rope dart, its metal tip glinting ominously, coils in his hand.

“Nice rope dart! I guess you’re planning to make me your personal piñata. Hope you brought enough candy for the both of us!” Spiderwoman quips, assessing the threat before her

“You’ve been busy, Spiderwoman,” Scipio says, his voice smooth. “But tonight, I’m going to show you that brains can beat brawn.”

Spiderwoman drops from the beam, flipping gracefully in mid-air before landing softly on the ground. She bounces lightly on the balls of her feet, adopting a fighting stance “Brains, huh? Let’s see how smart you feel when you’re wrapped up like a mummy in webs.”

Without warning, Scipio whips the rope dart toward her, the tip slicing through the air with a deadly hiss. Spiderwoman reacts instantly, firing a webline to a nearby beam and yanking herself out of its path. She swings in a wide arc, twisting her body to deliver a flying kick to Scipio’s head. He ducks just in time, but she’s already flipping over him, landing lightly on the other side.

“Cheap Shot Buster! But you’re gonna have to be quicker than that!” she taunts, shooting another webline to a distant crane and pulling herself upward. She swings from the web, her body swaying slightly as she observes him from above. “And try not to get dizzy from all this swinging around. I know it can be a lot to handle. I’ve got a good pharmacy guy if you need him.”

Scipio doesn’t waste any time. He snaps the rope dart back, the metal tip whipping around his body as he takes aim. Spiderwoman swings toward him, her body twisting mid-air as she dodges the dart again, using a webline to redirect herself upward. She lands on a high beam, crouched and ready.

“Nice toy you got there,” she quips, firing a web to a nearby scaffold and using it to slingshot herself downward. “But mine’s better.” She somersaults through the air, aiming to land a kick on Scipio’s chest. But he’s prepared—he spins the rope dart around him, creating a whirling barrier that she narrowly avoids.

“Looks like you’re dancing with danger!” she shouts, using her webs to dodge and weave through the air. “I hope you’ve been taking dance lessons.”

Scipio growls in frustration and charges, his rope dart whipping through the air with deadly precision. Spiderwoman spins away, flipping into the air and firing webs to keep him off balance. She catches the dart mid-air and spins it around her hand, using it as a makeshift weapon to parry his next attack.

“Whoa, you’re really sticking to your guns—literally!” she jokes, a barrel role to narrowly dodge the rope dart. “But I’m afraid your aim is a little off. Better luck next time!”

Scipio narrows his eyes, clearly annoyed. He lunges at her with a series of rapid, precise strikes, but she dodges and counters, her movements a blur of agility and acrobatics. With a flourish, Scipio sends the rope dart with astonishing speed, though Spiderwoman was able to narrowly dodge, allowing the rope dart to twirl around her, sending it back at Scipio, causing him to duck, knocking him off his balance

“You’re like a cat in a laser pointer shop,” Spiderwoman quips, spinning around to land a kick to his ribs. “Always swatting at things you can’t quite catch!”

Scipio stumbles, but he catches himself, spinning around to deliver a backhand that Spiderwoman barely dodges. She retaliates with a series of punches, but Scipio blocks most of them, using her momentum against her to throw her off balance, one gap in her attack all he needed to knock her back.

Spiderwoman lands lightly on her feet, her breath coming in quick bursts. This guy is good—really good. But she’s not done yet. Not by a long shot. “Oh you’re good. As the shitheads on Mobile Legends say, Music.” Spiderwoman says, quickly followed by two quick claps, before lunging back at Scipio

She fires a web at a steel beam, yanking herself into the air. Scipio follows, leaping after her with lightning quick agility. But Spiderwoman has the advantage here—she swings from beam to beam, her experience of fighting mid swing proving advantageous as she dodged, bobbed, and parried everything Scipio tried to throw at her

“Catch me if you can!” she shouts, twisting mid-air to avoid a punch and landing a spinning kick to his head. “Or, you know, keep missing and I’ll just keep making jokes. Your call!”

Scipio reels from the kick, but he recovers quickly, grabbing her leg and pulling her down to the ground with him. They hit the concrete hard, but Spiderwoman uses the momentum to roll away, springing back to her feet. She fires a web to a nearby crane and pulls herself up, swinging in a wide arc before dropping down on Scipio from above. He raises his arms to block, but she’s too fast—she lands a solid punch to his jaw, followed by a kick to his chest that sends him crashing into a pile of rubble.

Scipio groans, struggling to get back to his feet. But Spiderwoman is already moving, her webs snapping out to wrap around his arms and legs. She yanks him off the ground, swinging him in a wide arc before slamming him into a steel beam. The impact reverberates through the site, and Scipio collapses to the ground, dazed.

Spiderwoman lands lightly beside him, breathing hard. Her fists clench and unclench as she stares down at him, her mind racing. She could end it all right now—just one more hit, and he’d be done for. “Go ahead.  I’ve heard all about this before. Spiderwoman, the penumbra of this city. End me.” Scipio said, out of breath “Shut up.” Spiderwoman sighs. You were right. There was a better way to do this. With a shake of the head, Spiderwoman turns to walk away. “You’re letting me go?” Scipio questioned

Spiderwoman gazes down at him, her expression unreadable. “Because someone believes there is a better way to do things,” she says quietly. “And I’m starting to believe it too.”

She webs him to the ground, ensuring he won’t be going anywhere until the authorities arrive. “Don’t feel so smart now, do you, genius?” As she prepares to swing away, she looks back at him one last time, her voice hardening.

“Consider yourself lucky,” she says, her tone cold. “This is your one chance, repent, use that big brain for the good of society. But this is a warning, if I ever see you again, I won’t be making any more promises. And next time, bring more than just a rope dart.”

In the wreckage of the construction site, Scipio laid there, groaning in pain, though a small smile on his face. The fight might have been lost, but the war had just begun. It was not a war he anticipated being alive to see, but he wasn’t complaining. As the dot blinked on the screen on his wrist, Scipio smirked. Revenge would be swift, precise, fiery.

Exhausted, Minji walked into the shed. “How’d it go?” You asked, tossing her her usual isotonic drink. “I did it. New Guy in town, Scipio. I think he just wanted to test his skill against mine. He’s smart, and he’s good. Really good. Hopefully he uses the second chance wisely.” Minji said, leaning into the back hug you had thrown her into. “I’m proud of you.” You said, ruffling her hair as Minji smiled. “Alright, I’m going down to the chemistry labs to make some more web fluid.” Minji said, yawning as she tossed her suit to a corner, dressing down into a more comfortable jumpsuit. “Alright, I’ll do some research on Scipio while you’re gone, then maybe we'll go for supper?” You asked “You read my mind bro.” Minji chuckled, walking to you at your chair, leaving a small kiss on your forehead, before heading down the building to the chemistry lab.

Minji hummed a soft tune as she mixed the chemicals she needed. It was a slow process, but after so much time spent crime fighting, this time spent had become more or less a routine for her. She leaned back on her stool, allowing her mind to drift as she swirled the beaker in her hand. As she swirled it, however, she suddenly had a heavy feeling in her chest, the same feeling when her spidey senses go into overdrive. “Damn, I’ve been working too hard, maybe some chimichangas later.” Minji joked to herself, but as she swirled the beaker, she could not shake the horrible feeling. Now slightly wary, Minji got up from her seat, looking around the lab. “Alright, Monster in the closet, the Sonic CGI before we told Paramount they could go fuck themselves. Come out, come out wherever you are.” Minji called out, only to be met with silence, before hearing a deafening scream. Minji’s face paled. She bolted out of the lab, going as fast as her legs could take her, running up the stairs, only to recoil in horror as she saw the shed in flames. “Y/N!” She screamed out, hoping to find you amidst the rubble. Jumping into the shed, looking around, frantically looking for you. Seeing your hand sticking out amidst the dust, she jumped in, picking you up in a fireman’s carry, before running out from the shed. “Hey, babe, it’s okay, you’re safe now.” Minji whispers to you, holding you tight against her chest. “Babe?” Minji whispered, realising that you were unreactive. She placed a finger to your neck, her trembling hands realising you didn’t have a pulse. “No, No, No, Not again, this can’t be happening again.” Minji muttered under her breath Minji quickly tried CPR, her chest compressions growing more frantic as you remained unresponsive. Minji collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily as she fell back in horror. Looking to her hand, she quickly vibrated her hand, seeing small blue sparks of electricity forming on her hand. A power that she had found not too long ago, and your last hope. With trembling hands, Minji placed her hand on your chest, causing your body to jolt up in the air, but you remained unconscious. The sounds of sirens quickly flooded the area, the alarm clearly having been tripped by the fire. As the medics rushed the area, Minji let the paramedics around your body. After some checks, Minji saw the medic look to her watch, confirming her worst fear. As Minji fell back to the ground, stunned as the paramedics wheeled you away, she noticed something in the corner. Her suit. She slowly walked over to it, noticing a small blinking red light you had not noticed before, accompanied by a note. “With regards from the New Rogues, and Scipio ~Inferno.” Minji’s fist tightened, sparks flying out from her fist.

“Where are they! You have 10 seconds to tell me, before I gouge your eyeballs out.” Minji screamed, punching the thug she had found, webbing him upside down. “I don’-” Before the thug could finish his sentence, Minji punched him in the face, his head thrashing through the cinder wall behind him, jaw agape. “You next. Tell me something I want to hear or your jaw won’t even stay on like that guy’s.” Minji threatened. “Okay, okay, I heard some chatter of some gathering in a warehouse downtown. Let me go, please, I don’t want any trouble.” He screamed out. Minji nodded, turning around. “Hey, mind letting us down genius?” The thug screamed out, before Minji webbed his mouth, before giving it a rough yank, Minji swinging away from the source of the screams, his jaw hanging over his nose.

Minji’s eyes darkened as she perched atop the warehouses. Seeing light from the warehouse next to this one, she swung over, seeing Scipio, beside him being 3 other costumed figures, one with his hands over Scipio, seemingly healing him from the injuries he had suffered prior. Minji jumped down from the warehouse, landing on her toes, walking slowly into the warehouse. The other 3 villains were shocked, crouching into fighting stances as they kept their eyes on Minji. Scipio, however, chuckled as he watched Minji walking in. “Like the gift, Spiderwoman? As you can see, I’ve brought a lot more than a rope dart this time. I present to you, my new rogues. That there is Specter, this here is Gaze, and my friend over there is Inferno, the one responsible for sending you your gift.” Scipio said, winding his rope dart around his arm. “What, cat got your tongue? No more quips anymore genius?” Scipio questioned, smirking, believing he had broken Minji’s spirit. He had broken something, though he was gonna wish he hadn’t “Answer the boss when he’s talking to you!” Specter shouted, deciding to bum rush Minji. In one fluid move, Minji webbed Specter in the forehead, harshly yanking it, causing him to hit the ground hard on his face. Minji walked up to Specter, palming his head and lifting him up by his head, staring dead at the 3 other villains.

TW! Slightly Gory

Without a word, Minji’s hands began to shoot off sparks, Specter’s body shaking in Minji’s hand, the current running through his head, his eyeballs popping from his head, hanging from his eyes like a pinata at a halloween party, and his body began to smell like burnt charcoal. “What the fuck!” Scipio shouted out in shock. Tossing the body to a side, Minji shot her webs upward, pulling down the only light source in the room, causing it to crash down around the 3 villains left, as they all jumped out of the way. Minji’s eyes burned with rage, the darkness her ally as she lunged into action

“Reaper to Wildcat, I’m at the warehouse, checking out the disturbance. I’ll report back in a short while.” The figure shrouded in a black cloak, a sickle in hand said into their comlink “Roger that Reaper. Be careful, we don’t know what happened in there.” Wildcat’s voice rang through the comms, though it was quickly snuffed out by a scream from inside the warehouse. The Reaper bolted in, seeing copious amounts of blood stains on the ground, the charred body of Specter laying on the ground, eyeballs all but disconnected, skin charred, his two legs seemingly having been torn off. “What in the world?” The reaper muttered under their breath, walking cautiously into the next room, only to stop in shock. The Reaper had seen alot in their crime fighting escapades, many many atrocities, but none came even close to this sight. “What have you done!” The reaper screamed out. In the middle of the room, crouched Minji, standing upon a web the shade of dark crimson red. But this web was not spun of silk, instead, the web was formed by a grotesque collaboration of limbs, ligaments, muscles, a crimson red web of anger and gore

“I did what I had to.” Minji coldly replied, standing up and jumping in front of the Reaper. “Where are the villains?” The reaper demanded to know. “Some here, some there, some on the ceiling. But alive. For now at least. I’ll finish up in a moment. I need the web to be complete, to send a message to the wannabe villains of the world.” Minji nonchalantly said, gesturing to the corner. In the corner laid 3 bodies of the villains, all in different states of being. Missing limbs, faces burned, clawed off, jaw ripped clean off. They all laid, screaming in agony.

(We good from here on) “You can’t do this!” The Reaper shouted out in horror. “Why not? These villains don’t understand logic. So I speak the only language they speak, violence, splayed out so undeniably in their face that they’d fucking shoot themselves in the stomach before daring to step out of their houses in their shitty spandex or their half cooked schemes. “And what if villains take notice and want to kill you to make a name for themselves?” The reaper demanded to know “Then I expand my web.” Minji said

“I thought you changed recently. I heard of your fight with Scipio. You went back to how it was before the Goblin killed Rachel. But that’s gone again? I had faith in you, convinced wildcat to give you time, that in time, you’d show mercy.” The reaper said, before Minji let out a shrill chuckle “Mercy? Mercy cost me Rachel. Mercy cost me my aunt and Uncle. Mercy cost me my friends, my family. Mercy’s an easy thing to preach, when everyone you love is a goddamn superhero, Reaper. Mercy sounds good, until it bites the hand that feeds like the ungrateful dog it is, the mercy extended to these subhuman animals. Mercy cost me….it cost me Y/N. They were my second chance, my happiness after so much time of anger and hatred, and Mercy took them away from me. Hah, Mercy, the fool's errand”

[anheliotrope]

Rambling About C# Being Alright

I think C# is an alright language. This is one of the highest distinctions I can give to a language.

Warning: This post is verbose and rambly and probably only good at telling you why someone might like C# and not much else.

~~~

There's something I hate about every other language. Worst, there's things I hate about other languages that I know will never get better. Even worse, some of those things ALSO feel like unforced errors.

With C# there's a few things I dislike or that are missing. C#'s feature set does not obviously excel at anything, but it avoids making any huge misstep in things I care about. Nothing in C# makes me feel like the language designer has personally harmed me.

C# is a very tolerable language.

C# is multi-paradigm.

C# is the Full Middle Malcomist language.

C# will try to not hurt you.

A good way to describe C# is "what if Java sucked less". This, of course, already sounds unappealing to many, but that's alright. I'm not trying to gas it up too much here.

C# has sins, but let's try to put them into some context here and perhaps the reason why I'm posting will become more obvious:

C# didn't try to avoid generics and then implement them in a way that is very limiting (cough Go).

C# doesn't hamstring your ability to have statement lambdas because the language designer dislikes them and also because the language designer decided to have semantic whitespace making statement lambdas harder to deal with (cough Python).

C# doesn't require you to explicitly wrap value types into reference types so you can put value types into collections (cough Java).

C# doesn't ruin your ability to interact with memory efficiently because it forbids you from creating custom value types, ergo everything goes to the heap (cough cough Java, Minecraft).

C# doesn't have insane implicit type coercions that have become the subject of language design comedy (cough JavaScript).

C# doesn't keep privacy accessors as a suggestion and has the developers pinkie swear about it instead of actually enforcing it (cough cough Python).

Plainly put, a lot of the time I find C# to be alright by process of elimination. I'm not trying to shit on your favorite language. Everyone has different things they find tolerable. I have the Buddha nature so I wish for all things to find their tolerable language.

I do also think that C# is notable for being a mainstream language (aka not Haskell) that has a smaller amount of egregious mistakes, quirks and Faustian bargains.

The Typerrrrr

C# is statically typed, but the typing is largely effortless to navigate unlike something like Rust, and the GC gives a greater degree of safety than something like C++.

Of course, the typing being easy to work it also makes it less safe than Rust. But this is an appropriate trade-off for certain kinds of applications, especially considering that C# is memory safe by virtue of running on a VM. Don't come at me, I'm a Rust respecter!!

You know how some people talk about Python being amazing for prototyping? That's how I feel about C#. No matter how much time I would dedicate to Python, C# would still be a more productive language for me. The type system would genuinely make me faster for the vast majority of cases. Of course Python has gradual typing now, so any comparison gets more difficult when you consider that. But what I'm trying to say is that I never understood the idea that doing away entirely with static typing is good for fast iteration.

Also yes, C# can be used as a repl. Leave me alone with your repls. Also, while the debugger is active you can also evaluate arbitrary code within the current scope.

I think that going full dynamic typing is a mistake in almost every situation. The fact that C# doesn't do that already puts it above other languages for me. This stance on typing is controversial, but it's my opinion that is really shouldn't be. And the wind has constantly been blowing towards adding gradual typing to dynamic languages.

The modest typing capabilities C# coupled with OOP and inheritance lets you create pretty awful OOP slop. But that's whatever. At work we use inheritance in very few places where it results in neat code reuse, and then it's just mostly interfaces getting implemented.

C#'s typing and generic system is powerful enough to offer you a plethora of super-ergonomic collection transformation methods via the LINQ library. There's a lot of functional-style programming you can do with that. You know, map, filter, reduce, that stuff?

Even if you make a completely new collection type, if it implements IEnumerable<T> it will benefit from LINQ automatically. Every language these days has something like this, but it's so ridiculously easy to use in C#. Coupled with how C# lets you (1) easily define immutable data types, (2) explicitly control access to struct or class members, (3) do pattern matching, you can end up with code that flows really well.

A Friendly Kitchen Sink

Some people have described C#'s feature set as bloated. It is getting some syntactic diversity which makes it a bit harder to read someone else's code. But it doesn't make C# harder to learn, since it takes roughly the same amount of effort to get to a point where you can be effective in it.

Most of the more specific features can be effortlessly ignored. The ones that can't be effortlessly ignored tend to bring something genuinely useful to the language -- such as tuples and destructuring. Tuples have their own syntax, the syntax is pretty intuitive, but the first time you run into it, you will have to do a bit of learning.

C# has an immense amount of small features meant to make the language more ergonomic. They're too numerous to mention and they just keep getting added.

I'd like to draw attention to some features not because they're the most important but rather because it feels like they communicate the "personality" of C#. Not sure what level of detail was appropriate, so feel free to skim.

Stricter Null Handling. If you think not having to explicitly deal with null is the billion dollar mistake, then C# tries to fix a bit of the problem by allowing you to enable a strict context where you have to explicitly tell it that something can be null, otherwise it will assume that the possibility of a reference type being null is an error. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it definitely helps with safety around nullability.

Default Interface Implementation. A problem in C# which drives usage of inheritance is that with just interfaces there is no way to reuse code outside of passing function pointers. A lot of people don't get this and think that inheritance is just used because other people are stupid or something. If you have a couple of methods that would be implemented exactly the same for classes 1 through 99, but somewhat differently for classes 100 through 110, then without inheritance you're fucked. A much better way would be Rust's trait system, but for that to work you need really powerful generics, so it's too different of a path for C# to trod it. Instead what C# did was make it so that you can write an implementation for methods declared in an interface, as long as that implementation only uses members defined in the interface (this makes sense, why would it have access to anything else?). So now you can have a default implementation for the 1 through 99 case and save some of your sanity. Of course, it's not a panacea, if the implementation of the method requires access to the internal state of the 1 through 99 case, default interface implementation won't save you. But it can still make it easier via some techniques I won't get into. The important part is that default interface implementation allows code reuse and reduces reasons to use inheritance.

Performance Optimization. C# has a plethora of features regarding that. Most of which will never be encountered by the average programmer. Examples: (1) stackalloc - forcibly allocate reference types to the stack if you know they won't outlive the current scope. (2) Specialized APIs for avoiding memory allocations in happy paths. (3) Lazy initialization APIs. (4) APIs for dealing with memory more directly that allow high performance when interoping with C/C++ while still keeping a degree of safety.

Fine Control Over Async Runtime. C# lets you write your own... async builder and scheduler? It's a bit esoteric and hard to describe. But basically all the functionality of async/await that does magic under the hood? You can override that magic to do some very specific things that you'll rarely need. Unity3D takes advantage of this in order to allow async/await to work on WASM even though it is a single-threaded environment. It implements a cooperative scheduler so the program doesn't immediately freeze the moment you do await in a single-threaded environment. Most people don't know this capability exists and it doesn't affect them.

Tremendous Amount Of Synchronization Primitives and API. This ones does actually make multithreaded code harder to deal with, but basically C# erred a lot in favor of having many different ways to do multithreading because they wanted to suit different usecases. Most people just deal with idiomatic async/await code, but a very small minority of C# coders deal with locks, atomics, semaphores, mutex, monitors, interlocked, spin waiting etc. They knew they couldn't make this shit safe, so they tried to at least let you have ready-made options for your specific use case, even if it causes some balkanization.

Shortly Begging For Tagged Unions

What I miss from C# is more powerful generic bounds/constraints and tagged unions (or sum types or discriminated unions or type unions or any of the other 5 names this concept has).

The generic constraints you can use in C# are anemic and combined with the lack of tagged unions this is rather painful at times.

I remember seeing Microsoft devs saying they don't see enough of a usecase for tagged unions. I've at times wanted to strangle certain people. These two facts are related to one another.

My stance is that if you think your language doesn't need or benefit from tagged unions, either your language is very weird, or, more likely you're out of your goddamn mind. You are making me do really stupid things every time I need to represent a structure that can EITHER have a value of type A or a value of type B.

But I think C# will eventually get tagged unions. There's a proposal for it here. I would be overjoyed if it got implemented. It seems like it's been getting traction.

Also there was an entire section on unchecked exceptions that I removed because it wasn't interesting enough. Yes, C# could probably have checked exceptions and it didn't and it's a mistake. But ultimately it doesn't seem to have caused any make-or-break in a comparison with Java, which has them. They'd all be better off with returning an Error<T>. Short story is that the consequences of unchecked exceptions have been highly tolerable in practice.

Ecosystem State & FOSSness

C# is better than ever and the tooling ecosystem is better than ever. This is true of almost every language, but I think C# receives a rather high amount of improvements per version. Additionally the FOSS story is at its peak.

Roslyn, the bedrock of the toolchain, the compiler and analysis provider, is under MIT license. The fact that it does analysis as well is important, because this means you can use the wealth of Roslyn analyzers to do linting.

If your FOSS tooling lets you compile but you don't get any checking as you type, then your development experience is wildly substandard.

A lot of stupid crap with cross-platform compilation that used to be confusing or difficult is now rather easy to deal with. It's basically as easy as (1) use NET Core, (2) tell dotnet to build for Linux. These steps take no extra effort and the first step is the default way to write C# these days.

Dotnet is part of the SDK and contains functionality to create NET Core projects and to use other tools to build said projects. Dotnet is published under MIT, because the whole SDK and runtime are published under MIT.

Yes, the debugger situation is still bad -- there's no FOSS option for it, but this is more because nobody cares enough to go and solve it. Jetbrains proved anyone can do it if they have enough development time, since they wrote a debugger from scratch for their proprietary C# IDE Rider.

Where C# falls flat on its face is the "userspace" ecosystem. Plainly put, because C# is a Microsoft product, people with FOSS inclinations have steered clear of it to such a degree that the packages you have available are not even 10% of what packages a Python user has available, for example. People with FOSS inclinations are generally the people who write packages for your language!!

I guess if you really really hate leftpad, you might think this is a small bonus though.

Where-in I talk about Cross-Platform

The biggest thing the ecosystem has been lacking for me is a package, preferably FOSS, for developing cross-platform applications. Even if it's just cross-platform desktop applications.

Like yes, you can build C# to many platforms, no sweat. The same way you can build Rust to many platforms, some sweat. But if you can't show a good GUI on Linux, then it's not practically-speaking cross-platform for that purpose.

Microsoft has repeatedly done GUI stuff that, predictably, only works on Windows. And yes, Linux desktop is like 4%, but that 4% contains >50% of the people who create packages for your language's ecosystem, almost the exact point I made earlier. If a developer runs Linux and they can't have their app run on Linux, they are not going to touch your language with a ten foot pole for that purpose. I think this largely explains why C#'s ecosystem feels stunted.

The thing is, I'm not actually sure how bad or good the situation is, since most people just don't even try using C# for this usecase. There's a general... ecosystem malaise where few care to use the language for this, chiefly because of the tone that Microsoft set a decade ago. It's sad.

HOWEVER.

Avalonia, A New Hope?

Today we have Avalonia. Avalonia is an open-source framework that lets you build cross-platform applications in C#. It's MIT licensed. It will work on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and also somehow in the browser. It seems to this by actually drawing pixels via SkiaSharp (or optionally Direct2D on Windows).

They make money by offering migration services from WPF app to Avalonia. Plus general support.

I can't say how good Avalonia is yet. I've researched a bit and it's not obviously bad, which is distinct from being good. But if it's actually good, this would be a holy grail for the ecosystem:

You could use a statically typed language that is productive for this type of software development to create cross-platform applications that have higher performance than the Electron slop. That's valuable!

This possibility warrants a much higher level of enthusiasm than I've seen, especially within the ecosystem itself. This is an ecosystem that was, for a while, entirely landlocked, only able to make Windows desktop applications.

I cannot overstate how important it is for a language's ecosystem to have a package like this and have it be good. Rust is still missing a good option. Gnome is unpleasant to use and buggy. Falling back to using Electron while writing Rust just seems like a bad joke. A lot of the Rust crates that are neither Electron nor Gnome tend to be really really undercooked.

And now I've actually talked myself into checking out Avalonia... I mean after writing all of that I feel like a charlatan for not having investigated it already.