#wish i could tag more so everyone who needs to see this can

[xx-rabidpossum-xx]

Bruises from the Boar

Author's note: I had this idea and posted to a discord chat, turns out they wish for more. Hope ya like it<:}

Tag list: @thisuserislilsilly @incrediblethirst @druidwolf21 (idk who else sorry)

TW: mentions of NSFW, bruises, thoughts of death, angst/comfort

He was rough last night.

The thought runs through your mind as you wash yourself. The warm water eases your aching muscles, but were like a dull stinging pain on your bruises. The had blossomed while you were asleep, an array of red, blue, green and even purple litter all across your body. Indents of bite marks with scattered bruises along your shoulders and collarbone, as well as trailing down your body to your thighs.

Rubbing the warm wet cloth over your shoulders, hissing slightly from the pain, you clean yourself. Angron had already left before you had woken up. The feeling of his warmth being absent from your side was not something you expected to wake up from. He had usually left before you had woken up, he claimed once that it was easier so you wouldn't tempt him back to the embrace of slumber once more. Another time he claimed that his sons were calling to him and he needed to answer. Now it was, "I need to see what my sons are doing."

Wringing out the cloth, you add more soap to it and rub it together to get a frothy consistency. This time you started to work on your chest. He had nipped and sucked all over your body, but your chest had dealt the brunt of the damage. There were more green bruises around your breasts, showing that those were the oldest by far compared to the rest on your sore body. He didn't hold back, when he had ripped the dress off of you, he attacked your breasts first while ripping off your undergarments. You knew to not wear a bra, but when he saw it. It was like a boar finding a tuffle, excited and ravenous.

Rinsing off the excess soap, you stand up slowly. Looking down, the blotches of purple and blue that accosted your thighs. The were in the shape of handprints, slight scratches at the edge of each finger. He is usually rough, this isn't any different.

Stepping out of the vast tub, you grab a soft dry towel and begin to wipe the water still clinging to you. Patting the towel gingerly over the still freshly red and pink bruising. The memory of the night before rush through you as you pat down on a particular bruise, on your lower stomach.

Your lower body was limp, being held up only by Angron and his strength. His face was buried between your legs, lapping at your juices, occasionally biting at your inner thigh. Yelping in surprise, you try to lift your head to meet his gaze, only to feel him stop. A whine escapes your throat, "A—Angron please." You can make out from your blurry vision that his lifts his head. A heavy pressure is pushed on your stomach making you whimper. Tears started to stream down your cheeks again, this being the third time he has overstimulated you.

A sudden pain errupts from your lower stomach, just above your womb. A moan is ripped from you as he increases the bite force.

You were panting heavily. It was too much, he could tear you apart, spill your guts, chew through your stomach. The feeling of his teeth ripping apart your stomach to get to your uterus left you both aroused and terrified.

When the pressure was released, the tears kept rolling down your cheeks. A small wetness replaces where his fangs were. Lifting your head up the best you can, you see him licking the bite mark, kissing it every so often.

Shaking your head, you toss the towel away and make your way back to the bedroom. Carefully navigating so you don't overexert your legs. Opening the dresser, you choose the outfit that had a translucent feel. Everyone has seen me with bruises before, this isn't any different.

Walking out of your's and Angron's shared bedroom, you made your way to the kitchen. Passing by multiple serfs and marines alike, they don't look twice when they see Angron's handiwork across your neck and shoulders.

Whispers flew past you, some more louder than the others. "I'm surprised she's able to walk.", "Do you think she's broken yet?"

Down the corridors and hallways, you hear more hushed whispers. "He's getting desperate, next thing you'll see is a bite on her jugular."

More and more whispers, they started to not even hide their voices.

"Lord Angron will kill her eventually, she can't even walk without a limp most days."

It was true, looking down at your legs, you were limping. You had pushed yourself too much and now your legs were in pain, not even registering that they were in pain until someone pointed it out.

He's getting tired of you, that's why he was so rough.

Stepping into the kitchen, you request a nice breakfast, which was prepared with expertise and speed. Sitting down at the large table within a vast dining room, a few marines stand by the doorway.

Once your breakfast was served to you, the whispers started again, except this time you can pinpoint where they came from.

"When do you suspect Lord Angron's consort will be discarded?" "Not for a while now, he hasn't killed her…yet."

That made you almost stop chewing your food, you couldn't let them know you were listening. So you chewed your breakfast faster, faster you eat the faster you can leave. They have seen bruises on me, this isn't any different.

The whole day of walking, talking and attending various tasks, the whispers stayed hushed and you still listened. Anytime you had interacted with Angron, he simply responded with a grunt or a nod. He didn't look you in the eye, which made you slightly worried.

"Poor girl, I fear we will find her corpse one day.", "He must be getting bored of her soon. We'll have to find a replacement if this keeps up."

Kharn had noticed and stayed close to you when you were in the same vicinity as Angron, almost like he was making sure nothing would go wrong. You liked Kharn, he had warned you what life would be like, and saw you as a stronger person for facing those challenges head on. If you were any wiser, you would think Kharn was worried that Angron's consort wished for her to stay. Like a farrow watching over their sow.

But when Angron and Kharn had left you alone, the whispers started again.

That danmed phrase everyone does and doesn't say, "He's getting tired or bored of her." A small thought creeps from the back of your mind, maybe they're right. The nails might bite when you are in bed and that will be that. He'll bite you one last time and you'll just be another thing Angron breaks-

You slap yourself in the comfort of your own room. Sitting on the enourmous bed, with a thin dress on and covering your bruises with a healing balm, you think, He is different. He had cared for you and not once has he ever subjected you to the horrors of the butcher's nails. He always made an effort to steer clear of you when they started to bite. Everything he does is in love of you. He cares and cherishes you, you are more than a simple toy.

The door opens and your head whips around to see who was entering. It was Angron. You smile as you rub the balm into your upper thigh. "Hello my love", you say warmly. He closes the door and stands still. Staring at you. If Angron was anything like a boar, this would be it. Standing still, eye forward, stamping his hooves to the ground as a form of greeting, almost like he is ready to charge.

He slowly walks to you as you are sitting on the edge of the bed and kneels in front of you. Tilting your head to the side slightly, you set down the healing balm onto the side table. "Is something wrong, my love?"

Angron didn't say anything, but you followed his eyes. They were scanning the bruises. Heat rises to your cheeks and you attempt to move the blankets to your chest. "Oh, I'm just tending to these. They were getting sore and I didn't want these to get too bad. Besides, this isn't any different—"

"I hurt you."

You stopped in your tracks as you look at Angron. His hands were now on your thighs, gently caressing the bruises he had made the night before. A shiver runs up your spine from the contact. His hands moves up your dress gingerly, he wasn't in the mood for sex, this was different.

His hands moves your legs to one side as his face went to your dress-covered-stomach, and kisses it. Another shiver, his other hand moves and rests on your hip. He continued to kiss your stomach and moves down to your thighs. A small part of you was waiting for him to start devouring you, but it never came. His kisses trail upwards and to your chest. Your breathing was labored and your cheeks were flushed. Angron looks at your reddened face, moves one of his hand to it and holds your blushing cheek.

"I'm sorry." That seem to sanp something in you. The weight of the whole day crashes into you at once, letting a stream of tears run wild. Through your blurry vision, you can see Angron wear a faint look of worry. You felt his arms surround you and hold you close to his chest, the tears slowly streaming onto his clothing.

Through your haze of intense emotions, you could feel Angron kissing your head. He picks you up with ease and sets you more onto the shared bed. You both lay on your sides while face each other.

Angron still held you close, kissing your face and shoulder while apologizing. Every comment that was whispered throughout the day melted away from your mind as your beloved Primarch kissed each bruise he had given you. It was different, but in a good way.

[fishhateme]

"but I don't THINK this is the life that he wants" I am reading your tags and nodding so fucking hard like he's our but a man who is doing mentally well would not be privating 200 Instagram posts while getting wine drunk on a Sunday afternoon. Literally that "could a mentally ill person do that" core etc. he is forcing himself to want the life he has

op you read my mind!! I'm going to take the opportunity to go on a long (looooong) rant, because I've been dying to talk about this

For context this was on the tags of that latest post of danny saying he's done (again) that's been going around, I said that I wish him nothing but peace and quiet but I don't THINK he wants peace and quiet, and here's the thing - I really don't. I've been trying to keep quiet about it because a part of me felt like it was disrespectful to comment on a real person's mental health, but also like, yk, he's absolutely never going to see this, so I might as well get it off my chest

These past few months of daniel hanging out in LA and doing kind of... nothing? don't seem very genuine to me. And obviously you might say none of us know what's truly genuine, but Daniel has been in the public eye for over a decade and a half, and throughout that time he's been very consistent with his personality and aspirations. Sure, the wdc dream is discarded, but he always spoke about racing with love, and he's made several remarks about liking to do things, needing to do things and keep himself busy

So for him to call it quits altogether immediately seemed odd to me? Especially when he chose to do kind of... nothing at all?

In the tags I raised another issue that I think is important - Daniel's spent 30 or so out of his 35 years doing some form of racing. To stop doing that cold turkey would imply some form of hatred towards the sport, and despite all the (rightful) anger that's been going around about rbr/horner/helmut 'stealing' or 'taking' his love of it, so to speak, I don't think that's entirely correct.

It's surely there, somewhere - practically everyone who leaves F1 still involved themselves on some other form of motorsports, even Seb goes to the track sometimes or does some event (of course, you might say seb ended things on his terms, but while I think that's important to note I also think the larger trend as a whole points to drivers loving racing even when they leave a certain category, which tracks with the whole, y'know, risking their lives for the love of it aspect)

now let's circle back to the whole instagram delete spree thing, because i have some thoughts on that, too: I'm not the first person to say this and I won't be the last, but there is not a single time in a person's life where they're more self obsessed than when they're depressed. I say this both from personal experience and just talking to people - when you're not well mentally, you start getting paranoid about how people perceive you and, above all, try to manicure your image because you feel perceived in a way that makes you uncomfortable (the discomfort can come from being perceived as weak or whiny or whatever, and it doesn't happen to everyone, but id say it stems from the feeling of failure that a prolonged emotional distress can sometimes cause).

Now, important disclaimer, I'm NOT saying daniel is depressed, because I don't know daniel and I don't have the info to get to those conclusions, it's simply outside of what I could realistically infer from his behavior! What I AM saying is that just from an onlooker's perspective, he doesn't seem very fulfilled, and the fact that he repeatedly goes back to old posts from years ago to trim and trim and trim some more seems obsessive. Once or twice at first, sure, but he started deleting posts half a year ago and he's sporadically been doing so ever since. This might just be me, but even if you're not happy about the way your past turned out, a happy person doesn't feel the need to change it for the world, y'know?

a few months in perth just catching up with his family after so many years living out of a suitcase seemed both logical and healthy to me, but like, months and months of staying in la where you seemingly don't hang out with anyone except your asshole comedian friends (who coincidentally are the exact type of macho dude to say shit like men don't get depressed or something equally as ignorant and harmful as that, bffr) doesn't seem fulfilling, stimulating or just plain fun, even after taking into account danny's -sometimes odd- preferences about how to spend his fuckload of money

To me, daniel has been coming across lately as kind of a lost man, for lack of a better word.

He was clearly more deeply hurt by Singapore than he'd rather admit, but in the middle of that he started turning down any and all offers - even ones that would've made him happy!

F1 hurt him, yes, but F1 is only a sliver of the motorsports world, even if it's the most publicized. In his rejection of anything motorsports related, he's isolated himself from his homebase, and he kind of left himself jobless (as a mere peasant I'll admit that I'd love to have the kind of money to travel around the world for months without worrying about money in the slightest, but I imagine it eventually gets old, especially when there's nothing very mentally stimulating for you to do - let's be so fr, Daniel isn't going to be picking up a book about medieval history or something like that to pass the time). op said something that I loved and that really seems to encapsulate what I've been trying to say - "he is forcing himself to want the life he has". it really seems that way, it's that simple - i think he cut off too much too early and in the midst of his pain and betrayal, and now he's either too scared of getting hurt/ridiculed or simply too proud (though that wouldn't be very much like him tbh) to go back, even if it's on a different category, so he's stuck living this retired lifestyle when, newsflash, the retired lifestyle barely fulfils regular 70yo retirees, much less people who are still so, so young (and yes, 35 is young in the grand scheme of things, look at h*lmut marko ffs)

And like, I KNOW I've given it way too much thought and this is starting to enter rpf territory but like... I don't know. I can't help but wonder. He tries so hard to look happy but I feel like his smile doesn't reach his eyes anymore. (Just for the record I was originally going to respond to this ask saying something light hearted and not nearly as unhinged, along the lines of 'daniel is on his publicly fine but privately crying in the shower after downing a bottle wine by himself era', which was a joke, obviously, but then I reread it and it didn't feel like a joke at all? So anyways, here's this parasocial feverish ramble instead, hope it was semi coherent if only for the sake of the lovely @dannielricciardo)

[motherofmisfits]

Reminder for those who need it:

It's okay to pick your battles. And just because you can, doesn't mean you have to.

Were you able to talk to the cashier and order your own food last week, but today you'd rather just write it down? That's okay. It doesn't make you an inconvenience. It's the same outcome either way and it's worth it if it saves you the anxiety.

Were stairs easy for you yesterday, but today your knees are bothering you? Go ahead and take the elevator. All that matters is you get where you need to. You're not being lazy. You're being efficient.

Promised yourself you'd start cooking meals but can't find the energy today? Eat that microwave meal. Food is food. The main thing is you get something in you. You're not letting yourself go. Eating is taking care of yourself.

There are no thresholds of struggling needed to justify accommodations or doing something a different way. If it makes things easier, then do it.

You're not lazy. You're not over-dramatic. You're not faking. You're not "chronically online." You didn't lose progress. You're not back at square one or giving up on yourself.

You're brave for doing what's best for you. You're strong for taking care of yourself. You're clever for finding ways that make life easier for you.

It's okay to pick your battles.

It's okay not to do something, even if you can.

It's okay if you are struggling.

You don't have to be "*insert disorder* enough."

You're doing great, and I'm so proud of you. <3

[hauntingblue]

NAMI NEEDS TO GO UP THERE AND FIGHT BIG MOM I AM SO SERIOUS!!! THIS IS A BATTLE FOR THE ROMANCE DOWN TRIO!! SANJI DO NOT DARE TAKE HER SPOT!!!

[be-xkyy]

𝑌𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑁𝑎𝑔𝑎

Warning: sexual content, aphrodisiac, breeding kink, eggs, kidnapped, biting (twice), possessive, dirty talk, two cocks, big cocks, calls you "human" and "little human".

Tagging list: @kthehoeforfictionalmen ★ @dreamlessnight ★ @riawrld ★ @darkuni63 ★

Divider credits: @cafekitsune ★ @bernardsbendystraws ★

Masterlist

Yandere Naga who used to live in the forest like a king (no. not really) until he was captured and brought to a nature reserve.

Yandere Naga who doesn't like humans at all, always lets out threatening hisses and tries to attack the caretakers who enter his territory to leave him food or clean up his messes.

Yandere Naga who had already planned creative ways to get rid of his new caretaker (just like he did with the last ones) but what he doesn't expect is that it would be such a cute and delicious thing.

Yandere Naga who stares at you when you enter his territory to clean the place and leave him food, he narrows his yellow eyes, his pupils contract into thin slits and sticks out his forked tongue to taste the air —your smell... you smell delicioussss... like a mate...

Yandere Naga who from that day on stares at you every time you enter his territory lying on his rock, his eyes follow all your movements, he acts docile around you without hissing at you or trying to attack you, which causes the other caretakers to congratulate you for achieving the impossible, for making him adapt to you so quickly...

Yandere Naga who manages to identify at what moment you have your fertile cycles and creates a plan to make you his partner and mother of his offspring, he only needs to catch you off guard when you enter his cage for your daily chores, he must act when the other caretakers are not around.

Yandere Naga who can execute his plan with relative ease thanks to the fact that he became more "tame" that made everyone around lower their guard including you, one day when you enter his cage to clean he slides towards you quickly and wraps his tail around you tightly sliding quickly into the interior of his cave.

He drops you onto a nest made of branches, leaves and what look like old blankets, a clear attempt to make the place more comfortable, without giving you time to analyze what's happening he slides towards you, getting between your legs, his scales brushing the fabric of your pants and he sticks out his forked tongue sniffing the air before speaking.

"Your delicious rubber... like ripe fruit, I want to take a good bite out of you..."

"Wait! Wait! You can't do this! The other caretakers will notice that I'm not there, they'll come looking for me and when they find me they'll take me outside, they'll punish you if you do anything to me!"

Your voice tries to be firm but it's clearly shaky, he looks at you with his yellow eyes that narrow a little at your words, he hisses leaning over you until his face is right in front of yours, your breaths mix and he stares into your eyes without blinking, his words make your blood run cold.

"I will kill anyone who dares to come here to try to take you away from me. I will crush them until their bones break and their eyes pop out of their sockets, you are mine human~"

He hisses softly when your warm hands rest on his cold chest trying to push him away from you in a panic, he smiles at your fighting attitude and although I wish I could see more of that attitude unfortunately you are right that the other caretakers will start looking for you when they notice your absence so he must be fast, he grabs your head firmly tilting your neck to the side he opens his mouth and leans down sinking his sharp fangs into your soft neck making you let out a moan, he uses the aphrodisiac in his venom to make me more submissive and to make your body go crazy.

"What did you do..? Are you going to kill me..?"

"What?! Kill you?! Of course not! It's an aphrodisiac, it won't kill you, it will just make your body loosen up so it can receive my cocks, silly human~"

He smiles playfully as his venom quickly takes effect, he can feel your body heat skyrocketing, he sticks out his forked tongue which writhes as he smells your excitement permeating the air in the cave, he sees you writhing beneath him clearly uncomfortable and in pain from the effect of the aphrodisiac, he coos at you as he proceeds to quickly remove that ugly and rough uniform you're wearing and does the same with your underwear, his eyes studying your flushed naked body.

"Such a pretty human~ you smell so fertile I can't wait to lay my eggs inside you~"

"It hurts... please–"

He smiles as you can only whimper shakily, he rubs your dripping cunt his slender fingers tracing circles on your wet bud delighting in the way you shudder and your breathing becomes more labored, willing to not waste any more valuable time his scales seem to part and two terrifyingly large cocks reveal themselves making you shudder despite your daze but he chuckles as he takes one of his cocks in his hand bringing it closer to your swollen cunt.

"Don't be afraid human, your body was made to receive my cocks, you will enjoy it~"

He lets out a deep hiss as he slides his fat cock into your pussy, fascinated by the warmth of your insides that embraces him deliciously. You, on the other hand, are left breathless as you feel his cock stretching your poor walls as far as it will go, making its way into your channel, and the sensation is a confusing mix of pain and pleasure that makes you want to cry. He hits bottom and you feel his cock deep inside your uterus while his other cock rests on your stomach, staining it with precum.

"You feel so warm human~ I've never felt anything like this with any woman of my kind, I knew you and I were destined~"

He hisses and without giving you time to think he starts to thrust into you over and over again he pulls out his cock leaving just the tip inside before thrusting into your pussy again with a hard thrust, the sound of his thrusts and your moans fill the cave echoing off the walls, your pussy squirts on his cock and you feel dizzy at the delicious sensation his cock gives you, his scales scrape your thighs but that only adds to the overwhelming pleasure, his cock hits your cervix over and over again without slowing down or showing mercy, you're reaching the top when suddenly he stops making you let out a pitiful moan but he silences you with a playful hiss.

"Don't worry human you'll reach your climax~ but first I have to fit both of my cocks inside you~"

He laughs as you just let out a pathetic "uh..?" too fucked out to think, he pulls his cock out of your tight pussy leaving just the tip before guiding his other cock inside, both of his members slowly entering your pussy making you arch your back and let out a high pitched cry, you feel as if an arm is being shoved into your battered pussy, he senses your discomfort so he begins to rub tight circles on your mound trying to relax you, when he bottoms out your eyes roll back in your head, he takes a moment before he begins to slowly move as your walls squeeze him so hard.

"You're too tight on me— I'll give you some more of my venom to relax you human, that'll help us out a lot"

He wastes no time in leaning down to your neck biting just above the mark of his other bite, he injects you with a larger amount of aphrodisiac poison than before which causes the effect to be instantaneous, he feels your walls loosen little by little and your juices begin to drip making a mess and then you can't help but smile as he begins to move again, his cocks ram into you mercilessly he grabs your hips to hold you better while he listens to the high pitched moans that escape from your open mouth the erotic sight makes him move faster.

"That's it~ you take me so well little human~ keep it up~"

He praises you even though he's not sure you're listening to anything he's saying, he still keeps moving non-stop admiring the bulge that forms in your stomach every time he thrusts into you, his heads hitting your bruised cervix over and over again feeling himself getting closer to the limit he can feel you getting closer too by the way your pussy tightens on his cocks, he can feel your walls throbbing and a few seconds later you cum your juices dripping down wetting his cocks and scales, your pussy tightens him like a vice which takes him to the limit he gives you a few erratic thrusts until he cums inside you deep inside your pussy.

"Yessss~ very good little human~ take my eggs!~ keep my offspring inside this womb and give me beautiful children~"

Your nails dig into his arms when you feel something round the size of a tennis ball slide from one of his cocks into your uterus that stretches painfully to receive it, eggs. You sob when another egg follows the same path and another, another, another. You lose count of how many eggs he lays inside you, you can't do anything but receive them, when he finishes laying eggs his other cock fills you with sperm, you stay like that for a while when he pulls out you are sore, tired and uncomfortably full, your belly is so big it seems like you are nine months pregnant, he wipes the tears from your cheeks and kisses your lips looking into your eyes.

"Don't cry little human, you did very well I'm very proud of you. I put all my eggs in your womb and fertilized them I'm sure all of them will gestate without any problem... in a few months you'll be a mother, but for now sleep little human, I'll be here when you wake up~"

Exhausted and unable to do anything else you obey, you close your eyes and let Morpheus' arms wrap around you, he watches with adoration as your chest rises and falls gently, he decides to lie down next to you, he pulls you to his firm chest and wraps his tail around you protectively enjoying your body heat, the tip of his tail caresses your swollen belly and he murmurs in a dark voice.

"I will protect you and our young with my life, I will kill anyone who tries to take you away from me or tries to hurt any of you, it's a promise my little human~♡."

[bunny-jpeg]

belonging

lewis hamilton

tags: smut/pwp, curvy!reader, dirty talk, (slight) jealousy, doggy style, established relationship, big chest & wide hips, praise, fashion & clothing

a/n: lewis hamilton is so pretty what the fuck

you weren't the most fashionable person. despite your degree in design and your eye for it, you got pleasure in dressing others up. and lewis could understand that, but still tried to help you experiment a little more with style.

"you make everyone look good, love. time you look good as well." he chuckled before he kissed you on the lips.

"i'm not a barbie doll, honey." you giggled when he tried to egg you on to try one more outfit.

"no, of course not! the blond piece of plastic cannot compare to you." he leaned in to kiss you on the lips. you leaned in to him and he held your rounded face for a moment, "one more, and then we can go home." and while he was a guiding hand, nothing could prepare him for the outfit you chose while he was testing with ferrari.

it was nothing over the top. but simplicity sometimes meant good. and with the dress that stopped at your mid-thigh in a dazzling lilac colour and made of a fabric that held to your curves perfectly. especially your breasts, which made lewis do a double take.

his often tired lover who spent so many hours in your little 'workshop', dressed in over sized t-shirts and bigger hoodies, to see something so close to your body made him tense up for a moment. his dark eyes held shock as he admired you.

you looked around for a moment before you took off your dark sunglasses and tapped the arm of them against your soft full bottom lip. your gaze darted around to see is you could spot your partner. when you did see him, you weren't paying any attention to the couple of lingering stares at you. you waved at lewis and quickly went over to him. he could feel the pounding in your chest before he went met you with open arms.

he felt his heartbeat skin when he got armfuls of you. you looked into his eyes and smiled before you kissed him. your kiss tasted like artificial peach and he loved it.

what he didn't like was how a few engineers and assistants took a good look at you. lewis wrapped an arm around your middle to hold you closer. he simply flashed you a winner's smile and asked, "where did you get this?"

you leaned back a little and replied, "well, i took some advice from you and put it together with some fabric i had leftover. the one from the other dress i made for that client. i thought the colour was nice."

"well, it looks amazing on you." he said with total and utter affection for you. he then caught a glimpse of a worker, but their gaze was taken from you when lewis caught them. lewis looked back to you and kissed you on the lips, "go get seated, we're going to start soon." except part of him wished you had a neon sign that said,

"my boyfriend is sir lewis hamilton, do not touch!"

lewis was not possessive by any means! he trusted and loved you, there was no need more something petty like possession. he just didn't like you being mentally undressed by others. you kissed him once more before he watched you walk off to where you needed to go for the practice. he clenched his hands in his red gloves for a moment and got it together. it was time to drive.

it felt like days had passed by the time he got another grasp of you. and somehow after only about three hours of testing, you had became more beautiful. when you kissed him, you simply lit up. and in turn you lit him up. and that light shined through an excellent training. it lasted until you both got back to the rented apartment for the visit.

once in private, your beloved lewis was more vocal along with his hands on your hips as he pressed against you. his kisses grew needy, he yearned for his lovely lady's perfect body.

he caught your gaze on him, doing more than just observing as you licked your lips. he said to you softly, "like what you see, gorgeous?" then started to take off his t-shirt.

"you worry about people staring at me, meanwhile you look like the finest statue the greeks could ever make!" lewis laughed and you continued, "fuck, you look better than that. you look perfect." you reached out for him and you two kissed once more.

you were soon chest to chest as he admired you, "and you look beautiful as well. make anyone jealous." he chuckled lightly, "beautiful and smart. perfect."

your placed a hand on his chest before he turned with you in his arms and led you towards the bedroom. you got up onto the bed once you were close enough and lewis only crowded your space. his hands on the fabric of your dress, but he yearned for what was underneath.

"i want you." he said with total conviction. he laid you out on the bed and touched you with careful hands. he felt his pulse pick up, "i want all of ferrari to know you are mine. the woman who keeps this engine running." his cock twitched in his pants as he undid his belt slowly.

you helped him out of his clothes and soon after you were both naked. your pretty dress thrown over top of his blue jeans. you pressed against him and the kisses intensified. you moaned against his lips and felt the shudder of want through you. it only grew in heat when lewis got you onto your stomach with your hips raised to meet his hard cock. you let out a small noise from the anticipation of sex with him.

"all to myself. you know i love you deeply. i trust you, but knowing i can have you and none of those engineers can does get me going. especially when you look so good on the track. i can't get enough of you. you have no idea what you've done to me." his words grew the heat between you two as he rubbed his hard cock up against your behind, "i love you."

"and i love you, honey." you said before you moaned. there was a moment of tension then you relaxed to accept all of him. you let out another sweet moan that made lewis feel pleasure rush through him as he started to move again you.

he leaned up against you as he rutted up against you. the angle let him hit all the right spots. he could feel the pleasure on the tip of his tongue like unspoken words. "look at you." he said softly as he moved. the movements plus his hands on your wider hips, the flesh of your ass bounced with each thrust. he loved it, he loved you. remnants of your perfume clouded his head as he kissed your shoulder, "as much as i'd love a million photos in every angle of you. i guess i'll just have to take mental ones."

you squirmed, "i didn't know that you liked it all that much. i just put it together, i would've put more time into it if i had known" you moaned into the pillow you held on tightly to and arched your back a little more.

"i love it. you look stunning." he let out a small goran as his pace quickened. you were well aware of your curves and to hear them so thoroughly praised made your cheeks hot.

you replied, "maybe i should make another dress. let you pick out the fabric, i think i'd make the back dip a little bit more." you grew warmer, "it'll let you touch my skin when you hold my back."

"i'd love that. i want to watch you work, you always get these lines right between your eyebrows. it's sweet." he laughed as his hips worked against your ass. the movements continued, his breathing was heavy from the exertion of his thrusts. the pleasure was a comfortable warmth in his body. it was a steady pounding of his heart while sweat dampened his tattooed back.

he loved you, the feeling of you. his words were filthy as he said to you, "from the moment i saw you, i knew we'd be together for a long time. you are mine and i am yours." he exhaled deeply, "have never tasted, felt, loved, fucked anyone quite like you. being with you is everything i crave. it doesn't hurt that others are jealous of what i have by my side. you." his words were like honey on his soul as you felt the pleasure course through your body. aided by his words.

the temperature rose and you could feel the burn of heat high on your cheeks while lewis continued his rough movements against you. he leaned over you, his core tightened as pleasure built up in his sweaty body. he wanted to make you feel what he saw every day. the most beautiful in the world.

you held on tightly and let the feeling wash over you. you loved the feeling even as your thighs quivered, your heart was racing and your head felt a rush. even after all the times you were intimate, it felt better each time. it was an experience that built every time you were intimate.

"lewis." you moaned. your hips shifted and you swore into the covers. you licked the dryness away from your lips after your gloss stained the pillowcase.

lewis was encouraged by your airy moans. his movements were quick, his broad hands on your plush hips. you felt amazing, your cunt took him perfectly as he moved at a steady yet quick pace. he couldn't help himself, you simply felt too amazing.

there was a softness to you that only turned him on further. curves that made him excited, breasts that made his throat dry, soft cheeks that made his cock twitch in his pants with a want to finish across them. the want he had for you was undeniable!

"fuck, honey." you moaned loudly. your toes curled as the pleasure started to reach its peak. you shakily exhaled.

"next time, i want to look at you while you finish. i want to see that beautiful face as i ruin you." and you came from his erotic words.

"yes, yes! fuck!" you near yelled as the fire of lust reached its peak and you came around his cock. which in turn made him pick up the pace to reach his own climax. lewis moaned a little louder and he gave it a few more thrusts before he finished inside of you with a tension in his body. he continued to work your body through his orgasm and enjoyed the feeling of you around his length.

his head swam as he slowed to a stop, and he panted heavily. he leaned in to kiss you on the back, he said softly, "i love you."

"and i love you." he replied before you both laid out in the bed. the two of you kissed once more, you held his face and felt his affection warm you while on top of the covers.

eventually he pulled away, hi brown eyes gazed into yours. his breathing heavy as he asked, "can i have a little bit if input when you make another drss for yourself. there are some things i'd love to see you in."

"of course. but only if it can have pockets too." you poked him on the chest, "i need pockets." your smiled was small, blissed out around the edges.

"of course, beautiful. of course." <3

[whambambatfam]

Webs of a Wing

Chapter 2

I wanted to post once a month and had this chapter ready to go when I posted the first. Then I suddenly decided to add a bunch more a few days along and almost didn't post on time... It's 12:10 but, close enough. Also, I fought for my life trying to figure out how to tag people for some reason..

Anyway! Founding your family time with the slay girls. My knowledge in the MCU is as vast as in DCU so, quite small.

I hope you like it!

Reader ages 10 - 12

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It starts to feel less disappointing to see that they never show up. Of course, Alfred always tries to make the time; he's your number one support.

You didn't ask for everyone's attention, you didn't want it, only theirs. Not looked up to on a pedestal, watched over from afar, like A doll on the shelf. All you asked for is a connection, real and human.

Yet, you could never achieve it, so you stopped trying. You stopped reaching out to hands that were never extended to you. If you're not wanted, then you won't bother. You won't waste your time. You had Alfred when you could, another observer in their lives. In this, you find your own kind of family, away from the manor, forming connections and bonds that follow you through your school years. One girl in particular was a catalyst for accepting others into your life.

“Hey! Can you give your opinion on the after-school club uniforms?” You're halted in the halls by a redhead gripping your shoulders.

You blink at her owlishly, “Uh, wha-?”

Noting your confusion, she introduces herself, “Ah, name’s Mary, Mary Jane Watson. You can call me MJ.” Her arm slips around your shoulder as she guides you along.

“Um, hi, Mj.” You relax ever so slightly when you give her your first name and she doesn't immediately pounce on you for a surname.

Wiping out a notepad, she finally explains, “So, I write the school paper’s fashion articles and I've noticed you join, like, a lot.”

“Oh. Yeah..” Tilting your head at her, you’re still very lost as to why you were the one singled out.

But she just smiles, “Come with me. I need to know about everything they make you wear.” She says as if she plans to drag you away.

She wanted you to show her every blazer, letterman, vest, and so forth. Not ready to bring a stranger to the mansion she compromises. Choosing to meet after your clubs. It's nice to have someone waiting for you, other than Alfred. You don't wish to be her model, to her disappointment. Instead, opting to go behind the camera. Mj squeals in delight as you give her free range on the available gear. Styling and posing a hundred times for each uniform.

You've come to know her as a kind-hearted, fairly popular, carefree girl. One who often weaponized these traits to her advantage, especially when it comes to getting a good story. After her article on club fashion is released, a big hit around school, she doesn't let you go. Insisting she needs someone to help her with photos for her real passion, modeling. That's how you found yourself snapping shots of MJ throughout the school day and between clubs. You would feel like a creeper if it wasn't for the fact that she practically demands it.

On occasion, this has left you at odds with those who thought themselves better company for your friend to keep. She wouldn’t put up with such nonsense, not that you minded it all that much. You didn't have anyone, throwing themselves at your feet, over the wealth and fame over a name. One you didn't even feel the right to associate yourself with. Instead, you were just another middle schooler who was strangely acquainted with someone who others saw as highly desirable

It cemented your friend when she asked you to pick her up for a weekend shoot on a small bridge at the park. The modest one-floor house was surrounded by an unkempt yard and a rusted link chain fence. A rather loud argument pictures the walls as you watch every bit of movement you can see behind the crumpled curtains. Your fingers are anxiously twisting the strap slung over your shoulder, bag packed generously by Alfred with two lunches. Finally, hurling one last shout over her shoulder, Mj emerged. Her arm links with yours and before you can speak she’s all but dragging you down the street.

She didn't say anything until you two were in the middle of setting up your first shot. stumbling over her words, she tries to tell you that what you heard wasn’t really that bad, that her dad just had a few drinks, that really they weren’t even yelling, and actually it wasn’t something to worry about if you are worried. There was an abnormal casualty of which she spouts anything to pacify whatever she thinks your reaction will be. Only the deep sorrow in her eyes told you the truth of the pain and strife she was pushing down.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” You peer from behind the camera,

“Can I just.. complain about it?”

An appreciative smile pulls at her lips as you continue to capture her image. You didn’t expect an explanation, didn’t need one. She stopped trying to reason. Instead, she spoke, and you listened. Then, everything came almost at once, from her sister leaving to her father drinking and even her mother's illness. For a moment, you wonder if your father could do anything for her. You just as quickly push the naive thought away, why would such a man do something like that for a friend of yours?

Her lips curl into a satisfied smile as she clicks through the camera. “You know, you have a knack for catching my good side.” She tucks it away before tossing you a juice box from the bag.

“All your sides are good sides.” You hum, poking your straw through it.

This earns you an unstifled giggle, “Good answer, tiger.” Mj winks at you before tucking the camera back into its carry case, “Seriously, you've mastered the cam. Not that I want to lose my personal photographer, but have you considered joining the paper?”

You suck the last of the juice from the box with a raised brow, “I dunno, ‘might have to drop a few other things..” Swishing the contents as if contemplating. Really thought, it was an easy answer and you already decided to drop most of the clubs you only joined to fill time. Not to mention you were already familiar with helping and it was fun to work with your friend.

“Come on, me and you, together. I’ll do the writing and posing for pictures while you do the editing and taking pictures.” She clutches your hands in hers, fingers intertwined, “We’ll literally be the hottest journalist team.” Her emerald eyes are wide and pleading as she gazes up at you.

“Don't let her trick you into doing her work for her.” The scoff of another girl comes from behind you.

You recognized her as Gwen Stacy, another girl from your grade. She flips her blond hair over her shoulder as she makes her way onto the small bridge. The two of you had been using the foliage-obscured spot for your photo shoot. Coming to stand before them, blue eyes scanning Mj up and down. Mary Jane crosses her arms giving the scrutinizing look back.

She scoffs at the blond, “How do you know they don't want to?”

Gwen raises a brow at her, “Who would?” She offers back with a scoff of her own.

You jump in before proverbial knives can meet throats. “Actually, I like taking pictures for MJ.”

Gwen cocks her head at you, “Then join the photography club.”

Mj huffs, “Not if you want to actually, ya know, do something with your life.”

You step in again as the two wind up to take more jabs at each other. “Hey, um, ‘think I'll stick to what I've got..” Lifting the camera to Gwen she furrows her brows looking closer at your picture, “I've never even owned a camera before, but I'm having fun with Mj and I think doing the paper could be nice.”

She slips the device from your grasp, clicking through each picture. “You're actually really good..” Peeking up at you, she smiles sheepishly, “Can you take pictures of me too?”

While the two have their differences every now and then, you were always together. You left most of your clubs, having only picked them up for that void made by your family. Now you have people to fill the holes that they left behind.

While you'd never met, you’re familiar with the GCPD Captain, through your family's close ties with the commissioner. Who would have guessed that you would find yourself in his living room as Gwen dragged you along? Shaking his head with amusement as he watches he shut the two of you away in her room. Gwen had offered a hangout to help you with your scheduling if you helped her with her own. It was interesting to see all the things she was balancing. A focus in stem with an emphasis in chemistry but, with a blossoming interest in modeling.

Something she admits sheepishly, revealing the offer to do a small shoot she's been recruited for, “I sent in a headshot you did, and well I didn’t think I'd actually get it. Who knows..” She shrugged nonchalantly despite the turbulence on her face, “Maybe it'll help me with college too.” Legs stretching out across her bed, she nudges your shared piles of junk aside, her feet resting at your side.

You mirror her positing from the opposite end of her bed, “Collage? already?? I don't think we have to take it so seriously yet.” Collecting the pile of disheveled papers in your hands, you shuffle them off to the side to be put away later. “Not that getting in would be hard for you. I guess you already know what you want to be but, it's okay to have other interests.”

Smiling at her with reassurance infects her with a pull at her own, “I have a pretty good idea, yeah, and that's what I'm gonna shape myself into. Starting now.” Cerulean eyes scan over your current disastrous schedule of overbooking and under-appreciation, “Stretching yourself so thin isn’t going to make you.. well, whatever you’re trying to become.”

“I just want to be somebody.” It’s your turn to poorly shrug your worries off as if they never really sat all that heavily, to begin with.

“You of all people wanna be famous?” Gwen misinterprets, raising a golden brow at you.

Your face scrunches at the mere suggestion, “God no!” Busying yourself with sifting out your less favorable activities. Handing over everything you planned to keep up with, to the bewildered yet, inturged blond across from you.

Martial arts, Gymnastics, journalism, photography, coding, knitting, and you're still handing her more.. Looking them all over, she shakes her head with a chuckle, “You know what they say. Jack of all trades, they’re master of none.”

A hand slips over your head, rubbing at the back of your neck, “I just wanna be.. Worthwhile, I guess? I’ve just never felt like I was enough.” She set you with a concerned look that paints heat over the tops of your ears, “But I actually like these!”

She shuffles through your handful of flyers, sign-ups, papers, and the like for each, “Well, there’s more to that saying about a jack of all trades, right?” Scooting over to sit beside you, she bumps your shoulder with a soft smile. “They’re often better than a master of one.”

“Thanks.. I think?” Laughing, you bump her shoulder back. You get the sentiment at least, you think..

“Still might be good to cut some of these out. Don’t push yourself so hard.” Lifting flyers for both photography and the school paper, “I thought you were gonna pick one?”

Days spent without Alfred or the girls were the hardest. Roaming long halls, hearing your father and brother, who've been arguing more and more. Robin's role in leading his own team had left the house feeling emptier than usual. Hardly ever crossing paths with one another. Lately, it's even been putting a strain on the dynamic duo's relationship. You wonder if they noticed when you stopped reaching out. Not likely when they are falling apart themselves. Your little band of miscreants always softened the blow of coming home to the lonely Manor, you'd always see them tomorrow...

You spot your blond just outside the lunchroom doors. Nose stuck in her book before you settle in next to her, “Where's MJ?” You ask, pulling your bag from your shoulder.

“Ugh, late as always.” Snapping her book shut, she sighs, leaning into your side. “Are we supposed to hold up everything for her all the time?”

The two of you sit chatting as children flood to and from the cafeteria. You talk long enough for Gwen to get over Mj being late again, just in time for her to show.

“Heyyyy! Sorry, sorry!” The redhead plops between them and hooks an arm over each of her friends' shoulders. She pokes Gwen's puffed cheeks as she huffs, “Oh, don't look so grumpy!”

“We've got to wait for you, like, every day!”

Mary Jane shrugs, “So?”

You roll your eyes, “So, can't you ever get here on time?”

“It's called fashionably late for a reason.” Gwen gives you a look that you return, and the two of you walk away. Mj gasps, hurrying to catch up, “Wait!!”

They may be a bit dysfunctional but they were yours. Before you know it, they're closer to your heart than your so-called family. Alfred even tells you he's delighted to see you making these connections. Happy to host you and your friends when you finally decide to bring them around. Your little room on the far end of the manor is cleaned from top to bottom. An array of treats is accompanied by frequent check-ins, which led to many, many questions each time around.

“You've really had to spend so much time alone here?” Gwen makes herself comfortable in your desk chair.

“Oh, well, I have Alfred.” You scoot back on your bed, back pressed against the headboard. With a sigh your head bumps the wall, “... most of the time anyway.”

“This place is crazy..” MJ pulls open your closet, fuming and ready to tear apart your meager wardrobe. “I can't believe you're actually a Wayne. Your dad is Bruce freaking Wayne, why is he the worst?”

Grimacing as her chair spins slowly the blond grumbles, “Not that surprising from some fancy stuck-up rich boy.”

Green eyes flicker through each quick swish of a hanger, “Why doesn't everyone know? Don't people like that usually have a big announcement or whatever?” Mj turns those critical emeralds to you.

Slouching into yourself to escape the gaze, “I did not want that.”

Unimpressed with the answer, she huffs, “Still there have to be people who know about you, right? Your family is, like, super famous.”

“Wait!” Gwen perks up, feet hitting the ground to halt her cycle, “I think I have heard people talk about you.”

Heat claws its way up the back of your neck, catching onto your ears. “Wh- huh? Really??”

“Yeah, they call you- uh..” Her sudden realization seems to die in her throat, “Well, they call you, um..” Gwen combs a hand through her hair, aquamarines darting away from you, “Wayne unwanted... cause the Wayne's have never acknowledged you publicly.”

Mary Jane scoffs, “Or personally, apparently.”

You've only lived through this your whole life yet hear that you're known for your misfortune, to be watched but never seen...

The two of them were across the room before you even realized you were crying. They cuddled up on either side of you, squeezing you between them as they apologized. “No, no, it's okay..” You giggle through the sting in your chest, wrapping your arms around them.

Gwen gives you an almost offended look. “It is not okay.”

“You deserve so much better!” Mj tights her grip until you're begging for air.

They didn't make you feel othered like your family name or the intimidating manor. You knew they saw you, not a name, statue, money, power. Just you.

“Hey, would you..” Swallowing the nerves catching in your throat, you slide the paper across your lunch table. “Would you guys like to come to my competition?”

Mj snatches the paper up from the table, “Of course!”

The other scans the sheet with intrigue, “We'll be there, promise.” Gwen takes the paper from the redhead's hands, smoothing out her crinkles.

It always felt better to have someone there to root for you. Tonight, Alfred would be busy handling things for Bruce's ‘business trip’. Not that it matters because now, you have friends.

After the winners are called and you can part, Mary Jane is the first at your side. “You were great!”

“Really? Thanks..” Your face burns. You always felt Alfred was just being biased in his praises.

She swoops you up into a hug, “Absolutely, way to go, tiger!” Yet, it feels more real coming from your friends.

“Though, I don't really get it.” Gwen muses from the side, “You're such a wallflower. You hate the spotlight.”

The warmth in your cheeks raises again, “Yeah, well, so?”

Gwen's lips quirked into a frown, “So, why do these?”

“Seriously, like, no one's making you..” Mj raises a brow at you, “right?”

“No, I just.. I wish someone would come.” You sigh, shoulders slumping, “Just one of them. Even once.” No matter how they push you away, there's always that part of you that still wants them to come around.

An arm is thrown over your shoulder, “Well, you're great so, so... Fuck those guys!” The curse slips from Gwen in a half whisper of juvenile rebellion.

Another arm joins the first around your shoulders, “Exactly, Fuck them!” Mj giggles, grading on the use of profanity.

“Heh, yeah.. Fuck ‘em.” You smile despite the way your ears burn in superfluous fear of being scolded by Alfred for your language.

Nights were more exciting with your newfound love of photography. You collected pictures of the best and worst of Gotham. From sparkling main streets to eerily dark alleyways. Especially the growing stock of your star muses, Batman and Robin. You started putting together profiles from them, juxtaposing their day and night personas. Filing in the scraps of knowledge you've gathered from chasing after them. You kept the folders stuffed in your closet; embarrassed by your almost obsessive habit over people who disregard your existence.

Despite how he may treat you, when Dick came home with a bullet in his shoulder from the Joker, you cried. It felt silly when you realized they were falling. What was there to mourn if.. Alfred had been teaching you to take care of bigger wounds. You pleaded to assist his tending of your brother. Promising to feign cluelessness on your knowledge of the.. happenstance.

It wasn't until after his wound was cleared of debris and disinfected, that he noticed you. Trembling little fingers press the gause to his broad shoulder as Alfred prepares the bandage. His hand comes up to rest over yours, steadying it. Head snapping up to meet his gaze, there's something lurking in those sapphires of his.

A smile cracks its way deliberately across his weary face. It's too endearing of a look for him to give you. This was the first time it felt so sincere. The warmth of it burned at your frayed nerves. Sparked at cool embers of hope that he'd come around to you. Only when he's nearly died. It couldn't be real, but it hurt too much to be a dream.

“Thanks, Birdie. You didn't have to.” Dick's praise burns at your ears. It must be blood loss, a near-death experience, or something.

It feels too unnatural. You mumble out quietly, “Of course I did.”

Alfred relieves you of the tension, wrapping the bandage around and across. You’re left to stand off to the side before eventually being shuffled out of the room. The weight of his gaze is unrelenting until you finally step out of the room. You immediately miss it, realizing you've let such a rare moment of connection slip away. The sudden tender moment only made it harder to hear he'd left shortly after. He moved two states away to New York, leaving Robin behind for good.

He hadn't even bothered to say goodbye.

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Tag List?!

@butratherbutrather @dorkatron-2000 @mys0cksrwet @nervousalpacalady @notsamaira @facelessisnthere @danir2006 @ryuushou @sirenetheblogger @l3v1us

[ckret2]

Chapter 82 of you can really tell the writer got a new art program this week and went apeshit with it instead of doing anything productive: the Mystery Shack is in terrible peril from the government and only one thing can save them:

Teaching Bill Cipher how to flirt with humans!!

####

The Stans explained the plan to Dipper and Mabel as briefly as possible—that Bill had to save them all by flirting with the head fed—and that was about as far as they got before Mabel started squealing. They wished her good luck with Bill, wished him good luck with Mabel, and beat a hasty retreat, with Dipper tagging along after Ford on the pretense of helping figure out how to get the flash drive out of Gompers.

"This is perfect!" Mabel slammed the door closed—and Bill had the sneaking suspicion she'd trapped him on purpose—then grabbed both his hands to drag him further into the room. "I can see it now! He'll fall in love with you, and then he'll realize that living in a small logging town is so much more emotionally fulfilling than his high-pressure fast-paced big city government job, and he'll see what a special, magical place Gravity Falls is and he won't wanna do anything that could change it, and Washington will call him like, 'Your report is late! Have you forgotten your mission?' And he'll go 'I have a new mission now: my WIFE!' And—"

"Hold on!" Bill pulled his hands back. "I think you skipped the part where you married me off to a government agent."

"No I didn't! Because he says that and everyone gasps and then he gets down on his knee in front of you and pulls out a ring and—"

"In your dreams, star girl." He dropped onto Mabel's bed and crossed his legs. "Think a little less cheesy Christmas romcom, and more noir spy movie with a double-crossing femme fatale."

Mabel measured that up against her limited spy movie knowledge, and asked dubiously, "You're gonna drop him in a tank of sharks?"

"Hey, if you have one...!" Bill laughed. "But, no. The plan is just for me to keep him distracted long enough for the nerd squad to get the flash drive, wipe any sensitive data, and leave it somewhere that'll make the agents think the goat dumped it naturally."

Mabel considered that. She inhaled deeply. "Okay," she said. "But. What if it's one of those movies where the evil girl spy has a change of heart because of the good guy's charm and you do fall in love."

"Do you remember who we're talking about?" Bill asked. "Fine! If we fall in love, you can be the ring bearer, best maid, and officiant—but don't start stapling together a white dress just yet."

Mabel completely skipped past his main point. She whispered, "You'd let me make your wedding dress?"

"I'd turn down every fashion designer in Milan, Paris, New York, and London combined."

Her eyes widened. "I've gotta start drawing wedding dresses." She rummaged around the floor for an unused piece of paper and the nearest crayon and/or marker box.

"Draw me as a triangle," Bill said automatically. "So there, you're caught up on the plan!" He slowly slid off Mabel's bed toward the door. "So if you'd let me out so I can prepare..."

"Ohh no. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford brought you to me to learn how to flirt, and I'm going to teach you how to flirt."

He groaned, but plopped back down on Mabel's bed. "I don't need to be taught how to flirt! I'm a pro! While your universe was still gearing up for a Big Bang, I was fending off marriage proposals from lovelorn generation ships and sentient oceans."

"You're not seducing ships and oceans." Mabel had already flopped onto the floor and drawn a triangle with an eye, and was trying to figure out how to put a dress on it. "You're seducing a man."

"Which is even easier! You people barely last a century, you're desperate! Humans fling themselves at me left and right!"

"Then you'll have no trouble passing my love quiz."

Bill automatically frowned. There was a part of him that still tensed up at the word "quiz" even if he did know more about romance than the entire human race combined. "What, like the one you put the guys through on your dating show?"

"Yes, but with all new questions! So you can't just copy all of Soos's answers to get a perfect score!"

"Psh! Like I need to copy anyone's answers," said Bill, who had never taken a quiz in his life without copying someone else's answers and had been planning to do just that. "All right, hit me."

"Question one! Uh..." She tapped a crayon to her chin as she thought. "What's the best gift to give on a first date? Jewelry, chocolate, a wedding ring, or flowers?"

"Ooh, we're starting with bribery, huh?" When in doubt, the right answer was usually C; but "jewelry" and "wedding ring" seemed kinda redundant. Well—cheating had never failed him before, why stop now? "None of the above! I've got a better answer than all of them!"

Mabel lowered her crayon to give him a skeptical look. "Oh yeah? What?"

"Sneak into their dreams the night before, find out their heart's desire, and surprise 'em with that," Bill said. "That's not even a romantic move. It'll let you win over a human in any context! Birthday parties, baby showers, job interviews, criminal trials, hostage negotiations..."

"What if you don't know their heart's desire?"

"Then you're not me."

She set down her crayon, laced her hands under her chin, and said, "Okay, then. If you were trying to win me over, what's my dream birthday gift?"

"Replacing your bedroom with a bouncy castle with inflatable furniture."

"Ha! No it's n..." She trailed off. "Wait. Ohmigosh."

"Told ya."

"I've been dreaming too small," Mabel whispered. She shoved aside her first drawing and started drawing her fantasy bedroom.

Bill picked up one of Mabel's dolls—a floppy tiger—and started talking to it like he was lecturing it. Forget this whole "taking a quiz" thing; he was much more comfortable in the roll of the teacher than the student. "And if it's a blind date and I can't stalk 'em beforehand, nobody's ever disappointed by a solid gold brick," he told the doll.  "It's both practical and pretty, and it appeals to humans' natural greed without making them feel sleazy about accepting a wad of hundreds from their date."

"What's Agent Powers's heart's desire?"

Heck. He didn't actually know. He'd ducked in on the guy's life a handful of times, but he'd never needed to pay that close attention to him. What did boring people like? "A really nice leather wallet," Bill said.

"Okay, you're off to a strong start," Mabel said. "Question two: what's the ideal location for a first date?"

"What are my options?"

"Fooey to the options! I wanna hear your thoughts."

"Then that's easy: anywhere they can't escape from until they love you," Bill said. "Even better if you can serenade 'em."

Mabel nodded in approval. "Perfect answer, full points! Every Inkwell princess movie and vampire novel on the market agrees! Question three: best first date outfit?"

"Sexy."

"Okay—yeah," Mabel said, "But specifically, what does that look like?"

"Tallest hat you can find," Bill said.

Mabel waited. Bill didn't say anything else. Mabel said, "What about the rest of the outfit?"

"Bow tie. Outfit complete."

"That's just what you wear."

"And it's always sexy!" Bill insisted.

"Maybe in Flatworld, but this is earth! If you go out dressed in nothing but a hat and a bow tie, you'll be having your date in the back of a police car!"

"Fine," Bill huffed. "Fifty pairs of gloves—and the more of them you have hands to fill, the better! A dress made out of blank checks! Two snakes! A fur coat made out of live kittens!" Bill shook the stuffed doll emphatically with each point. "Good enough?!"

Mabel squinted thoughtfully at him. "The kitten coat has potential."

"Damn me with faint praise, why don't you."

"What about more traditional romantic outfits? Like... a red velvet suit with a leopard print shirt? Or short shorts that say 'too hot' on the butt?" Mabel asked. "Or a t-shirt with your date's face on it in a heart! That shows your date 'I'm here to focus on you!'"

"What if my date's face is ugly, did you think about that?" Bill asked, mainly to cover up the fact that he was chagrined he hadn't thought of the velvet suit himself. "Forget about fashion. Next question!"

"Okay, how would you prepare yourself for the perfect date? Aside from finding a tall hat and stalking your date's dreams."

"Hygiene's the most important thing," Bill said. "Humans are very attuned to pheromones. It's one of your base instincts."

A look of relief cross Mabel's face. "Yes! Good start. So we're talking a shower, or...?"

"Oh yeah, if you're going on a date in this country, you've gotta scrub that skin raw. There is no smell Americans hate more than the natural smell of other human beings." 

Mabel nodded enthusiastically. "Right!"

"And once you've gotten rid of your real scent you've got to make sure you smell appealing. And that means making sure you smell the most! Cover up any competing suitors' scents with your own!"

Mabel made an uncertain hum. "Okaaay, sooo... what would you call an appropriate fragrance for a first date?"

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of the hum. "First date? You've got to make a strong impression, and set the mood for romance," he told the doll, so he didn't have to watch Mabel pass judgment. "So, I'm thinking... decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris."

Mabel was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Bill glanced at her. She immediately pulled her sweater up to hide her mouth. Voice strained with suppressed laughter, she said, "You don't think, maybe... floral scents...?"

Who did she think she was laughing at! He directed his attention back to Mabel's doll. The tiger didn't judge him. The tiger thought all his ideas were brilliant. "Is this guy looking for a garden or a girlfriend? I know ninety percent of the soaps and shampoos on the market are designed to make you smell like a fruit salad on the beach, but you humans don't know the first thing about what activates your own monkey-brained reproductive urges! Trust me: decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris! They reek of raw sex appeal!"

"What's ambergris?"

"It's a staple fragrance in the perfume industry! Some of the most popular scents in Hollywood have ambergris base notes!"

"Okay," Mabel said, "but what is it?"

"Okay so," Bill said, "when a sperm whale gets so constipated it kills 'em, the rest of its body rots off while the turd floats to the surface, and after it's bobbed around baking in the sun for a few decades—"

Mabel lay a hand on Bill's knee and gently said, "No." 

"Hey, I'm not the one who invented ambergris, that's your species's idea!"

"Bill, I'm sorry. But you've got the best and worst romance ideas with no in between, and you don't know the difference," Mabel said. "But I promise you're in good hands! I'm the best matchmaker in Gravity Falls! I helped hook up Soos and Melody, Robbie and Tambry, Waddles and Gompers, the Hand Witch and that hunky hiker guy..."

He threw Mabel's doll down on the bed, slumped back against the wall, crossed his arms, and sulked. Then he muttered, "But I've got the best ideas?"

"Oh yeah. You're like an untrained romance prodigy! You just need a liiittle help filtering out the diamonds from the coal."

He grunted. Then he grudgingly admitted, "Getting Waddles and Gompers together is pretty impressive. They have complete opposite political opinions."

"See? I'll have you date ready in no time!"

Bill heaved a frustrated sigh. "Fine. But I'd better at least get a killer makeover out of this."

"Definitely! I'm getting an expert on the case!" She pulled out her phone to send a text. Plus, whatever you're wearing tomorrow? I'm bedazzling the crap out of it."

"Good!"

"But first," Mabel said, "Let's talk about your technique."

####

"Lesson one of Mabel's Guide to Flirting With Humans: pick-up lines! First impressions are super important!"

"Pick-up lines are easy," Bill said. "I know a million of them!"

"That's great! Then this should be easy." Mabel pointed at the picture of Creggy G in the middle of her Sev'ral Timez poster, whom she'd designated as their attractive human for Bill's flirting practice. "Try one out." 

Bill sized up Creggy calculatingly, and said, "You know, your eyeballs are so beautiful."

"Yes!" Mabel cheered. "It's romantic! I love it!"

"—and they'd look even better in my mouth."

Mabel stared at Bill.

"What?" Bill asked. "Too forward? Should I save that for the second date?"

The flirting lesson quickly switched track from teaching Bill how to use a pick-up lines, to teaching Bill what pick-up lines not to use.

And from there, the conversation drifted to a list of subjects Bill wasn't allowed to discuss with the federal agent, which necessitated relocating to the living room so Mabel could set up an easel pad and record all the banned topics. Partway through, Stan drifted in and started throwing in his two cents.

The list of banned flirtation topics included: eyeballs; cannibalism; squid kings; dragonfly mating habits; mandibles; the time and method of living people's future deaths; the cold and lonely heat death of the universe ("Why?! It's a perfect excuse to suggest cuddling for warmth!"); fun get-to-know-you questions like "would you rather kill your mother or your father" or "which conspiracy theories would you most hate to be true"; which conspiracy theories were true; the agent's embarrassing middle school secrets that Bill shouldn't have known about but did; the agent's bald spot; cancer flavors; pending global disasters...

Bill flung his hands in the air. "So what does that leave to talk about?!"

"Anything else," Stan snapped.

"The Chuquicamata open pit copper mine."

"Anything normal."

Bill gave him a look akin to that of a vegetarian who'd just been asked to discuss his favorite cuts of beef. "Have you metme?"

"Try topics that get him in the right mindset for romance," Mabel said. "Like, 'what do you want your future wife's favorite color to be?' Or 'you look like dad material!'"

Bill nodded slowly. "So we're aggressively leading him on. I can work with that. I've never been a fan of subtlety."

"And call him charming," Stan said. "Guys love hearing they're charming. Oh, and tell him his jokes are funny."

"What if he doesn't tell jokes."

"All guys tell jokes when they're flirting! If he's not telling jokes, you're doing something wrong."

"It's true," Mabel said. "Watch any high school romance!" Bill gave them both a dubious look.

Stan glanced up as Ford and Dipper walked by the doorway with Gompers. "Tell 'im, Ford."

"What?"

"All men tell jokes when we're flirting! It's probably in our DNA or something."

Dipper thought about that, and nodded. "I tell jokes when I'm flirting."

Mabel shouted, "You try to tell jokes when you're flirting! Heyooo!"

"Hey."

Ford grimaced. "Usually when I'm flirting, I forget every joke I've ever heard and start asking as many questions as I can think of."

Bill said, "That's because you only flirt with things you want to add to your bestiary!"

"The point still stands." 

Dipper had leaned into the room to read the banned topic list. "Why are conspiracy theories off-limits? He came to Gravity Falls in the first place because he was looking for a paranormal conspiracy."

"Dipper's right," Ford said, "he'd probably be interested in the topic."

Bill flung his hands in the air. "Thank you! That's what I was saying!"

Stan shook his head, "Too close to discussing politics. What if they believe in different conspiracies!"

"Plus, watch this," Mabel said. "Hey Bill, what do you think about Flat Earth theory."

Bill groaned. "I was drunk, those statements were taken out of context, and I can't be held responsible if some idiot with a boat misinterpreted me."

Mabel looked at Ford and Dipper.

Dipper grimaced. "Got it."

Ford nodded. "Conspiracy theories are off-limits."

"This is why you're all single," Bill said.

####

Stan said, "And if you're gonna lie about your job—"

"Which you always should," Bill cut in.

"Obviously! But make sure it's not something too easy to verify. Like, you can't claim to be the governor, what if your date actually voted and knows who the governor is?"

"That's a good point! Margaret was not impressed."

"You're telling me! My suit smelled like broccoli cheese soup for weeks!"

"You shoulda suggested she get the house salad."

"Yeah, I—" Stan cut off. "Wait. How do you know about Margaret? That was twenty years ago!"

Dipper and Ford were in the kitchen, looking for every ingredient they could find that might coax Gompers to release the flash drive the old-fashioned way and listening to the discussion in the living room. Gompers nibbled at a dish towel, oblivious to the fate awaiting him.

Mabel trotted in and patted him as she passed. "Hey, you! You're giving us major trouble, you rascal!"

He bleated at her.

Mabel pushed up to the open fridge next to Dipper, and when he stepped aside to make more room for her, she stepped into his personal space again and leaned into him with her shoulder. "Why are you in the way, bro, jeez!"

"You're in the way!" He leaned against her in turn. "What are you doing in here? Aren't you supposed to be training Bill?"

"Grunkle Stan's taking the lead right now," Mabel said. "My talent is helping people find true love! But his talent is suckering someone into liking you for a day. So I think he's better suited to the task at hand."

"Oh, yeah." Dipper chuckled wryly. "His advice will get you a first date, but not a second date."

Ford muttered, "His technique hasn't changed since high school, I see."

Dipper found the bottle of prune juice he'd been looking for, pulled it out, and stepped back. Mabel yelped when her counterweight disappeared and stumbled sideways into the fridge door.

As Dipper emptied the juice into a mixing bowl, he said, "I'm not sure about this plan. Even with both you and Stan helping. I know Bill's good at tricking people, but... he's so annoying. And not in a lovable way."

"Don't undersell him!" Mabel said. She'd retrieved a pitcher of Mabel Juice and was dumping a full bottle of sprinkles into it—hardcore romance training required high stamina. "He has the potential to be a dreamboat!"

Ford muttered, "He's a manipulative, murderous monster." He was searching through all the cans they'd moved to the kitchen counter for beans.

"Those don't have to be mutually exclusive," Mabel insisted. "Serial killers get girlfriends. Sometimes after they're arrested!"

"I'mmm not seeing a dreamboat," Dipper said. "More like a shipwreck. I mean, when you were trying to come up with a list of romantic date foods, he suggested blood licked off your date's teeth."

"And he was right!" Mabel said. "Vampires, bro-bro!"

"Okay, but I don't think he was talking about teeth that were still attached to his date's skull!"

"He didn't say they weren't attached," said Mabel, with flagging conviction that suggested she hadn't considered that and was realizing Dipper was probably right.

"And five minutes ago you and Stan told him he should pretend to be a princess, and he told you he'd be great at that because he started an Internet dating service that matches up lonely widows with overseas con artists pretending to be deposed princes."

"Well," Mabel said sheepishly.

"And then he tried to talk you two into investing in a pyramid scheme to fund his dating service."

"But we didn't invest!" Mabel said.

"Only because you looked it up on your phone and discovered he'd made it up!"

"I mean, until then, it sounded romantic!" Mabel flung her hands out in a wide shrug. (Something about the gesture looked strange to Ford.) "Finding a second chance at love with a mysterious foreign criminal with a glamorous false identity? That'd be great if it was real!"

"Mabel, it's a scam," Dipper said exasperatedly.

"And do scam artists not deserve love, too?!" Mabel pounded a fist on the table emphatically. "What about Grunkle Stan! He deserves love! A rich overseas widow would be perfect for him!"

"That's not— The point is, Bill's not romantic!" Dipper said. "This plan isn't going to work!"

Ford set half a dozen bean cans next to Dipper's mixing bowl. "He doesn't need to be romantic," he said. "He only needs to be charismatic. And for all his flaws, he's certainly that." Planets will orbit stars and black holes just the same—and not even realize the difference. "He doesn't have to actually win Agent Powers's heart. He only has to keep his attention for a few hours. By the time Bill stops dazzling Powers long enough for him to see the red flags, we'll have the flash drive." He nodded toward Gompers. "If we get it before the agents return with a warrant, we might not even need Bill to distract him."

Dipper sighed. "Then let's hope Gompers likes prunes."

"Come on! Show a little faith!" Mabel said.

Ford muttered, "The last time I put my faith in Bill..." Dipper gestured emphatically at Ford in agreement.

"Not in Bill! In me! Mark my words, Grunkle Ford—I'll get this Cinderella ready to meet his Prince Charming if I have to summon every mouse in Gravity Falls to help sew his ballgown!"

"Please don't summon the wildlife again," Dipper groaned. "The last time you did that, huge spiders kept appearing in our room for a week."

Mabel's pocket vibrated; she pulled out her phone and gasped. She chugged down the rest of her juice in three sickly sweet gulps and bolted from the room. "Biiill! Your personal style consultant texted back!"

"My who?"

She dragged him out of the living room by the wrist. "Come on!"

Ford watched them run up the stairs, then started searching through their cereal boxes for the high fiber one. Tentatively, he asked, "Mabel doesn't actually think we're trying to get Bill and the agent together, does she?" The Prince Charming comment was concerning.

"I don't know," Dipper sighed. "A few days ago she started talking about trying to get Bill a love life? Maybe she sees this as a practice round."

"Really? Why, did he say he wants to date people?" If he wanted to get out of the shack to emotionally prey on the locals one-on-one without supervision...

"I don't think she's even told him yet. It's part of her project to... reintegrate him into society? She probably thinks the power of love can rehabilitate him." Dipper sighed. "She's setting herself up for disappointment. He's been conning people into thinking he's a good guy for billions of years, right? If being loved could fix him, he'd be an angel by now."

"Instead, he's just gotten better at pretending to be an angel," Ford said ruefully. "I'm inclined to agree with you." He found the cereal he'd been looking for and set it on the table by Dipper. "But then... we let him live, didn't we? Because we all hope we're wrong. I suppose that doesn't make us that different from Mabel."

Dipper shook his head emphatically. "Not me." He dumped one of the cans of beans into the prune juice a little harder than necessary. "I let him live for two reasons: because of Mabel, and because of that prophecy. And he doesn't have to change to fulfill some prophecy to save us—when it comes, he might just be trying to save his own stupid butt, too."

"I suppose so." Right—of course, even if he'd agreed to spare Bill, Dipper still didn't have any real hope for him beyond his usefulness.

Over the past month, Ford hadn't seen anything more sympathetic out of Bill than Dipper had. He wondered at himself for even being willing to consider Bill might change. When had Ford changed enough to consider it? Or was he just more susceptible to Bill's same old tricks?

"You don't remember the whole prophecy yet, do you?" Ford asked. "What if this is what it was about? Saving our family from the government because he's the only person the lead agent finds attractive enough to distract him?"

Dipper pulled a face. "I hope not," he said. "After everything he put us through? He owes us a fight to the death with an interdimensional eldritch god."

"Now that's a sight I'd pay to see."

####

MABEL: Heyyy Paz, can I ask for a small favor. I have a friend that needs a MAJOR MAKEOVER!! 😿 Like the FULL PRINCESS TRANSFORMATION treatment!! Can you help him?

PACIFICA: Can't, I'm suuuper busy today. I have the lunch shift AND grooming day at the ranch.

PACIFICA: Plus, why would I help some total rando? 😒

MABEL: Because it's my friend with the beautiful golden hair.

PACIFICA: asldkfggh

PACIFICA: OK fine come by the ranch after work

PACIFICA: and send me a picture of his skin next to a white paper so I can grab some foundations to try out.

####

Bill took a piece of paper and a marker, wrote "Make me beautiful!" and dotted the I and the exclamation point with hearts, flopped the least sunburned part of his arm next to the paper for Mabel to take a picture, and leaned away to keep his face out of it.

As Mabel snapped a couple pictures, she said, "Okay, before we visit Pacifica, I have to warn you. She can be a liiittle bit mean when it comes to fashion. So don't get mad at her, okay? It's how she shows she cares!"

"No it's not," Bill said.

"No, it's not," Mabel conceded. "But it doesn't mean she doesn't care. That's just... how she relates to other people! By insulting their fashion, style, and body. And family. And finances."

"Don't worry, star girl. I can take it."

"But I mean, she might be really, really, super mean about your looks," Mabel said. "And you cannot curse her or threaten to turn her bones into flutes or do anything Bill-ish like that. Promise me."

"Hey, bone flutes! That sounds like a fun arts and crafts project, right?"

"Bill!"

"Re-lax, it'll be fine," Bill said. "She's just your garden-variety pageant girl with an overly-critical mom who tried to relive her glory years through her daughter! I can handle a teenage ex-beauty queen. I'm an expert on those types."

Skeptically, Mabel said, "Really?" She was slowly coming to realize that, in Bill's opinion, he was the expert on everything.

"Oh yeah. I spent years eyelid deep in the pageant scene."

"You did?" she said, surprised. "How come? Did you try to trick a beauty pageant into building your portal or something like that?"

Bill stared at Mabel.

####

Outside the flat hospital, it was a beautiful, peaceful morning. The air was clear, the unseen sun was shining brightly from some unknown dimension, and some 2D equivalent to a bird was chirping in some 2D equivalent to a tree.

And then the hospital doors crashed open with such force that passing shapes momentarily suspected that someone had set off a bomb.

"—don't give me that look, if you'd hustled your hypotenuse and had your birthday yesterday, we wouldn't be in such a rush! You're just lucky you came out so cute, or—" An exhausted, dull pinkish triangle charged out the doors with a very tiny, squishy yellow triangle in her trembling arm. She turned to shout behind her—"Hurry up! There's only two hours until the Best Baby Pageant and he is not going to miss it!"

—and was followed closely by a horrified blue triangle carrying a hat in one hand and a cane in the other. "But Scalene, the doctors still have to do those tests to check for—"

"They can test him later! If he's got some horrible birth defect, he'll still have it after he's won a trophy!" Without slowing, Scalene turned and held the baby out toward the other triangle. The squishy new shape gawked at him in mild befuddlement. "Look at this kid, Euclid! Most newborn brats look like cranky raisins, but he's less than an hour old and he's already bright-eyed and smooth-sided! He was born with the face of a pageant winner—"

Not looking where she was going, she ran into a tree. The bird flew off in a panic, Scalene lost her balance, and she nearly dropped the baby. Euclid caught him, caught her, and held her steady while she leaned dizzily against the tree. "Lene. You should be on bedrest right now. Maybe we should just, you know, take a moment to process..."

"Process what! We have our little angle. Am I supposed to sit in a hospital bed staring at the afterbirth?!"

While Euclid stared at her in shock, she snatched the child back, pushed him away, and wobbled back upright. "What kind of a lazy mother would I be if I was sleeping instead of making my child a winner! You want him to start off life on the right foot, don't you?"

Defeated, Euclid said, "All right. I'll take care of the... the paperwork. At least bring your cane."

"I don't need it. I'm fine."

"Fine?! You just..." He gestured at her, gestured at the brand-spanking-new baby, gestured at her again, then flung his hands up in defeat. "If you drop our baby, I'm divorcing you."

She sighed huffily. "You're so dramatic." But she snatched the cane out of his hand anyway and stormed away, declaring loudly enough that shapes on the other side of the street turned to stare: "If the mayor doesn't declare my Billy the greatest baby in the whole godforsaken world, I'm grabbing the biggest trophy in the room and bashing his eye in!"

####

Bill shrugged at Mabel. "Sure," he said. "Something like that."

####

Gompers stared down at the bowl set on the floor in front of him.

It contained black beans, broccoli, coffee grounds, fiber-enriched whole-grain cereal, oatmeal, and an avocado and half a sweet potato mashed together into an orange-green mush, all stewing in a prune juice soup.

Gompers looked up.

Dipper and Ford were crouched across from him, watching expectantly. 

Gompers bleated balefully at them.

"Go on!" Ford nudged the bowl closer. "It's good for you."

Gompers knew a lie when he heard one. He turned his nose up at the mix.

"I don't get it," Dipper said. "He eats everything. What's wrong with this stuff?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Maybe it's the broccoli?" 

Ford gave him a quizzical look. "Why broccoli?"

Dipper shrugged. "I don't like broccoli, I don't know why he would."

"Hmm." Mystified, Ford propped his chin in his hand and stared into Gompers's eyes. Gompers stared back. Gompers stared into his soul. Gompers didn't blink.

Ford was dragged from this session of nonconsensual soul-searching by the sound of footsteps and Mabel's voice drifting down the stairs: "Listen, you know I love your sense of fashion! All I'm saying is everyone loves kittens, but snakes? That's a pretty niche fashion market! You're not gonna get a lot of takers."

"No, hey, hear me out," Bill said. "I listened to your professional matchmaker advice, now you've got to listen to my professional heartbreaker advice. You'll thank me for this one day! This is my number one romance tip: if you wanna impress a date, strap cobras to your arms and call yourself 'Johnny Cobra-Arms.' It works every time. Guaranteed."

(Dipper snorted.)

"Whaaat? No way," Mabel said. "Seriously, what?"

"It's true! I workshopped this! I've experimented across parallel timelines! It works."

"Quit messing with me, Bill."

"You think I would ever mislead you? No. Picture this." As the pair turned the corner on the stairs, Bill was spreading his hands in front of himself as though gesturing to the scene he wanted Mabel to imagine. "You see a guy, maybe a year older than you, kinda cute but nothing to write home about, maybe a 6/10. Got him in your mind's eye?"

A look of intense concentration crossed Mabel's face as she engaged her Imagination. "Yeah?"

"Okay, now imagine he—" Bill reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around. "Where are my shoes." He raised his voice, "Who moved my fisshoes! I left them right— oh, there they are." He disappeared into the living room. "Imagine your 6/10 has two big snakes wrapped around his arms. And he catches your eye from across the club, comes up to you, and says..." Bill's voice dropped to a pitch that was nearly in the range of an average adult human male, "'Hey. Name's Johnny Cobra-Arms. What's yours?'"

Mabel thought about it. Her eyes slowly widened in amazement. "Oh my god, it would totally work on me."

Bill re-emerged into the entryway, fish shoes donned. "See?" 

"It made him hot! What the heck, how did that happen!"

"See?! It works every time!" He shouted toward the kitchen, "Hey, we're leaving for Alpaca's! I'm taking the car!"

"No you're not," Ford said.

Bill spread his hands in a shrug. "Worth a shot!" He grabbed his umbrella and the magic friendship bracelets from the coat rack and waited for Mabel to open the door. "See, it's the best possible first impression. It shows he's got a sense of humor, he's quirky, he's a little bit dangerous, he's got a great sense of fashion, he's a world traveler, he's good with animals..." The door swung shut behind them. 

The way Bill had shrugged stuck in Ford's mind. 

In his true form, Bill didn't have shoulders. His arms extended out of his sides like the trunks of saplings extending from the surface of flood waters, and they glided around his perimeter in a way that defied conventional physical biology. No joints. 

When he shrugged in his human body, sometimes he'd bob his shoulders up and down in a deliberate mimicry of how humans performed the gesture; and lately, as Bill got used to moving his new body, Ford had seen him sluggishly raise a shoulder when he was too exhausted to gesture more expressively. But most of the time, he shrugged like he still didn't have shoulders. He'd spread his arms, bend his elbows, usually forming a W shape but sometimes when he was particularly emphatic forming a shape like football goalposts, and if he really wanted to make his meaning clear he'd twitch his upturned palms up the way a human would twitch their shoulders.

He did it all the time. He'd done it just now. The gesture was so natural on Bill that Ford had never realized how unnaturalit was on a human—until he'd seen Mabel make the exact same gesture earlier.

She was copying Bill's body language. He wondered if she knew.

He'd have to keep an eye on that.

"Hope Agent Powers is into snakes," Dipper muttered.

Ford laughed—then wondered whether someone pulling the Johnny Cobra-Arms trick would've worked on him. If by now nothing had made him take an interest in a basic, garden-variety human being, he doubted anything could... but, admittedly, he'd at least consider hanging out with Johnny. He sounded like an intriguing character. "If that's the worst thing Bill subjects him to, he'll be getting off light."

With a twinge of guilt, Ford realized just how true that was. Ford was no stranger to having to turn down the volume on his conscience for the greater good—and there were few greater goods than protecting his family—but...

He might not know Powers, but he did know that, whether Bill succeeded in seducing him or not, the man didn't deserve what he was about to be subjected to.

####

(Now that this chapter's finally out, may there be no further delays for a good long while, ugh.

Here's your "what was changed in the wake of TBOB" update: obviously, since we got five whole pages on Bill's beliefs about romance, a lot of that got incorporated into this chapter—the first and last scenes were basically written entirely in response to TBOB.

The scene with Scalene & Euclid, obviously, got their names & descriptions from TBOB & TINAWDC (and yeah, yeah, i'm eventually gonna go back to earlier chapters and edit out Bill's mom being a line so it matches up with canon), and it's obvious what the "best baby pageant" is a reference to (so you can guess whether Bill won)—but Bill being a pageant kid due to his mom was already part of the plans long before TBOB, so I just stuck a couple canon details into the story I was already writing. We were already gonna get into Bill's childhood this chapter & next (as you'll see next week).

Beyond that, most of the chapter was already in its present form before TBOB—up to & including Bill having a list of topics he thinks are acceptable for dates that no rational human would agree with—and all TBOB added was a couple tiny details (like... "mandibles".)

The fact that the list of things that were influenced by TBOB is so much longer than usual is part of the reason this chapter's two whole weeks late lmao.

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed, happy new year, and I'm looking forward to (finally) hearing your thoughts on the first fresh chapter of 2025!

[amoristt]

the night falls like heaven

part 2 (x)

「 ✦nam-gyu/reader ✦ 」 tags: sfw // hurt/comfort, pining, nam-gyu's pov, lots of angst in an edgy way, very light drxg mentions,

a/n: this'll be a 2 part mini series! so excited to get this started ugh tysm to anon who requested this word count: 9.2k | songs i listened to (x) (x) original request (x)

・❥・Nam-gyu was not a man of many regrets. 

If he had to count, he could fit them all on one hand. Mostly from when he was a teen. Younger and somehow even more impulsive than he was now, drinking through money like water and getting into fights he’d never remember. The worst of them all, however, was one he hadn’t thought would really eat at him. It was unlike himself to get hung up over a girl of all things, but good lord, he was hanging. Strings and all, like a marionette, bleeding and sore at the joints. 

Tough to swallow couldn’t even compare to the feeling of when that specific regret suddenly pops up in the same room after years of abandon. If he hadn’t been so down bad, the sight of you would have only ruffled up his feathers enough to remind him of a better time, but in God’s honest eyes, those feathers of his had been ruffled since the dawn of the very instant you left. The door hadn’t even had a chance to hit you on your way out, nothing but dust and tears in your wake. He was stuck fast, left to his own devices, bouncing between wondering why he let it go so bad and whilst also begging God himself to make you stop being such a bitch. 

But the worst part, the worst part is that even now you still carry this aura of over it all around you. Self-respect colliding with the want to be loved was never an easy tango to dance, all steps just pulling and pushing and trying to snuff out useless feelings and red hot passion. But you twirled until he did what he did best and nudged you to the brink of your breaking point. All that sweet, sweet adoration drained from your face and he saw it- dignity. He saw it on you on your  way out of his apartment, storming past him with biting tears in your eyes. And now, years later, he gets to see it again from across the room.

You’re sitting on a high, high bunk you’ve claimed as yours, people watching. Other than the initial moment you’d seen him in the bubble of people, you haven't bothered sparing him a second glance. It was a beautiful moment- your eyes widening, stopped dead in your tracks before you were on the move all over again. He’s sneaking glances through the corners of his eyes, watching you over his shoulder, and you can’t even give him another second of your day. And the thing that really bothers him is that he knows he can’t stop. 

Out of everyone in this room, your distant presence is a fiery beacon in the darkness and he’s an angry, bitter moth. It’s in his very nature to circle and flutter one step behind, seeking the light, burning at its touch. Singed wings and an endless sneer. If only he could just stop touching the heat, he would surely move on. But he just can’t, and the fact that you can pisses him off so much it makes him lose his breath at times. 

He wished, with the very core of his entire being, that you were weaker. Or, at least, stupider. Maybe then you would have lived up to his expectations and showed up to his door, or at his club, teary eyed and lonely without his superior presence around. He could see it behind his eyes at night, the waver in your voice when you’d beg him to come back into your arms, and more importantly, back into your bed. 

I told you so, he’d say, with that shit eating grin and a hand on your waist guiding you out from the cold.

A forlorn, guideless sheep in need of your shepherd. He could be that for you. If only the word boyfriend didn’t make him shudder with every last fiber of his being. If only that specific little thing wasn’t your breaking point. Your face haunted him- that halo around your irises fading into something far away and charred when he’d had the nerve to actually laugh at you for it. You were grabbing your things and leaving, and he sat watching every moment in clips. It wasn’t anything, back then. You were just mad, in a few days you’d be right as rain climbing into his lap and peppering kisses along his throat. You’d be back, he was sure of it. 

But then the days turned into weeks. And then, to his distaste, those weeks faded into months of silence. He started to catch himself looking for you in crowds, visiting places you’d frequented at just to linger around like an awkward ghost in case he spotted you through the shifting crowds. But you were gone- vanished.

Fine. You’ll never see me again, asshole. 

Those words had been etched into the very walls of his cranium since they’d left your lips in a scathing hiss. Such nasty words, but they shook with every consonant. 

Among your pride was a healthy blend of honesty. You had been true to your word- he really did never see you again. Wiped your slate spotless of anything Nam-gyu.

And it drove him fucking crazy. It made him sick to his stomach in a way he did not think was possible. It was out of control- he couldn’t stop thinking about you, you, you. He missed you more than he didn’t, and he was angrier at himself than he’d like to admit. So instead of admitting, he funnels all that anger into the very shape of you. Drags in the idea of you, his memories of you and shoves them down, down, down, until he truly did think he hated you, after all. 

Until he’s clenching his fist so tight he’s drawing blood and telling himself he’s better off now, without some whining bitch in his ear begging him to stick that boyfriend pin into the thinness of his skin. Thinks that without you hanging on his arm all the damn time, he could really go out and have some fun. He thinks, and he thinks and he thinks until he’s thought too much and suddenly he loves you again and he misses you so bad it’s crushing him under the sheer weight of your absence. 

So, Nam-gyu does what Nam-gyu does best once again, and he drowns himself out with the bitter taste of drugs on his tongue and the sear of alcohol in his blood. 

It all stops.

For a time, anyway. 

You always found ways to seep back into his mind one way or another. Songs that would only make it a second in before he was mashing the skip button. A tv show you’d watched together surviving on the screen roughly a whole minute before it’s switched off. Sometimes it was when he saw something he knew you’d like- a shitty video or meme. Other times you came to him in whispers while he laid out on his own living room floor, out of his mind watching the blank ceiling above him twist and writhe under his spotty vision with a needle poking out of his arm. 

But, most times… Most times you would slither your way to the forefront of his mind just before bed. The touch of you, the smell of you. 

The shape of you underneath him. Hands and quiet breaths. He could still hear the noises you made ringing in his ears, stored away in his memories just to taunt him when he was indisputably alone. Soft skin, even softer thighs. Always so warm, and so wet. So willing. You would come to him while he curled over himself in bed, drunk on porn and memories. 

And afterwards, when Nam-gyu had finished, he would throw his head back onto his pillow and ignore the way it felt like there was a lump in his throat. And that would piss him off even more, because fuck, you should be there with him. Laying by his side running your hands through his hair until he’s falling asleep balancing on the fine line of afterglow and dozing off. 

But you aren’t. You’re doing fuck all with who knows in places he’s never been to, places you probably begged him to go but he couldn’t even remember the name of. You hadn’t answered a single one of his texts, you hadn’t picked up a single call and everytime he hears the first couple seconds of your stupid voicemail he wants to crush his phone in his hands. Vexation was a slippery slope into the fires of fury- rage was like a parasite under his skin, eating away at what little rational thinking he had. 

Voicemail after voicemail. Text after ignored text. Anger was the hardest stage- rage grew horns on the crown of his head and it turned him into something he couldn’t recognize. Or, something he refused to recognize- desperate and heartsick. 

It was supposed to be you. Not him. 

He filled the endless gaps of you with drugs often and women when he could. For a short time it would work and he would wonder why he ever let someone else get him so, so low. But then the drugs would wear off. The random woman in his room that he never bothered to learn the name of would grab her clothes and saunter out the door. He stopped letting them stay the night. He could never sleep, stared at the ceiling until 5am wondering why he still felt like shit. He would be right back where he started, sitting on the couch, staring at the door watching you leave over and over again.  

You stopped updating your socials, quit hanging out with the few people that bounced between his and your crowd, successfully scrubbed him of your life entirely. After a year, he resorted to asking around if anyone had seen you. The answer, as always, was a firm no. It was a corrosive feeling, a constant churn and thrum within the cage of his ribs. It made him even more unrecognizable to himself. Made him invite women into his lap just to shove them away when they didn’t smell like you, or sound like you. Or laugh like you.

It had been so, so perfect before. It was fun, and it was hot all the time, and sex with you felt like heaven was a place on earth. Why couldn’t you see that? Why did you have to go and ruin it with your words and pleading eyes? Nam-gyu doesn’t roll like that. You knew that. He’s a free spirit, he tells himself. No chains, no labels. No holding him down. Even if it was at the feet of this gorgeous, gorgeous body and a honey sweet voice that just always seemed to know what to say. Beautiful eyes that always watched, a smile so saccharine, whispering words against his ear so dirty it made him shiver just to think about. 

The world was too vast to be held down. 

But, truth be told, he was held down. 

He is held down. 

When you walked out of his apartment those years ago, he never left that spot, chewing his nails and anxiously spinning the ring on his finger, watching you go. He started seeing it behind his eyes. Replays it, changes the course, wonders where he’d be right now if he’d just said something different. 

Finding you at the games was like divine intervention. It had to be. Some higher power had crossed his path and plopped you right in front of him. With rolling eyes and a deadpan stare at anything except for him, sure but you were there and you weren't going anywhere anytime soon. God had heard his drug induced prayers of stupor. 

Now it was all about waiting. Waiting for the right moment to dive in and recapture you within him and he’d be right back to drinking you in at every chance he had. He’d do it differently this time, do it right so you’d cling to him and wonder why you ever wanted to leave at all. Make you wonder why you were so stupid to have been so stubborn when everything you could ever need was in the palm of your hand. He was sure of it. That strong, bullheaded expression would blitz is something vulnerable in his hands. A lurch of excitement riveted under his skin among the nerves. 

For now, he waits, and watches. Your presence could never go unnoticed by his dark eyes. 

It’s unfortunate for him that Thanos takes a notice to you, too. It’s hard not to, really, when every time he follows Nam-gyu’s locked line of sight it always leads back to you- this little sweet thing perched up at the peak of the bunks alongside the back, watching the room with this bored stare between mundane yapping with other players. 

“Someone you know?” Thanos’s voice had this subtle drip to it, this underlining excitement that Nam-gyu picks up on almost instantly. His expression stays cool, mostly uninterested despite the way he can’t seem to pry his eyes away from you even as he answers.

“Yeah.”

“Who is she?”

And then he’s stuck. Because his mouth opens for a split second to say, my ex, but he can’t quite say that, now can he? But he also can’t say an old friend either, because you simply weren’t. What you two had was something else entirely- a new plane he struggled to navigate, lovely when things were good, a hellscape when they weren't. The lines were always so blurred, fuzzy with sex and warm laughter.

He decides on something mostly true. “Someone I used to hang out with.”

“Girlfriend?” Thanos’s brow raises with his chirp, leaning forward with clear interest. 

“No.” It comes out quick- too quick, and too heavy. Tinged venom with more baggage than even he could handle at times. Thanos catches it on impact and whistles. 

“I see. So you won’t care if I go chat her up? Hm?” 

“Don’t bother. She’s not like that.” Nam-gyu’s scoffs before he can stop himself, this unsettling seed of jealousy planting itself in his chest. 

“Hm… I guess we’ll see, huh?”

You’re dismounting from your bed and climbing onto the stairs when Thanos jumps to his feet, and Nam-gyu can already feel that itchy panic starting to blotch away at his skin. His hands, his cheeks. That seed takes its place within him bearing vicious roots. 

“Man, don’t bother,” He’s touching at Thanos’s sleeve, his shoulder, anywhere he can to try and gather his friend’s attention. “She can be kind of a bi-”

All it takes is a swat to Nam-gyu’s chest to stop him dead in his tracks, words dying his throat. Shut down, watching his friend take quick steps to you, Nam-gyu following close behind to witness.  If only he could be firmer, never demanding, always suggesting. Always rolling over and showing his soft underbelly at Thanos’s whim. Instead, he lets his lips press into a tight line and let’s it all happen right before him. 

You’re on the bottom step and taking a seat, and you see the rapper approaching before he gets a word in, but your eyes skip over him entirely and settle onto Nam-gyu’s. Distress is building in his muscles, but he’s making damn sure to keep himself in check. 

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing all alone? You want a friend?”

Up closer now, sharing your space, he sees all the things he’d been missing so deeply throughout the years. You still look just as he remembered- still bearing this expression of bemused coolness, still having these all seeing eyes that seemed to cut right through him. 

“A friend?” you hum, and your voice threatens to pull him in like gravity. “You wanna be my friend?”

If jealousy could sprout through his skin, it’d be an ugly beast of horns and claws. But it can’t, so instead, it takes shape in the way Nam-gyu’s eyes are flicking between yours and the rappers, hands wrapped up in his sleeves. 

“Stick with me, yeah? I promise to keep you safe. My number one priority.” And Thanos is patting his chest, flashing those painted nails. Makes Nam-gyu’s chest tighten, his stomach growing sicker by the second. 

Damn, you can see it, too. There’s no denying the way he’s cringing behind that distant smirk, and he doesn’t think to hide the way he’s twisting his rings on his fingers. When you click your tongue, he knows what's coming. 

“Stick with you, hm… Sorry, but I try to work alone. Partner’s tend to, how do I say…” Those eyes of your slice through him all over again, honing into him when you finish your sentence. “Disappoint me.”

Fuck. Disappointment. Oh god, how that sears into Nam-gyu’s skin. The way you look the rapper up and down, visually sizing him up, would make his heart leap into his throat if he were under that same scrutiny. He never understood how you could always be this intense with such a sweet, sweet face. Kindness was certainly a luxury and he missed it, that never ending fire that kept him warm.

“I can change that for you,” Thanos sings.  “I’m a legend here for a reason.”

“Legend? I’ve never heard of you.” Your brows raise in amusement. 

“You will. Thanos.” He puffs his chest out and nods, a half cocked grin playing over his lips. “Guy’s like me, we don’t disappoint.”

The man actually finds the nerve to reach down and pluck your hand, bringing his knuckles to his lips. Nam-gyu feels red hot scorching through his face but he’s locked in place, watching it like a car crash. Relieved when you yank your hand free and shove it into your jacket’s pocket. It’s the only good thing out of this entire interaction, he finds, especially so when Thanos’s smirk falters into a tight surprised line. 

“Don’t go and do all that. Guy’s like you will always disappoint me.” You lean back against the wall of the step, vexation evident over your features. “How about you talk to me again after the next game, yeah? Maybe I’ll feel different. Thanos.”

You always were so good at slamming the door in people's faces, always brought Nam-gyu joy to witness you shut down the advances of some poor loser trying to gain your affections. Thanos knows he’s been hung out in the cold, too. Barking up the wrong tree in the wrong neighborhood in the wrong country. So, he takes a loose step backwards and shrugs. 

“Your loss.” He sighs, and Nam-gyu follows him all the way back to his bunk in brooding silence. 

Wringing his fingers, he can’t help himself when casts a glance over his shoulder to find you one last time before you’re obscured behind metal frames and moving bodies. When he does, he feels a rush of heat in his cheeks when you’re already stuck fast staring right back, watching him go. He’s silent when he sits down at his little corner of the dormitory, silent when Gyeong-su is harping praises at Thanos. Silent, even, when Thanos says he’s determined to bring you to his side of the map. 

However, he noticeably tenses when Thanos mutters, “What a babe, huh? I should go visit her after lights out.”

Almost immediately there’s hands on his shoulders, pushing and nudging him, demanding his attention. The deepest of sighs leaves the rapper, ducking his head to find Nam-gyu’s eyeline. 

“Come on, man. Don’t be pissed, it’s in my nature, boy. Be honest. You into her?”

“Me and her…” Nam-gyu swallows. “We used to mess around.”

“Lucky you.” Thanos’s is shoving Nam-gyu’s shoulders again. “You cut her lose?”

No, she cut me loose. But Nam-gyu can’t bring himself to say that, the words lost and barred at the tip of his tongue. In the silence, Thanos takes it as confirmation. 

“That’s so cold. If I had her, I’d never let her out of my sight. Sheesh.”

Nam-gyu can’t even form words at all, anymore, irritation and envy wrapping tendrils around his throat and snuffing him out. Your earlier words spin through his brain like a carousel- come find me after the next game. Were you being serious? Were you just saying that to mess with him? He knows you- he knows your tone better than he even realizes, but he suddenly can’t decipher what’s honesty and what isn’t anymore. Jealousy blinds him, thick lenses leading him in all sorts of binds. 

He should have talked to you. He should have made the first move and made sure the first time he was breathing your air was alone. Now he’s anxious, he’s resentful, and he’s humiliated for some reason he can’t quite place. It doesn't help when he can’t resist the urge to look at you one last time, just one for the road, and you’re chatting idly with a man lounging on the other side of the steps you’re currently sitting on. There’s a five foot gap between your bodies but Nam-gyu doesn’t care- the anger that rips through him is blind, you may as well have been fucking the man right in front of him. 

It’s all he can see, tunnel vision encompassing him all the way until the moment lines start to form for lunch. Stewing in his jealousy, a bitter taste blooming over his tongue, he doesn’t jump in line because he’s got an appetite, but simply because you were rather eager to fill your belly. He tails you, matches every step and still has to jump out in front of a random player from taking the spot directly behind you. 

You notice him with a fleeting look tossed over your shoulder, eyes darting from the corners of your eyes and then forward, still as a statue. Desperate to not interact. 

Nam-gyu can’t help himself.

“You into Thanos?”

You audibly laugh at him, and the sound makes him shred the inside of his cheek.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

Everything. It’s everything to me. 

You look up at him over your shoulder, watching him through your thick lashes with scorn written all over those beautiful irises. There’s a flash image of you- a memory, tangled between the bedsheets, looking up at him with those gorgeous eyes and tear stained cheeks with his hand wrapped around your throat. It’s quick but it hits him like a sucker punch right to the gut. He sucks in a sharp breath. He wants to touch you- he almost does, but the line moves forward a beat and you’re moving with it away from his hesitating fingers. 

“I’m just asking.” He’s trying to be coy, but you can see right through him. 

“You worried, Nam-gyu?” 

That hits him like a sucker punch too. He’d forgotten how his name sounded on your tongue, how it rolled off so perfect and pretty even when you were pissed at him. Sometimes specifically when you were pissed at him, this bubbling anticipation running through him in waves, your passion always the spark lighting the fire in his belly. 

“I’m not worried.”

“You are.” Clocked him, again. Peered into the windows of him and saw that angry ocean of spite and regret behind his eyes. “I know you are. I can see it on you.”

“Not worried.” Nam-gyu shrugs, but he can’t meet your eyes anymore. 

Another sigh ghosts from your lips, but it’s quieter, defeated, almost. 

“I’m not interested in your friend. I’m not interested in anyone.”

And then, he says it. Quietly, as if he doesn’t want you to truly hear.

“...You seemed interested.”

“So you are worried.” You’re crossing your arms and he stares down into your hair, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What if I was? You clearly had nothing to say about it. You were right there- you didn’t tell him we had history? Or did I mean that little to you?”

You’re mad. Holy shit, you’re still so mad at him. But then his brain scrambles to tell him the good side of things- anger is not indifference. So in some ways, maybe more than others, he’s still in that little dome of yours ratting around amongst your thoughts. Means that if he does this right, it would mean something to you to be better this time. 

His lips press into a tight line. He should have talked to you, and now it’s biting him in the ass. It seemed like everything always bit him in the end. And he always let it happen, watched and never interfered. You drive the nail you’d plunged into him even deeper when you throw his words, from all those years ago, right back in his face. That last thing he had said to you before you, or the idea of you, had become a black hole.

“You know what, Nam-gyu? What was it you had said? Oh- uh, why don’t you focus on yourself and I’ll focus on me, yeah?”

It stings. It stings so bad that he physically recoils from the sound of his voice on your tongue, words spilling that just don’t seem right coming from you. Bitter resentment rises in his throat, this reflexive coping mechanism to bite back overtaking his senses. He wants to say I shouldn’t have said that. He wants to say, hear me out. But what ends up leaving him is just as ugly as the rest of his feelings. 

“Jesus. You’re still a bitch.”

The very instance those words tumble from him, he’s already regretting it with every fiber of his being. Even more so when you pluck your bento box from the guard and spin on your heels to glare absolute daggers into the very pits of his soul.

“Get over yourself. I’m glad we had this talk, it was very refreshing.”

This time he does jump to stop you, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. “Just listen-”

“No.” 

He doesn’t hide the way he watches you scamper off to your little ledge, hopping up onto your bed and enjoying your vantage point above all else, focusing on your meal. The man you’d been chatting with earlier is in the bed next to yours and that’s just fucking great. The guard has to pry his stare off of you, and a bento box is practically shoved into his chest, urging him out of line. 

Nam-gyu hates the stone anchoring in his guts. Almost as much as he hates how his appetite never quite returned. All food tasted the same when you left, nothing compared to what you’d used to make him. 

The bento box was no different. 

That night, sleep avoided him. There was something keeping him awake- buzzing under his skin no matter how many times he’d rolled over and shifted himself into a new position. Of course he knew what it was- it never really left him, after all. The fact of knowing you were across the room, all alone in your bed, was this incessant knock in the back of his skull tapping him back into reality whenever he found himself comfortable enough to doze off. His mind was stuck on you, as always, wondering what you looked like right now. 

Did you sleep the same as before? Laying on your side, hair messed over the sides of your face and splayed over the pillow, those heavy lashes of yours kissing along the bone of your cheeks. He always told himself that it was you who was attached, that he was some great being and you simply touched the stars through him. How wrong he had been to think that, when the entire time he’d fit so perfectly against you, he a piece to your puzzle. 

How wrong he had been, because when he’s staring up idly at the ceiling, he thinks of the better days in his life. Always, always, it was you. Thinking of you sitting pretty in his passenger seat, watching out the window as the world blurred by in rushes. The wind blowing through your hair, your necklace catching the glint of the sun. You’d feel his eyes on you and you'd turn and smile at him so darling, so lovely, that he thought it could heal. Remembering when you’d walk into a room, shining like a beacon just for him. You’d find his lap, find his hair, find his lips against your own and you’d cry his name like a prayer. 

He was an idiot to have thought he was the something in the nothing- it was you. 

Even when he finally drifted off into sleep were you still infecting the very membrane of his mind. In his dreams, you were just as warm as you had always been. Bated breaths, hanging onto every word that left his lips, fingers that longed to touch and stroke and feel. His heart slowed to a peaceful beat, and his body curled into his pillow and blanket, trying to recreate the shape of you in his arms. For a time that evening, it worked. 

But then he woke up, and Thanos was leaning over his bed asking him if he was dead, and all those wonderful moments he’d relived were gone in a rush of bright lights and endless chatter bouncing off the walls of the dormitory. Like an addiction, the first thing he thought of when he sat up, was you. Thought about you all the way through the winding staircases and into a giant room with rainbow’s painted over the hard floor. So lost in thought that he almost misses it when the speaker starts instructing them- a 5 player minigame race. 

Teams of five. Okay, he could do that. Easy. Gyeong-su, him, Thanos. That was already three. 

It’s natural instinct when he starts to search for you in the bubble of people, his fourth member, even though he’s more than sure you’re all too excited to send him packing. The way you had looked at him at dinner the day before, he wasn’t sure if you’d even entertain a conversation with him at all, let alone join their team. But this is beyond an argument- beyond him trying and failing to lull you in, this is life and death. 

“Hey, there’s your girl again.” Thanos spots you first. He follows Thanos’s line of sight and sure enough, there you are, standing with your hands shoved into your pockets with this far away expression he can’t quite read. 

His girl. It would make him shiver, if he wasn’t already on the brink of tweaking. 

“Let’s go see if she’s changed her mind.” 

Thanos is running his hands through his hair and popping the collar of his tracksuit, a particular bounce to his step when he bounds right for you. Just as the first time, always on the lookout for yourself, you spot him coming before he gets to you. Already you’re annoyed.

By the time Nam-gyu slithers up beside him, you’re already turning Thanos’s first wave of advancements down, a snark to your tone and a glint in your eyes. 

“I’m good, thanks though.”

Thanos blinks, looks left and then right. “You’re good? I don’t see a team?”

“I’ll find one.”

“You got one right here,” He pats his chest again, before he slings his arm over Nam-gyu’s shoulder haphazardly. “Come on. You’ll be safe.”

The intensity in which you roll your eyes is fierce- an expression Nam-gyu really had only thought he could draw out of you. To make matters worse for his friend, you don’t even bother with saying no again. Instead you merely wave a dismissive hand and turn on your heels, meandering into the crowd. 

“You were right, Nam-su.” Thanos’s face drops and he unwinds his arm from Nam-gyu’s shoulder. “Not getting anywhere with that one.”

Nam-gyu is so focused watching you, that all he murmurs is, “It’s Nam-gyu.”

“Yeah. Nam-su, Nam-gyu. Look over there.” He has to force himself to look away, following Thanos’s point in the other direction you’d gone. A girl with short black hair stands off to the side, eyes traveling and sizing up all her potential team mates. Thanos pops his collar again, a hound dog chasing a brand new scent. “Let’s go see what she’s up to.”

For the first time, Nam-gyu doesn’t follow him. He says, you go, you go, and lets Thanos wind himself up all on his own before watching him go. He’s much more concerned with you and your team, this sense of anxiety starting to bud in his gut. 

He finds you like a moth to flame. Your shoulders slump at the sight of him, tired and irked. 

“Not this again.” You groan. “What, do you think you’re gonna come sweeten me up and I’ll say yes? I’m not playing on your damn team.”

Nam-gyu shakes his head and steps in front of you when you try to turn away again. His nerves are on the rise, and so is his temper. You draw it out of him like nothing else, he can’t stop himself. 

“Why not?” He asks, looking down at you with furrowed brows. You cross your arms, barring yourself from him. 

“Because I’m not.”

“This is no time to be stubborn. You don’t know what the next game is. You might need guys on your team.”

“I plan on it. There’s other men here other than you and whatever the hell his name is.”

Other men. Nam-gyu’s mouth dries up, his fingers already wringing in his sleeves. His jaw tenses with his temper, teeth grinding. 

You didn’t need other men, not when he would do anything under the sun to keep you safe. Anyone else may just let you die. Can’t you see that? 

“Why are you being-... Being like-...” He stops himself. Holy shit, his brain actually fires off the warning shot and he stops dead in his tracks staring at you in bewilderment. You adopt this expectant glare, a spiteful uptick to your lips that darkens your eyes. 

“Say it.” You sneer. “Go ahead, say it. I’m being a bitch, right?”

The word fights against his lips to get out. You’re waiting for it, at the edge of your seat, fully ready to take it in and chew it up and spit it out right back at him. But he bites it back and he swallows it down into his chest because this means something to him. Because it might mean something to you. 

“Being like this.” He stammers. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

Your eyes widen just a fraction. “Keep me alive?”

“Can you really trust anyone here? You know me.”

“I do know you.” A flash of something provoked and somber rivets within your eyes. Anger mounting, your heart colliding with your brain in real time right before him. “That’s exactly why I won’t be on your side.”

If he’d had his foot in the door before, you were properly shoving it back outside. He doesn't know what to do, so he does the first thing he can think of as a creature of impulse, and unfortunately when it came to you that meant he was all hands. 

“Wait-” He catches you just as you’re turning away, tries to bulldoze over your defiance and smooth out all the harsh edges of your protests with the broad flats of his palms. Fingers clutching your tracksuit at your shoulders and then he’s realizing that he’s touching you for the first time in years. Your skin from underneath your jacket is just as warm he remembers, your eyes are just as doe-like at his touch too. Stubborn and ornery but overflowing with passion and static energy that settled into his bones. He needs it, he needs it. The obsession of you hits him in waves of yearn. 

He needs you more than air, he thinks. 

“Get your hands off of me, right now.” But you aren’t tearing him away- so maybe that’s progress. 

“Come on.” He ducks his head, shoulders slumping, and it physically hurts him to feel this desperate. “Stay with me.”

Oh, you don’t like those words one bit. They hit your eardrums and your eyes narrow in slits, and then yeah, you’re reaching up and catching his wrists in his iron grip before ripping his paws off your jacket. It takes a long moment for you to speak, but when you do, he swears he can hear the devil amidst the heartache. 

“You know that I can’t stay with you. Never again.”

His hands twitch to touch you again- anything to keep you there for a moment longer. 

“Come on.” 

Sadness like pits swirl in your eyes, drags your lips into a frown. “You gotta’ stop Nam-gyu. I can’t do it.”

An awful, awful mass grows in his stomach when you turn your back on him. Gets bigger with every inch you build between you and him, threatens to take over entirely and swallow him whole right in the middle of that room. If it did, and he was to be gulped up by the void, perhaps he wouldn't have to feel like this any longer. And he wouldn’t have to watch you disappear behind all the moving bodies. 

He was weaker than he was three years ago. You made him weaker. Back then, if you’d been so sure of yourself he found it rather easy to deter you. A beastly way about him when he would have just ripped you by the hand and brought you over to his team and made you sit the hell down and just stay with him. Something possessive, something under his skin at the thought of you sharing the same air as anyone other than him. You used to be so malleable in his hands- but he knows, now more than ever, that that was truly never the case. You let yourself be pliable. You let yourself fall to him. He could never, not even now, make you do anything. Not really. 

That’s the part that burns him to the peaks of his soul. That strength about you. You’re so much stronger than him, with an energy iron so it’s like running headfirst into a wall when you’d no longer graced him with your softness. Such a double edged sword, that will of yours. That attitude and the passion made him feel alive. Cold and disposed after you’d properly slammed the gate right in his face. No leverage, no space for him in your heart any longer. 

It’s cold, Nam-gyu finds. Lonely without you. 

And then Thanos goes and invites some random girl with a poor attitude (that isn’t yours) and an even weaker buddy. He tries to tell him- remind his friend of the potential disadvantage but like always all it took was a dismissive wave to get him to screw his lips shut. Rolled over, tongue caught in his throat, weakened. 

He spends a majority of his time waiting for his teams turn arguing with Se-mi and tossing gazes over his shoulder to keep a very keen eye on you, only to find a sneer growing on his features after seeing you chatting with the same player as earlier, the man with the bed next to yours. Laughter and smiles roll from your lips as natural as breathing air, and he’s nudging you with his arm and you’re letting him with this expression of pure amusement. 

That should be him. 

That ugly face of betrayal peeks through the cracks all over again, with guilt and anger and regret following in tow close behind. Sitting on his shoulders like little devils, spinning and racing through his body in waves. If you saw his face- you’d never suspect it, but his hands shake in his lap. His jaw tenses so tightly his teeth could burst into powder. Squared shoulders and an endless drag to his lips. Something in the sight of you enjoying that guys presence is reminding him of all these shitty feelings he’d been faced with when you two were together- well, no, not together, he remembers- and then he’s even angrier. Angry at you, angry at that random ass player you were talking up, angry at himself for letting it get here in the first place. 

Thanos pops open his necklace beside him and draws a fun little pill from its contents, and Nam-gyu makes it a mission to get his hands on one of those sweet little pick-me-ups. The pill is bitter on his tongue but he swallows it down in delight. And it works, too, because the moment the colors start to glow and fuse together and all sounds become this echoing fishbowl of noises, you’re vacated from the corners of his fuzzy mind. For a time, he’s at peace all over again, lost in the blurry joy. 

By the time he comes down, he’s already back in the dormitory. 

Though it takes a moment for him to realize it, he’s taking inventory of all the surviving players. One by one, watching them fill the room and find their creaky beds or their little groups. Most were distraught, though some were particularly perturbed. It takes a couple teams before he understands that what he’s really looking for, naturally, is you. He’s always searching for you, even when he knew you weren’t searching for him back. 

That’s the change, and it dawns on him like a rapture. He’d never had to care before- you were always this constant in his life, something that would always bounce right back if he tossed you aside. He didn’t give a damn if it upset you, he didn’t give a damn if it ate away at you like termites through wood. But now he does, and he gives so many damn’s they’re driving him crazy. 

Any moment spent sober and lucid were moments entirely taken up by you.

Any moment now you’ll come strutting through those doors, head held high and gunning it to make sure Nam-gyu knew exactly how much you didn’t need him. 

But then ten teams turn into twenty, and twenty five into thirty. 

“How many teams were there?” Nam-gyu asks with a voice steadier than even he expected. Thanos doesn’t need to question anything, watching the doorway all the same. 

“Fifty-six.” Se-mi hums from her spot, leaning back against the steps. 

Thirty eventually turns to fifty. 

Too much time has passed, and you’ve still yet to pop out through that doorway. He double checks those who’d already shown their faces, hoping to find you through the cracks of them, but you’re simply not there. There’s a shovel digging pits and moats into his stomach. Another wave of players trickles in and he scans them all over the same, only to feel that hollowness inside him grow once more. They saunter to their beds, to their little groups, taking up space and taking up air that should belong to you. 

Where the hell were you?

“Only two teams left,” Thanos hums. “Where’s that girl of yours?”

Nam-gyu can’t force himself to answer this time around. So, instead, he presses his nails between his teeth and nervously shifts his weight from left to right. Though he shrugs, the anxiety within him was palpable, all lines and tension that he tried to bury with nonchalance. But it wasn’t working, and felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out.

Mind racing, thoughts circling him like birds over fresh kill. The final team walks through the doorway, slow as zombies, shifty eyed and hurriedly rushing to their beds. His eyes sit on the door, waiting, waiting. 

No one comes through. 

His shoulders fall limp. 

You didn’t make it. 

“That’s a shame.” Se-mi sighs, the sound swimming in Nam-gyu’s ears. 

Loss, real loss was a foreign feeling within his chest. He’d seen it described in the movies, in songs, this soul eating all consuming weight that blanketed over bodies and crushed, but nothing could have ever prepared for the blistering moment it wrenches itself within the confines of his heart, within the deep ache of his bones. It didn’t settle properly in his throat- his body trying to force the alien ripple of dread stitching itself right between his ribs. It hurts- his lungs can’t take in air. His breath wheezes past his lips in shallow pants, unable to tear his eyes away, like at any moment you’ll suddenly materialize right before him. 

He presses his lip into a tight line and digs his nails into his palms, anything to release a fraction of the agony festering within his body. 

Brain on fire, shaking hands and the image of you dead in a thousand different flashes, a sting to his waterlines that has him scrambling to shove his fingers against the thin skin. 

Don’t fucking cry. Don’t fucking cry.

“Bad luck. Sorry, boy.”

All the skin on his body has flushed red and sticky. He ducks his head down towards his lap, desperate to hide within himself, even more desperate to hide this part of himself from the watchful eyes of his group. He should have just made you join them. Should have thrown you over his shoulder and wrapped an immovable grasp around your arm and held you hostage until everyone had a team and then you’d have no one else to turn to. No one else, nothing else except for him. 

He can’t even hear his friend’s counterfeit empathy over the swell of his heartbeat in his ears. His body is too heavy to hold up, his arms dragging as lead, his head even heavier on his shoulders. Uncanny urges to tear at the skin of his face overcome him and he has to bury them into his hair in release, roughly running his digits through the black locks, trying to breathe and breathe and breathe. A lump the size of a boulder burrows into his throat.

Cracking his eyes open to peek down at his lip, squeezing them shut when his vision is wet and blurry. His lower lip trembles until it’s caught in his teeth, biting hard into the skin. 

Don't fucking cry.

Why did you have to be so stubborn? If you’d have just let him take care of you this one fucking time, you would be alive right now. You should be alive right now- pissed and glaring fury in his direction but breathing and taking up space and existing-

“Ah, they made it. Here I thought they were all goners.”

Se-mi’s casual tone barely reaches him, but it’s got him frantically flicking his gaze back up to the archway, his hands falling from his face, trying to see through the blotches in his sight. A handful of players take soft steps into the room, all shaken up, all bewildered.

There you are. His racing heart stops entirely.

You’re sauntering into the dormitory like a wounded animal, all hands wringing out in front of you and lines drawn into your frown. For the first time, in Nam-gyu’s eyes, you look small. Frightened. Every step you take has a weight to it he’s never witnessed you bear. And even from across the room, even with rigid tears trapped in the corners of his eyes, he can see the grip of fear on the flat of your throat. 

All those jumping thoughts settle into a tunnel vision, you at the epicenter of his quaking nerves simmering down into stillness. He forgets how his chest had twisted as if a knife had been planted between his collarbones, and he forgets how he had almost lost his lunch right there on the floor. All because you’re standing there in the middle of the room hugging yourself, white as a ghost, even paler when you lift your head up and see the way Nam-gyu is trapped in your line of sight. 

Nam-gyu see’s it. No hate, no dejection. 

Relief- this instant where your widened eyes soften, your frown lifts into a slack-jawed breath of solace. It rocks his world when it hits him and it lights a flame so hot under his skin it’s burning through his veins. All the air trapped in his lungs leaves him at once and he can pinpoint the exact moment all the tensions in his shoulders and back melt away in nothingness. The tears dry, his lower lip released from his gnashing teeth.

The man you’d joined earlier pats your shoulder and offers you a pathetic, wavering thumbs up. You can’t seem to return his dull enthusiasm. In fact, you look worse than Nam-gyu’s seen you thus far. Changed, all wires sticking exposed and sparking. There’s this lifelessness to your body when you climb up the stairs and have to heave yourself up into your bed, crossing your legs and resting your chin on your palms propped up over your knees. 

When your eyes meet his, he expects some sort of sign of contempt, or perhaps maybe you’d refuse to meet his gaze entirely. Instead, for the first time since you’d arrived, you find him first. 

You offer him a pitiful open palmed wave. 

The pearly gates crack open and Nam-gyu feels it again- warmth. Even just a little bit, like lighting a match in a snowstorm, huddling around the flame. He half cocks a smile, and he waves back. 

--

Lunch came quicker than he’d anticipated, and much to Nam-gyu’s dismay, you weren’t exactly thrilled to hop into line. In fact, ever since you’d let him jam his fingers back into your closing door, you’d hardly acknowledged anything other than your lap. Even more so upsetting, that player you hung around tapped your mattress to gather your attention, pointing to the line, sighing in defeat when you’d shook your head. 

Jealousy seeps into his wounds all over again, quiet, but equally as simmering. Don’t act like you know her. Little devils tapping away at his psyche. She doesn't need you to check up on her.

But then again, he realizes, maybe you do. 

His mouth dries when the sound of his thoughts footsteps come running up on him. His greed. His innate ability to leave you unchecked and grappling. That was among the sea of problems Nam-gyu had been struggling to grasp. Here he was, trying to drag you back into the tar pits of his hold and he hadn’t even tried the basics of kindness. The step one of it all. Always taking, taking, taking and demanding more at every swipe. Always expecting, never building. 

So he jumps into line before he can second guess himself, and he takes his bento box with a grateful nod and he doesn’t waste a second before he’s chasing the trail of you to your bed. From your high point, perched and unmoving, all he can do is climb the stairs and rest his hands over the corner of your mattress. Your far away gaze lifts from your lap and settles down to him. 

The air is different. The landscape of you has changed. 

“What is it.” Your tone is uncannily flat, but it’s void of its bite, its drive. 

“Can I come up?” 

It’s a simple request, but it leaves a shake at the end of his sentence. It’s only natural when he mentally prepares himself for you to slap no onto his forehead, but you scoot over, and he takes the spot so quickly you wouldn’t even have the chance to say no if you thought about it too much. He hoists himself up and over, fills the gap at your side, just as he should have done days ago. He sits the bento box at the crest of your lap.

“What’s this?” Blinking down at the food, you make no effort to pick it up. 

“Fish and rice.” Nam-gyu shrugs. “Looks like an egg, too.” 

“I can see that. I meant, what are you doing giving me this?”

“...You didn’t get anything.”

As your fingers gingerly touch the container, eyes scanning over the contents, Nam-gyu feels he can breathe easier. This is a win for him- you aren’t fighting him anymore. Still on the edge, always ready to run, but the look in your eyes isn’t pure hatred or outright hurt. A swell of pride overcomes him when you pluck the chopstick and murmur, thank you. 

You’re pliable. Now, more than ever. 

You eat in silence. He lets you eat in silence, even though peace isn’t exactly one of his virtues.  Partly because he doesn’t know what to say to you, but mostly because he’s got this innate fear that he’s going to say something shitty and you’re going to hate him all over again for it. A million words are always shoving and pushing against his lips and he fumbles with navigating them. So, silence, it is. 

But it doesn’t bother him. Silence meant that you were simply just there, existing, the one thing he had longed for over the years. He knew, deep in his heart, he’d fucked up when he began to miss the very presence of you. No sex, no drugs, no push or pull, just you. And now he gets to take whatever you’ll give in micro doses, greedy and starved for you. Fighting the urge to pull you into himself where you could never climb out. He refrains- he forces himself to just be there. 

No longer could he be the creature he had been all those years ago. He had to be different- not all rough edges and clawing hands, ripping and taking. Or dark eyes watching your every move, or jagged words cutting your flesh with the highs and lows of his tone. Something better, this time. Something for you. 

Tomorrow would be a new beast entirely. And, in less than a few hours, the lights would flicker off and bask the dormitory into hues of red and blues. You would lay alone in your all-too-large bed and he would sink into his mattress drugged out of his mind thinking countless thoughts of you, you, you. The distance would feel like miles- he needed you right there, right then, always. Anything other than what he had sitting beside you was a vast ocean. 

The bento box appears in front of his lap, half eaten.

“You’re not going to eat it?” Nam-gyu’s brows knit.

“You should eat, too. What, scared of my germs now?” You murmur, and when he meets your eyeline, he sees something familiar in those hues. Something nurturing, sweet. Tender. 

Nam-gyu picks up the chopsticks, and he eats.  For the first time in years, his food tastes like food.

[mscherub]

Emotional Support Shrimp

A/N: cutely drops in this fic I’ve had in my drafts for months…I’m still working on the Idia request. AND FOR THE OTHER PPL WHO REQUESTED STUFF I SEE U, I’m just unmotivated…Writers block is kicking my ass 😞

Tags: A little dark, supposed to be funny, fluff, Floyd being a menace…

Warnings:

Floyd leech causes harm (when doesn’t he?)

Violence

mentions of injuries (random student, referee)

suggestive towards the end

Swearing

Honestly, when is money not always a huge feat for you? The day you finally get your allowance from Crowley, it’s gone within a minute from being spent on only a portion of needed items. Last week you ended up running out of tuna for Grim, and for the love of the seven you don’t wanna go through that again. Everyone knew of your situation, wasn’t very hard to see, but you weren’t the type to latch on to others and use them like a pay pig, but many offered which is a little concerning, anyways, to each their own, you suppose. You had your own values to follow, but you did appreciate what they were willing to do.

Azul knew quite fondly of your situation, using you as a “backup” employee for when one of the servers or dishwasher at the lounge decided to call off, and you usually accepted because, hey, money! He didn’t exactly trust you in the kitchen, mainly based off of the liabilities he could face since you didn’t even have birth records or anything that he could “ok” for you to work within that vicinity, but everything else was a great option.

The laborious shifts were no stranger to you after having taken up a position there so many times, you could say you were used to it by this point, and an even bigger achievement, used to the ways of the tweels, specifically Floyd. Yes they were unpredictable, yes they were scary when they wanted to be, yes they gave off mafia vibes, but they somehow “accepted” you, accepted, of course, being a very vague term to describe it. Maybe tolerate is a bit better. They didn’t seem to wish to cause harm or other masses of stress like they would just for funsies with other guys around campus, but if push comes to shove, you bet they’d have no doubt and chuck you under the bus in mere seconds, hence why you try and stay on their good side.

Technically they all owe you one in a way, especially Azul with his little overblot, but that’s something in the past for you at least.

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

Incident One: Ice Bath

“Prefect, go reason with him!” Azul barks out the command. You sigh and turn around from his office and go to find Floyd. A cycle that repeats itself. Free Therapist for Floyd is a good title…no, wait no. Doesn’t make sense. Plaything would be more appropriate. The thought makes you shudder and shake your head.

The click of the dress shoes on the ground, the clamor of people in the lounge, drowns out as your thoughts officially take over.

This time Floyd messed around more than he should have with people on Azul’s black list, and he may or may not have gotten carried away. So now you’re back on the hunt to find him after getting an earful from the boss himself, and hearing him and the troublemaker bicker in his office. Fun times here at Mostro Lounge. Why’d you choose to work here. Should have asked Mr. Sam if he needed any help…

The door to the pool is stuck wide open and once you peer your head inside you see Floyd swimming in circles angrily, the water rippling swiftly around his body.

“Floyd.” You call out. It’s almost akin to a gentle coo. Where did that gentleness come from? Whatever…

“Wanna swim, Shrimpy? I’ll promise not to drown you.” He stops and smirks. Ok. Stay away from the water. “Or if you came here to chat…we can see if I’ve got the patience for that right now.” He sighs.

“Azul—“

“I don’t wanna hear it. Quit your yapping and go swim around somewhere else.” His eyes narrow and his fins tense.

“Look. If you just got back to work then—“ you’re cut off again.

“Work is the last thing I wanna do right now.” He glares at you, but then eerily a smirk forms once he beckons you over. “You can cheer me up if you swim with me.”

“I have to get back to working too— and ok, never mind…”

He hoists himself up onto the tiled floor, half of his tail still swaying in the water. And then he pouts at you. It shouldn’t do anything to sway your determination to get him on track again, but it crumbles down those walls and you find yourself walking towards him.

“Yay! You do like me a little at least then, Shrimpy.” He giggles, and before you know it he grabs your wrist and slips back into the water, pulling you in with him.

It’s cold. OH IT’S SUPER COLD!

Thrashing your arms in the water you bob back up to the surface, your uniform hat drifting away to the other side of this might-as-well-be ice bath. This was a lot colder than you remember when you went down to the sea the one time…

“Hah! Cold? Humans are just so weak…” Floyd’s voice rumbles from behind you and his slick, slimy arms wrap around your soaked clothes that act as a second skin, yet barely do anything to keep the bite of the cold away.

“But you’re my Shrimpy so I’ll keep ya safe.”

His warmth is shared with yours now, but it’s not enough, unfortunately.

“Floyd…lemme outta here. It so fucking cold holy shit.”

He giggles at your misfortune and spins around a few times with you in his arms slowly.

His chin rests on your shoulder and a silence falls over you two. It’s not uncomfortable. But it’s short lived.

“Hold your breath!”

“Floyd, wait— No!!”

Bubbles spew out of your nose and you force your eyes open only to see mismatched ones gleaming with amusement.

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

“I can’t believe you two…the time spent, rather wasted, will be taken out of both of your checks. This is just unbelievable…” Azul groans. His hand runs down his face before he sets his elbows down on the desk and rubs his temples.

“Out of my office.”

The silence is loud as you two walk out, a towel wrapped around you and a sloppily dressed Floyd who was just earlier grumbling about having to drink that transformation potion.

“Do something like that again and…ugh…”

“Eh? I thought it was fun, Shrimpy! We’ll swim again soon for sure.”

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

Incident Two: Plucked Petals

“Drag him back to work…” Again?

You heed Azul’s orders and you turn out of his office yet again, pushing open the door and heading on your way to search for the one and only…

He left midway through his shift. It had only been like 3 hours…and he already got “bored.” You’re just fed up with his excuses, and then you end up getting yelled at as well if you take too long. You need to get back on the clock, too, “be lucky I’m even paying you to go get him,” Azul says, “be lucky I even pay you in the first place,” Azul says. Ok…anyways.

Traces of Floyd are no where to be seen. He couldn’t have gone far in the span of, what? Five minutes? He had long legs, sure, but he—

“OFF WITH YOU’RE HEAD!”

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. You knew who that was. Great. Now you had to calm down two people! Lovely…

You jog around the corner of the mirror chamber to the path way only to see Floyd with rose petals scattered about around him and a very angry riddle with his arms crossed in an exponential amount of annoyance and anger, as well as an unamused look.

“Oh-“

Riddles head whips in your direction and you prepare yourself for the onslaught of complaints…

“He broke a rule!” Riddle says, “He ruined my flowers,” Riddle says, “He came onto Heartslabyul grounds without invite and unannounced,” Riddle says. You had enough.

“Yea. He uh…mhmmm. I’ll take him back, just…uncollar him…” your finger points over to Floyd. He’s actively tugging at it and trying to crane his neck downwards so he can gnaw it off…is he ok?

“This is not the first time this has happened. I’ve let him get away with his actions one too many times. I shall send this matter to Headmaster Crowley now if you’d excuse me, Prefect. I have more pressing matters to tend to than dwaddle on a sorry soul who doesn’t know basic decency…”

“Riddle…I get where you’re coming from but Azul will soon have my head if I don’t bring him back and myself…so uh.” You sway on your feet.

He thinks for a moment. You weren’t untrustworthy, so maybe he could let this slide— just kidding, he’s Riddle. With a stern look and a dismissive tone, he makes up his mind and drags Floyd away to the main building.

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

“And now Floyd has earned a suspension?” Jade hums as he wipes off a table.

“From entering any other dorm besides his own, prohibited to participate in any club activities or work at the lounge, and now Azul’s making me work his shift and mine for at least a week…until his suspension is up.”

“My, my…I’d say it was deserved. As much as Floyd is held dear to me, he causes the outcomes with his actions. He finds them to be quite amusing, however, greatly so once you get involved.”

“Yea— wait…when I get involved? Is he doing this stuff on purpose?” Your hands perch themselves on your hips.

“That I cannot tell you.”

“Ugh…”

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

Incident Three: Balling

“What the fuck…” That’s all that leaves your lips once you step into the gym. People are chatting loudly and quickly and the only message that you got from Ace was:

Help. Floyd did sum shit. Tell him to get a hold and hopefully plan his words right so he doesn’t get a law suit

Safe to say you are fairly concerned. You push through the crowd of kids and find the familiar redhead accompanied by Jamil. Ace doesn’t let you speak one word once his eyes land on you.

“Ok, before you get all mad here, Prefect, you were the first one I decided to call cause uh…you know. You’re closer to the twins than anyone else really…” Ace attempts to reason with you but you’re entirely focused on something else. Someone else.

“Why is that guy passed out?”

The referee is surrounded by a few Sports med mages, all assessing the passes out form in the middle of the court. There’s a small pool of blood under his nose, which his nose is now plugged up with bits of gauze.

“Ok, yea. So…Floyd was given a penalty and he kinda hurled the ball at the ref…now he’s…” he motions vaguely to the motionless form. “Kinda knocked out. Probably has a broken nose. The look on the ref’s face was kinda priceless, though—“

Jamil smacks Ace and sighs.

“What?!”

“Floyd stormed off…” Jamil nods. That much is expected.

“Ok then…I shall…go find him.”

The suns setting. There’s a nice orange hue casted across the land. The setting would be really amazing to gawk at if it wasn’t for the task at hand. To find the culprit and ease him down from his hot headedness…you’re fine.

“Floyd—“

A hand grips your shoulder and turns you around. Face pressed against sweaty skin in under a second and you know who it is.

“Gross! Floyd!” His arms squeeze and, yep, don’t even try and breathe.

“That damn ref, you know? So sensitive! All I did was just trip someone…a couple times. RSA was kicking our asses again…just a tiny bit of foul play never hurt anyone…at least not too bad. Sports back in the sea were more fun!” His hold is steadfast.

“I once broke some poor guppies arm in a sport back home. Scuttle Ship. Fun game. And then I ripped his fins.”

“O-oh…ok…uh. On accident?” You struggle to keep your face from being muffled against his skin.

“Nah. Whole point of the game…whoever comes out less hurt is the winner.”

Oh…oh.

“Fun game…why are you here, anyways? Did ya come to watch the game? Hope you were gonna cheer for me.” His embrace, eases up.

“Uh, yea…and also I was worried…to see that you kinda left after what went down in the gymnasium…”

“Eh. He was a dumb ref like I said…”

You pause and clear your throat. “Your team needs you again…even id you’ll probably be benched.”

“Well then there’s no point in me going back. Plus. You’re better to hang around. I didn’t wanna play that game today, anyways…whaddya say we go scare some students walking around this late, huh?”

“Floyd…”

“Cmon.”

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

Last shift of the week! Yay! You just gotta tough it out. Easier said than done. You’ll get your paycheck and then off to Heartslabyul to get Grim and then probably get force-fed some pastries by Trey which you’ll happily accept, and then back to Ramshackle.

“Jade, where’s Floyd? I need these orders for table 12, like now…” you huff as you shift the tray out from under your arm and place it down on the counter, looking back in the kitchen through the doubles doors that swing at their hinges. Articulating back and forth in a fluid motion.

“He got called into Azul’s office.” He hums as he idly writes down things on his notepad

“Again?” That’s just great news for you. “If I have to call him down again I might just quit for real this time.”

Jade doesn’t even turn his head at your words. There ones you’ve said before yet you’re still here.

“Always, he’s been slacking off, as usual.” He smiles. “I can go ask the cooks where the meals are if you’d like.”

“I’d…appreciate it. I need the tips from customers tonight so I need all the tables I can get. Thanks a bunch.” You sigh, leaning against the counter and pulling out your phone. You read a few of the messages sent to various group chats you were in, the first year group chat oddly talking about how Professor Crewel is, quote, “a kinky mf.” Yea, you’re just gonna put your phone away again…were they wrong though?

Jade comes back out carrying another circular tray, you straighten up and you take it off of him. “Thank you, Jade. You’re a financial savior for me.” You chuckle as you move your hand around on the bottom till it rests balanced on your palm.

“It was nothing, really.” He gives a small bow and goes back to his duties.

You head off again back into the seating areas, weaving through the crowds of people who were, for some reason, standing instead of sitting and ending up in your way. You make it over to your section and then over to the table, bending your knees a bit as you place the tray down on a smaller foldable table off to the side. A random plate is selected and you put on your happy face and act for the people sitting around in the booth.

“Here you are, the seafood bake, uh, then you, you got the lobster dish here…then you ordered the salmon, and then you ordered the snow crab! That’s it I believe? Does anybody need anything before I head off?” You clasp your hands together and look frantically around the table as you wait and watch for any of them to speak. You’re met with small shakes of their heads and soft sighs of no’s, taking the hint and giving one last bright smile before you nod and walk off.

Off in the distance, a muffled slam of a door is heard and you see Floyd walking out of Azul’s office, a grimace etched onto his face as he heads back into the kitchen and passes by Jade, who, just glares at him before he goes to finish his own tasks.

You knew what would happen next, Azul would find you, then make you “calm him down.” It was never something you liked mainly because it was putting your life at risk, which was ironic because Azul explicitly stated he didn’t want you partaking in any harmful activities, but whatever. It’s sadly another small side job that’s forced upon you just so Floyd can get back to work himself. All for money…

The other waiters grab dishes and scurry off, moving far away. The chatter and yelling within the kitchen dies down significantly, going quiet as pots and pans slam against the stove top, the only culprit of that being Floyd. You take one breath in before you go inside and pick out the teal-ish colored hair from the other bundles of students and walk over to him as calmly as you could. It’s better to do the things you know that you’ll be asked to do before they happen, so…you got this. And you’re only doing it because you know you’ll be asked to and totally not because you like Floyd maybe a little. That’s not it. Definitely not it. He’s scary why would you like him? Exactly. Anyways! No sweat! It’s just Floyd…that’s it! Just Floyd and no worries…everything will go swell and you’ll all be happy again! Maybe he’ll break a few ribs when he squeezes you but that’s nothing…you’ll just be magicked up later by the nurse mage and you’ll be just fine. Just fine. You’re sweating. Shit—

“Hey, Floyd. What happened.” You sigh with a slight pout on your face. He doesn’t even look at you, his face contorting even more into a look that said “leave me the fuck alone.” It was worth a shot…he usually found that to be a dumb look on you but I guess not today. Oh no. He’s royally pissed right now. Hopefully Azul didn’t sneak a waiver somewhere in that working contract you signed…

You straighten up and glance at the other chefs in the kitchen, all of them giving you questioning gazes. One in the back clasps his hands together and bows his head and— wait, is this guy really praying right now? Geez…

“Floyd…” you try again.

He works away harder at the random meal he’s cooking. The contents already looked charred…

“Don’t wanna talk, Shrimpy,” He huffs, “Go.” He says gruffly.

“I’m not gonna go—“

“I’m busy! Since Azul wants me working my fins off then you know what, I’ll do just that!” He spits out. It sounds threatening, filled with warnings, but before you could try one last time to get him to ease up, one of the students bumps into him, sending the dishes they were carrying flying into the air. The guy stumbles back, food splattering on the floor and plates shattering, Floyd acting like a brick wall and staying still as he slowly turns to look down at him. No words are exchanged. None at all. He simply dumps the hot oil and food that he had into the pan onto him.

Screaming, yelling, a lot goes on within the span of a few seconds. Azul comes in, Jade follows behind, other waiters peer into the kitchen to see what’s going on.

You take the initiative and you grab Floyd’s arm while he’s distracted and take the pan from out of his grasp and set it back down on the stove. You turn the burner off and you look back at him, then to the, now injured, guy upon the floor.

“Floyd. This is coming out of your check, and you’re banned from the kitchen.” Azul comes over quickly with an aura of anger. Floyd rolls his eyes and pushes past him to walk out.

“Prefect, go after him, will you? I don’t need him hurting another person who doesn’t deserve it.” Azul waves his hand at the situation. It was common so no one really took much time to dwell on it since Floyd partook in these types of activities just to pass the time. A common occurrence if you will.

Azul gives you one last stern glance to tell you again silently to go do what he had asked of you. You reluctantly nod and you go out to search for him. It’s absurd, really, having to do all of this. It’d be better if they left him alone to blow off some steam, but no, you have to go calm him down, you have to be the one to watch him like a helicopter parent.

You go to the tweels shared room and knock on the door. It was a just a guess he’d be in his room, but you silently hoped he wasn’t so you’d have some time to avoid either a life or death situation. You liked your life at least a little now…

Silence. You’re met with silence. Ok, try again, just once more to make sure he’s not in there. You knock again, a little louder this time and announcing yourself to being there. And silence again. Maybe fate is helping you out today…

“Floyd? Are you in there?.” You’re about to knock one last time when the door is quickly ripped open, an angry Floyd peering down at you. Brows furrowed, eyes squinted and dark, glazed over with frustration and anger, a scowl etched into his lips. Yep…and here you were, standing in front of him, practically helpless and without anywhere to run because you know he’d find that a fun game and catch up to you in a second.

You straighten up under his gaze and clear the lump in your throat that you didn’t even know formed.

“Hey…”

Floyd doesn’t make any noises, instead opting for what he likes to do when he’s this mad, and wraps his arms around you and squeezes tight. He brings you into the room and closes the door with his foot, going over to his bed and taking you down with him as he nuzzles his cheek against yours.

You try and squirm out of his arms but he’s insanely strong and the efforts you make are useless. You’re already waiting for your back to make a popping noise…

“Floyd— heyyyy…let me go.” You murmur out as you struggle to breathe with all this extra weight on top of you.

“Shhh, Shrimpy. Quiet.” He mutters. He moves his face to the crook of your neck, his warm breath fanning against the side, which in turn causes you to tense up. What the fuck is he doing. You try to shrink away, but that was a mistake because he squeezes you against him even more.

He brushes his lips over your pulse point and smirks, but it quickly fades away as he opts to keep his face pressed up against your neck, not doing anything. He likes to feel your heart racing…

“Always trying to make me feel better, Shrimpy…” he sighs. “And you do…meh, sometimes…you don’t have to listen to Azul…but ya do. Starting to wonder if you just like being around me…” he nuzzles into you again, teeth grazing your skin.

“For one, I kinda have to listen to Azul…” you whisper. “I can’t be like you with him. Plus…I don’t mind you all that much since—“ he squeezes again. For sevens sake. “Ease up! I don’t mind you, yea…you’re fine to be around. That’s it.”

“Liar…” he chuckles. “You’re so silly…” he pulls his face up and looks at you, his mismatched eyes calculating, inspecting that gaze in your eyes towards him.

“You’re stupid, too…for liking someone like me. But it’s so cute, Shrimpy.” His lips quirk up into a smirk and he bears his razor sharp teeth to you. “I could easily hurt you, Shrimpy….”

“That sounds vaguely like a threat but…you don’t really hurt me— not ever actually. Scare me? Yes…but not hurt.” you murmur. His smile softens a bit and he nods, moving his forehead to rest against yours. If you weren’t already flushed, you were now.

“No…but I could, that’s the point.” He giggles before moving away again. He was teasing. “Do you know why I don’t?” He hums as he sits up, letting his arms unravel from around you. He looks out the window connected to the sea. You sit up as well, taking in a well deserved breath of air.

He’s silent for a moment, watching as the fish pass by without a care. Your uniform is all wrinkled now, great—

“Cause I’d be kinda pissed off without you around, y’know. And not just how I usually am…I’d be mad all the time.”

You stop. He stops and looks at you. You make very awkward eye contact with him, but both of your gazes soften. That’s sweet of him in his own way. Quite frankly you didn’t think he was capable of that since it’s not usually like him. Why is your heart beating a bit quicker now? This time it’s not so much out of stress or the fear of being eaten alive, Floyd looks fairly sated so…what’s this feeling for…

“What do you think of me, hmmm?”

You don’t know how to respond to that. Does he actually care what people think? No, not really. You see that all the time with how he even talks to teachers. But if you had to say, the few people he listens to, slightly, are Jade, Azul, and…you. That doesn’t mean anything! This is an odd question coming from him. “I think you’re…ok. Being around you is fun sometimes…uh…I don’t really know.” That’s great. You probably ticked him off more…

“Just ‘ok’? Ouch, Shrimpy…” he pouts as he looks at you. He inches his face closer to yours again, personal space being far out of the question at the moment. He looks down to your lips before smirking again and then locking on to your eyes.

“You just saying that cause you’re hiding something?”

That’s not…you weren’t, no. Definitely not. You didn’t really want to say how well he made you smile or laugh on days where you were down, or that he cared that much to make you happy again. Or whenever he’d always seem to find you to be his go to person to bug now for, well, everything he did.…you didn’t wanna say you liked getting him out of trouble, didn’t want to tell him you do enjoy being around him, he’d get all smug about it…and that’s it! Totally nothing else behind it. Nope.

“Be honest, Shrimpy. You like me? Cause I like you…for some reason.” He sighs. He moves closer again.

Kinda straight forward, no?

“What…huh?! WAIT WHAT?” you manage to stammer out. Floyd nods along to your words with an unimpressed look.

“I like you.”

“I heard you the first time!”

“Do you like me?”

“Ok…well…no! Wait…maybe? Yes? How do I even answer that right away?!” You’re freaking out and he’s enjoying it.

His smirk widens again and he laughs at you…this guy.

“See? Silly Shrimpy…” his arms lace back around you and his face is right in front of yours again.

Without taking anything else into consideration, Floyd pushes his lips against yours.

You don’t move, you don’t try and push him away, and out of all the times Floyd has ever given you a chance to stop him in any of his acts, you could tell this moment was one of them. His eyes are still locked onto yours, lidded and a smirk forming, gaging your reaction. His arms barely touch your body, giving you a chance to get the fuck out if you’d want to. But you don’t move away. You push your lips against his more and you flutter your eyes closed. Floyd takes the hint and he holds you again, though this time, it’s gentle.

After a moment you both pull away, a goofy grin across his face. “Hmmmm…” he giggles, “I feel a lot better now, Shrimpy. See? I’m bored now…cmon, let’s go somewhere and ditch that stupid work Azul’s got us doing…”

So! Wasn’t the best, yes, I know, but it’s something…

Also I feel like some parts from my courting fic for Floyd wiggled its way in here—

Master List

Please don’t steal or copy any of my work! You may, however, reblog if you’d want to!

Pictures belong to Disney Twisted Wonderland but are edited by me :)

[yandere-romanticaa]

she walks in beauty.

🎀 Today is Diluc's birthday. However, instead of focusing on himself, he can't help but to fall into his usual lovesick trap of gentle obsession.

yandere! diluc ragnvidr x fem! reader.

Ever since he was a young lad, Diluc could recall every single banquet and celebration which was hosted by the Dawn Winery estate. He could still sense the smell of various colorful liquors and taste the endless sea of pastries and cakes which were served at such events, making the inner child in him smile.

However, Diluc was no longer a young child.

Ever since the passing of his father, the need to throw any grand banquets was thoroughly diminished. While yes, there were certain things he could not avoid due to societal expectations, he still made the decision to keep things to an absolute minimum.

His birthday was not one of them. At least, not by his choice.

Everyone and their mother knew what day it was today and Diluc lost count with how many birthday wishes and gifts he had received. He was a little touched with the plethora of people who wanted him nothing other than joy, but those same people quickly became a nuisance because he could not seem to be with the one he actually wanted to be with today.

And there stood Diluc, hidden in the shadowy hallway as he watched his beloved prepare for the upcoming festivities. With both his arms crossed and his left side pressed firmly against the dark wood doorframe, Diluc decided in that moment that there was nowhere else he'd rather be than here.

His red eyes watched you thoroughly like a hawk, making sure to remember the ravishing scenery before him.

As much as you disliked his gifts, you didn't have a choice but to accept them this evening. The gentle sapphire necklace hung around your neck perfectly, the fine silver glimmering gently beneath the flickering candle flames. Diluc's gaze quickly shifted to your arms as they toyed with the various strands of hair at the top of your head, carefully adjusting the matching pin he had gotten you not too long ago.

He felt his heart skip a beat once he caught a glimpse of the wedding ring on your finger, causing him to nearly lose his composure and blow his cover altogether. His own ring seemed to come alive as he felt it around his finger, seemingly pulsing with a firey need to just take you, to see the light in your eyes, to beg you to please forgive him-

Even now, he could still hear you weep, for each tear felt like a stab straight into his bleeding heart.

Please, don't lock me away, you pleaded.

"I will be with no one but you. I will give you everything you desire but please Diluc-

Do not keep me as a prisoner!"

He sighed as he fidgeted with his gloved fingers. Diluc hated himself for doing this to you, for making you so utterly miserable. He was the one who took you away, it was him who had stolen that precious smile away from you. If you had been a normal couple perhaps this evening could have been more bearable. Perhaps he could have even enjoyed it, with you by his side.

But that was not how things were going to play out.

Diluc was stuck in a Hell of his own making. Every single tear that you had shed and will shed - that was all on him. Money can buy a lot of things but your love was not one of them. A new surge of determination was born deep inside of Diluc on that night of his birthday and he finally knew what his wish was.

He wished to make amends. Perhaps he could learn to live without your love, even if the mere thought made his teeth shake in fury and heart cry out in blind sorrow.

But he needed you to know that you were loved. He needed you to know that he was going to keep you safe. He was going to love you until his very last breath and even then, he would wait for the day of your sweet forgiveness.

🥀 TAGS: @genshinarchives, @mod-kisa-blog, @juuuuuj101010, @kalopses-sonderes, @mayulli, @b10h4z4rd, @xiaopleasecomehome, @saturnalya, @alatusprinz, @lakxcpsta, @mewmeowmika, @ranposgirlboss, @goldenglow149

Happy birthday to this wonderful man. He was my first ever husband in Genshin Impact, he deserves something extra sweet from yours truly.

[intoanotherworld23]

Slow Burning Desire

Summary: Marcus Acacius is known for his quick brutality on the battlefield, but when it comes to making love with you he’s the complete opposite 

Warnings: explicit content, mature themes, smut, unprotected sex, cheating themes, infidelity, slightly dominant Marcus, submissive reader, minor spanking, dirty talk

A/N: Welp holy hell after seeing Gladiator 2 last weekend it’s been on my mind since then, and it’s all I can think about so before I have a complete mental breakdown over it I of course have to write something! I plan on doing one for Paul Mescal who played Lucius next. If you wish to be added to my Pedro tag list don’t hesitate to ask I would be more than happy to add you! Thanks everyone so much and enjoy! XOXO

Hall Of Hunks

Tag list for Pedro Pascal: @pedrohoe04 @k-k0129 @livingdeadmaria @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @milly-louise @kittenlittle24 @trisaratops-mcgee @subconsciouscollapse @hooked-on-penapascal27 @red-red-rogue @fellinfromthetop @drewharrisonwriter @vickie5446 @millerfan @lover-of-books-and-tea @bbyanarchist @justajoelsreader

Tag list for everything: @iam-laiya @rosie-posie08 @madzleigh01 @alwaysclassyeagle @mytbel0st @shanimallina87 @marvelstarker-mha98 @powellssugarbaby @lora21 @kmc1989

"That's it nice and slow. Take your time my lady." Marcus’s low voice whispers in your ear as you sink down on his length. Hands on his shoulders to keep yourself upright. Gasping as you feel your walls stretching around him. Adjusting to how thick he really is and enjoying the feeling.

Turning your gaze to the stone wall trying to avoid his intense stare across your face. Biting down on your arm to return your attention back to him. Chuckling at how shy you suddenly become with such an intimate moment. Leaning forward more to feel your chest against his so your hearts beat as one.

"Can you feel all of me?" Keeping his voice just above a whisper not wanting the guards or other servants to hear.

"Yes, Marcus." Mumbling while lifting your hips up just above the tip before pushing him back in. Hands on the fat of your ass squeezing the flesh softly in his palms.

"Does my angel want more of her general?" Nodding your head worried nothing but moans and gasps would slip out. Your fists now tugging on the nape of his hair fingernails scratching along his neck sure to leave a mark. Marcus didn't mind in the least bit.

Stroking soothing circles on your skin as he raised his hips to get a deeper angle. He's warm and soft and incredibly deep. Feeling his lips glide across your face as you flex your muscles to lift your legs. Both creating a rhythmic motion so you two were in sync.

"Take it easy my love do not hurt yourself." He directs you while he pats your ass in warning. Of course you're so lost in the feeling of his cock. The candles illuminating your bodies casting shadows around the room.

"I need you Marcus." You plea with him pathetically that tears start to form in your eyes. He hated to see you in so much pain that you had to beg him. "Please I can’t take this much more."

"I'm right here my lady. I'm not going anywhere." Reassuring you with a loving smile on his face showing off his dimples. Gripping your hips to drill his pelvis directly up into yours. His brows furrowing in concentration as he could feel you squeezing him so tightly. Like you were afraid he would leave and you would be empty.

"I- I need you." Choking out as you looked into his dark brown eyes that were glazed over. It was like you were the only person in this world, and all you had was each other. Both of you living in this moment like it was the last.

"By the gods so desperate for me." His voice dripping like honey so sweet and infectious it had you melting in the palm of his hand. One of his hands wedging between your sweaty bodies to connect with your puffy clit. Circling the sensitive nub hoping to get you closer to your orgasm.

Resting your head on his shoulder feeling the stretch of your thighs as it began to burn. Marcus could see you struggling to keep up with his thrusting. Taking matters into his own hands as his arms clasped behind your back and he began to buck into you. Pressing his lips together and holding his breath to the point his face turned beet red.

"Oh gods just like that." Encouraging him as he hit that sweet spot directly now causing your body to stiffen.

Flexing his abdomen as he ruts into you feeling him all the way in your stomach rigid and hard. With this comfortable position that he kept you in grateful that he was able to give you what you wanted. Marcus felt like he was in control and he became drunk on the power.

"Fuck my cock it's all yours." Walls clamping down at his crude words snickering at your reaction. Marcus looking at your unbelievably disheveled face even when you were a sweaty mess he still thought you looked beautiful. It was his favorite look on you. "All I want is to feel is you release around me.”

Crying out as you gripped onto Marcus’s body like your life depended on it. Toes curling as your whole body shook and crumbled into a heaping mess. Chest rising and falling with each quick breath. Stomach trembling with the resounding orgasm that you had just experienced. It was intense and overpowering you felt like you might pass out. Your cunt sore from the beating that you just took stretching you out.

His touch so gentle and comforting as he helped ease you through your release. Soft kisses up and down your shoulders as he rubbed his fingers nimbly up and down your back. This was the Marcus that you loved so delicate with you and enjoying every inch of you.

"Took me so well, my stunning Venus. Such a good fucking woman for me." Praises whispered in your ear as he remained still inside of you neither of you wanting to move. Smiling lazily at him as you relax into his arms ready to stay like this for the rest of your life.

[ao3commentoftheday]

ao3 skins faq

Just a few answers to questions I've seen in the notes on this poll

What is a site skin? A site skin is CSS code that changes the way AO3 looks. This could be anything from changing the page colour to the font to the way tags look to hiding parts of the site - and more.

Where do I find site skins? There are a few places. The easiest one is in the site footer (that red band at the bottom of the page). There are four skins linked there under the word Customize, and you can click on them to see what they do. Another place to find skins is https://archiveofourown.org/skins?skin_type=Site Those skins were created years ago and loaded into AO3 for easy applicaiton. Just hit the Use button and they'll be applied to your account. Lastly, you can find skins created by other AO3 users. Some people post their code on AO3 itself, some use github or other code repositories. A lot of folks share their skins here on tumblr with images and then a link to the code itself.

How do I save them to my account? If you're using the ones in the footer or the ones linked on the Public Skins page, you don't need to save them. Those are built into AO3. If you want to create your own (or use one created by another user), that's when you save them to your account. Tap on your name at the top of the Ao3 page. Then select Dashboard, then select Skins. Tap the button labelled Create Site Skin and give your skin a unique name. Write or paste the CSS code into the big box, then hit the Submit button to save it. If you want to use it right away, hit the Use button on the next page.

What's the difference between a Work Skin and a Site Skin? A work skin changes the appearance of an individual AO3 work, and it changes it for everyone who looks at that work. This lets you turn your fic into something that looks like an email or a text chain or a newspaper, etc etc without having to use images. Work skins can also be turned off by other users, so if they just want to read the plain text of your work they still can. A site skin changes how the entire site looks - but only for you.

How do you have 100+ site skins?? I start a lot of skins that I abandon partway through. I also create skins for certain specific purposes - for example, changing the look of all of the buttons on the site - and then I can just grab that chunk of code and add it to any "full" site skins I create for the purposes of sharing. I have a lot of experiments that fail, but I keep the code around because maybe I'll learn how to fix it someday.

Can I create my own site skin if I don't know how to code? You can! AO3 has a site skin Wizard that will help you change the colours, fonts, and font sizes on the site. Go to your Dashboard > Skins > Create Site Skin and then tap on Use Wizard. Give your skin a unique title. Click on the ? bubbles to get examples of how to enter information into each box. If there's anything you don't want to change, you can just leave that box empty. When you add in colours, they must be hex colour codes, and they must include the # at the start. Any font you add need to exist on your device (so it might work on your computer but not on your phone because your phone doesn't have that font installed). You can add parent skins to Wizard skins, too. See below!

I wish I could have [X functionality] in [Y aesthetic skin] You can! If you create one site skin in order to block certain works or tags, you can add that skin on top of an aesthetic skin. To do so, edit your aesthetic skin, scroll down and tap on the Advanced button (lower left of the CSS box), tap on Parent Skin, type in the name of your blocking skin and Add Parent Skin. Then save your aesthetic skin, and the two are combined! You can also do this with those skins that are native to AO3. So for example, you want a Reversi (dark mode) skin that Shortens Long Tags and also hides the "you have muted some users" banner. Create a site skin with the muted users code:

p.muted.notice { display: none; } And add Reversi and Shortening Long Tag Fields to it as parents. (you can also copy/paste all of the code into a single site skin, if you'd prefer)

For more FAQs, you can check out the Skins & Archive Interface section on AO3's FAQ page. Or you can drop questions in the notes, too.

[inseobts]

Fire in Our Hearts

portgas d. ace x fem!reader

after a painful breakup ace and you are forced to face everything unsaid — in a night of anger, longing, and love that neither of you can walk away from.

a/n: second attempt at writing smut, and second failure lmao sorry

words count: 2.3k

tags: no graphic body part descriptions, breakup, jealousy, argument, mild smut (it's just spicy), angst to fluff

masterlist || ao3 || ko-fi

The sun burns high over the Moby Dick, but the air between you and Ace is heavier than a storm.

“You never listen to me” you snap, arms tight around yourself.

Ace stands there, frowning “I don’t need you telling me how to live my life.”

You feel your heart break a little “I’m not trying to control you! I just want you to be careful!”

Ace scoffs, turning his head like he can’t even look at you and that hurts more than anything.

You take a shaky breath, then say the words you can’t take back “Then you’re better off without me. So you can do whatever the hell you want.”

Ace freezes. You wait for him to say something. Anything.

But he doesn’t. He just stands there, silent.

Your chest tightens painfully. You laugh, but there’s no humor in it.

“Fine,” you say, voice cracking “Have it your way.”

You turn and walk away and Ace doesn’t follow.

And just like that, it’s over.

A week later…

The ship docks at a lively island. Whitebeard gives everyone a day off to party. You wish you could stay in your room, but Marco pulls you out by the arm.

“Come on, you’ll feel better after a few drinks” he says.

You don’t argue. You’re too tired to argue.

The tavern is packed, music loud and messy. The crew drinks and laughs, filling the place with noise. You sit at a corner table, nursing a drink, trying not to look at Ace. Trying and failing.

He’s across the room, leaning back in his chair, relaxed. Too relaxed.

That’s when you see two girls, pretty and smiling, slide into the seats beside him. They giggle, touching his arm, whispering in his ear.

And Ace... let them do it.

He smiles a little, says something you can’t hear. One of the girls leans closer, brushing her chest against him.

Your stomach twists.

You slam your drink down harder than you mean to. Some beer splashes over the edge.

Thatch whistles low beside you “Ouch. Looks like he’s moving on fast.”

You glare at him. Thatch raises his hands like he’s innocent.

You can’t stay here. Not another second.

You get up fast, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. Without a word, you push through the crowd and stumble out the door.

The cold night air hits you hard. You breathe in deep, trying to stop the burning in your chest.

“Stupid,” you whisper “I’m so stupid.”

You wipe your eyes quickly. You’re halfway back to the ship when you hear footsteps behind you.

You spin around.

Ace.

He’s jogging after you, face serious.

“What do you want?” you snap, voice sharp.

Ace stops a few feet away, breathing hard “We need to talk.”

You cross your arms “Oh, now you want to talk?”

He frowns “You just ran out! What was I supposed to do?”

You laugh bitterly “Maybe not flirt with the first girl who smiled at you!”

“I wasn’t flirting!”

“Oh yeah? Looked like you were having fun!”

Ace steps closer, eyes burning “You were the one who said we’re better off apart! You’re the one who walked away!”

You feel your whole body shaking.

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt!” you shout “It killed me, Ace! And you just—you just sat there! Like you didn’t care!”

Ace opens his mouth, then closes it. He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he says, voice low “I didn’t want to lose you. I just… froze.”

You glare at him, breathing hard “Well. You lost me anyway.”

The space between you is full of all the things you didn’t say. All the things you should have said.

Ace takes another step closer. You don’t move away.

“You think I don’t miss you?” he says, voice rough “Every damn day?”

You feel the tears threaten to spill again. But you don’t look away.

“And you think I don’t miss you?” you whisper.

For a long second, neither of you speak. The night is too quiet. Your heart pounds loud in your ears.

Ace’s hand twitches at his side.

You know if he touches you now, you’ll break... but you really want him to.

You stand there, fists clenched at your sides, heart hammering in your chest.

“You don’t get it, Ace!” you yell, voice cracking “You don’t get how much it hurt! You acted like I meant nothing! Like you didn’t even care if I left!”

Ace’s jaw tightens “That’s not true—”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?!” you shout, louder this time “Why didn’t you chase after me, Ace?!”

Your voice shakes, broken “You’re supposed to fight for the people you love!”

Ace looks like you just punched him in the gut.

For a second, he doesn’t move. Then he crosses the space between you in two fast steps.

You’re about to yell again, to push him away, to scream everything you’ve been holding in but Ace grabs your face in his hands and crashes his mouth onto yours.

You gasp, stiff for a moment, shocked.

Then you melt against him.

The kiss is rough, desperate, full of all the anger and love you couldn’t say in words. His hands tangle in your hair, pulling you closer, closer, like he’s scared you’ll vanish if he lets go.

You clutch at his shirt, fists twisting in the fabric, holding onto him like you’re drowning.

Ace groans low in his throat, deepening the kiss. His lips are hot and wild against yours, like he’s trying to pour all his feelings into you at once.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard, faces inches apart.

Ace leans his forehead against yours.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice wrecked “I’m so damn sorry.”

Tears blur your eyes, but you smile a little, shaky “You’re such an idiot.”

He chuckles, broken and soft “Yeah. But I’m your idiot. If you’ll still have me.”

You don’t answer, you just kiss him again, harder this time.

He lifts you up without warning, making you yelp against his mouth. You wrap your legs around his waist, clinging to him like you’ll never let go again.

Ace carries you, half-stumbling, back toward the ship. Neither of you cares who sees. The crew’s probably still too drunk to notice anyway.

He doesn’t even make it to your room. He pushes you up against the first wall he finds, kissing you like he’s starving.

Your hands fumble at his open shirt, pushing it off his shoulders. His skin is burning hot under your touch, like he’s made of fire.

Ace groans again, mouth trailing down your neck, teeth scraping lightly at your skin.

“God, I missed you” he breathes against your throat.

You grip his hair, pulling his head up to look at you “Then show me.”

His eyes darken, full of heat and something deeper, something that feels a lot like love.

Ace kisses you again, slower this time, but just as hungry. His hands roam your body, careful and rough all at once.

You lose yourself in him.

In his touch.

In his heat.

In him.

“Fuck” Ace breathes against your mouth. His hands move lower, squeezing your ass, lifting you up without warning.

You gasp and wrap your legs around his waist, locking yourself to him. You can feel him, hard against you, even through your clothes.

Your hands fumble at the few buttons left of his shirt, pushing it fully off his shoulders. His skin is hot, burning under your fingers.

You run your hands over his chest, nails scraping lightly. Ace shivers under your touch, eyes dark and wild.

He grabs the hem of your shirt and tugs “Off. Now.”

You lift your arms and let him yank it over your head. The cool night air kisses your skin, but Ace’s hands are warmer. His palms slide up your sides, thumbs brushing over your breasts through your bra, making you shudder.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful” he whispers, voice rough like gravel.

You kiss him again, messy and hungry. Ace’s mouth trails down your neck, licking and biting, leaving marks he knows you’ll see later.

“Need you,” he groans against your skin “Need you so bad.”

You clutch his hair, dragging his head back up to kiss you again.

“Then take me” you whisper.

That’s all he needs.

Ace pins you harder against the wall, one hand slipping down between your bodies, his fingers brush over your panties, pressing just enough to make your hips jerk forward.

You whimper into his mouth.

Ace chuckles darkly “So needy.”

Now you shove his pants down too, hands greedy. His skin is hot everywhere. When you finally touch him properly, Ace groans so deep it vibrates against your chest.

He kisses you again, desperate, messy, almost too much.

Almost.

Ace pauses, forehead pressed to yours, breathing hard.

“Tell me you want this” he says, voice shaking.

You look him straight in the eyes “I want you, Ace. Always.”

With a low growl, he pushes into you, filling you all at once. You both moan at the feeling.

It’s messy, rushed, raw... years of love and pain and need crashing together.

Ace moves fast, hips snapping against yours, hands holding you like you’re his whole world. You bury your face in his neck, biting down to muffle your cries.

When you finally fall apart in his arms, crying out his name, Ace follows right after, holding you so tight it almost hurts.

But you don’t care. You never want him to let go again.

You don’t know how long you stay wrapped around each other against the wall.

Time blurs. Your body is weak, trembling, but you don’t care. You only feel his skin against yours, his arms around you, his breath warm on your neck.

He sets you down gently, like you’re something precious.

You cling to his shoulders a second longer, legs shaky. Ace kisses your forehead, soft and slow, so different from the way he kissed you before.

“Come here” he murmurs.

He scoops you up again, carrying you bridal. You bury your face against his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat pounding fast under your ear.

Ace carries you up to your shared room on the ship.

He kicks the door open with his foot, laughing softly when you squeak in surprise.

“Relax” he says, voice teasing but full of love.

He lays you down on the bed carefully, following you down, covering your body with his.

You shiver, even though you’re not cold.

Ace notices. He grabs a blanket, pulling it over both of you before wrapping his arms tight around you again.

For a while, neither of you says anything. You just breathe together in the dark, feeling each other’s warmth.

Then, quietly, Ace speaks “I’m sorry.”

You tilt your head up, meeting his eyes.

He looks wrecked, like he’s scared you’ll leave again.

You touch his face gently “I’m sorry too.”

Ace leans into your hand, kissing your palm. Then he says it... so soft you almost don’t hear.

“I love you.”

Your heart stutters.

You blink up at him. His cheeks are pink, his eyes shining like he’s terrified and hopeful all at once.

You smile, a real one this time.

“I love you too, Ace.”

He lets out a shaky breath, like he’s been holding it forever. Then he kisses you again, slow and deep, hands sliding up and down your back under the blanket.

“Never leaving you again,” he mumbles against your lips “Even if you try to kick me out.”

You giggle, nuzzling closer “Good. ’Cause I’m not letting you go either.”

Ace grins, that wide, stupid smile you fell in love with.

He tucks your head under his chin and hugs you tighter. You feel his whole body relax against yours, like he’s finally home.

You drift off to sleep in his arms, warm, safe, and loved.

For the first time in what feels like forever, everything is right again.

The sun slips through the curtains, warm and soft.

You groan, trying to roll over but you can’t move.

Ace has you trapped, one heavy arm around your waist, one leg thrown over yours, face buried in your neck. He’s snoring softly, breath tickling your skin.

You squirm a little “Ace… let me go, it’s hot.”

“No,” he mumbles, voice hoarse with sleep “Mine.”

You laugh under your breath, heart full. You poke his cheek “We need to get up. The crew’s gonna notice.”

Ace groans dramatically “Let them.”

He tightens his arms around you like a giant, overgrown koala.

You sigh, smiling. You’re not really trying to escape anyway.

There’s a loud bang against the door.

“Oi, lovebirds!” Thatch shouts from outside “You alive in there, or did you die from all the action last night?”

You slap a hand over your mouth to keep from laughing. Ace groans louder and buries his face deeper against you.

“Go away!” he yells toward the door, voice muffled against your neck.

Another bang.

“We’re takin’ bets if you both can even walk after what you did!” Marco’s voice adds, laughing.

Your face burns hot. You shove your head under the blanket, groaning.

Ace chuckles low against you, his hand sneaking under your shirt again, teasing circles into your hip.

“They’re just jealous” he murmurs.

You peek out from the blanket, raising an eyebrow “Jealous of what?”

Ace smirks lazily, looking like the smug bastard he is.

“Because I’ve got the most beautiful girl in the world… and she’s all mine.”

You roll your eyes, trying not to melt, but you can’t stop smiling.

Another loud bang.

“Seriously! Breakfast’s getting cold! Unless you two are planning to eat each other instead—”

“WE’RE COMING!” you yell back, red-faced.

Ace snickers, clearly very pleased with himself.

You grab a pillow and smack him in the face with it. But even then, he just grins wider, grabbing you around the waist again, dragging you down into the bed with him.

“Five more minutes,” he begs, voice soft against your ear “Please.”

You sigh dramatically, but you don’t move.

Maybe five more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Maybe forever wouldn’t either.

[leonw4nter]

Like or Like Like?

RE2R!Leon x Singlemom!F!Reader

“Will Leon finally come with us to school tomorrow?” Dash quietly asks, interrupting the silence that settled over the both of you as you were just about to fall asleep. You look down and are greeted by open eyes, his little head propped up on your arm as he snuggles up with a teddy bear.

“He was busy the last time and the time before that but he said he’ll make it up to us,” he added. “Did you ask him again? He might’ve forgotten about tomorrow.”

You stroke his hair, pressing a light kiss to his hairline as you try to lull him to sleep.

“Mhm, he said that he’s good to go tomorrow. Leon’s excited coz it’s going to be his first time tomorrow,” you say in a hushed tone. You don’t need to open your eyes to know that he’s grinning wide, too excited to fall asleep easily now.

“I should go ask Leon–”

“No, he’s probably asleep in his own room. It’ll be impolite to disturb him, right?” you ask in a sing-song voice.

“Yeah,” he mutters somewhat dejectedly though not upset about the fact.

“How about tomorrow morning instead, over breakfast?”

He nods and mumbles a quick goodnight, turning over to face the wall as he wills himself to fall asleep.

If his father was still in the picture, he would be the one accompanying the both of you to tomorrow’s parent-teacher conference. Unfortunately he bowed out of the picture as soon as you were discharged, nowhere to be found until you heard that he was probably somewhere tropical on a boat with another woman. You were left behind lost and directionless, confused on how to raise a baby alone; you really thought that you were set with him and your small family but people always change, no matter the circumstance. Fortunately, you have a doting childhood best friend who was ready to step into the picture as a stand-in for a father figure despite having little to no experience with little kids, much less newborns: Leon. He was young as well but he took his part seriously and practically raised your bundle of joy alongside you– volunteering to wake up at various points at night for feeding, bathing, and tagging along for monthly check-ups. His bond with Dash is so close that upon first look, people often assumed that the two were biologically related. Teething was far from easy– many nights Dash's crying seemed endless with a steady flow of tears, nothing seemed to calm him down yet he stayed patient and helped you throughout. Now, he’s happy that the baby that once puked on his blues is growing up to be a strong and cheerful child.

Leon did everything he could to be there just so Dash could feel that he had a complete set of parents during family activities. He dismissed the judgemental glances of other mothers upon seeing the three of you, you and him looking far younger than everyone else but he could care less– what do they know about your family anyway? The blond promised the kid that he would come along for the first parent-teacher conference but unfortunately he was paged in for an important shift, one that he couldn’t refuse so he had to apologize profusely and promise another time. Much to his dismay, he was placed in another important shift and couldn’t opt out once more. As much as he praised and appreciated the kid’s display of maturity and understanding, he felt like a real jerk for being unable to stick to his promise the second time around even if he couldn’t do anything about it. You assured him that it’s all fine and that he can make up for it through other things, like taking him for a walk in the park or getting him a new toy. As soon as you show him the circular for the third meeting, he spends the entire week heavily wishing that nothing goes wrong within the week so he can finally be there for the kid he considers his son. In his excitement, he digs out a rare-used light blue button up and navy blue slacks, ironing them and asking if they’re appropriate for the occasion if paired with white sneakers.

The car is buzzing with excitement and positivity, you and Dash sat together at the back while Leon drives. Dash’s favorite songs are playing on the radio, courtesy of Leon asking him to list down his favorites so he can have them burned into a CD so he’ll have something to put on when your sweet little boy goes on a ride with him. His gaze flits from the road to the rear view mirror, chuckling quietly to himself when he sees the two of you engage in a lively conversation. Both of your laughter is unguarded and free of self-consciousness, a hearty and throaty sound straight from the heart; your lips are pulled back to form a smile that rivals the sun, your cheeks lift and forms two round apples with a beauty and glow that prompts him to release a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Leon thinks that undeniably, Dash is a 100 percent a mama’s boy: the tilt of his grin is like yours, along with your habit of tilting your head back with every bubbly laugh, and the tendency to clap your hands. In no time, Leon arrives at the school’s parking lot and finds an empty space to park in.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

“I see that dad’s here,” Mrs. Perkins comments as she sees Dash carried in Leon’s arms. She softly smiles, offering a seat to the both of you before extending her hand to shake his. You and Leon take a moment to exchange flustered sheepish looks, matching rosy flushes reddening your cheeks and the tips of your ears. Dash grins and giggles, covering his grin with his hand as he looks on at this adorably awkward scene unfold.

“He’s not–”

“I’m not–”

The teacher looks at the both of you and chuckles softly as she clasps her hands together. “Yes?”

“I’m Dash’s uncle, actually– his mom’s best friend. I’m Leon Kennedy by the way,” he awkwardly clarifies as he shakes her hand.

“Ooh, good day mister Kennedy! It’s nice to see you.”

Mrs. Perkins doesn’t appear to buy the whole ‘mom’s best friend’ thing, shooting you two a knowing look before she pulls her hand back from the handshake and gestures for you both to take a seat.

The meet-up goes well; the teacher is full of praise and pride in your son’s academic performance; she remarks that he is quite bright for his age– he knows a lot of words that his peers don’t know yet, asks questions atypical for his age, and is very well-known for his creativity when it comes to arts and crafts activities. Leon’s heart only swells even more when he notices that you’ve reached over to hold his hand, squeezing rhythmically. He breaks his gaze from the teacher to take a moment and study your face; your dimples– two perfect indentations in the side of both cheeks– appear as you try to press your lips into a tight smile though he notes the expressive shimmer in your eyes, your joy contagious. He can’t help but let  out a soft chuckle, squeezing your hand back. He gives the little boy a high-five before ruffling his head in a display of affection.

“We’ve got a little Einstein in our hands,” Leon jokes once the teacher concludes her remarks. “Well done bud, we’re proud of you!”

As a reward for his academic performance, you and Leon treat him to ice cream. Though you’re taking initiative to pay for the snack since you can afford to do so, Leon persists on paying for everyone. After a little while, Dash insists on going to the playground and you both agree to let him play for a few hours until he wants to stop. Your best friend insists on being the one to watch over, giving you time to sit down and rest up for a bit while Leon plays and runs around with your son, madly entertaining Dash. An hour or two later, the pair returns back to you for a water break to catch their breaths for a moment. As you wipe your son’s little face, he asks a question.

“Mama, why isn’t Leon my dad?” He asks in such an innocent voice. You hear a muffled choke come from your side, a tomato-faced Leon trying to conceal his coughing. “Doesn’t he want to be my dad? He’s here for both of us and he loves us too.”

You stare at him with a surprised expression while Leon clears his throat, clearly just as taken aback as you. Children are such upfront little people.

“Leon, you love us right?” He asks with expectant eyes.

“Yes, buddy. So, so much.”

You look up at Leon and give him a soft smile and he returns a shaky yet genuine smile of his own.

“Mom, do you love Leon?”

“What? Of course I do! He’s my best friend! We’ve been friends ever since we were as small as you were! Right, Leon?”

“Yup! We’re just very close friends, we care for each other y’know.” A pang rattles Leon’s heart– whatever you said shouldn’t sting this much but it does and he feels embarrassed. “I’ll just throw this bottle. I’ll be back guys.”

You watch as Leon walks over to the bin, the sweat on his hair glistening under the afternoon sun. It’s only right for you to hand him a towel and get him some more water.

“Even Mrs. Perkins thinks he’s my dad,” Dash quietly mumbles to himself as he fumbles with his shoe laces right before you bend down and help him out. Leon returns and asks Dash if he’s ready to go, to which he responds enthusiastically before they go running to the swings once again.

“Leon!” You exclaim before he gets too far. He turns around and you toss him a towel, to which he smiles at the gesture before wiping his cheeks and forehead. As he turns back, you wished that you had handed it to him instead so your hands would brush by accident.

As you sit and watch on to the sight of two of the most important people in your life, both with endearingly gleaming smiles as they run around, it deeply occurs to you just how deeply Leon’s life is woven with yours and Dash’s; he treated Dash as if he were his own, offering sleepless nights of support and assistance for when things get rough. Although you were hesitant to accept help from him, especially since you saw your baby as a responsibility you should take on alone, he stepped into the father-figure role naturally. He’s become everything you both needed without even trying; his kindness, endless patience, and humor– it’s all just the small bits of a love you’re beginning to see. You’ve been leaning on him in ways that feel less like friendship and more like something else, something fiercer and more potent and it scares you because the last thing you want to be is to depend on him entirely, feeling like a freeloader. As he playfully lifts your son up into his arms, you’re struck with an emotion you can’t ignore– a feeling both powerful and terrifying. Every instance of his support, every sacrifice he made, all the moments he showed up when no one else would– your affections have quietly been growing all along. You smile at him, chuckling to yourself as the depth of your own feelings stun you.

“Mama!” Dash calls out, waving. “Come play with us!”

“Yeah!” Leon adds, cupping his hands around his mouth. “It’ll be fun!”

“Alright, alright!” You say, skipping over to them.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

The playground trip lasted all afternoon, effectively tiring out your hyper little bundle of joy who is now fast asleep in Leon’s arms. You both agree to call it a day, walking back to the car to put him in his child seat. He checks on you too but you reassure him that you’re fine and happy that Dash’s happy.

“It’s no biggie,” Leon says in a hushed voice as he gives you a boyish grin. “I’m glad I finally got to come along.”

“Thanks,” you tell him. “I’m glad too. I haven’t seen him this energetic in a while.”

The soft hum of the engine blends with the rustle of the wind outside, filling the quiet car with a sense of peace as everyone finds themselves content with the day’s activities. You rest your head against the window, the cool glass a soothing contrast to the warmth on your cheeks. Leon drives with a quiet focus, fingers occasionally drumming against the steering wheel to an imaginary melody in his mind. He glances over with a small smile, to which you return as your tired eyes meet briefly. Sometime along the drive, Leon gently breaks the silence.

“His teacher thought we were his parents back there,” he recounts. “Does she know about…”

You know he’s hinting at whether or not Dash’s teacher knows about the situation between you and his biological father.

“No, she doesn’t. I prefer to keep things private,” you respond.

“Yeah, I totally understand it but uh… she got me kind of nervous earlier.”

Your heart rate spikes up, realizing that he felt the same as you did– flustered and giddy.

“Same, I didn’t realize that some people would see us like that.”

“Maybe we’re just so compatible with each other that people think we’re married or something,” he jokes but the streetlight briefly shines on his face, revealing a bloom of pink on his cheeks.

“Well if people think we’re married, maybe we’re giving off very convincing chemistry,” you say with a grin and a raise of an eyebrow.

Not too long after, you both arrive back home. You move to unbuckle Dash and gently rouse him as you carry him inside before washing him up. Leon finishes up with securing his car and offers to pat him dry as you put away his bath soaps. After getting him dressed and settled into bed, you take the time to look after yourself and have a bath. You hear the second bathroom door click shut right before the high-pitched creak of the shower handle so Leon must’ve gone to shower now, probably just as worn-out as your son is.

Leon’s always admired how you handle everything gracefully– the late nights, endless responsibilities– wondering how you do it all without crumbling under the immense pressure. It’s impossible for him to ignore his heart ache with something he’s dreamt of for so long, all the feelings he’s kept under lock and key out of fear that he’ll fuck everything up if he lets even a small sliver of it slip out. He finds himself admiring you more than he should, that unspoken affection that’s more than just concern for a dear friend growing over time with each shared laughter, tears, and struggle. He’s remained loyal by your side as a best friend and a fun father-figure to Dash but he catches his mind constantly slip into the idea of being more than just your best friend, someone you can lean on as a partner– to be the one to hold you when you’re tired and takes care when you and your son are both tired for as long as he can. These thoughts scare him because Leon doesn’t want to risk the bonds you three have formed but he can’t help but wonder if you’ll see him the way he sees you. He doesn’t want to make you any more upset and distrusting, especially with the absence of Dash’s biological father; he can’t help but feel a wave of protective anger rush over him at the thought of someone walking away from his best friend and her son but in that moment when Mrs. Perkins referred to him as Dash’s dad, a fizzy sense of belonging spread through him. In that moment, he allowed himself to indulge in the thoughts of actually stepping into that role, to be there for both of them in a way that you clearly both needed and deserved but he guesses that you’re hesitant on the idea of having a partner again so he swallows his feelings and prioritizes yours first.

He hears the door to the bathroom open up, footfalls fading to the direction of your bedroom. Leon gets up from his spot on the couch and heads upstairs, spotting you; you’re in your sleep clothes, towel-drying your hair as you walk to your room. 

“Hey,” he softly begins as he fumbles with a loose thread on the hem of his sleep shirt. “Do you wanna sit outside on the porch with me? It’s fine if you don’t, I know it’s been a long day.”

As good as sleeping sounds, a personal one-on-one time with Leon sounds somehow better. It’s been a long time since you’ve both spent some time together– talking about nonsense and something other than work, so it’ll be a nice moment to catch up despite literally living together.

“I’m good with that,” you respond. “Just hold on though, I’m drying my hair.”

“Okay,” he exhales with a smile. “I’ll wait outside!”

You swiftly wring the water out of your hair and brush it before you throw on a sweatshirt then head out. You pass Dash’s room once more and he’s still out like a light, soft hushed snores filling the otherwise silent room. All the lights in the house are out and everything is still and peaceful. You see Leon’s frame sitting on the porch, hands braced on both his sides as he stretches his tartan pajama-clad legs.

“Hey, you.”

He turns around and pats the spot beside him. “Hey, yourself.”

You sit beside him and do some stretching of your own, yawning as you do so. The cold breeze tickles your face and sends a few strands of Leon’s bangs poking upwards.

“I just wanna sit in here until the morning comes,” he says with a wistful sigh as he shakes his head, trying to get his bangs to move out of his eyes.

“I wouldn’t mind, honestly. As long as it’s with you,” you gently nudge him with your elbow.

“Even if I’ll crack the corniest jokes?”

“Especially with your corniest jokes.”

A short silence befalls the both of you before the blond beside you pipes up again.

“Hey, if we’ll still be taking the time at night to sit on this porch twenty years from now, what do you think we’ll be talking about?”

You hum in thought, fingers drumming against the steps.

“I dunno, but I know you’re probably still making me laugh. I’d be on board with that.”

He chuckles, a hushed release of air. Silence settles again as both of you take in the scenery in front– an empty road, swaying tree leaves, and the sparkle of stars overhead amidst the clear sky. Sitting on a porch is a fairly plain activity, one that you have done quite often and way before Dash arrived in your life but doing these with Leon always felt exceptionally different; back in childhood, this was your thing every Friday night– you, him, and what appeared to be the best view in town in your small corner of the universe. Stars, the breeze, and your favorite person right by your side is all you ever needed to unwind after a long day.

“His fiancé invited me to their wedding,” you quietly admit. You catch Leon’s head turning to face you, interest evident in his face.

“Who?” he asks.

“Oh, you know. Him, my ex. They’re getting married. I don’t even know how she found me.”

Leon’s face falls, eyes glinting with some form of pity. He moves closer to you, arm pressed against yours as he moves to wrap you into a snug hug.

“I’m fine, Leon, seriously. I’ve moved on. I don’t want anything to do with him and neither does my son so I don’t think I ever have to see him again. I’ve healed and I’m moving on,” you firmly say but you don’t make an effort to push him off, sinking into his hug instead.

“I know. You’re very brave and strong and you handle everything like a champ but this is still really insensitive of them to do,” his voice comes out slightly muffled.

“I blocked her number and account on all platforms I could find her so she’ll never reach me again,” you reassure him with a grin. “So don’t worry about me getting my heart broken, okay? I know better than to talk to that good-for-nothing, piece of shit.”

You smile at the slight jostle of Leon’s frame, knowing that he’s laughing at you calling your ex a piece of shit as you hug him back, resting your chin on his shoulder as you smile in contentment.

“You deserve someone better than that and don’t worry, if he pulls something stupid I’m going to sock him in the nuts,” he declares.

“Sounds like a plan,” you laugh. “And for the record, I think I know someone who’s definitely better than that.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yup.”

“I’m taking this as a pretty big compliment. I guess I’ll have to prove it to you, huh?” His voice is warm as he rubs the back of his neck, a mechanism he does when he’s flustered.

“Yeah, and you’ve got plenty of time to prove it to me since you’re going to be stuck with me forever,” you joke back.

“That sounds like shit,” Leon loudly says, which earns a shove from you. “Ow!”

“Shut up, as if you wouldn’t be bored and lost without me.”

“Fair point,” he concedes.

The night drags on with you and him engaging in friendly banter and in an unspoken competition to make the other snort mid-chortle. With each number the short hand of a clock points to, the solitude that the night offers turns into the perfect opportunity to say things that you two would normally be shy to talk about. You’re not sure if it’s the exhaustion that’s clouding both your judgements or the howl of the wind against your ears but you’re slightly thankful that it led to this moment.

“I’m getting kind of tired,” you say.

“Me too,” Leon agrees, dusting off his pants after long hours of laughing as he gets ready to get up and call it a night.

“No, not just that…”

Leon looks over to you concerned, features losing the smile it had and replaced with a look of urgency and concern. “You alright?”

“I’m just… I’m getting tired of pretending that I don’t want to kiss you every time you smile like that,” you admit as a heat creeps up to your face as if you were sitting near a bonfire. He’s stunned silent now, staring at you with an intense gaze and for some reason, this prompts you to go on.

“I want to finally say things that I’ve only ever said to you in my head and it sounds crazy but not as crazy as I am about you.”

Leon sat frozen like a deer caught in headlights, mind racing in circles and each thought colliding while all he could do was stare wide-eyed and madly flustered. Your stomach feels pitted when you see the shock on Leon’s face, an icky regret creeping up to engulf you in shame and self-loathing. A lump lodges in your throat as you scramble to form words to apologize to him.

“No, no, it’s not that– I swear. It’s just that I’m really, really caught off-guard because me too,” his words tumble out. “I mean, I feel the same way. I’ve loved you for a while now and I just didn’t know how to say or deal with it because I thought that you wouldn’t be open to dating.”

Despite the quake in his palms, he takes your hand in his and gives it a grounding squeeze.

“I didn’t want to say anything or act on how I felt because I was afraid that I’d ruin everything that we formed together and I’d lose you forever. It’s funny how my whole life I have loved you and I was completely fine with us being best friends.”

His words draw a small chuckle from you, the swarm of butterflies fluttering wildly in your stomach. You feel as if you’re stuck in a rapidly turning whirlwind, your world spinning with each glance of his affectionate smile.

“If you’d let me, I’d love to be there for you and Dash.” He says with a determined expression. “I want to be someone you can depend on in a way beyond close friends, if you’ll have me. I’ll always be here.”

You thought that you were too complicated, that no one would willingly take on the challenge of your little family but here is Leon, sharing his heart and devotion and now it all makes perfect sense. You and Dash deserve someone like him, someone who loved the both of you wholly and saw you both as someone to love and protect and not just another obligation.. It was the kind of love you thought you could never ever have, the sort that you’d quietly given up on. Tonight has shown that you could finally allow him to be the partner and father that he already was at heart. The sensation of his thumb brush against your knuckles brought you back on this porch, met with such a tender gaze that your breath caught in your chest. He leaned in closer but only hovered above your lips in such dizzying proximity, your answer coming out in a shaky yet soft exhale as your lips meet in a seal to a new promise as the rest of the world melted away.

NOTE - This is a very simultaneous writing project that I whipped up in an hour and a half, at 2:02 AM from where I'm at, so it might not: (1) make any sense, (2) be the neatest work I've posted in here, and (3) have the world's most stiff dialogue, uncooked pasta noodles have more flexibility than this 😭 I've been thinking about writing smut lately because I have an idea of a smut fic in my head but it's so embarrassing typing "cock" and "mmhh" into a google doc 😭😭 like the idea I have is so good but just writing the mechanics of sex is embarrassing for me LMAAOO. Since my laptop's about to run out of battery, I'll end my yapping here. Thank u for reading my fics!!!!!!!! I <333333 UUUUUUUU + please, please, please stay safe everyone! The weather is wilding nowadays.

The hand-drawn dividers are made by @inklore , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).

[i-messed-up-big-time]

Fragrance

All LADS men x Non MC Reader

a/n: ok thank you to everyone who voted on the poll! defo helped me a lot with what i should write next, if your choice didn't win dont worry cause i'll be doing all six options in order of popularity so stay tuned for more! guys imma be so fr with you right now, i cried like a bitch while writing this, esp caleb's part, i just love him so much.

divider creds @/cafekitsune

tags: angst, reader is implied to be no longer in this world, hurt/no comfort, non mc reader, lots and lots of angst

word count: 2k

masterlist

tag list: @aneerta @eurydiceknowshesloved @angelichiaro

Xavier

Xavier spent his days like a zombie, the light of his life was gone and far out of his reach. Ironic when his evol is literally light itself, but it feels so much more duller without you here with him.

A mistake, one that was entirely his fault but you paid the price for it. A day that will follow him and haunt him till the end of time, if fate is merciful enough to allow him an end.

あなたに似たようなこの香りもしかして近くにいるの？ (This scent is similar to you, maybe you're nearby?)

Every where he goes, your scent follows him. You were a breath of fresh air, sweet like strawberries and refreshing like morning dew.

Every time he smells your scent he turns to see if you'll be there, waiting for him like you usually did. But reality isn't so kind as to give in to his delusions, and he's left reeling from the pain and guilt.

ねえこれ何度目の勘違いだろう？ (Hey, how many times has this been a misunderstanding?)

Time may heal some wounds, but not all of them.

He can't sleep at night, the nightmares haunt him. His punishment for leaving you alone that day when you so desperately needed him, but he was too ignorant to your pain, and it came to bite him back in the ass.

The only thing that keeps him going is the faint scent of your clothes that surround him on the bed, it makes him feel like you're still with him and not in a place where he can't reach you.

もうどこへ行ったの？今会いたい (Where have you gone already? I want to meet you now.)

A life without you is a life without air. You were his light, but he made you a shadow of another, he snuffed that light with his own hands and now it was too late to make things right. All he could do was wonder where you went, desperately wishing to be with you right now.

Your fragrance follows him everyday, and for now all he can do is let it consume him, it's the only thing that still lingers around him now that you're not here.

My star has left me.

Rafayel

You were always there for him, through everything. You stuck by when others wouldn't and he took that for granted.

It's an unfortunate reality when you don't know how to appreciate the good things you have in your life until they're no longer there.

Now he can only cling to your scent that surrounds him. You smelt like the sea, and to him that was like home. But he ruined that home like a raging tsunami, not realizing the damage he dealt until it was too late.

愛してた さようなら (I loved you, goodbye.)

He couldn't get your last words out of his head, they haunted him.

He saw you in paintings, Your ghost wandered around his studio, your scent following in its wake.

Oh how he wished he could follow you too, life without you was unbearable, and he refused to accept that you were no longer here.

なんて受け止められない (I can't accept that.)

Thomas would often catch Rafayel just sitting on the beach, lost in thought, dark shadows across his face. The man could only sigh and try to cheer him up, despite knowing how futile it was.

He loved you more than words could ever explain, but he was a fool who let someone else take precedence over you. The way your voice sounded when you begged him to stay, only for him to coldly turn you away.

Your voice was barely above a whisper when you said your last words, only Rafayel wouldn't know they were your last until much later.

The regret of being the one who gave you that final push over the edge was more than he could bear, but that was his punishment and he'd live through it a thousand times if it meant you would one day be back in his arms.

だからもう一度愛してよ 忘れられないI still love you (So once again, love me, I can't forget it. I still love you.)

Every painting he made was reminiscent of you, a beautiful love story, despite it's tragic ending. He wanted the world to see your beauty, the one he failed to see himself.

The paintings, your lingering scent, it's all that he has. Without you he's nothing, you were his beloved, one that he should've cherished more than life, but life doesn't always deal fair cards to everyone.

He can only think of one thing when he sees that velvet box on his bedside table, a wish that never came true, a future that would no longer be, a past he can never erase, a present that he's forced to endure alone.

Goodbye my beloved bride

Zayne

What good was a doctor when he couldn't save the one life that needed it the most.

The signs were always there, but he was too busy to see them. Putting another over you, the one who should've been his number one priority.

And now he returns to an empty home, devoid of all life as the one who made it lively was no longer around to keep it that way.

あたしにも貸してくてた香水もう側にはない 名前は知らないけど大好きだったこの香り(The perfume you lent me too, It's not by my side anymore. I don't know the name though, I loved this scent.)

Your scent was fading, it no longer engulfed his being the moment he stepped into the room you guys shared. In the beginning he opted to sleep in the guest room, not strong enough to come to terms that you wouldn't be there next to him in bed.

But as time went on, he started sleeping in the room you guys shared, the pillow and blanket still had your scent. Your side of the bed still unmade, it made him feel like you were still there with him, that you weren't in a place where he couldn't reach you.

The label on your favourite perfume bottle was faded, the name no longer visible, but it was his favourite scent on you, regularly spraying it on your side of the bed whenever the scent would start to fade away.

鮮明な記憶まで色褪せない今宛できるのこれしかない (Even the vivid memories don't fade, this is the only thing I can do right now)

Lost in the memories, each one so vivid it hurts. The smile that shined so brightly, but eventually faded overtime, the lack of attention and love getting to you. But that's all they were, memories that can only be replayed and never experienced again.

All he could do now was pray that you would wake up in a world where you never have to feel like a side character again, where you could live without sickness. A life full of happiness that he couldn't give you when you begged it from him with your eyes, but silently endured the loneliness that was returned to you instead.

Maybe in another life, he would be able to show you the love he couldn't in this life. Maybe this was a punishment from Astra, a life without you the one who he truly loved but realized it too late.

Maybe he was never the right fit for you, maybe the best thing for now was hope that when you wake up in another world, in another life, that you guys don't meet, as he believes that he'll only bring you more pain and sadness.

When you and the world wake up... I hope we don't meet again.

Sylus

He was a man of confidence, his choices were never wrong. Until they were.

The base never felt so empty despite being so full, the decorations were still up, traces of you scattered all around. No one had the heart to take anything down or put anything away, doing so would mean having to accept reality, and no one was ready for that.

The twins felt it hard, but not as hard as Sylus. You were a mother and older sister figure for them, your love was boundless. Even when you were met with a wall, you loved unconditionally and with no restraints.

He took your love for granted, assuming you would always be a constant in his life, no matter what he did.

So when you subtly begged him to go out with you that day, he didn't think much of it and turned you down, telling you he'd take you out another day.

God how he wished he went with you that day, you should've taken priority but he put the aether core above you. Not a day goes by that he doesn't drown in regret and guilt.

此処には居ないとわかってるのに似たような空気吸うたびあなたを無意識に探してた (Even though I know you're not here, every time I breathe similar air, I was unconsciously looking for you.)

You were his oxygen, his anchor, and he lost you. That day haunts him forever, he can still smell the perfume that you had on that day, it follows him wherever he goes.

He looks around in hopes that he'll catch a glimpse of your smiling face, but fate won't humour him.

He's a man who has everything, but without you he has nothing, you were his everything.

今はただ苦しいの依存してるだけ薄れやすいはずなのに染みついたままの香り (Right now, I'm just clinging to the pain, though it should easily fade, the scent still clings to me.)

He couldn't bring himself to put away your things, the site of them a constant reminder of his failure to protect you, to listen and be there for you.

You always put others before yourself, why couldn't he put you before him for once?

His world has no purpose without his sun, his beloved, the only one who stayed constant in a life where everything was always changing.

Maybe this was his fate, his curse. An ending that was written back in a time where mythical creatures like dragons roamed.

Maybe, just maybe,

This is the dragon's curse.

Caleb

A mistake, harsh words that should've never been said. A moment that he so desperately wishes he could go back to, stop you from leaving not just his side, but this world too.

He should have never put her above you, never compared you to her. But life is always full of regrets and what ifs.

ねえどうして I can't forget (Hey why, I can't forget)

The night he still haunts him, it replays in his head like a broken record. His chest constantly feels like it's on fire, the thought that his last words to you were ones that were said in a fit of anger, they were meant to hurt you, whether he wanted to or not.

And now he couldn't even beg you for forgiveness, you were gone to a place he couldn't reach, one he was unsure he would ever reach. His sin too heavy for him to believe he'd make it to the same place as you.

離れ離れなのにお願いお願いもう一度だけ側に来て抱きしめて (Even though we're far apart, please, please, come and hold me just once more.)

Every night he lies in bed, holding your pillow in his arms, praying to the gods above to let him see you one more time, to hold you in his arms and tell you how sorry he is, how much he loves you.

Now he's just a shell of a man, the only good thing in his life ruined by his own hands.

消せないの 消えないの孤独に紛れた香りもう一度だけ愛し合いたい (I can't erase it I can't erase it, the scent of loneliness. I want to love each other just once more.)

Your scent still lingers and with it the emptiness you left behind.

It hurts him even more when he comes across little sticky notes that you left for him to find, you always loved leaving him little notes of love and encouragement in places he wouldn't normally expect them to be.

'You were my gravity… and now I’m just drifting, hoping I’ll feel your pull one last time before I disappear.'

If he could he would sell his soul to the devil if it meant you would live, and if that wasn't possible then he'd join you wherever you are, because

In life and in death, we will never be apart.