#without the rectangles you’d never know would you

[flhoarder]

Lucky for 41 channel 8 isn’t televised otherwise news hours you catch a Couprisful of RCM officers carrying guns pulling up to a major crime scene stepping out of the MC like Jamrock Autumn-Winter ‘51 Haute Couture with some rectangles on

[suashii]

— 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓊𝓁 ౨ৎ

haitani rindou x reader. 2.1k wc. ﾉ sfw ﾉ fluff ﾉ mentions of alcohol ﾉ explicit language ﾉ suggestive ending

something’s off.

rindou has been awake for no more than thirty seconds but he can tell—something’s off. there’s no dip in the mattress beside him. your warmth is absent from his hold. he can’t smell your shampoo, can’t feel the plush of your skin beneath his fingers. your spot is empty and cold. you’re gone.

he shoots up into a sitting position, fingernails digging into the threads of the sheets, strands of lavender hair sticking to the beads of sweat on his forehead. the sudden jolt sends a piercing throb through his skull.

“ah, fucking hell,” he swears, a hand coming up to hold his head. he squeezes his eyes shut and snarls at the uncomfortable sensation. every pound that strikes his cranium is heavy and loud as if they are beats of a drum. why is his head throbbing?

“are you okay?”

soles of slippers drag against the carpet, the soft sound accompanying that of your voice. it’s loud enough for rindou to hear but quiet enough so as to not aggravate his ailment. his pulsating headache persists but hearing your voice gives him a different sense of relief.

“where’d you go?” he ignores your question, choosing to ask one of his own. rindou drags his eyes up from his lap to meet yours.

“the store,” you wave the plastic bag out in front of you as you make your way to join him on the bed. stepping out of your slippers, you take a seat on the mattress at rindou’s feet, tucking your own beneath your thighs so you are sitting cross-legged. “had to pick up a few things.”

“i told you that i don’t like you leaving without telling me.”

his statement comes off as possessive and overbearing, but you know that it’s far from it—in fact, you consider it to be the opposite. though it may not seem like it to outsiders, rindou’s insistence on knowing where you are at all times stems from a place of love; it’s his way of protecting you. your known association with rindou makes you a target for enemies of bonten—and they have plenty. he worries for your safety and in an attempt to not bombard you with security details, rindou’s one ask is that you keep him informed on where you travel without him.

“would you rather i have woken you up?” you ask, picking out the items from the bag and setting them beside you. you hadn’t planned on going to the store but it was clear that you needed to pick up a few things, all of which were for rindou. pain relievers, a green smoothie, and honey graham crackers because you know he prefers them over the saltine ones.

“yes, actually.” he runs a hand over his forehead to brush all of the hair pasted there away.

you smile at his bluntness. in the time you’ve been with rindou, you’ve grown familiar with his direct way of speaking; you’d even go as far as to say that you enjoy it. you never have to wonder what’s on his mind when he speaks so freely.

your nimble fingers work at opening the cardboard box housing the crackers. you grab a sleeve, tear the plastic, and carefully pull out one of the brown rectangles. you hold it out to rindou as a form of apology. “i’m sorry. i just thought you could use all the sleep you could get after last night.”

“about that,” he says, accepting the snack from your hand. he takes a bite from the corner. crumbs fall from his mouth down to the sheet covering his legs but he can’t be bothered to clean up the mess. “what exactly did i get into?”

rindou is having a hard time recollecting the events of the previous night. if you asked him how he spent the rest of his day after work, he wouldn’t be able to tell you much. one thing he is sure of, though, is that he and most of the executives of bonten went out to celebrate a successful arms deal. everything after that is fuzzy.

“mm,” you hum, stealing one of the crackers to take for yourself. you mimic his actions, biting a small piece off from the corner and chewing thoughtfully. “i’m not too sure. ran called me saying that you were drunk off your ass and kept asking for me. so i went and picked you up from the bar.”

he swallows thickly, your words sparking recognition within him. most of it is still unclear, but rindou can piece together a vague picture.

“c'mon, rindou, don’t be a pussy.” sanzu sang from across the man while holding out another shot.

he ignored the glass, opting to flick his pink-haired associate off instead.

“what’s the matter? you lost your touch or something?” koko spoke up from beside him, throwing back a shot of his own. a grin pulled at his lips as he narrowly eyed rindou.

rindou scoffed, practically snatching the drink from sanzu and taking it down in one motion. he turned to koko with a smirk of his own. “fuck you.”

the seemingly never-ending drinks continued to pile on for the remainder of the night. rindou prides himself on having a heavy tolerance, and he does for the most part, but as memories of him calling out for you flooded his brain, it was clear that he had overdone it. not once before last night could he recall a time when he’d gotten so drunk that he was virtually begging to see you.

your lips curl upward at his silence. it’s not often that you find yourself in a position where you hold something over his head. after the events of last night and his uncharacteristic behavior, it would be a waste not to poke some fun at him.

“y'know,” you start, reaching for the pack of hangover relief pills. “i could barely drive home because you kept trying to climb over the console.”

a smirk lingers on your lips as you tear open the small package and shake the medicine out into your hand. you hum and point to rindou’s closed fist resting on his thigh. he catches on quickly, turning his hand over to receive your offer. the tablets drop from your fingers into his open palm.

“i didn’t do that.” rindou denies, tossing the pills into his mouth and promptly swallowing. his throat is parched and he wants to blame it on the fact that he had just taken pills without water but in reality, it’s because the information resurfacing is difficult for him to believe.

“okay, maybe that was an exaggeration,” you laugh. his adamant rejection of your claim only makes you want to tease him even more. “but you’re totally a clingy drunk.”

lilac eyebrows furrow as rindou thinks back to the ride home from the bar.

“rin, cut it out or i’ll crash the car.” you quickly slapped his wandering hand away before returning yours to the steering wheel.

a loud, whiney groan filled the otherwise silence of the car. “why don’t you want to hold my hand?” you glanced over to see rindou’s head rolling back and hitting the headrest of his seat. his eyes were squeezed shut but it was clear that he was frowning at your refusal of affection.

you bit the inside of your cheek to hold back a giggle. was this the same stoic man you had come to know? it looked like a shot too much was all it took to turn him into a nearly unrecognizable and touchy variant of your boyfriend. “i do, but we have to do it when we get home. i have to drive now.”

rindou turned to you with narrowed eyes but there was an uncontrollable grin of excitement tugging at his lips. “promise?” he asked.

you nodded. “i swear.”

as if it weren’t bad enough that you reminded him of that awkward conversation, rindou is beginning to piece together the moments afterward, specifically, when you pulled into the parking garage. if he looked down at his hand, he’s sure he’d be able to feel the ironclad grip he had on you as soon as you two got out of the car. the thought sends a shiver down his spine.

“i am not clingy.” he shakes his head, partly to disagree with your words but also to rid himself of the embarrassing memories.

“hmm, maybe not.” you play along although you have a clear recollection of last night. you figure that his denial must stem from a place of pride because if he had been in your shoes, if the roles were reversed, you're positive that he’d be pestering you about how handsy you had been.

“you’re pretty dependent, though,” you continue. there’s one more interaction you’re itching to bring up. “i’d even go as far as saying needy.”

rindou falls back to lie on his pillow. he has a feeling your statement only means more humiliation for him. despite that, he can’t ignore the tiny bit of curiosity that’s nagging at him. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

a knowing smile creeps its way onto your lips as you crawl to sit beside him. amethyst eyes meet yours, the brows above them raising in question. “you don’t remember me having to brush your teeth?”

“open,” you instructed rindou, poking his cheek with your index finger. he sat on the lid of the toilet, head lolling from side to side.

your simple direction went in one ear and out the other as rindou ignored your request. instead, he puckered his lips and leaned forward.

“we can do that later,” you assured him, gently pushing him back into his former position. “say ah.” you opened your mouth hoping that he would follow your example.

thankfully, he mimed your actions this time around. tipping his chin up, you began to brush his teeth. the process went smoother than the prep and the man stayed still as you cleaned each of his teeth.

“c'mon, time to spit.”

you helped him up from his seat and led him to the sink. too busy turning on the faucet, you didn’t notice rindou quickly approaching. his lips pressed to the side of your face in an open-mouthed kiss.

“rindou!” you pulled away, snatching the nearest towel to wipe the foam he left behind on your cheek and the corner of your mouth. he’s going to be the death of me, you thought as you tossed the towel into the hamper. you spun on your heel to face your drunk mess of a boyfriend. “i said later.”

“it was later.” his words came out jumbled due to the toothpaste lingering in his mouth. the froth was starting to drip down to his chin.

you sighed. “just rinse, please.”

rindou covers his face with his palms. his cheeks are burning hot; they must be visibly red. he would have been better off remaining clueless about the previous night’s activities.

“i’m never drinking again,” he said through a groan.

“aw, i thought it was cute.” you pull his hands away and flash him a smile. his rapidly beating heart calms at the sight. “but you should probably set a limit for next time. you’re kind of a handful.”

he huffs out a laugh. based on everything he pieced together and your first-hand account, “handful” is an understatement. he didn’t think it was possible for him to act in such a way but it seems that even the inconceivable was achievable.

you pat rindou’s shoulder. “you go shower while i make breakfast. unless you think you’ll need my help in there, too.” you jokingly wiggle your eyebrows.

he smirks. “are you offering?”

“god, you’re shameless.” your hand comes down to playfully smack his bare chest. you jerk your head in the direction of the bathroom. “go.”

you make a move to get off the bed and start toward the kitchen, but rindou catches your hand before you can leave. you look at your joined hands and then to him. a glint of mischief passes through his wisteria eyes. “are you really going to make your clingy, needy, handful of a boyfriend shower all alone?”

the flustered rindou who might as well have been wishing the earth would swallow him whole only minutes ago is nowhere in sight. as cute as that unexpectedly soft and affectionate version of your boyfriend was, you’d be lying if you said you preferred it over the side you’d grown accustomed to.

“fine.” you click your tongue. a beat of silence passes before you accusingly point your finger at him. “but i’m not doing all the work like last night.”

rindou drops your hand, opting to hold your cheek instead. “of course you aren’t. i’m going to make it up to you.”

thanks for giving this a read! comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated :3

[strawberrystepmom]

gojo x f!reader. cw: food mentions and suggestive theming. he refers to reader as sunshine.

this is a bit of a love language exploration. reader’s giving love language is acts of service (😔 never beating those allegations) and gojo’s is giving physical touch with a dose of words of affirmation. wc 1.3k

divider thanks to @/cafekitsune

There are times when the simple daily acts of taking care of Satoru feel like the sole thing you were put on earth to do.

Not in the fashion of the maids he was raised by, tutting over his wrinkled yukatas and forcing him to eat the slimy natto he’d swallow through a pout with eyes as watery as the oceans that color them, but as if you’re the well from which his energy springs. He wouldn’t think about little things like slowing down to eat, rest, drink, and enjoy without someone there to remind him to do it. The curse and blessing of being as close to otherworldly as one can be without entering the uncanny valley.

This realization came to you long before you admitted to anyone that you were enamored with him. Back when you were a pair of bratty teenagers and you’d only ever seen him munch on konpeito with a hand wrapped around a bottle of melon soda to wash the scratchy sugar crystals down. You were appalled at how little he cared about himself (you didn’t take excellent care of yourself either in those days, judgmental one…) but you took it upon yourself to start taking better care of yourself and him by proxy in the process. A small act of compassion for a friend would never hurt, you reasoned easily at 17.

At that point, your role was merely sharing bentos or onigiri you made for yourself with him, trading a bite of your tuna filled rice for a sip of his soda - the indirect kiss aspect of this ritual made him giddy for more years than he’d like to admit aloud - or some of the star shaped sugar crystals in his palm that he’d toss between your lips and teeth when you’d open your mouth wide enough to catch them.

(You’d stick your tongue out far enough to allow him to watch the sugar melt away and turn into a colorful splotch. His big eyes, animated as ever, widened further with each bright green and orange spot that appeared and washed away in a flash. This little ritual is also how both of you learned to French kiss but that’s a memory to reminisce upon another morning.)

The two of you experienced some terrible things your first year and his second year of high school. A certain part of you felt bad for how unapproachable and closed off he seemed after Suguru’s departure and you know now that the acts of kindness had a larger impact than intended. A stray cat that gets fed always returns, after all.

He keeps returning. You thank the stars above morning, noon, and night.

Now, caring for him is as steady and effortless as the click, click, click of the knob thay controls the flow of gas on your stove as a flame ignites beneath your rectangle shaped tamagoyaki pan. Oil sizzles and the sound of it mingles with the shower running across the apartment and Gojo’s singing that is somehow louder than both of these happenings.

No wonder the neighbors hate you.

Whatever off key song he has come up with at least makes you giggle while pouring enough egg into the pan to start the process of making breakfast. Some days you are both too busy to sit down and share these moments but you still make sure he eats, a bento always tucked into his bag that matches the one in yours. Thankfully you are both off today so you get to enjoy the process rather than rush through it.

“It smells amazing.”

You didn’t hear him shut off the shower, too busy pouring and positioning egg to notice wet footsteps across the floor and heading directly toward you. A towel is slung carelessly over his hips and you giggle when he drapes himself over your shoulder, his hands dangling down the front of you. Shifting your face, you meet his with a smile and pretend to frown when water droplets fall out of his hair and onto your shirt.

“Whatever happened to good morning?”

He looks up at you from the corner of his eye and then feigns a bright idea coming into his head, shaking it and making more droplets fall on you at the same time. Giggling, you try to simultaneously monitor your eggs and him at the same time.

“You’re so right, how could I forget!” He clears his throat dramatically and stands up, hands wrapping around your waist. He bends to whisper in your ear. “Good morning, sunshine.”

You glance up at him with a too fond smile. When did you become so soft? You’re no better than the sugar that used to melt on your tongue, more than charmed by his sweet words and tender touches. It may be written all over your face but you do your best to hide it, raising your brows and sighing dramatically.

“That’s better.”

Clicking off the heat and shooing him as much as you possibly can, you pull the hot pan off of the stove and deposit your eggs onto a cutting board. Even a few seconds of time apart makes Satoru antsy so he’s by your side long before you can miss him, an arm draped around your shoulder and a hand on his hip.

“Thank you for doing this. I know the sun makes you hiss before 10 so it means a lot.”

Rolling your eyes, you slice the tamagoyaki and he hums his approval immediately. Steam wafts through the air and you have to admit that it’s making your mouth water, too.

“You’re the only person I’d do it for,” you mutter under your breath and he laughs, leaning to kiss your cheek. “You’re a liar. You’d do this for anyone who needed it.”

You continue slicing and he removes his hand from his hip, reaching to grab one of the already cooling slices off of the cutting board and stuffing it into his mouth. It’s still too hot and whatever he was going to say next is lost completely when he burns his tongue. He breathes through his mouth for a second to cool the eggs down the rest of the way and you groan.

“Mouth closed. You’re an adult, I shouldn’t have to tell you this.”

Now that it has been sufficiently cooled down, he chews the mouthful and swallows. He knows you’re joking so there’s no hurt feelings, just a cheeky grin and a dramatic eye roll.

“I was going to say, before your breakfast tried to murder me, that I’m grateful you do it for me and not just because we live together.”

The way he beams down at you is all the thanks you need, his smile as big as he is, but the words make you squirm. You’ve never been good at accepting praise or compliments no matter the amount of them you’ve been given.

“Yeah, yeah. I did it willingly when I was just your late night call too, I know.” He scoffs and shakes his head, reaching for another piece of egg. You slap his hand away playfully. “You’ve never been just a late night call to me, you know that.”

This is true and you lean into his side, aware again that he’s naked except for that damn towel. Wrapping your arm around his waist, you tickle his side and he whines.

“Go get dressed. I’m feeding you natto this morning.”

Satoru Gojo, alleged grown man, whines again. Loudly, childishly, pathetically. You giggle at his dramatics and slump when he puts most of his weight on your shoulder, drooping.

“Really?” He asks and you shake your head. “No, we’re having salmon. Go get dressed.”

He shakes his hips and the towel wrapped around them threatens to fall right in the kitchen and you tap his side with a coy smile.

“Goooooo,” you urge. “The sooner you do the sooner we can eat and then our day can really begin.”

Raising your eyebrows suggestively, he picks up on your meaning immediately and holds the knot of the towel against him while he hurries to your room to pull on some sweatpants. They’re his favorite for easy access and he’s more than prepared to give you his thanks in the form of as many orgasms as you want as soon as you’ve both fueled up.

[paperweight91]

Promise Not to Promise Anymore

Pairing: Andy Barber x reader

Warnings: Drinking, mentions of cheating, angst

Word count: 2448

A/N: This is an idea that I’ve been struggling with for a while, I’m so glad I’ve finally been able to get the words to sort themselves out. Special thank you to @krirebr for helping me so much with the process. Without you literally nothing would ever be posted here 😂. (Yes I am aware that I barely post…I’m working on it!) Any feedback that you could leave would be really appreciated. ❤️

The day had been uneventful, boring, normal. But something about the day had your skin crawling. You weren’t sure what had set you off, and yet here you were pacing. Something you only did when you were anxious.

Your phone chirped with another notification, probably one of your socials. Your anxiety had you reaching for it immediately. Seeing the name of your ex pop up on the screen had your stomach dropping immediately. Neither of you had reached out in months. The man who had blustered out of your life as fast as he had blustered in was texting you.

You threw the phone onto the couch without reading the notification. Sure you could find out immediately what he wanted if you actually read the text, instead you screamed into the throw pillow. Your mind began to run with all of the possibilities of why this man would choose now to text you. Did he want money? Was he dying? Was he texting just to let you know how little you meant to him?

The last one, it was definitely the last one.

You stood from the couch and glared at the small black rectangle that had ruined your otherwise boring day. Your phone chirped again, and you physically recoiled from the sound. Deciding a drink would help with whatever it was your ex wanted you dazedly walked to the kitchen. When you opened the fridge, your gaze immediately found the bottle of wine you had bought on a whim on the weekend. Something the lady at the grocery store had recommended since you looked so lost in the wine section. Grabbing the bottle and bypassing a glass was the best way to handle this conversation you decided.

You sat on the couch, taking a long pull from the neck of the bottle before reaching for your phone. Taking a deep breath to calm your nerves you unlocked the phone screen and tapped on the messages icon. There was his name in big bold letters: Andy. You hesitated as your finger hovered over the message, you could see his second message clearly Are you too busy to talk now? Maybe you could just not read it. Or read them and never respond. Or read them and respond later.

You hated every single one of those options, because you knew as soon as you opened these messages you’d be responding immediately. You took another long pull from your bottle, and placed the phone back down beside you. You needed your mind to stop. The thinking, the over-thinking, it was too much. You flipped on the TV to distract yourself and curled up like a cat. Your phone chirped again from under a throw pillow, and you pointedly ignored it.

You weren’t ready to deal with Andy. You had thought when he ended things that you would never hear from him again. Devastated. That was the only word you could use to describe how you felt after he left. You still didn’t even understand why he had ended things, only that he clearly hadn’t felt as strongly as you did about him.

There was another chirp that had you sighing and grabbing for your phone. You had to deal with it, or he wouldn’t stop. That was Andy. You pulled up the messages anticipating at least a double text, but completely unprepared for all the messages he had sent you,

I know this is out of the blue, but I need to speak to you.

Are you too busy to talk now?

Please Honey, I need to talk to you.

It’s important.

Honey…

Of course, the man could double text you, but would refuse to supply what he actually wanted to speak to you about. You typed out several potential responses before deciding on something polite but to the point.

Andy, I can talk. What’s going on?

You didn’t have to wait long for Andy’s equally to the point response.

Can I call you?

You stared at the message for a moment. You knew you couldn’t hear his voice, it would take you right back to where you were. All those months ago when he broke your heart. All the hurt, and the anger, it would be right there.

As you debated what to say, your phone began to ring. The man had absolutely no patience. You stared at his name, and without thinking answered the phone.

“Hello…” You sat and waited for him to say his peace, how bad could it be.

”Honey, I’m sorry.” You shuddered as Andy’s voice came through the phone. You forgot how his deep timbre had always made you feel comforted, and safe, and warm. “How are you doing? I know I shouldn’t be…I don’t…Are you okay?”

You hesitated before you answered. Months ago you would’ve known exactly what to say to Andy to make him feel better. Now it felt like you were talking to a stranger. “I’m fine Andy. Why are you hammer messaging me?”

Andy chuckled lightly, and you smiled at the lilting notes. “You haven’t changed.” Your eye twitched at that comment. “I just, I needed to hear your voice, Honey.”

”So you messaged me repeatedly?” You could hear the annoyance in your tone, which meant that Andy could hear it ten times louder.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this…” Andy trailed off and sighed. You huffed and pulled the phone away from your ear for a moment so you could murmur your annoyance to yourself.

”Just say it Andy, why did you reach out? Why are we on the phone?” You pulled at the threads on the throw pillow under your arm.

“I miss you.”

You felt the air leave your lungs. You couldn’t have heard him right. He missed you? No, no he was dying, or broke, or literally anything else.

“You-what?” You spluttered out the only thought that came to your mind.

Andy chuckled nervously, “I miss you. I miss your smile, and your laugh. I miss the way your forehead pinches when you’re focused. I miss the way you would take care of me. The moment I ended things? I knew I had made a mistake, and so I told myself that it was kinder to you, to just move on.”

You sat there in silence, shocked at his sudden declarations. “Why, why did you end things? What happened? Andy, I loved you so much, and then out of nowhere you just up and ended things.”

You heard Andy sigh on the other end of the phone. You could picture him scrubbing his hand down his face and scratching at the beard hairs on his chin. His nervous habit. “I got scared, I think.” He chuckled again, “I know it’s not a good excuse…”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s a terrible excuse Andy. What scared you? That I loved you? That I wanted to be a part of your life? Please tell me, what exactly scared you so badly that you ended the best relationship I’ve ever had?”

You slapped a hand over your mouth. You hadn’t meant to let all of that out.

There was a long drawn out silence. “I think it was how strongly I felt about you. I was…scared of what that meant. Before I met you I thought I knew what love was. I was sure I had felt it. But once that feeling truly hit me? I couldn’t actually function.” Andy sighed again, “This isn’t coming out right.”

You took another long pull off of your bottle of wine. You let Andy’s words roll over in your mind. Could he actually be telling the truth? His love for you was so strong that he got scared. It just didn’t seem right, there was something else, there had to be.

“So what you’re saying is, our love was too much for you?” Your tone rang with annoyance and a little bit of desperation. You remembered any time you had tried to get something out of Andy that he didn’t want to tell you, how carefully you’d have to tread, otherwise he would shut down. As much as you wanted to tell him off, end the call and block his number forever. There was still a part of you that needed to know the real reason, so before Andy could respond you continued. “Andy, as much as I love this game of cat and mouse we’re playing, where it’s like pulling teeth to get information out of you,” You heard him softly chuckle on the other end of the line, “I just need the truth, maybe it will hurt me, maybe it won’t but I need it.”

There was a long silence on the line. Although it made you nervous and want to say something to fill it, you sat and sipped on your slowly warming wine while you waited for his response. Your bluntness would have one of two effects: either he would fold and tell you what you wanted, no needed to know, or he would shut down and it would be months, if ever, before you heard from him again.

His heavy sigh preceded his response, “You’re right, and wrong.” He paused as if he was gathering his thoughts. “It is true that the feeling of love between us scared me, but it’s also that it scared me so much that…”

”That what?” You knew what he was going to say, felt it deep within your soul. Your heart was about to be broken by Andy Barber once again, and what was worse, you had practically asked him to do it this time.

”I slept with someone else. It only happened once, but it was before I ended things.”

“I see.” It was all you could get out. You could feel the twisting in your chest again, the anger burning behind your eyes, the tears welling and choking you with their strength.

”I’m so sorry Honey. As soon as it was over I knew I had fucked up. But I also knew if that I couldn’t be with you still, it wasn’t fair to you.” You could hear the pleading in his voice, and it only made the anger burn stronger. Like his words had lit a match and poured kerosene over top.

“So you called me now, to…what? Make yourself feel better?” Your breathing was hard, almost panting in your anger.

”I don’t know why I’m calling. I just know that I’ve regretted that decision ever since. I miss what you brought to my life: the pure joy, the love I could feel down to my core.” Andy’s voice was strained. It was only then that you realized he was crying.

”Are you drunk Andy?” It was the only time you had ever seen him cry, when he had one too many with the boys after work.

”No, I swear. I promise Honey, I haven’t had a drink tonight.”

You took another sip of wine. Contemplating the truth in Andy’s words, the burn of his betrayal. This was just too much.

“Well I’m glad you’ve finally told me the truth Andy. Even if it is months later.” You hugged your throw pillow to your chest as you prepared yourself to say the words that you knew would hurt him as much as they would hurt you. “I can’t forgive you, for any of it. Please, just leave me alone.”

Before you could second guess your decision, you hung up the phone. You stared blankly at the TV screen, not even remembering what you had put on in the first place. What shook you from your reverie was a dull thud from your door. Like someone had just planted their forehead against it.

You stood and quickly crossed the room to check what the noise was. It was only once your hand was on the handle you knew: Andy. You unlocked the door, and twisted the handle slowly, knowing the man who had destroyed you not once, but twice was standing on the other side.

When your eyes connected with his, you could feel all of the love, joy and affection come flooding back. It took everything within you to not jump into his arms and sob until you had nothing left. Instead you gripped the doorframe like it was the only thing holding you up.

”Honey…” Andy’s voice was just above a whisper, so quiet that you weren’t even sure you heard it. His hands reached out and thumbed at the tears quietly streaming down your face. “Oh Honey, I’m so sorry.”

With that he pulled you against his chest. You could smell the high end cologne he wore to work, and the underlying scent of pure Andy. The warmth of his chest and his arms wrapping around your back had you losing all control. You sobbed with abandon into his neck, no words leaving your lips. Andy scooped you up and walked you both into your apartment. Using his foot to shut the door behind him.

He sat down on your couch, with you tucked against his chest and began murmuring quietly to you. You couldn’t make out most of it, but did catch the odd word. “Shh Honey.” “I know, I’m so sorry.” “Just let it out, okay?”

When you finally felt like you could cry no more, you pulled your face from Andy’s neck. You could feel how swollen your eyes were, in fact your whole face felt puffy. “I still don’t forgive you.”

Andy let out a full belly laugh at your meekly spoken words. To which you glared at him and crossed your arms across your chest.

”Okay, okay.” He wheezed in a breath, “I’m sorry Honey. Please just give me a chance to make it up to you. Even if that means I don’t get to feel your love again, let me just try to make this right.”

You reached out and stroked his cheek. Feeling his soft skin contrast with the roughness of his beard. You could see the dark circles under his eyes, see the grayness of his skin. “I need time Andy.”

He sighed, and let his eyes flutter shut. “Of course Honey, whatever you need.”

You reluctantly stood from his embrace, “Please leave Andy, I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

He nodded solemnly. Andy stood, he moved to hug you, but you took a few steps out of his reach. He nodded again before heading for the door.

”Honey?” His back was still to you.

”Yeah?”

”I still love you, more than anything. And I promise to do everything I can to show you that.”

”Andy, maybe we should both promise not to promise anymore.”

Taglist: @stargazingfangirl18 @krirebr @rebeccapineapple @precious1610 @bval-1 @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @thezombieprostitute

[five-rivers]

Ancestral 9

“So.  Aconite?” asked Danny during a lull in the stream of treatments and tests.  “Isn’t that wolfsbane?”

"Yes," said the doctor, looking rather nervously at Matthew.  

At least, Danny thought she was looking at Matthew.  His vision was still kind of blurry, a reasonable side-effect of having poison splashed into them.  She could have been looking at the family in general, all of whom were squeezed into the room.  Apparently, as long as they stayed out of the way of the doctors, it was best for security purposes to have them all together.

“Both the tests on what was recovered from you and what was recovered from the cup indicate that the wine was dosed with massive amounts of aconite, and your symptoms match.  It’s a very, hm, traditional poison, so treatment is well known.  We’re monitoring both your blood pressure and your heart rate, and you’ve been given an activated charcoal treatment and atropine.”  She paused.  “You seem to be recovering, although your heart rate is still much lower than we’d like.  I’m actually surprised you’re still conscious…”

“That’s normal for Danny, now,” said Jack.  “Well, maybe not this low, but his heartbeat is pretty slow all the time, now.”

“It isn’t in his medical records,” said the doctor.

“Had him checked back in the US.  I guess it never made it here.”

“We had other concerns at the time, Jack,” said Maddie from where she was sitting in a chair next to Danny’s bed.

Oh, yeah, Danny had the impression he was missing a metric ton of significant looks.  

“Well,” said Danny, “I feel… not great, but okay?  Like, my skin is still pretty numb, kind of like when you get an anesthetic from the dentist.”

There were, however, significant looks that Danny wasn’t missing.  Apparently, he wasn’t seeing the ghosts with his physical eyes, but with something else, because they stood out sharply from their blurry surroundings.  Right now, they were looking at him like Jazz did, when he said he wasn’t hurt after a fight.  

Really, he was fine.  Spooked, but fine.  

(In some ways, it was sort of a relief to know that he was human enough to be affected by poison.  Being half dead had a tendency to make you hyper aware of your own mortality and dubious of it at the same time.)

“But, back to it being wolfsbane.  Why wolfsbane?  You’d have found that if that was why everyone else…  I mean, they don’t think you’re a werewolf or something, do they?  Is that a thing?”

Matthew sighed.  “No, I’m not a werewolf.”  Another sigh.  “Unfortunately.  I’d love to only have to worry about wolfsbane and silver”

“No, that’s not what’s going on,” said Maddie.

“So what is going on?  I think I deserve to know, having been almost killed and all.  Are you going to try again with the coronation?  And- And has anyone found Vivian yet?”  He tried to send an apologetic expression Vivian’s way, for using her as a conversation pivot.

“Doctor Hys,” said Matthew.  “This discussion is about to touch on both family matters and those of state, so if you can continue your monitoring else where…?”

“Of course, your highness.  May God and the ancestors bless you.”  Danny saw the door, briefly, as a rectangle of slightly dimmer light, and then the doctor closed it behind herself, and the family was alone.  

“The Assembly is discussing regency,” said Joanna.  

“Which they really should have since the beginning,” added Eugene.

Danny wasn’t so sure of that.  He wasn’t clear on all the details, but regents had fewer powers than a sitting monarch.  They couldn’t change throne policies - like the one about approval of foreign businesses, Danny realized - or appoint new Secretaries - which would leave the Speaker hearing spy reports.  Great-Grandma Rose had been Alfred’s King’s Secretary.

Other countries would probably have a conniption about the conflict of interest.

“It makes more sense than declaring one of us king or queen without the trials,” agreed Joanna.  “They were set on it, but now they think the poisoning is a… bad omen.”  There was a guilty sort of satisfaction in her tone.  

Maddie scoffed.  “Can you not?” she asked.  “Here, with my son seriously injured, can we discuss this like rational human beings who live in this century?”

“If we were dealing with rational human beings,” said Irene, “we would.  But a person willing to commit so many murders isn’t rational.  Nor are… humans in general.”

“Mom,” said George.  

“I want to know about Vivian as well,” said Jazz.  “There has to be something about where she went.”

“The investigation there is ongoing,” said Matthew.  “For the rest of Danny’s questions… To start at the beginning, you wouldn’t know this, but in the very distant past, there was a legend that members of the royal family with the favor of the spirits and the ancestors were immune to wolfsbane poisoning.  So, of course, any member of the royal family who was successfully poisoned didn’t have their favor.”  His blurry form made a shrugging motion.  “It’s been discredited nearly that long - there were herbalists back then who were occasionally able to use belladona to counter some of the effects of aconite poisoning - but that particular method of assassination has become traditional for signaling certain grievances.”

“Did Lord Kyppe have those grievances?” asked Iris, darkly.  

“He’s maintaining that he had no idea.  Which, considering his position, is very nearly as bad,” said Matthew.  “Even if he turns out to be innocent, the traditionalist faction will be out for his blood.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Jack.  “Forget them!  Maddie and I are out for his blood!”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” said Matthew, dryly.  “And, then… You are right that we’d be able to tell if- if everyone else died of aconite poisoning.  It decays quickly, but not that quickly.”  He shook his head.  “We–”

He was interrupted by a phone ringtone, a high-pitched electronic version of the Avlynyse national anthem.  

“Hello?” answered Sophia tremulously.  There was some shifting as she moved through the room.  “Alright,” she said, voice already cracked and tearful.  “I’m sitting down.”  There was a beat, and then Sophia made a high, keening sound.  

“Mom?  What-  What’s wrong?”

Another phone started to ring (still with the national anthem, but a slightly more traditional version), and Matthew swore.  “What?” he snapped.  “Oh, God.  Are you sure it’s her?  Yes.  Yes.  We’ll make the announcement… shortly.”  Matthew took a deep breath and closed his phone with a snap.  “They found Vivian’s body.”  

There was quiet.  Danny was sure everyone had already at least suspected that Vivian was dead.  Having it confirmed was something different.  

“Oh,” said Leo, weakly.  “Oh.  Do they… do they know how…?”

“You don’t want to–” started Matthew.  

“She’s my sister.”

Matthew exhaled slowly.  “She was beaten to death.  They stole her Key and the Lesser Seal.”  He inhaled again, loud enough to be heard.  “We’re going to need to make a public statement.  And–”  His phone tweedled.  “And the Assembly wants to have a special session to hash out a regency decision, and–” another tweedle, “and, ancestors.”  More tweedles.  “It’s going to be never ending.  My family is dying, and–”  He fell silent.  

“Matthew?” asked Irene from the same general area Sophia was in.  Were they hugging?  Maybe?  “What’s wrong?”

“Investigation just found that someone replaced the contents of Grandma’s capsule pills with nitroglycerin,” said Matthew, tersely.  “Matches with her symptoms… heart stopped, but not the other signs of anaphylaxis, darn it.”

“That’s… three different causes of death, isn’t it?” asked Jazz, thinly.  “Four different methods, if you count the wolfsbane.  That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said Matthew.  “It could be six, for all I–  Nevermind that.  We need to get back to Kyr Argyn, for the special session, and ‘figure out what the future will look like.’”

“We who?” asked George.  

“Adults,” said Matthew.  “Anyone eligible for regency.”

“Not me, then,” said Eugene.  

“You, too,” said Matthew.  “Just because some idiots in the newspapers called you a bastard a few times doesn’t mean you aren’t perfectly legitimate, legally speaking.”  

“Wait, what do you mean I’m legitimate?  I thought–”

“You can’t expect me to leave Danny,” interrupted Maddie.  “He was just poisoned.”

“Legally, everyone currently in the country–”

“I can stay, Mads,” said Jack.  “Me’n Jazz’ll hold down the fort with Danny here.”

“We really do need you to come,” said Matthew.

“Fine,” said Maddie.  “Danny, I–”

“It’s okay, Mom.  I’ll be fine.  I am fine.”  

Maddie patted his hand.  “We’ll have to disagree on that.  Jazz, if you notice anything unusual, let your father and the doctors know right away.  And– Who from security will be staying with them?”

Matthew rattled off a list of names that Danny instantly forgot.  

“Right,” said Maddie.  “Let them know, too.  Danny, just… try to be safe.”

Well.  Ouch.  Danny would have everyone know that he always tried to be safe.  And careful.  And a lot of other things.

It took a few most of a half an hour for everyone to move out.  Apparently they had to coordinate with the security team, get everything lined up beforehand, etcetera.  

“I think,” said Danny, “that I’m in shock.  Emotionally speaking.”

“That makes all of us,” said Jazz.

.

Jazz couldn't give him the kit until they were alone and Jack had dozed off.  

"Security took me back to the house to get some of your clothes and things.  You're going to have to help me, though.  I don't know what's best for poisoning."

Neither did Danny, really.  Surprisingly, poison, contact or otherwise, wasn't something he had to deal with all that often.  Except for blood blossoms… and whatever was in Vlad’s stupid knockout gas, and those spiders that one time… did Spectra’s weird ghost mosquitoes count as poison?

Next chance they got, Team Phantom would have to look into poison remedies.  

“Energy tablet for now,” said Danny.  “Then, um.  The little jar of eyewash.”  The eyewash was a dilute solution of ectoplasm and salt, usually used for eye injuries, or the irritation that he sometimes got from his eyes deciding to be flashlights, but it could help. It’d be nice to be able to focus his eyes again.

Jazz passed over the tablets almost immediately.  The eyewash, however…

Danny sniffed at the jar.  “This isn’t the eyewash.”  It was, in fact, the blood blossom cream.  After a few additional natural portal related journeys, Danny had found that while just being near blood blossoms in ghost form was agony, touching them in human form gave him a nasty, itching rash.  And hives.  And… And there was a thought there, but it wouldn’t come loose.  

“It’s the only jar you have,” said Jazz.  

Danny frowned.  “Oh,” he said.  “I might have…  Not brought the eyewash, I guess.”

“Why?”

“It’s liquid.  You’re not supposed to bring liquids on planes.”

“We had a private charter flight.”

“I didn’t know that when I packed.”  He handed the cream back to her and chewed on the energy tablet.  Ecto-dejecto and weird dehydrated orange juice powder.  Yum.  

Not.  

“I brought something else as well,” said Jazz, pulling something small and square from her purse and unfolding it.  

Danny squinted.  “Jazz,” he said, his whisper dripping with as much disappointment as he could squeeze in, “is that a ouija board?”

“I thought it could help with, you know.”  She leaned in, and if the only witness wasn’t dead asleep, she would have definitely given them away.  “With communicating with your invisible friends.”

“Can we not say things that make me sound crazy?” asked Danny.  “And I know you can’t be serious.  Ouija boards are trademarked by Hasbro.  Nothing trademarked by Hasbro can possibly be spiritual.”

“I don’t mean like that,” said Jazz.  “I mean, regardless of what it’s supposed to be used for, it’s still got the alphabet on it.  If the ghosts here can’t write anything out, they can at least point and you can read what they’re saying.”

Good idea, except… “I can barely see, Jazz.  Everything is little blobs of color.”

“Okay,” said Jazz, “but you can still see well enough to point where they’re pointing, right?”

“Well… yeah.  I can see them pretty well, actually.”

“Great,” said Jazz.  “Then, I’ll read off what you’re pointing at, okay?”

Danny looked up at Gwensyvyr, who shrugged, then nodded.  “Okay, yeah.”

“Then let’s start with Vivian–”

“She’s not here.”

“What?”  

“She went with Aunt Sophia and Lewis and Leo.”

“Oh.  Well.  That makes sense.  Who’s here, then?”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “A whole bunch of people.  And Gwensyvyr.”

Silence.  

“As in, the founder–” started Jazz.

“Of Avlynys Gwensyvyr?” they finished together.  

“Yeah, that Gwensyvyr,” said Danny.  

“Okay.  Um.  Nice to meet you…?”  Jazz paused for a long moment.  “This is really weird.  Did you see who tried to poison Matthew?”

Danny followed Gwensyvyr’s finger.  

“Hm,” said Jazz.  “That’s a yes.  Do you know their name?”

Gwensyvyr shifted.  

“No.  So.  That’s too bad.  Anyone else here know their name?”.

.

Matthew’s would-be poisoner, as it turned out, was a young, red-headed man with a press badge that said his name was Wallace Hadryn.  Right before the ceremony, he’d had a quick interview with the Cupbearer, and dropped two pills into the cup while distracting the Cupbearer ‘masterfully’ in the words of one of the ghosts.  

The pills had been red.  All but invisible against the dark wine.  They’d dissolved slowly, and the Cupbearer’s high-tech tests and traditional sip hadn’t affected him.  

“At least,” said Jazz, “not at the time.  I wonder if he might start feeling some symptoms anyway.”

Before that, none of the ghosts had been particularly paying attention to the young man, so they didn’t know who he’d talked to before, if anyone.  

As for who had killed the others…  The ghosts had no real idea.  They’d been repelled from the area, and had only seen ‘suspicious figures’ at a distance.  If that.  

That was bad.  It was very bad that whoever did this knew the ghosts were there and could get rid of them.  Or that whoever had killed them had coincidentally stumbled on something that could banish ghosts.  Even if they were weak ghosts.  

Gwensyvyr had suspicions, though.

There have always been those who seek to tear power from this land and all kinds of people leave ghosts, Gwensyvyr had picked out, letter by letter.  I fear this is a plan long brewed.  We have been growing weaker for some time, even before your grandfather’s death.  Cut off from allies.  Many of my kin have only woken for this latest tragedy, and will sleep again, perhaps forever, and some sleep still.  No hope for the future.  

At least, that's what Danny and Jazz had eventually puzzled out.  Wonderful their ancestor might be, it was clear she'd never practiced the art of spelling.  In any language.  

“You think the ones doing this are ghosts?” asked Danny.  

Perhaps.  Or they are guided by ghosts.  Look to the death of your grandfather, of your grandmother.  Look at those who preach progress and stability, but only think of paper gold.  She bared her teeth.  Look at their corporations and businesses.  These worms in the Assembly.  I call especially for you to look on Julius Skippa.  His father brought in that vile construction business.

“But why would they do it?” asked Jazz.  “Apart from the usual mundane reasons, I mean.  It seems like all they’d have to do is wait.”

There are sacred things our family has long been charged with, older than this kingdom.  Things that have been desecrated and not restored.  Things that I may not speak of.  Your grandfather was the last to attempt the trials.  Vyvyan was preparing for them.  

“They would have noticed something,” said Danny.  “Or the trials would have fixed some of it.”

Gwensyvyr nodded and pointed at yes.  I think, too, that the monsters wish to return.  To take more than what they have taken already.  Thus the seal.  Thus the key.  Would that I were stronger!  I would tear them to shreds if they tried.  

“But Matthew wasn’t going to do the trials,” said Jazz.  “Not right away, at least, and with everything else, it would have been easy to distract him from ever taking them.”

But Mathyw denied them.  On the phone, and later, in the halls of Kyr Argyn.  And I am not certain sure that we face only one enemy.

A ghost phased through the wall and made gestures at Gwensyvyr, who nodded.  

Keep safe, little syvyrys.  The title - applied to both him and Jazz - made Danny blink, then flush.  His numbness must be getting better, for him to feel that.  With you here, there is hope for the future after all.  Then Gwensyvyr took a step back from the board and made a closing motion with her hand.  

Jazz hastily closed and put away the ouija board.  Just in time.  Matthew had returned.  

“Jazz, Danny, how are you?”

“Fine,” said Danny.  

“As well as can be expected,” said Jazz.

Matthew smiled tightly.  “Jack,” he said.  “Maddie wants to talk to you.  Jack!”  He nudged Jack’s shoulder.  

“Whazzat?”

“Maddie wants to talk to you.”

“Alright, then,” said Jack.  “Will you–”

“I’ll watch the kids, yes.”

“Okay!  Stay safe, kids!”

“That was fast,” commented Jazz.  

“It didn’t seem that way,” said Matthew.  “You two didn’t realize there were monitored security cameras in here, did you?”

Danny’s heart leapt into his throat.  From the way Jazz froze, he suspected hers had done the same.  

It made sense that there would be, of course.  In retrospect, security wouldn’t have left them alone like this otherwise, but that meant…

“How long,” asked Matthew, voice trembling with some emotion Danny couldn’t place, “have you been a syvyr?”

[unohanaswetdream]

THE KNOWING PT. 1/3

Now we're lying about the nights

Hiding all it behind the smiles

Take a look at what you did

You probably thought that you'd break my heart

You probably thought that you'd make me cry

But, baby, it's okay

I swear it's okay

♡♡♡ summary: Everyone and everything must follow their designated life cycle, it is impossible to avoid.

 AO3 | PT.1 | PT.2 | PT.3

2.5k words

A/N enjoy my overuse of italics >.<

WARNINGS - spoilers for season 5, ep 3 - 18+ please - gun violence causing death - mentions of addiction and usage of drugs - unhealthy/toxic depiction of relationships - swearing

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

You did not even know how you got here, one second you got a call from Ignacio saying to come to Los Pollos Hermanos leaving you to drop everything due to your lover being back from his trip to Mexico. The next second you were in the office of the boss of Los Pollos Hermanos where he apologised for having to do this, to being out in the desert god knows where, standing under the scorching sun without a cloud in the sky. You were 100% sure that if you were destined to make it out of here alive you were going to get killed by skin cancer because of course today was the day you decided against sunscreen.

You enjoyed your silly little worrying over not wearing sunscreen as it helped to get your mind off of this astonishing situation you got yourself into. While you had no idea what was happening,  all you knew was that the situation called for you to shut up and act like nothing was out of the ordinary.

You knew Ignacio was into something ahhh… not quite legal due to his extensive range of accessible drugs laying around his house and the gun that he constantly had in his jacket which you’d always play with. Yet, you never asked or questioned why it was like that and in turn he never pried into your private life. That was the only rule or boundary you both had even though it was unspoken.

But you thought he was smart enough not to bring you into his fucking shit. Never set expectations because that just sets you up to have them crushed and this unfortunately had set up the theme for today.

Looking down you watched the love of your life all bloody kneeling in the dirt, a rectangle piece of duct tape was covering his mouth , for god knows what reason. You could not deny that even in this state he was still as godly as ever, his shirt covered in blood clung to his bulging biceps, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing off his perfectly sculptured forearm while the top three buttons of his shirt were undone leaving his top part of his chest exposed. You had to restrain yourself from coming up to him to run your hands up and down his chest.  The tough, bloody and slutty look you fell for.

The love of your life, you repeated in your head, was he really the love of your life ? Did you guys really love each other ? What was love ? Did love show its self in one way or many ways ? Maybe it was love even though it was sick and twisted, maybe not. Your mind not knowing how to categorise your relationship, every attempt led to a dead end.

You let out a subtle sigh, why did humans love to categorise things in tiny neat little boxes only to know it will result in numerous problems down the track ?

Thinking back about your relationship with him, you could not think of anything that brought you genuine happiness, joy or love… all it was, was fighting, jealousy and sex.

You and Ignacio would hold each other all sweaty and out of breath , the atmosphere would be heavy with the smell of sex, you would confess your undying love to him and promise to divorce your husband however, you’d still wake up early to make your husband breakfast and give in to his begs of wanting you to dance with him while he cooks. Ignacio would return your feelings and promise that he would kick Amber and Jo out for you yet, go home, drug them up and fuck them like he fucked you.

 And yet you both believed each other’s lies.

When you would become sick of the lies, you’d go to his house when he was not there, just for Amber and Jo to open the door, you would give them a big insidious grin while shoving a little zip lock bag that was in your hand into their faces so they could let you in. You would fuck around with them until Ignacio would come home so he would catch you with his girls. You implanted fear into his head, you implanted the idea that you would take his little play toys away from him, leaving him all alone.

And he did the same to you. He would plan a time for you to come over for a date, leaving the door accidentally open so you would walk in only to hear the noises of soft moans and harsh grunts, balls slapping against skin and the smell of a combination of drugs. Ignacio would loudly exclaim how they were such good girls and that he would never kick out his sex toys because they feel so good to fuck, no one compared to them. He implanted fear in your head, he implanted the idea that you would never be good enough for him let alone your husband, leaving you all alone. 

You both had the same fears, loneliness. Hence, why you both had backups of backups to give yourselves a sense of security. 

You both never treated Amber and Jo with kindness or respect, let alone like humans. You could not even remember regarding them as such, that bitch or those bitches were almost exclusively used to refer to them. Did taking away their humanity make you and Ignacio subconsciously feel better about the way you treated them ? They were vulnerable people who you both preyed on, exploiting their addictions and loneliness, so they could become your little pawns in your relationship. A little tug of war formed between you and Ignacio, and you used both the girls not caring how it would impact their mental health, their esteem, their over reliance on drugs or their fucking livelihood’s.

You always stopped yourself from reflecting back on how you treated Amber and Jo, but when you would find yourself thinking about them, you’d just snort a line, take a shot or take a hit so you could forget what an awful human being you were to them.

Could you even consider yourself a human being ?

You saw yourself in them, so you took it out on them, saying they were embarrassing, lonely and out of control but that was just you. You did everything and anything to belittle them so you could feel somewhat more in control of your life and that you were better than them, more worthy than them.

You judged them without ever getting to know them, when did you ever ask about their day and not if they had the drugs you fancied for the night.

Deep down you wished you never met this man, Ignacio.

Still not taking responsibility for your actions, huh?

When you guys ever did anything for each other, it was when the end goal was to make the other jealous the other hurt or the other angry.

Yet maybe there was love, the way you brushed his cheek with your thumb when he had a hard day, that was love ? If not, then why would you do that ? It was love, fucking his girls was love, you just wanted to show him that you were hurting, that you were better than those mindless addicts. Your love and worthiness were better than theirs combined or even times two.

He too in his last minutes alive thought the same as you, your relationship may have been a bit bumping. But I mean who’s isn’t ? He’d wash your hair as you complained about how needy and clingy your husband was for always wanting to be near you, joining in when you’d clean the house or always be over your shoulder when you cook to see if you needed anything. That is the type of things people do for each other when they are in love, they listen to their partners woes.

You thought about how love manifested in the relationship ? Surely sex, right ? Making love getting fucked it’s all the same. You fuck when you are in love, you make love when you are in love. Ignacio fucked you because he loved you and you let him because you loved him. 

But you were often curious on what constituted making love ? Was there really a difference between that and fucking ? Obviously, you made love with him as you guys were together but as you thought about it you found it increasingly hard to remember what it was like to make love to Ignacio… maybe it was because it was so good you forgot ? 

Maybe just maybe the little voice in the back corner of your mind whispered that it was because Ignacio wanted you, he created the façade of being sweet and charming until you were in his grasps, never able to leave. Stuck with a man who never cared about you beyond you being a new and different toy.

But realisation had the obsession to always arrive late so they could have their big and grand entrance allowing all the eyes to be on them.

A loud bang causing your ears to ring snagged you out of your thoughts, to only find Ignacio laying on the floor, gun in his hand and a hole in his head that was continuously oozing out his blood. The smell of dried blood mixed with his fresh blood infiltrated your nose.

You could not keep it in, you just could not, you had to laugh, a full belly laugh ripped through you as for a second you had thought he would get you out of this mess his mess, ah expectations such a silly thing.  But of course, the selfish boy was selfish until the end. He feared being alone til the very end, so he acted with all the power he had to make sure it did not happen, in turn leaving you alone.  

Destiny will have it that you will be alone, perhaps as an accumulation of your sins.

Just noticing you now, due to your inappropriate laughing, Juan Bolsa turned to Fring sounding unpleased,  ‘who is that ?’.

Fring looked at you with a blank face then back at Bolsa ‘that is Ignacio’s partner and we have grounds to believe they helped with the murder of Lalo Salamanca’.

Bolsa huffed ‘are these so called grounds, enough to kill an innocent person like them’ pointing at you.

Frings voice was light like he was talking to his close friends, ‘it is up to you, I just wanted to provide the Salamanca’s an extra treat due to the incriminating accusations that I have endured to show my agency I have in serving this family’.

Something told you this was absolute bullshit, the slight coldness in his tone - that no one else seemed to pick up -  exclaimed that he did not give a flying crap about serving this so-called family,  the way this Fring man carried himself screamed I do not serve anyone but me, he seemed far too smart to do someone else’s bidding. You were almost positive that this Fring man was planning something, something big and that this Lalo Salamanca dude was just the beginning of his reign.

The way they were talking was not like they were figuring out whether they should kill you or not but instead like they were planning a party for you and were casually discussing what kinds of foods to get for it.

In this moment you had no idea what to feel. Ignacio left you alone to endure whatever dumb shit this was, it did not make sense, was this the consequence of loving him ?

But Bolsa did not reply.

And Fring just turned away and walked back to the car, Victor and Tyrus following suit, you however, had not one fucking idea what to do so you just copied them.

For a second you were hopeful that you were being let go, you were already eager at the thought of starting anew, unfortunately, your fate was sealed as soon as you heard a ringing of a bell from behind, sending a shiver down your spine, slowly you turned your head around to see what was happening. Within seconds of the bell ringing, one of the twins had whipped out their gun and before you knew it, a tear began to crawl itself down your face, as time had been the slowest you had ever experience, slower than when you would plank for a minute. In what felt like slow motion,  bullet after bullet came whizzing towards you, aiming between your eyes.

While in every waking moment for the past year or so you thought of Ignacio, this time you did not. This time you thought about your husband who was probably waiting for you to come home, so as soon as you would walk in through the door, he knew it was time to put on some music to cook to but like always he would get lost in the music by dancing to whatever sweet melody he decided to play, his face would be full of joy as he would turn to you and force you to join. You thought about how he would stay up until you’d come back from fucking Ignacio believing your lies, just to make sure you were alright so that you both could fall asleep together as he held you whispering sweet nothings into your ear. 

Your last moments were spent on you worrying about how he will stay up all night waiting for you not knowing you will be dead in a matter of milliseconds, buried in the middle of nowhere depending if they cared enough to dig you a grave, to know he was never going to get closure on why you never came home.  Back to him. It was your husband who you only ever truly loved not Ignacio. Your sweet, joyful, loving husband was not that needy or clingy person you described him as, but in lieu was a person who just wanted to make sure you were not lonely by ensuring you were happy and loved every day 24/7,  only to throw it away for something that meant nothing. Only because you wanted to know what it felt like to have such a dark and dangerous secret that could destroy your life. Only because you wanted to feel the thrill of lying to someone who cared about you and thought you felt the same.

You loudly laughed - like someone just said the funniest joke - at the realisation that;

it was death that brought you such clarity.

The light at the end of the stupid tunnel when you died was not you going to heaven or being reborn, coming out the vaginal canal but instead a one last ‘fuck you, here is all the fucked-up shit you did, now reconcile with your stupidity and be enlightened’.

Dauntingly, this newfound wisdom you had freshly experienced was only just the beginning of the end.

What felt like a hot iron rod going through your head disappeared within the second you felt it, leaving you to crumple into the dirt below you, the earth greedily absorbing you to use you for nutrients.

Everyone and everything must follow their designated life cycle, it is impossible to avoid.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

because there is a lot of talking of addictions i just wanted to link some resources (and if you participate in any recreational drug use pls be safe and remember harm reduction saves lives !!!); Directory of non-governmental organizations working in drug demand reduction, unodc.org, 1999 so it is quite old unfortunately but all continents are covered Drugs contacts, health.gov, 2019 Useful links, health.nsw, 2022 Organisations, drugpolicy.org

[not-so-mundane-after-all]

It's new year and Mundi is back to writing Titans!

I'm kicking off 2023 by going back to work on a big project of the current working title "Acrida" and it's an idea that's been living rent free in my head probably since season 1 but only recently took real shape. We have all my favorite things and tropes in it - there's time travel, Dad Grayson, his BFF Donna, a tiny, fussing baby with as much personally as her teenager self 👀, loads of humor and loads of angst! I've teased it before already, but since it's going to be a while before I actually start posting chapters (I want to have it finished before I post), I decided I'm going to promote it by dropping a fairly spoiler-free sneak peek whenever I write something I'm particularly happy about! And this nugget here is a result of today's writing session. Enjoy!

Donna rolled her eyes with a laugh, "You're silly. You know that?"

He was about to respond, though with what exactly he wasn’t sure, but then he noticed she was fiddling with something in her hands. When Donna saw his curious look, she flipped the item over so he could examine it from a different angle; he soon realized it was a cheap, disposable camera.

"I got this at a gas station,” she told him, spinning the camera in her hands. It was a standard black rectangle with the Kodak logo printed on it; she had one just like this when they were teenagers — their silly photos are still buried somewhere in a box deep in his walk-in closet at The Wayne Manor. 

Donna handed it to him and shrugged. “Not much compared to my stuff, but it will still do the job.”

“What job?”

Her face softened. “I figured you’d love to have some baby pictures of her. So your memories can be more than just, you know, memories."

Dick weighed the camera in his hand. He didn’t think of that at first, but now that Donna has mentioned it, he did want to have something that would keep the memory of baby Rachel alive. Back home, they didn’t have any baby pictures of either her or Gar, and it was never something any of them particularly cared about until Kory got pregnant and they came back home with their first ultrasound pictures of Mar’i. Kory got very upset that there were no pictures of Gar and Rachel when they were babies that she could add this one to. Dick remembered finding her curled up on the couch with them both with tears in her eyes as she asked them question after question about what they knew about themselves at that time, if they remembered any pictures ever existing, or what their parents had told them in the past. 

He blamed her emotional state on hormones then. But the thought of having to return home without tangible proof that he had held his adopted daughter in his arms when she was just a tiny, fussing baby was unimaginable to him. Now he understood Kory’s grief a little more.

He whispered a quiet "thank you" to Donna as his anger and embarrassment faded and turned into warmth. The silence was broken by an eruption of a sweet baby laugh coming from the other room, and Dick felt himself smiling.

If you want to see more, I'll be posting the sneak peeks under the "Acrida Fic" tag. And if you want to be tagged in sneak peeks and chapters when they come out, let me know! In the meantime, I have one more His Dark Materials sweet one-shot I'll be working on and some Dickkory spice coming your way 👀🥵 my besties put out VDay prompts and gears started turning 😏

[callipraxia]

headcanons from mania🔥🔥 (take two because tumblr sucks ass)

- you wear granny glasses

- you live in a really nice house with a fireplace and a stack of firewood always next to it and a bunch of blankets

- you like hot cocoa

- your job is like. Corporate. but also cool. not exactly a dream artistic job but the closest you’ve got and you like it a lot and takes up a lot of your time. Also seasonal. But that’s basically canon. I’ll never figure it out

- you have like. A Lot of books on one hugeeeeee shelf. you’d invest in a library like room if you had the space but you don’t so it’s alllll on one shelf

- you have a warm palette like wardrobe. millennial fashion sense but not necessarily millennial yourself

- you’re like. Fourty (I’m sorry if this is egregiously wrong)

- infodumping queen literally Everywhere. no restraint

- blogs from their bed with a patterned blanket over your leg, a cat next to you, and your busted laptop on said lap (got the laptop fact from your comment on burn fast burn bright a superrrrrr long time ago, but I do remember it. top ten comment ever FR!!!)

- your fic notebooks are full of notes and lore we’ll never see in your fics/universes and I would probably kill people to get my hands on it and read it all with fresh eyes

- we’ve never gotten your pronouns or gender . that is 100% valid but I’ve Wondered. I’m thinking a she/they, but I stick to they/them to be safe, I hope that isn’t too presumptuous of me

- not exactly a hc but wherever the name calli came from. is that your real name or a Username thing. I remember tentatively using it a Long Time Ago, and it just caught on. am I responsible for that. I don’t know and I’m too scared to find out. Tell Me though

I did not reread this but yeah. you don’t have to respond to everything but now that it’s been prompted I’m Thinking About it. also hi. I’m glad you’re okay!!! soooo much stuff has changed but I’m so glad you’re still here no matter how sappy or weird that sounds. A good luck on ur school year fic!!! :)

Sorry for the late reply; I’ve been sick as a dog, among other issues. On the mend now, though, so….

you wear granny glasses

Not really, at least based on the results I got when I googled “granny glasses.” They are sort of soft-cornerned rectangles in dark brown plastic, with just the faintest hint of a proto-cat’s-eye on the top corners.

you live in a really nice house with a fireplace and a stack of firewood always next to it and a bunch of blankets

It’s not a particularly nice house, but we do have a wood-burning stove for heat in the living room, and we definitely have a lot of blankets. Think of the residential portions of the Mystery Shack, without any of the big interesting rooms and all on one floor, and you'll probably have a good idea what it looks like. The 70s made a more lasting impression on the decor here than the 80s did, though.

you like hot cocoa

This is accurate.

your job is like. Corporate. but also cool. not exactly a dream artistic job but the closest you’ve got and you like it a lot and takes up a lot of your time. Also seasonal. But that’s basically canon. I’ll never figure it out

Basically, if it involves school tests, I’m your girl, and I therefore work insane hours from February to June and then assignments are more sporadic for the rest of the year. As for whether or not I like it...It’s unexciting, but that’s what I was looking for in a job, and I wouldn’t say I dislike it. I get to work from home (very important now that my grandmother can’t stay by herself for long periods anymore), and my work days take the form of “someone writes a list of tasks, will leave me alone while I work on it, and will give me a reward for ticking all the boxes in a timely fashion.” I’ve always liked that format, with results ranging from “I was good at being a student, so much so that I actually enjoyed taking standardized tests” to “also Gardenscapes and Letter Soup, between them, ate my life over Christmas this year, while I was too sick to read and needed something to fill the hours until it got late enough to decently take the PM cough syrup and go to sleep.” It produces a mental state that’s (relatively) focused but also fairly unemotional, which is a nice break from even the pleasanter forms of ADHD brain-chaos. Sometimes the flurry of ideas is a lot of fun, but sometimes you just want a rest, you know?

you have like. A Lot of books on one hugeeeeee shelf. you’d invest in a library like room if you had the space but you don’t so it’s alllll on one shelf

I wish it would still fit in one shelf, even after creating three rows of books per shelf, but alas – about ten years ago, I discovered the joy of the Friends of the Library sale and it’s Fill-A-Bag Sunday. Cram as many books as you can manage into a paper bag and pay ten dollars for the lot. Suffice it to say I have a lot more books than I would otherwise. My bedroom no longer has anything even vaguely resembling “wall space,” and I’ve spilled over into the living room and the General Storage Room...it’s not quite as bad as it sounds, since these rooms are all very small, but it really has gotten a bit silly no matter how I slice it.

you have a warm palette like wardrobe. millennial fashion sense but not necessarily millennial yourself

Based on what I got from the Google - I can work with millennial tops, the alleged millennial trousers are a hard ‘no’ for me. I much prefer gen Z’s adoption of wide-legged trousers, both because I think I look better in them and because I find them much, much more comfortable, at least as long as the waist is fitted.

As for color palettes...I think my thing is more ‘bright’ or ‘saturated’ than warm or cool? It should not really work for someone as fair-cool as me (I have trouble finding foundation colors to match sometimes), but I think I look as good in orange and red as I do in turquoise and rose. My one thing is, I can pull off light shades of blue or yellow, but they have to be pretty saturated, if that makes any sense. Anything too grey-looking or faded/washed out-looking or dusty-looking just...doesn’t work. At all. At least in my opinion, and “is this reasonably comfortable?” and “do I think this looks nice?” are my main/often only considerations when it comes to all things sartorial.

you’re like. Fourty (I’m sorry if this is egregiously wrong)

Eh, 33, 40, same difference. Or at least less than a decade’s worth of difference, anyway ;)

infodumping queen literally Everywhere. no restraint

This is accurate and I wear that crown with pride, though I do understand why people can get annoyed when I get too close to speaking in five-paragraph essays, lol.

blogs from their bed with a patterned blanket over your leg, a cat next to you, and your busted laptop on said lap (got the laptop fact from your comment on burn fast burn bright a superrrrrr long time ago, but I do remember it. top ten comment ever FR!!!)

This is pretty accurate. It’s either that setup with my laptop or that setup with my phone. Also, yay memorable comments!

your fic notebooks are full of notes and lore we’ll never see in your fics/universes and I would probably kill people to get my hands on it and read it all with fresh eyes

This might be the headcanon of yours that’s furthest off the mark! Most of the lore is both ultimately info-dumped into the story (or at least its footnotes) and is mostly kept all in my head. FWJB Parts I and II are the only things I ever wrote that had even a semblance of an outline.

we’ve never gotten your pronouns or gender . that is 100% valid but I’ve Wondered. I’m thinking a she/they, but I stick to they/them to be safe, I hope that isn’t too presumptuous of me

Oh, yeah, sorry about that – I’m a she/her. Not presumptuous of you at all.

not exactly a hc but wherever the name calli came from. is that your real name or a Username thing. I remember tentatively using it a Long Time Ago, and it just caught on. am I responsible for that. I don’t know and I’m too scared to find out. Tell Me though

I’m not sure if you were the very first to dub me Calli, but I do seem to recall you were at least an early adopter. You very well could have been the first. It’s just from the username, though, and the username is a result of me playing with word roots while half-asleep one night during the period where - despite how out of practice I was, and how terrible I've always been at coming up with usernames - I was starting to seriously consider making an AO3 account and actually writing the GF fics percolating in my brain…Long story still kinda long, I stuck a bit of this and a bit of that together, then swapped out some letters to make it flow smoothly/look like a word, and like a word I’d find aesthetically pleasing to look at.

also hi. I’m glad you’re okay!!! soooo much stuff has changed but I’m so glad you’re still here no matter how sappy or weird that sounds.

Aww, you’re sweet. Good to ‘see’ you, too, especially since Christmas gift cards mean I can probably finally read <i>Good Omens</i> at some point in the near future and thus comprehend that half of your fics!

[psithurista]

Stuck

pairing: Marc Spector x F!Reader, mentions of Steven Grant x F!Reader word count: 4.1k rating: Explicit 18+ warnings: Improper use of contact details in a workplace, brief mention of injuries, mentions of alcohol, oral sex (f receiving), protected PIV sex, brief overstimulation, some scratching. Anything I haven't flagged appropriately, please let me know x

an: My understanding of Marc and Steven's 'system' is that Marc is conscious of Steven's life, while Steven, as an alter, is not conscious of Marc's. This is an expansion of Marc's (maybe slightly selfish) attempts to assist with Steven's romantic life, based on the detail that Marc had apparently tried to set up a date for Steven without him realising. The reader is not aware of their disorder, and Marc doesn’t tell her, but she is aware that he is not Steven when she gives consent.

You stop by Steven's place one night after work. Somebody else answers his door.

part two

Standing outside the door, you consider, once again, that you are not supposed to be here.

You weren’t supposed to work late tonight. You were supposed to leave with everyone else; get home early, get a good night’s sleep for once. You felt good about the decision—so good, in fact, you’d felt the tension melt away from your temples, leaving you free to sink comfortably into the embrace of the stack of didactic labels and exhibition programs spread in front of you.

It wasn’t until the clatter of a vacuum cleaner startled you back to reality that you’d finally looked up from your screen to find the entire office around you had faded to darkness; the rest of the archival team long gone.

In your frustrated subsequent rush to leave, you’d nearly missed it. Just barely managing to juggle your bag, your thermos and your keys, the little white rectangle on the floor leading out to the museum’s exit had looked like a piece of litter; nothing worth paying attention to. You couldn’t say what it was that had made you stop and clumsily crouch to pick it up.

It’s lucky you did. The black lanyard clipped to the top had been camouflaged by the carpet. Turning it over, you’d met the dark, sleepy-lidded gaze of Steven Grant. Of course. Out of every single staff member, he would be the person most likely to drop his ID card.

He’s also the person most likely to hold the door open for you, or stop and help pick up a folder full of dropped papers, or to dash out into the street to give you his umbrella—this being the most recent example, having only happened a few weeks before.

You’d developed something of a crush on him; drawn in by his sweet nature and earnestness—his animatedly bright love for the exhibits that of a first-time visitor, not a man who sees them day in and day out. And, secretly, you’d stifled more than one undignified snort at his cheesy jokes; though nobody else had seemed to find them funny.

You’d shoved it down, trying not to feel too wounded by the nervous, stunned way he’d waved before skirting around you in the halls at work, or stumbled over his words, hurrying off with his shoulders hunched after you’d wished him a good morning one day as you passed the gift shop. He didn’t seem to want to talk to you. And that’s fine. You’d left him alone, even as you still harboured your soft spot for him.

Sweet, absent-minded, gentle…and on his absolute final warning. You’d overheard as much just this morning when Donna was tearing him a new one for inexplicably missing an entire week’s worth of work, while he’d stammered some flimsy apology about being sick in bed.

You should just leave the ID card on the counter of the gift shop. He can pick it up in the morning. Never mind that Donna will probably be in earlier than he will, and find it first…and drag him over the coals again.

You’d stood there, deliberating, chewing your lip, remembering the way he’d looked that afternoon as you’d slipped silently into the break room to make a cup of tea. Slumped sleepily over the table; a library book in one hand, a falafel wrap in the other. Wearing colourful, mismatched socks; a dark, loose curl hanging across his forehead.

So, your second poorly-considered move of the night: breaching privacy policy. Well intentioned or not, you definitely weren’t supposed to access the staff directory to find his home address.

Now, outside the door, you shift your weight from one foot to the other. Looking down the street, you feel cold and nervous. Should you ring the buzzer again? Maybe it’s broken. Maybe he doesn’t even live here anymore. Maybe he’s moved and forgotten to update his records.

Then a click, and a quiet beep. Bewildered, you test the door to the building, and find it’s been unlocked.

Okay. You take a hesitant step forward, then pause. He’s inviting you up. Right? He unlocked the door; he must be inviting you up. The foyer is empty as you step inside, brutally self-conscious.

“Oh, God, Steven,” you mutter to yourself, shut safely in the lift. “Please don’t report me to HR for this.”

By the time the doors open on his floor, you’ve almost convinced yourself to turn around and head straight home. It’s sheer force of will that gets your feet moving, one in front of the other, until you’re at his door. You just need to slip the ID under the gap and leave him to it.

You kneel to do just this, when the door swings open. You’re face to face with a pair of knees, and your gaze travels upward, your face tilting.

He leans his weight comfortably to one side, his arm propped against the doorjamb, a faint smile playing around his lips as he looks down at you. You swallow.

He looks…hot. There’s no other word for it. You can’t tell what’s changed, exactly…he looks no less exhausted, but he seems to be wearing it remarkably well. The shadows underneath his heavily-lidded eyes accentuate their darkness; their depth.

Gone is the hideously baggy jacket he was wearing at work, as is the novelty-print button down. Instead, a dark, form-fitting shirt stretches tight across his chest, pushed up to bare his toned forearms.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You open your mouth, close it again. You hurriedly stand, awkwardly straightening your skirt back down over your thighs. “Um. Hi, sorry, I wasn’t going to disturb you.”

He grins; a flash of white. “You’re not disturbing me.”

You blink, confused. His voice sounds…off. Is he making fun of you? Is that an accent? He’s still considering you, his expression open and vaguely amused. You can’t remember why you’re here. Has he always had such high cheekbones?

“Would you like a drink?”

You stare at him, stupidly. “Huh?”

He tilts his chin, gesturing back into the flat behind him, but his eyes don’t leave your face. “I was about to make a drink. You want to join me?”

This is not the response you’d expected. You swallow again, feeling a little hot. “I. Um. Sure.”

He steps aside to let you in. His flat is dim and cluttered; books and decor piled haphazardly on every surface. It’s not an entirely unpleasant overall effect, you consider, peering around. The warm lamplight makes it feel cosy; almost like a tiny jazz bar.

You plonk your bag on top of a leather-bound collection of translated poetry, digging through it. “I have your ID card. You dropped it. And I thought…well, I didn’t want you to get in trouble again. You don’t deserve the way Donna speaks to you.”

“Thanks, that’s really nice of you,” he says, distractedly. “Just leave it anywhere.”

You drape the lanyard over the back of a chair, and wander off to snoop at his profusion of stuff.

“Old-fashioned? Or G&T?” he says, the top of his curls sticking out from the open door of a low cabinet, half-tucked behind a bookcase.

You turn away from the glowing fish tank in front of you, something tickling in the back of your mind. You step toward him, frowning. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

He stands, and places two glasses on top of the counter. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you said you didn’t. At the Christmas party.”

He nods to himself, as though he’d forgotten, turning and leaning against the counter. You creep another step closer, your eyes narrowed. He’s looking at you with a directness you find slightly disconcerting. You can’t seem to drag your eyes away from the bow of his top lip. His posture, his voice…

He’s not just hot. He’s gorgeous. Exuding confidence. Some shift in his body language; a certain quirk of an eyebrow here, the timbre of his voice there…it’s difficult to believe this is the same guy you once busted crying over a dog video in the break room. He’d denied it, of course, scrubbing his hands over his face, but you’d been able to tell. Even the way he blinks is different; slower, easier, calmer.

It hits you like a freight train. “Holy shit,” you breathe. Somehow…impossibly…this isn’t Steven at all. “Who are you?”

His lips are pressed together thoughtfully, still slightly lifted into an easy little smile. As he speaks, he leans in, tucking a loose wisp of your hair behind your ear. “You can call me whatever you want, beautiful.”

You’re utterly thrown off. “Oh. Thank you. Um. You’re…beautiful too.” You laugh, nervously, swaying toward him. Internally, you cringe. What are you saying? Heat muddles your head; creeps out to the tips of your toes and fingers. You wet your lower lip with your tongue, still staring helplessly at his mouth. “But I don’t understand. Are you…his brother?” I don’t care, you think, dizzy. He called you beautiful. He thinks you’re beautiful.

“It’s a little hard to explain,” he says, his face close to yours.

You feel like your insides are liquefying. “Okay,” you breathe, your voice embarrassingly weak, “so expla—”

His lips meet yours, and you let out a strange little squeaking noise. He kisses firmly, almost with an insistence, but it’s slow. His lips coaxing yours apart, the heat of his breath, his tongue, softening your entire body.

Your knees wobble worryingly, and he smooths his hand down your back, holding you against him as you bend weakly in his arms. He walks you backward, across the flat, humming a low note of amusement into your open mouth as you stumble over the lip of a rug.

When the back of your legs hit the edge of the bed, you drop gracelessly onto your ass, panting up at him. “Is this…are we really doing this?” you manage, your face hot.

The extent of your secret daydreams had seen you cosying up with Steven on a cool afternoon, peeking over his shoulder to see what he was reading, or curling your fingers around his underneath the table at that cute vegan bakery down the road from your place, oat lattes in front of each of you. You never got quite this far.

He leans over you, tilting his head, brushing his lips across your jaw. “That’s up to you.”

Your heart is thrumming in your throat, and you reach for him, wanting to feel him under your fingers. He feels solid enough. Okay. “Okay.” You nod, biting your lip, spreading your knees as far as your tight work skirt will allow.

He lowers himself to his knees, catching first one foot in his hand, then the other, coolly easing off your shoes and dropping them to the floor with a pair of low clacks.

You gawp down at him, positive that your eyes are comically wide. But he just continues smiling privately to himself, coasting his hands up the outsides of your thighs, shucking your skirt up, finding the edges of your underwear.

“Do you…want me to help?” you gasp, feeling awkward, unsure whether you should stand up to let him slide them off. He doesn’t answer, lifting your ass in his palms, rolling your underwear off in a fluid, practised movement.

He knows what he’s doing. Clearly. You don’t need to help him out. You didn’t think it was possible to feel any hotter, but with this realisation, you’re suddenly on fire. Your skin prickles; leaving you feeling slick and overly sensitive.

His nose brushes the inside of your thigh, nudging your legs apart. “Oh my God,” you hear yourself say, flopping onto your back. Warm breath fans over your skin, and then his lips; dragging lightly, the feel of his tongue pressing gently into the soft give of your leg.

As he works higher, your breaths grow shorter. He’s barely even started yet, and he has you shifting your legs, squirming into the bed. His hands gently encircle your knees, holding them apart, and you hear the quietly wet glisten as he spreads you open. You make an undignified little choking sound. “Doing alright up there?” he drawls, his strange accent resonant.

The sound of his voice alone has you squeezing your cunt in anticipation. “Um, yeah. Doing…doing well. Thank you. How about you?” You wrinkle your nose, staring up into the shadowy beams of the ceiling, wishing they’d come tumbling down to crush you. He’s too smooth. You’re embarrassing yourself. But he doesn’t seem to mind.

He laughs quietly. “Yeah, I’m good.” Then his nose meets your cunt, and you lose the ability to form coherent thoughts.

He closes his lips around your clit, his mouth hot and close. His tongue rolls against you, steady and skilful, and you rock your hips unconsciously up to chase his movement, bumping into his nose.

This feels nothing like the clumsy, half-hearted efforts you’ve experienced in the past. This is masterful; attentive, glorious. Better than your own fingers. Better than your vibrator. You’re already seeing stars.

He grips your thighs, pinning you in place while you whimper and gasp. You can feel his jaw working as he drags each little sound out of you; every movement unhurried but deliberate. You crane your neck down to watch; his thick curls tickling at your sensitive inner thighs.

You jolt as you meet his gaze. While the entire lower half of his face is pressed between your legs, you find his attention still fixed to your face; his eyes inscrutable. You have the crazed, ridiculous urge to wave down at him, even as your legs begin to shake and cramp with the tension of holding still. It would be such a Steven move, you think.

He works firmer, and you choke out a tiny curse, grasping fistfuls of the sheets. It might be because your thoughts have drifted, but it’s at that moment you notice the tiny scar just above his left eyebrow. You know exactly where he got it: walking dozily into the edge of a packing crate down in the collection stores. You remember it vividly. You’d even had to write up the incident report for it while he’d dug a bandaid out of the first-aid kit at the security desk.

So…he is? But he isn’t, he can’t be. You’re so confused. You’re too far gone to figure it out.

The pleasure is winding tighter, and your leg jerks alarmingly in his grip as your abdominal muscles tense to the point of breathlessness. Your head swims from lack of air, and you realise you’ve been holding your breath, sucking in a frantic lungful just as time stops around you.

You cry out wordlessly as you come, suspended in the moment, arching up off the bed even as he calmly pins you in place.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod…” You don’t even realise you’re saying anything until he’s climbing up over you onto the bed, grinning again, pressing his finger to your lips.

“I know, I know. Shh,” he says, his humour palpable. You can’t seem to get enough air in, and you shake your head at him, your eyes wide.

“Oh my God,” you finish, breathless.

He traces the outline of your breasts through your work shirt, still buttoned to the top. “You want to keep goi—”

“Yes,” you interrupt, already reaching down to yank your shirt from where it’s tucked in under your rumpled skirt. “Yes, keep going, Ste—whoever you are.”

He shifts your hands away, opening your shirt far faster and with more dexterity than you would’ve managed. One-handed, he pulls his own shirt over his head, and you stare at the lean muscle of his torso; scarred and toned and beautiful.

The thought of Steven caring enough to cultivate a body like this seems laughable. His chest muscles flex as he kicks his pants down. So, this is your answer. Your heart lurches uncomfortably. This feels like a betrayal, despite the fact that there’s nothing going on between you and Steven.

And yet, the man now tossing your bra over the side of the bed looks so much like him. You dart a not-very-subtle glance down, and see his cock is hard, flushed, thick. Beautiful. Awestruck and filled with renewed heat, you trace the edge of his bicep with your fingertip. “Do…do you think it’s okay? Doing this? In his bed?”

He shrugs. “Well. Technically, it’s my bed.” He places a strange, ironic emphasis on ‘my’, then stretches up to reach toward the nightstand.

Nothing is awkward about him. Even ripping open the condom, rolling it over the length of his cock, shifting his weight onto his knees over you. Every movement fluid, easy; like that of a man who trusts his body implicitly. It’s unsettling, but it’s unbearably sexy.

He gently cups your face, his thumb stroking across your lower lip. “Still good?”

You nod, and he tilts his hips forward, and you exhale breathily as he slowly eases you open.

“That feels…oh,” you groan, dazed. He sinks deeper, angling himself downward, and you could swear your eyes roll back.

He’s nodding slowly, gently easing himself back before sinking back in, deeper than before. “Yeah. Yeah, it does. God, you’re pretty. No wonder he likes you so much.”

You don’t have time to figure that out before he’s rocking into you again, more smoothly this time. He cups your breast, groaning quietly, and you let your head tilt limply back as he begins to set a steady, beautiful rhythm.

Your bones feel like melted caramel; thick and syrupy and warm. He feels perfect inside you; the ridge around the head of his cock stroking at your g-spot, even through the layer of latex.

Your grasping hands are curling and uncurling in the covers, when you find the edge of what feels like a bicycle chain lock with a buckle at the end. You turn your head to the side to squint at it, shaking it free and finding the other end affixed to the column at the foot of the bed. You blink at it. “Is this…?”

“You should probably ignore that,” he murmurs, covering your lips with his own. He tastes of you, tangy and slippery. You moan weakly into his mouth, wrapping your legs around his waist, reaching up to feel the softness of his hair. The bed thuds hollowly against the bookcase behind it with the force of his movements inside you.

He stays deep. Barely withdrawing; grinding himself inside you. You aren’t sure whether it feels any good for him. But God, it feels good for you. He noses along your jaw, his lips at your neck, gathering your limp body up into his arms to hold you close.

You’d like to be more engaged. Pull your weight a little. Make him feel as incredible as he’s making you feel. But you’re too pleasure-drunk; floppy and lazy and warm underneath the weight of him. The best you can manage is a lifting of your hips to meet his, and he pauses, letting you clumsily work out your own disjointed rhythm. “Can I…? I’d like to…” you trail off, unsure what you’re even asking for.

But he seems to understand all the same. He shifts to the side, gripping your hips and taking you with him as he turns onto his back, until you’re straddling his waist, his cock seated deep inside you.

It’s immediately even better. You gasp down at him, and he sinks his teeth into his lower lip, a faint sheen on his forehead. “S’this what you wanted?” he murmurs.

You nod, encouraged, and lift your weight onto your knees before sinking yourself down onto his length. This time, he’s the one who groans. It travels straight to your cunt, and you clench around him, the feeling exquisite.

“Careful with that,” he breathes, his hands on your waist, holding you steady. “You’ll make me…oh, fuck—”

You hadn’t meant to do it again, but it’s hard to control yourself. Everything feels incredible. Grinding yourself down onto him, sheathed all the way to the base, where his neatly trimmed dark curls are already stuck damp to his skin with a combination of sweat and your arousal.

You rock your weight back and forth just a little faster; the movement catching at your breath, and your head drops limply forward as you brace your hands onto his chest.

There’s too much blood pounding in your brain. You feel dizzy and desperate, riding down harder, your inner thighs tensing with the movement. You feel as though you’ve been there for hours, but it hardly matters; it’s good, you think, the softness of your breasts rippling upwards with each bounce, it’s so good, so good…

Too soon, you can feel yourself reaching a renewed peak and, needy with the sensation, you chase it down, your legs cramping with your sustained effort. You can feel yourself growing weaker; trembling with exertion and overwhelming pleasure.

You feel as though you’re racing your own stamina toward your release, whimpering brokenly, grinding yourself down. It’s an awful thought; you’re desperate to continue, but your movements are losing their rhythm; too weak to continue. You can’t bear to stop, but you have no choice.

He doesn’t let you.

Seizing the softness of your ass in both hands, he drags you back and forth against him, forcing you to keep riding, even after you’re too weak to move yourself. You could be a toy in his hands as he pulls you onto his cock; thrusting up into you, gritting out something obscene as his cock twitches inside you.

You can tell he’s growing close, and the thought is enough to nearly push you over your own edge again. He fucks you harder now; your head rocking back on your shoulders, and your cries are softer, more breathless as your entire body tenses.

Your orgasm crashes over you, near-violent, and instead of slowing, he speeds up, forcing you toward immediate overstimulation as his hips smack up against your slick skin. You mindlessly sink your nails into his chest, hard enough to break the skin.

His brows draw together and he hisses, long and harsh, and you’re worried you’ve hurt him, but then he curses, his hips stuttering as he empties himself into the thin layer of latex separating you.

Panting, you unpeel yourself from his hot skin, slumping onto your side on the bed. He reaches over, mindlessly stroking his hand along the length of your side, down to the swell of your hip.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” you say, your attention caught on the way his hair sticks in ringlets around his ears. “I’ve never done that before. Jumped into bed with someone I’ve only just met.”

“Mmm,” he returns, his palm gentle on your skin, dark eyes lazily half-lidded. “Have we? Only just met, I mean?”

You frown at him, bewildered. You don’t know how to answer that.

When you stand, your bare feet hit the cool wood floor at the foot of the bed; weirdly grainy, as though in need of a thorough clean. You shake out your bra before you put it back on, sand skittering out of the cups. He stays reclined, watching as you straighten your skirt and tuck your now-wrinkled shirt back in.

He slips out of the bed behind you, stepping back into his pants, leaving his chest bare. As he walks you to the door, you realise your nails have left painful-looking little crescent moon-shaped cuts in his skin. They’ll probably fade after a few days, you tell yourself, but you feel slightly guilty all the same.

You need the loo, but you’re too shy to ask. You itch to get home and mentally sort through the events of the night. As though in a dream, you turn to leave without saying goodbye. But he catches your elbow, pausing you just outside the door. “He doesn’t know how to show you, or tell you. But he likes you. A lot. Give him a chance.”

It should be a wildly strange thing for him to say, considering what you’ve just done together, but in the context of the entire nights’ disjointed, unreal sense of overall strangeness, you know precisely what he means. Your heart swells in your chest, and you nod, shy, a tiny smile lifting your lips.

“I’ll, um. See you around,” you tell him, not knowing if that’s true.

You wait until you’re back in the lift before you slip your shoes off to shake out the loose grains of sand still stuck to the bottom of your feet.

[unohanadaydreams]

for the eroge game !!! can we get college professor (or student whichever ur more comfortable w!!)! Toshiro with a romantic/horny college student(she/her)! reader getting it on in an empty classroom?? ♪(´ε｀ ) love u btw

It’s safe to say Toshiro being a professor teaching students largely the same age as him would be canon if Bleach were a college AU. He IS a genius, after all.

You didn’t put like a phase you wanted but I’m just gonna make this a Good End bc this seems like something Toshiro would RESIST doing until the end of a route.

Features: teacher/student dynamics, Toshiro’s first role play session, romance + smut wombo combo

Bleach Your Heart: The Otome & Eroge Ask Game

PROFESSOR! TOSHIRO HITSUGAYA + STUDENT! READER + GOOD END

You squeaked as your bare thighs slid against the waxed wood of his desk, finding it too cold for a Summer afternoon.

Toshiro stood before you with his arms crossed, stern.

“Don’t you want to come over here and ravish me, Professor Hitsugaya?”

He stiffened at his title, his eyes cutting to the windows and doors, belying his nervousness. “This is my place of work.”

“Obviously. That’s what makes it so fun.”

You’d taken precautions, knowing it would be the only way Toshiro would agree to so much as hold your hand in his classroom.

Standing on a plastic chair, you’d hooked all five pairs of blinds to the floor, closing the South facing wall of windows off from the outside.

The classroom felt odd without the warm sun streaming down on the desks, but Toshiro demanded thoroughness. So you’d brought construction paper from home, borrowing his scissors to cut them to shape and taped them over the rectangles of glass embedded in the two doors, one on each end of the room, opposite of the windows.

Arriving first for once, you’d been smug, locking the door behind him.

His eyes narrowed under the harsh fluorescents, trying to close in on a reason to push you away.

The white shock of his hair bounced lightly when he shook his head, coming up empty.

You lifted your leg, letting your foot trail from his chest to the front of his pants, before letting it dangle back against the desk.

“Come here, Toshiro,” you said, dropping his title to ease him. “We can just kiss if you want.”

Lulled, he came forward, his arms unwinding, drawn to your bare thighs. The cuff of his white button-up tickled a shiver up your spine as one of his hands trailed up your leg. His green eyes kept you frozen with their intensity as placed himself between your thighs.

“Why do I humor you?” He didn’t seem to need an answer, the thumb of his right hand skimming your bottom lip. But he didn’t go further, his eyes still flitting to the door in his peripheral.

From first, second, and third impressions, you never imagined someone like Toshiro would be touching you, much less humoring you about any from of classroom dalliance.

He seemed carved from the expectations everyone had for him, including his own. Professor Hitsugaya and Toshiro were two separate people in your mind but it was clear the distinction wasn’t so simple for him.

You kissed him before he could change his mind, cradling his face in your hands, his cheeks growing hot as his breath filled your mouth.

Tugging him closer, you threw your legs around him and he responded quickly, his hands supportive and firm under your thighs.

You rolled his bottom lip between your teeth and he gave a low groan that sunk to a satisfied sigh. The front of his navy dress pants were tight and your hands twitched against his shoulders at the feel of it flush against you.

“Aren’t you tired of humoring me,” you whispered against his lips.

Face aflame, Toshiro seemed stuck, his body straining closer while he resisted responding.

That was something he simply couldn’t hide—his innate shyness to intimacy. He was so used to the clear boundaries of professional relationships. So suited to professor or colleague but uncertain about the rules of lovers.

His insistence to tutoring you, on ensuring none of his students leaving his class reflecting a failing on his part by departing with a failing grade, had been the start of it all.

Toshiro was a person, whereas Professor Hitsugaya was a sculpture of ice, frozen in a prison of his own talent and sense of responsibility.

Toshiro met your eyes with hesitance and you smiled prettily for him, grinding against his hardening boner in encouragement.

“Y-you’re a horrible student,” he said, his palms sweating against your skin.

Nodding enthusiastically, you fisted the lapels of his button-up, “don’t you just wanna teach me a lesson?”

He got better as he went, his tone hardening, jerking you off the desk by the belt-loops of your jean shorts.

By the time you’d been raised back onto the desk, Toshiro was gone and Professor Hitsugaya was giving you a stony stare that swirled excitement in your stomach.

He didn’t undress, only shoving his pants and underwear down enough to let his cock spring free.

You’d always been taller, but it didn’t make him less domineering or you less eager to be an obedient student. Eagerly, you bent your head down to kiss him again.

“Please treat me well, Professor,” you said after he’d kissed you hard, your chest heaving for breath, your nipples squished against the cotton of his shirt.

His face was pure business as he eased into you. “As long as you study diligently.”

But your wet entrance was greedy to have him fully inside and your rhythm stole his coolness, his act unraveling much faster than he’d built it up. He groaned as you tightened around his cock.

Forcing you to lie back, he squeezed one of your breasts before enveloping your nipple with his hot tongue. Your moan was sharp, your body sliding on the smooth desk as your swirling hips beckoned him faster.

“Toshiro,” you panted as he leaned over you, stretching to kiss you as his thumb circled your pulsing clit. “I’m really—I’m so close, you’re so, so good.”

“C-call me Professor again,” he said, trembling on that same cliff you were close to falling from.

His eyes were glazed and barely open as you gave a breathy laugh and pulled him down by his white hair.

“I love you, Professor.”

Toshiro shuddered, his thumb racing against your clit and his hips thrusting tense and uneven, “again.”

You whispered into his mouth, “I love you, Professor Hitsugaya” and went stiff before you could say it again, your body wracking with pleasure that ran so hot, you felt frozen in the wave of it.

He followed with a few more uneven pumps, your pussy no longer allowing him to pull out more than inch or two.

After a few minutes of basking in his body on top of yours, you brushed your nose against his and kissed his cheeks, nose, and lips.

“I love you too,” he said, calm, squeezing your hips, then your waist, then your breasts.

“I figured, since you humored me enough to fuck me in your precious classroom.”

He slid away, tying up the condom he’d used, throwing it in a plastic back, and shoving it in the trashcan.

“Shut up. It was just this once.”

You laughed deeply and stood, letting Toshiro dress you.

“I remember you saying something similar the first time we kissed.”

He rolled his eyes, picking at the cuffs of his shirt, “Since when do students question their professors?”

“Am I risking a failing grade in being a girlfriend now?” You kissed him again, straightened his tie.

“Yes. Now get the vinegar spray out of the cabinet and help me clean your mess,” Toshiro’s mouth was smug.

You complied, laughing again, heart squeezing to see him hiding a laugh behind a cough. “My mess!! Take some responsibility, why don’t you.”

“Grab the disinfecting wipes, too.”

[seokiloquy]

If Only Then - Takeda Ittetsu

Au: Regular

Tags/Warnings: GN! Reader, Platonic relationship, angst?, freeform and stream of thought writing

Word Count: 1.7k +

Takeda would never forget his first year of teaching. Fresh out of university and into his first position, teaching students about contemporary Japanese literature —a topic he was passionate about— he was bound to meet some backlash from students who wouldn’t take him seriously. It was hard too. He couldn’t blame them; they weren’t much younger than he was, and they didn’t see a teacher when he walked through the door. They saw a friend.

One student, a social deviant who enjoyed bending the rules, would always pop up in his memory whenever a new development occurred, even years later.

Today, a student showed up with a uniform that was three sizes too big (a laundry mishap leading to the use of their older sibling’s clothes). When the teacher roaming the entrance to the school called them out on their improper dress, they responded quickly, “It’s still the uniform. I’m not breaking any rules.”

Takeda could see the scene perfectly in his mind. On the first day of school, a third-year student wearing a mixed-dressed amalgamation of both school uniforms in the back row of his classroom.

“(L/N), is it? Why are you not wearing the school-issued uniform?”

He glanced at the plaid skirt that poked out underneath the military-style jacket, briefly wondering just where your pants had gone.

“I am, technically. I just wanted to have a bit of style, ya know? Nothing in the school rules about mixing uniforms.”

The next day, you appeared in the black pants and beige sweater vest, the tie acting as a belt instead of sitting around your neck. Takeda didn’t say a word.

Sometimes he wondered how you would have acted had he been strict about your clothing, slightly regretting the hold that that 3rd-year glass had over him. Would the class have been quieter? Sullen even? Instead of the daily enthusiastic shouts of answers without raised hands and impassioned readings of plays, would it have been silent and disengaged?

Takeda knew that allowing some freedom, at least within his classroom, made students more comfortable even if they didn’t care for the content.

“Nishinoya, while I appreciate the noise, if you could have your conversation be about class topics and not about girl uniforms, I would appreciate it.”

“Who said they’re not wearing girl’s uniforms in the book?”

“The book said so. If you would actually read, you would know.”

The class laughed, but it didn’t wipe the smile off the boy’s face.

“Why are you just sitting in my classroom instead of participating in a club or studying for entrance exams?”

You kicked your feet up on the desk and lulled your head around. “I don’t know. My club closed last year because I was the last member left. So I can’t do anything about that. And I never really planned on going to university. I don’t have anything that interests me enough to pursue.”

Takeda flipped over the last test and wrote the final grade on the top corner in a red pen. He held the paper in the air. “Your test.”

You jumped off your desk and ran toward him, taking the paper in a casual grip. “93, nice.” You folded it into a small rectangle and tucked it into your pocket.

“Nice? That’s an excellent grade.”

The white fabric of your button-up folded by your neck as you shrugged. “On the higher end, ya, I guess.”

“You guess?” Takeda wanted to laugh in disbelief. “You’re an amazing student.”

“Not really. I just know how to talk to people and think a bit. I don’t study or try very hard or want to.”

“And don’t want to go to university. Even though you’d do amazingly well.”

“Yup.” You had fallen back into your seat at the back of the classroom.

“Why?”

“Why would I?”

Takeda watched students come and go, each with their own attitudes, personalities, and thoughts, yet somehow he could find you in each of them. You were a bit of an enigma. Puzzling in how you contradicted yourself, changed yourself, and became a different person from day to day, yet remained consistent.

He would teach lessons, never seeing your eyes while he stood at the front. But he’d know you were listening, paying attention, and understanding, even if your eyes were downcast.

“Kageyama, can you answer question number five? What evidence supports the claim that Takahashi has changed his views?”

“Uh..”

Takeda glanced at the boy’s desk through the side of his glasses, trying to suppress the smile on his cheeks. “If you can’t memorize game plans, pay attention to the lesson. Might I subject you to focus on the one you’ll be graded on?”

Kageyama tucked the game plan sheet into his bag, desperately trying to remember what his classmates answered for the other four questions.

“You’re good at art then.” He said, glancing over your shoulder.

You jumped, not expecting any comment, before sitting back and allowing him to see more of the ink-covered page. 

“Just some sketches.”

After that, you’d run up to him at the end of class and show him whatever drawing you were working on if you were proud of it.

“What was your club activity anyways?”

“Robotics.”

“Really?

“Ya! It was cool to build and code all the parts to get things working. The last one we made could play tik-tak-toe!”

A student asked him about the unwritten relationship between two of the characters in their most recently read story. It led to a class discussion with the students trying to use the clues in the story to figure out more information. Eventually, they settled on their connection about conflicting views and learning.

In the front row of the class, Sugawara took notes with interest. Though, he had two notebooks instead of one.

“Why don’t you wear the school uniform properly, anyway?”

“Why is there a proper way to wear a school uniform?”

Takeda took in your appearance and demeanour. Non-conforming, casual, uncaring, a bit strange. 

“And what about going to university? For robotic engineering, design.”

“They’re hobbies.”

“Passions,” he tried to correct.

“Not enough.”

Without realizing it, Takeda had grown to enjoy your conversations, your brain, and how you made the room feel full with just your presence and rambling words of little or existential thought.

He learnt far more than he could have expected from just a single person. It wasn’t just facts and information, but abstract learnings that could be used for later reference in different settings.

Takeda was pondering when a large 3rd-year boy ran in, tears hanging off the edges of his eye like a dam waiting to burst. 

“You can cry, you know?”

The boy gave him a weary smile before falling to his knees with a loud thud.

“What’s wrong, Azumane?”

“School stuff.”

You went to university—computer engineering with a minor in digital art. Both were topics you would often give full-hearted speeches in his classroom. However, you came to visit.

“How’s university going?” He asked when you visited at the end of your first year, as any teacher would.

You gave him an expression he had never seen on your face before—a tight and strained smile that was held close to your teeth.

“I wish I had never gone.”

“You’re not failing, are you?” he tried to joke.

You scoffed but let your teeth show in a hidden laugh. “No, I’m not.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

It looked like you were about to shatter. “I’ve just lost all the love I had for it. The things I enjoyed most in the world, I now hate.”

Takeda slid open a drawer of his desk and pulled out a tissue. You, despite the offer, shook your head and looked out the window.

“Do you not need it?”

“I haven’t cried in years.” You managed to turn your attention back to him, meeting his eyes briefly before turning away.

“You can cry, you know? You’re allowed to.”

Finally, you broke.

He quickly regretted pushing you to go. It was a reminder that not every person finds their passion early and knows what they want to do with life as he did. It hurt worse when a few stray tears turned into an avalanche as you begged the empty classroom to turn back time and allow you to sit in the back row again. Begged to just sit there and talk.

Takeda wished he could have helped more than try to wipe away the tears you wouldn’t let him see.

After that, he took courses on student health and wellbeing, never having thought he would need to before.

He lost track of you, however. After a few more visits with unclear paths, you stopped appearing.

You stared outside the classroom window, watching a crow as it landed on a treetop and opened its beak in a loud caw. 

“I want nothing more than to be happy and at peace. Doing whatever it is that I love doing for whatever reason. I don’t need big achievements, rewards, or endless growth. No need for a big wallet or name recognition. I just want to be happy.”

Takeda heard your response with a curious ear. If only he had done what he taught his students and looked for the clues.

The crowd was deafening, and Takeda wished he could have made a bubble to shield him and the shivering student on the bench. The boy needed a break, somewhere quiet to rest his head, even if Takeda had to fight him to do so. He was just too passionate.

On his knees, Takeda held the boy’s arms, trying to convey all the care and understanding he had while meeting his unfocused eyes. There was loss, and frustration, pouring out of the boy alongside the sweat that would continue until his body temperature was regulated. Soon, Takeda knew that tears would be joining no matter the outcome of the match. Hinata had just taken a hard blow.

“You of all people should be in peak condition. So that you can always be on the frontline when you get the chance.”

He could only hope that he chose the right words to say.

If only he could have said something more back then.

I thought it was angsty, but that might just be me self-projecting, I am mentally ill afterall. As for the MC….. uhh, thats up to you. -Bacon

Posted: 31/07/2022

[yandere-sins]

His Love

Horrortober Day 4: Needle  |  “It’s just a tiny sting. You won’t notice it at all.”

Day 4! Time is passing so fast... but I am glad to do this challenge :3 I think the biggest challenge for me is actually writing for the character’s I predetermined at the beginning. I find myself wanting to switch them around for prompts but no! I will stick to the list and keep challenging myself ^-^

Warnings: Yandere, TW Needle/Syringe, Kidnapping, Gags and being tied up, Sedation Characters: Dazai Osamu x Reader

It was wrong.

With tears streaming down your face, you had to recognize that everything you thought had been right was actually terribly wrong. You only just met him. Perhaps it had been a month now. But really, you only just met this wonderful stranger named Dazai. He didn’t just catch your eye, he also pulled at your heartstrings. It was the kind of love you always had wanted, just… it wasn’t. Not really. 

Not if that love meant being held captive, gagged and tied, staring into the face of a madman.

Something about the way he held the needle in his hand, clear drops of something collecting at its nozzle, seemed utterly wrong. Not just morally. Morally it was very wrong. No one should fear getting injected with something unknown. But the way he held it was strange enough to ring alarm bells. As if he didn’t know how to properly use it.

As if he didn’t know what he was doing.

“Shh,” Dazai shushed you calmly, holding down your right leg as you began to move and struggle again. Panic rose inside of you, festering in every inch of your body. NO! you wanted to scream at him, your bare feet trying to kick Dazai or at least the syringe out of his hand. Whatever his plan was, you didn’t want to have anything to do with it. 

You’ve tried being calm, tried being patient with him. When he invited you over to his apartment, only to spike the tea he served you with drugs, you were scared, yes. But you tried your best to work with him and his crazy wishes. No useless question fell off your lips anymore after Dazai stared at you crazed when you asked him if you could leave. You’ve been so good. So why did you have to go through this?

“It’s just a tiny sting. You won’t notice it at all,” Dazai assured you, or rather, reassured you. But with your mouth gagged, you couldn’t tell him how little you feared the needle and how much you feared what it would transfer in your body. With the last bit of effort you could come up with, you looked at him, fixating his eyes with yours. As miserable as you could, you pleaded with him silently to please not do it.

And for a moment, it seemed to work. Dazai merely stared back. You weren’t sure what he saw, maybe it was his own reflection that made him hesitant, but it caught him, made him lower his arm. “You know,” he mumbled, slowly painting his fingers over your leg. It gave you goosebumps, but at the same time, it helped to lower your anxiety, seeing how he relaxed. “I don’t like doing this to you, either.”

Even you knew those were empty words. Just like all the other words he always told you. Dazai’ loved you’, ‘adored you’ even. What a joke. ‘Couldn’t imagine a life without you’ and ‘wished to always be with you’. And he could have! Some part of you believed that if he hadn’t done these things to you—kidnapping and mistreating you in every way possible—then perhaps, you two could have become the couple he wanted. He could have proved you wrong. Proved that the love you always wanted did exist!

You two could have found a way to live. With each other or apart, but in love. Beautiful, pure love. But not like this. Not with him still gripping the syringe in his hand, eyes lowering to leer at your body presented to him like a gift. A gift he wrapped himself while you were unconscious like so many of your days now. Because you were his present to enjoy, no matter if you liked it or not. 

A sigh of relief left you, despite getting stuck on the gag, and you dared to look away, only to feel his grip tighten around your ankle again. Alarmed, you opened your eyes again, looking at a man full of disappointment and anger. Back was the tension that left you before and gone the feeling of safety you irresponsibly allowed yourself to have after the threat seemed banned. 

“I don’t like doing it, but I hate it even more to see you’ve been hiding this from me.”

From his trouser’s back pocket, Dazai pulled a black, rectangle object, dangling it in front of your face. Shit, you thought, and you were pretty sure the truth was showing in your expression. You knew exactly what it was: your savior. A phone that the man who came to patch you up after a rough fight with your captor two days ago left you. It had been a risk to have, but you hid it in the cover of your pillow. But without the possibility to use it until now, this random act of kindness had been in vain. You’ve been wanting to dial the emergency contacts, but before you could, Dazai had forced you to rest, leaving you restrained until he came back. But you didn’t think he could find it, even if you never used it. 

“Why must there be secrets between us, my love? You know I hate being deceived, but let’s be honest, did you really think I wouldn’t find it?”

Tugging at your ankle, you yelped, losing the strength in your body to keep yourself up and face him. You’ve been good. All this time, you had been understanding and patient. But who could blame you for clinging to a ray of hope? Shaking your head, you tried to plead with him again, but this time, his expression was merely filled with conceited disappointment. As if he was any better than you. That overprotective, obsessed, and mad asshole. 

“So while I go out and find who dared putting these stupid thoughts in your head, I can’t risk you being as awake and clever as you think you are.”

The syringe came back in sight, and you felt almost defeated, knowing there was nothing you could do against a decision he had already made. There was only hoping for the best and trying to prepare for the awakening by his side later, coddled and suffocating in his chest. 

“Dazai,” you said, but what came out was probably nothing more than blabbering against the gag. If he could say empty words, then so could you. If your survival depended on being sweet and kind to the man who was ruining you with his mere presence, then you would be what he wanted from you. 

His eyes opened wide, his name being such a rare word to hear from you, even if you butchered it with your inability to speak properly. Letting go of your ankle, he climbed on top of you, making it easier to look at him again while you laid down and relaxed. “I love you,” you lied, the feelings never reaching your eyes, but they certainly lifted Dazai’s mood. “Me too!” he sighed, smiling softly. “I love you too.”

It really was just a tiny sting, but against his promise, you felt it painfully in the side of your upper body. Letting out a strained groan, you temporarily tensed before you were sedated, eyes slowly closing as you drifted off to another sleepless night for you. In the cold, dark bunker that Dazai called your home, nothing seemed safe, and nothing was right. You could do everything you dared, but you couldn’t do the things you wanted. 

However, something even Dazai had to realize at some point was that you hadn’t given up yet. You’d never. You had a life before this—one you loved. Even if you had to make yourself small and loveable, endure the hardships of a thousand needles and the love of a psycho who you once thought was the man of your dreams, you wouldn’t give up. You wanted to believe that there was more to life than being here, that there was so much more to see and experience than the trauma you were going through. That there still was true love waiting for you. A love that was stronger than all of this. 

But did you really believe you were stronger than that cunning man who calls you the love of his life?

[acollectionofficsandshit]

Sneak Peek! Three of Us: Chapter 8

Max Verstappen x Reader (Single Dad AU)

Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 + Chapter 6 + Chapter 7

Masterlist

“Oh, I didn’t realize anyone was still awake,” you come up short at the sight of Max sitting on the sofa in the living room, his feet propped up in front of him, dressed comfortably in a Red Bull sweatshirt and a ratty pair of sweatpants you’d been meaning to hunt down and throw out for weeks now.

“Don’t just stand there, hovering,” he says placidly and jerks his head at the spot next to him on the massive couch. 

“Why are you sitting in the dark alone? That’s fucking peculiar behavior even for you.”

“First of all, I’m not sitting in the dark, because before you wandered in and started picking on me for reading in my own living room-”

“Our living room,” you correct him.

“Fine, whatever, our living room- Can I finish what I was saying or-”

“Hey, be my guest, no one’s stopping you-”

“Actually, I think you’ll find that you are in fact stopping me-”

“I think someone is up past his bedtime because that is quite the attitude you’ve got there.”

“Think you can behave long enough for me to finish a sentence without being interrupted-”

“I mean I could but why would I want to?”

“Are you done? You good, now?” Max cocks his head at you, eyebrows arched, “great! I was reading before you waltzed in, and because I have this,” he cracks open the hardback book you somehow hadn’t noticed sitting on his lap until now, and brandishes a page sized rectangle at you, before pushing a button along one side, the LEDs flickers embedded along the left side flicker into life, a soft, pleasant white glow emanating from reading light and turning the clear acrylic incandescent, “that’s why I don’t have the lights on, clearly, this is the superior option.”

“I didn’t even know you could read,” you say with a playful grin, shooting him a teasing wink when he only glares at you.

“Fuck you,” Max says with a disgruntled huff but doesn’t bother to hide the smile that tugs at one corner of his mouth, “you know it won’t be hard to make you regret that, should I start with the part where my dad didn’t really let me have friends so more often than not growing up, the only friends I really had were my books-”

“Not the Jos Verstappen horror story,” you grimace at him, “you’re still a fucking nerd for that- Also, I thought we went over this, you’re not allowed to order anything from SkyMall anymore since you seem to see that magazine and just throw what little sense you do have just right out the window.”

“My mother bought me this for my birthday last year,” he retorts proudly, rolling his eyes at you, “and I use it all the time.”

“We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for months now, I have never, ever, even once seen you use that before now,” you point out, which upon reflection is not a sentence you’d ever really expected to hear yourself say but it’s the unavoidable, the two of you have spent more nights asleep in the same room with Kaia curled up in between you than you have apart since September.

“You’re a heavy sleeper,” Max says with a shrug, “not my fault you and Kaia sleep like the fucking dead.”

“Is that why you’re so grumpy in the mornings? You stay up all night reading?”

“Sometimes, sure. But most of the time, I’m grumpy because I wake up half hanging off the mattress with a toddler’s foot jammed into my stomach and you're asleep in the middle of the bed.”

“Oh, shut up, you love it,” you wave a dismissive hand at him, pausing, giving him a chance to deny the charge but he does no such thing, electing instead to shrug good naturedly at you, as if to say ‘yeah, something like that’, “what are you reading?”

“I-” You hadn’t really been prepared for this question to be the one that he gets caught up in but here he is, cheeks turning slightly pink, betrayed in his embarrassment by his little book light, resting in his lap and illuminating his face from below, highlighting his high cheekbones, his eyes shadowed beneath his prominent brow bone.

“You’re choosing now to get embarrassed? Really?” You put up a valiant effort to not let on that that ache in your chest is rearing its ugly head again, the one that you’d never been plagued with until recently, like somehow it hadn’t been enough for your heart and your head to be pining for him, it had to manifest itself as a physical, tangible pain.

“I’m not embarrassed-”

“If you want to see embarrassed, you only need to take a peek at what was once my kindle account but that somehow, at some point along the way, Daniel got the password of and I’ve not been the same since. Never thought I’d have shared custody of an e-book account and yet, here I am.”

“Hold on, hold on. Wait a minute,” Max's expression shifts in an instant, his flushed cheeks and momentary chagrin already forgotten, “you’re telling me Daniel, multi-millionaire Formula 1 driver shares a kindle account with you?”

“I’d use the word commandeered rather than shares, because sharing would joint, equal use when really it’s more like I pick one book of the 14 you can lend and Daniel returns it because he’ll be on to the next romance novel-”

“Wait- no, go back. Romance novels? Like some kind of weird sex thing?”

“God damn, Verstappen, you’re eloquent,” your voice is all false bravado

“So, it is a- thing? You two… together-” Max's face has turned stony, his features going from open and at ease to locked down tight, the granite facade falling into place, yielding nothing about what was going on inside of his head now that the conversation had come to a grinding halt, “and don’t call me Verstappen, don’t fucking say my name like that.”

“Like what? Hm, Max? Don’t say your name like what?” You demand, trying not to give him anymore fodder for this fire.

“Like that- exactly like that. You know exactly what I’m talking about, you know good and fucking well you only ever use his name,” Max doesn’t need to elaborate who ‘he’ is, it’s written in between the lines, “when you want to knock me down a peg, to put me in my place.”

“Oh, but it’s fine when anyone else calls you by your last name but not me? Yeah, because that checks out. And you know what? I don’t really think it’s any of your fucking business whether or not something is going on, with me and anyone- let alone, Daniel- because even if it was, which I’m not saying that it is, you don’t get to ask me things like that, you have no right. No fucking right.”

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

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[reidingmelodies]

The Best Pair

Pairing: Spencer Reid x gn!Reader Category: Fluff Includes: Brief mention of food Word Count: 1k A/N: This was requested by an anon based off the song “Socks” by Out of Luck! ♡

Masterlist | Ash’s 500 Bash

“Great job, Henry!  That looks just like me,” you jumped as the booming voice broke your focus from your book, eyes scanning the park until a head full of curls caught your attention.

He was sitting on the ground a few paces away, surrounded by piles of chalk with a little boy in tow.  You couldn’t help but smile when the boy jumped into his lap and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck, leaving a trail of green and pink chalk dust in his wake.  As your eyes scanned across the ground in front of them, a laugh left your mouth at the adorable stick figure drawing gracing the otherwise plain pavement.

There were brown wavy lines coming out of the head of the figure that seemed to stick up in every direction and one of the stick figure’s hands held a rectangle that vaguely resembled a book.  Without a doubt, his feet were your favorite part of the drawing, a rainbow of circles drawn on the left foot while the right was covered in blue and pink zig-zag lines. 

And taking one look at the man who was frantically wiping chalk from his pants you knew the miniature Picaso had it right on the money.  

“Hey Uncle Spencer, look!  They have the same book as you!” You broke your reverie to find Henry jumping up and down a few feet away from you, finger wildly pointing in your direction.

You smiled, giving a little wave with the tips of your fingers as the mystery man from earlier came to kneel by the boy’s side and lightly grasped his smaller hand within his.  

You watched as he leaned towards him and explained that ‘it’s not nice to point, Henry, but you’re right- it’s really cool that we have the same book!’

He looked up at you and slightly smiled then, and your heart felt like it grew wings and was about to float out of your chest and into the palm of his hand.

Get it together, Y/N.

He stood, keeping his hold on Henry’s hand and coming face to face with you as you moved to meet him halfway.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he started as a blush crept up his cheeks, “I showed him that book in my apartment before we came here and I guess it made an impression”.

You smiled at the pair, shaking your head in protest, “it’s not a problem, really!  I’d love to hear your thoughts about the book actually if you have time” you watched as Spencer’s mouth slightly dropped before he nodded, and you turned your attention to Henry.  “And you!  You may just be the very best artist I’ve ever seen!” Henry’s expressions mirrored his uncle’s as he eagerly let go of Spencer’s hand to retrieve his chalk.

“I’m gonna draw you now!” you and Spencer watched as he organized the chalk based on the colors of your outfit, and you couldn’t help but thank the universe for bringing you to the park today.

“That’s Henry, and I’m Spencer, I um- I figured we should probably properly introduce ourselves” Spencer’s voice broke you out of your trance, and you locked eyes with him as you introduced yourself, immediately launching into a conversation about your mutual favorite novels.

And just like that, a new Saturday tradition was born.

Soon enough your Saturday afternoons were spent walking around the park with Spencer and Henry, most always ending with you and Spencer swinging Henry in between your bodies before ending the day with ice cream.

Park and ice cream afternoons with your boys somehow led to dinner and movie marathons with Spencer after dropping Henry off, and your heart had never felt so full.  

Every minute spent with him was a minute spent wondering how you had ever known a life without him by your side, and one thing was for sure- you never wanted to live like that again.

***

Two months to the day you had met Spencer and Henry in the park, you found yourself face to face with an eager five year old running to sit next to you on the bench while Spencer ran behind him, shouts of “Henry, no!” desperately leaving his lips.

But, it was too late.

Within a second of plopping down next to you Henry’s mouth was running a mile a minute as he caught you up with the latest gossip.  “I was helping Mommy match socks when we did laundry yesterday! She told Daddy that you and Uncle Spencer would make a good pair and guess what!  I told Uncle Spencer when we were walking here and he said he thinks so too!”

Your lips parted and closed repeatedly, words failing you as you looked up at Spencer.  His face was the brightest shade of red you’d ever seen, his hands moving to rub at his neck while he looked everywhere and anywhere to avoid your questioning gaze.

“Hey Henry,” you stage whispered, “wanna know a secret?”  Henry’s eager nod brought a chuckle out of your mouth despite the all consuming feeling of nerves running through your veins.

“I think your uncle and I would make the very best pair”.

And just like that, three things happened at once.

Henry’s little arms rose above his head in triumph at the same time you stood to your feet and Spencer pulled your body into his.  The warmth of his body against yours brought you an infinite amount of comfort, mind spinning as you realized your secret was finally out in the open.

And when his lips gently met yours much to the disgust of the boy next to you?  One thought made its way to the forefront of your mind- thank goodness for meddling five-year-olds.

***

Permanent Taglist: @calm-and-doctor @reidyoulikeabook @shadyladyperfection @homoose

Spencer Taglist:  @averyhotchner @muffin-cup

Link to join my taglist ♡

[valdomarx]

time enough for counting (when the dealing's done)

McShep + Vegas fix-it, requested by @beautifulmonster. 2k, rated M.

Bad beat

John had always known it would end like this. 

Well, the space aliens and the shady government organization had been a surprise. But the bleeding out, alone in the desert - yeah, that was always how he was going to go.

There’s a kind of dark satisfaction in seeing the world turn out exactly as shitty and brutal as you knew it would be. Called it.

His moment of sick vindication is interrupted, though, by a figure standing over him and peering down with cursory interest.

Sharp black suit, spotless even in the heat and the muck. Hands in pockets, head quirked in something that might be amusement. “Should have known you’d pull a stunt like this,” it says, and John would smirk at playing to type but the blood loss pulls him under.

Ante up

He wakes to pain. Vicious, lancing pain and the cloying smell of antiseptic and the beeping of monitors. He tries to sit up and his chest screams until he collapses back onto the bed.

Next to him, a slightly rumpled McKay is tapping furiously at a laptop. “Don’t go dying on me now, Sheppard,” he says without looking up. “I’ve got plans for you.”

Buy-in

The next time he wakes, the light has faded. It must be evening. 

The hospital room - his own private room, he realizes - is nice. Far too nice for the local joint. Must be private. Must have cost someone a pretty penny. He would have told whoever it is to save their cash.

“You’re awake. Good.” McKay strides in, less rumpled now. Neat black suit back in perfect order. “I don’t have much time, so listen up.”

He tells John how they destroyed the Wraith target before he could get a message to his buddies in Pegasus. How this universe is safe, but the spacetime rift has sent that information echoing through other universes. How they’re putting together a team to visit these other universes; warn them, offer to help if they can.

How he’ll be leaving in a few hours to head up the program. How he thinks John might be able to help.

John blinks. His eyelids are sticky and his mouth is full of fluff.

“Why the hell would you bring this to me?”

McKay flashes him an enigmatic smile. “You did save the world. Maybe you’re more of a hero than you realize.”

On the flop

He gets unceremoniously booted out of the hospital a few days later, when it becomes obvious that he’s not going to die and whoever was bankrolling his stay isn’t any more.

His car is totaled. The money inside is gone. He’s got the clothes on his back, a mountain of debt, no job, and -

He sticks a hand into the pocket of his jacket. There’s something in there: a neat rectangle of card which reads, Doctor Rodney McKay, PhD PhD. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. There’s no phone number.

He heads for the nearest motel he can find, picks up two bottles of rotgut whiskey, and drinks until he manages to pass out amid the sounds of yelling and the scuttering of cockroaches. 

Into the muck

Whatever the fuck else might be going on in the world, there is always the constant: 52 cards, 4 suits, the flick of the dealer’s wrist as he lays out your fortunes, the wins and the loses and the ones where you came oh so close.

He’s back at Mikey’s within a week, borrowing more to get out ahead of this debt, even though he knows that’s never going to work.

Maybe it’ll be different this time. Maybe he can win what he needs, pay off the people he has to, and use the rest to make a start somewhere other than here. Anywhere other than this desert full of chips and blood and corpses and filth.

It’s going to be a good night, he tells himself as he settles into a squeaky plastic chair at a low-roller table and looks around at his competition. Tourists and chumps, and he can take these guys no problem.

Pot-committed

He’s woken by a shrill ringing. His head feels like he’s stuck it in a cement mixer and his mouth tastes like cheap whiskey and puke. He rolls over, covers his ears with a ratty pillow, and ignores it.

The ringing continues. What the fuck? It’s a phone. It keeps ringing. He doesn’t own a phone.

Whoever the fuck is calling is still going, so with a groan he sits up and, bleary-eyed, looks for the phone. He finds it in his jacket pocket, and he’s almost certain it wasn’t there last night.

“Yeah?” he says as he answers it. “What do you want?”

“Sheppard,” a crisp, familiar voice says. “I’ve got a job for you.”

Sheppard closes his eyes. The last thing he needs right now is a world-ending crisis. “Can’t,” he says shortly. “I’ve got… business to attend to.”

McKay snorts. “Another fortune to lose at the poker table? I’m sure you do.” John can hear judgement radiating down the phone line. Then McKay sighs and softens. “Tell you what, meet me and hear me out, and I’ll see what I can do about clearing that off-the-books debt for you.”

That pings John’s bullshit meter, for sure, because that much money doesn’t get casually tossed around even in defense circles. But McKay gives him the address of a pancake place to meet for breakfast and what the hell, he does like pancakes.

Check in the dark

“We keep running into you,” McKay says, shoveling maple syrup-covered pancakes into his mouth with great enthusiasm. “Or, well, other versions of you. Practically every universe we’ve visited so far, you’re leading the team.”

John raises an eyebrow. Not much surprises him any more, but parallel realities strain even his credulity.

“It would be easier,” McKay continues, “if you were with us. You could help us explain. People trust you.”

John jerks back like McKay has slipped a knife between his ribs. McKay doesn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he does notice and is tactful or manipulative enough not to acknowledge it.

“Come work with me. We’d need to get you some -” he gestures with a fork, “- training, obviously. But you could be useful. You could do some good.”

John shifts in his seat. “I can’t just leave.”

McKay scowls at him. “Right, because you’ve got so many compelling reasons to stay.”

Gutshot

He ends up in some anonymous Air Force bunker in Colorado, of all places, and being around so much military life has his hackles rising. He’s deposited in a blank, windowless room with a desk covered in stacks of carefully redacted mission reports from the Stargate program which he reads voraciously because this is wild, this is unbelievable, but it’s also all true.

McKay finds him a few days later, lounging in the doorway as impeccable as ever. John is suddenly very aware of the fact he’s been sleeping in his clothes.

“Keeping busy?” McKay asks, voice dripping with condescension and something else John doesn’t want to put his finger on.

John nibbles the pen he’s holding as he considers how to answer that, and he notices the way McKay’s eyes flick to his mouth. Ahh. Interesting.

“Staying out of trouble, at least,” he drawls, letting his posture slacken so he’s lounging against the back of the chair and his knees are spread wide. It’s been a while but he knows how to play this game. 

McKay walks around to his side of the desk, each step measured and precise. Not too fast, no sudden movements, a predator lining up for the kill. John tilts his head back and bares his neck, because he knows how to play the role of prey. McKay perches on the edge of the desk between his legs, looks down his nose, and says, “Somehow I doubt that.”

“I can behave.” He looks up from under his lashes. It’s not exactly subtle, but fuck it, they’re way past that by now. “When properly motivated.”

McKay leans in, all sharp smiles and gleaming edges, and John shudders. McKay notices and the sharp edges of his smile glistens. 

“I know you can, Sheppard,” McKay says in a low voice that has the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. “I told you before. I know everything about you.”

Damn the man, John thinks, and then McKay winds his fingers into John's hair and yanks him in for a hot, messy kiss and John stops thinking altogether. 

Afterwards, as he makes vain attempts to pull up his shirt collar to hide the bite marks and to wipe the come stains off the classified military files, John reflects that he may truly be in over his head this time.

Under the gun

A stack of paperwork drops onto his desk with a dull thud. He looks up to find the scowling face of Major Davis.

“Consultant,” Davis says, chilly as ice. “That’s what the Pentagon is willing to offer. You’ll get a salary and accommodation, and in return you’ll help Doctor McKay with his research while he’s on Earth.”

John opens his mouth, though whether it’s to say thank you, to tell Davis to go fuck himself, or to ask for more money, he isn’t sure. Davis holds up a hand to stop him before he can find out.

“I advised against it, given your record. But McKay is a real pain in the ass when he wants to be. So this is what’s on the table. Take it or leave it.”

Tell

McKay’s brow is furrowed and he’s fiddling with some piece of machinery (probably alien, John thinks, and it seems that sort of thing is part of his life now). It blinks to life for a moment before the lights on the top fade away, and McKay swears and bangs it on the table.

“Hey, easy, Chewie,” John chides.

McKay’s eyes narrow. “I thought you said you didn’t like science fiction.”

“Star Wars isn’t science fiction. It’s science fantasy.”

McKay actually smiles at that, something joyous leaping up in the corners of his mouth.

“Knew you were a nerd,” McKay says under his breath, and John punches him playfully in the shoulder. He’s defending his honor, or something.

McKay ducks his head, and a blush creeps up the back of his neck.

Ace high

“I’ve got a surprise for you.” McKay looks even smugger than usual. 

“Yeah?” John slips a leer into the syllable.

But McKay just rolls his eyes. “Not like that. Come on, there’s something I want you to see.”

He leads him down through the base to a lower level, through endless security checks and into a dark hanger. There’s some technology they’ve acquired from an off-world source, he explains, deliberately vague. He’s trying to make some modifications to it, and he thinks John can help with testing.

John has learned to expect the unexpected in this place, but when the lights of the hanger flicker on his breath still catches. It illuminates a ship unlike anything he’s seen before: slick and cylindrical, rear hatch open to show seats and consoles inside.

“It’s fitted with inertial dampers, weapons, a shield,” McKay says breezily. “Oh, and you’ll like this.” He flicks a button on a control and the ship disappears in a haze like hot air. “It’s got a cloak too.”

It’s like something out of a movie, and John is struck speechless. He follows wide-eyed as McKay decloaks the ship to lead them inside and gestures for him to sit.

And woah, the moment he sits the chair glows and a holographic interface springs up in front of him, and he can feel the ship in his mind. He reaches out with a thought and - ping - the display shows a schematic of the hanger.

“Knew you’d be a natural,” McKay says, managing to sound both condescending and delighted. “Want to take her for a spin?”

Yes, everything in him screams, but he thinks about flames and smoke and the shrill, piercing whine of a tail rotor failing, and he grits his teeth against it and says, “I don’t fly any more,” instead.

McKay gives him a long, cool look. 

“We’ll start small,” McKay says, all business, and it’s so easy to relax and follow his lead. “I need you to activate the inertial dampeners while I adjust the shield field strength.”

Okay. Okay. He can do that.

The ship whirs to life.

Short stack

John stares at the blank white walls of his apartment.

It’s better than most places he’s lived in. No roaches, for a start, and it’s clean and has its own kitchen.

But it’s infuriatingly bland, and Colorado is infuriatingly empty, and there’s not so much as a slot machine within an hour’s drive and he is climbing the walls here.

McKay has disappeared on one of those weeks-long missions he can’t or won’t tell John about, and there’s a restless itching under his skin that’s urging him to drink or gamble or fuck or something, and this whole planet seems too small and too constrictive but he doesn’t want to climb under a blanket of booze and drain it all away.

He wants more.

On the river

“Modifications are done,” McKay announces. “Shall we test her out?”

The we makes something squirm in John’s gut but he dismisses it with a lazy, “It’s your alien spaceship.”

McKay looks for a moment like he’s going to say something, but then he pulls out a radio and talks into that instead. “This is Gate Ship One, ready for initial shield test burst.”

“Gate Ship One?” John scoffs. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

“It’s a ship that goes through the gate,” McKay pouts, and damn, that’s kind of cute. “Why, what would your suggestion be?”

John tilts his head. He’s seen footage of the ship traveling through the stargate, leaping through the event horizon and leaving barely a ripple in its wake. “Seems more like a puddle jumper to me.”

“You have the soul of a poet,” McKay says acerbically. 

And damn if that’s not kind of cute too.

Dealer’s choice

“Come with me,” McKay says, and John is ready to say yes before he’s even finished speaking. “To Pegasus. To Atlantis. I need to get back there, and I’m sure we can find a way to make you useful.” A little smirk at the end there.

“I don’t know how the Pentagon is going to feel about that,” John says, deliberately languid to hide the way his heart is pounding in his chest. Escape, adventure, somewhere new, somewhere he could be a new person, and he wants it so much it aches.

“Eh, fuck them. They can’t say no to me.”

“Okay,” he shrugs. “Not like I’ve got anything better to do here.”

McKay gives him a look that shoots straight through his defenses and down to his sticky innards. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and it’s soft in a way that makes the ache in John’s chest twist into a deep burn.

All in

The jumper hovers in the air in front of the stargate. 

“Nervous?” McKay asks, carefully casual, like he doesn’t already know the answer.

John hums. The inside of the jumper feels as much like home as any place he knows. What’s another galaxy to a man with no ties?

“You’re going to love it there,” McKay says with a smile he can’t hide. He dials up the gate and it engages with a tremendous whoosh and a burst of brilliant blue light.

Here goes nothing, he thinks as McKay deploys the drive pods and fires up the engines. One last new start. 

[tellmealovestory]

Cake

Summary: The wedding plans continue as you and Bucky try to decide on a cake flavor.

Notes: It’s been awhile and I’m a little rusty. Part of Something More.

Warnings: Food mentions obviously, but other than that none.

“Bucky!” You laughed, nudging his knee beneath the table. “You’re supposed to share that.”

Mouth full with red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting didn’t stop him from answering. “Maybe you should eat it faster.”

“It’s not a competition.”

“You sure about that?” A goofy grin on his face, a dab of white frosting stuck to the corner of his mouth and you couldn’t believe this was the man child you were about to spend the rest of your life with.

You couldn’t wait.

Lightly swatting his hand away from the sliver of a sample he had left you with you scooped the red velvet cake onto your fork, popping it into your mouth and chewing thoughtfully as you tried to figure out if you liked it more or less than the previous sample; a simple vanilla bean cake that had left your mouth watering when you paired it with the best buttercream frosting you had ever tasted.

Without waiting for you or Ava, your expert baker to explain the next sample he dived into the next piece, a carrot cake paired with the same cream cheese frosting you were giving serious consideration to marrying if your marriage with Bucky didn't work out.

“Yes I’m sure,” you laughed, answering his question. “We’re supposed to be taking our time and keeping track of what we like and don’t like.” You gestured down to the small spiral notebook that rested between your elbows. Two neat columns with a pros and cons list for each of the samples you were working your way through.

So far the only thing written down was a note of no written in Bucky’s messy handwriting next to the mint chocolate chip cake. And next to that in an even sloppier scrawl were the words tastes like toothpaste.

It hadn’t of course, but no matter how much you had tried to convince him of it the mint chocolate cake was out.

“Hard to keep track when all you’re doing is eating the frosting,” he teased, leaning back into the chair, a self satisfied smirk on his face before he thought to add, “Carrot cakes a no.”

Ignoring him you took a sip of water before trying it. Warm spices burst onto your tongue reminding you of autumn days with him by your side and when you bit into a plump raisin you knew that this cake had serious potential of being the one. Closing your eyes for a second you let the spices dance on your tongue as you cut off another sliver.

Carrot cake at a wedding was a polarizing option, but you were willing to take that chance with this piece. It was that good.

“I’m eating more than just the frosting,” you retorted once you swallowed your second bite of cake. It was mostly true.

When you had first started the first bites you had taken were of the frosting, but in your mind it was the best part of the dessert. Whipped frostings, American buttercream, cream cheese, ganache, you weren’t picky. You had always been that way, anytime you went out with Bucky and split a dessert you always dove into the frosting first while he worked his way through the filling. But this wasn't just any dessert, this was your wedding cake, a day you had been thinking about non stop since he had proposed to you on that random Tuesday night. And once you had bit into one of Ava's creations you had been unable to stop eating the cake, each sample somehow better than the last.

“I think the carrot cake has potential and with the cream cheese frosting it could be a hi-,” you started, words getting cut off with a laugh when you turned to Bucky who was shaking his head no, an exaggerated frown on his face.

“Baby, no,” he whined as he set his fork down on the plate with a soft clink. “Nobody likes raisins.”

Parting your lips to interject that you liked raisins, he beat you to it, “‘Cept you. You really wanna serve our friends and family a cake full of raisins?”

Ava interjected, a woman with the patience of a saint when it came to dealing with you and your varied tastes said, "We can omit the raisins. Some people choose to fill it with pineapple and walnuts." Pushing her glasses up her small nose she glanced between you searching for a compromise that would please not only both of you, but also your wedding guests. She was good at her job and as her words sank in you wondered how much extra you'd have to pay her to have her come over and settle your movie night disputes.

At the mention of juicy pineapples and the added crunch of walnuts in an already delicious cake your mouth watered, but Bucky was quick to shut that suggestion down too.

“Nut allergies.”

"You're not allergic to nuts. What about the pineapple at least?"

"What about our guests? No.”

Chewing on your lower lip you knew that he was right, something you weren't thrilled about telling him, but you also knew that it was possible to still have it without adding the nuts or pineapple or even raisins that he was set against.

You had never thought that trying to find a cake for the wedding would be so complicated. Not only did you have to think about yours and Bucky's likes and dislikes, but you also had to take into account potential food allergies of your guests as well as trying to find something that would please the majority if not everyone.

Ava jotted down a quick note and cleared her throat sensing that the carrot cake was a no go even if you weren't ready to give up. Pointing down to the next sample and explaining what it was you half listened, grabbing your pen and in big letters that took up a quarter of the page you wrote yes next to the carrot cake.

“For someone who said they didn’t care about the wedding planning you sure have a lot of opinions, Bucky.”

He chuckled, the tone low and meant only for you he murmured, “What can I say. Picking out a cake is a lot more interesting than choosing silverware and thinking up wedding favors.” Leaning over he pressed his sugar coated lips to the side of our head in a kiss that was as sweet as the frosting you had been inhaling all afternoon.

The last sample lined up was a confetti cake bursting with the bright colors of greens, reds, pinks, oranges, yellows and blues. The small rectangle that sat on the plate made you feel happy just looking at, not even Bucky's amused expression, smirk curling up those stupidly plump lips of his or the memory of the way he had teased you when you first suggested this, asking if this was for your wedding or tenth birthday party could dampen your spirits. Eagerly diving into the piece your eyes closed in bliss and immediately you knew. This was the one.

And even better was the way that Bucky was nodding his head as he swallowed his bite. Finally you thought, a piece that you both had managed to agree on.

Ava beamed a smile at you seeming to know that after an hour of tasting and years in the business the difficult part of her job was almost over. Shuffling through a pile of papers and photographs she slid over a few glossy photos showing the same cake you were eating in different iterations. Naked with minimal frosting, coated in rainbow sprinkles, fondant flowers cascading down the side even one covered in a thick layer of fondant topped with two macarons on top.

"It's not bad," Bucky settled on, popping the last few crumbs into his mouth.

"Could this be the one?" Ava asked, pen poised over her pad, ready to finalize the details.

Licking the frosting from your lips you turned your attention to Bucky. A silent conversation was had, a perk to having known each other most of your lives.

Mentally you went over one more time the samples you had indulged in.

The carrot cake and mint chocolate chip cake were out despite your best attempts at getting him to change his mind. The vanilla bean cake had been simple, but delicious, an instant crowd pleaser as had the red velvet cake, one that had been so moist it had melted as soon as it touched your tongue, much like the double chocolate cake. And there had been the last one and so far your personal favorite, the confetti cake.

The silent conversation stretched on, Ava sat still, pen still poised above her pad before clearing her throat and suggesting, "Of course you don't have to decide today, but the sooner the better."

A shrug of your shoulders as you left the decision up to Bucky.

"We've decided." Mischief danced in his eyes and curled his lips up into a smirk that screamed trouble. “The cream cheese frosting.”

“Excellent choice,” Ava praised, “Which cake are we pairing this with?”

Turning that mischievous look in your direction and with a straight face nonetheless he managed to say, “No cake. Just the frosting.”

Whatever you had thought he was going to say it wasn’t that. Ava had the decency to look bewildered, glancing between you, the poor woman’s expression growing more confused the longer it took you to find your thoughts.

“Bucky!” You spat out, hand slapping his shoulder. Choking back a laugh and willing your face to stop burning you tried to find the words to apologize on behalf of this man child.

For a beat that felt more like an eternity nobody said anything.

“That not what we agreed on?” Bucky asked, his question caused your face to warm to temperatures that rivaled that of hot lava. Beneath the table you kicked at his ankles while thinking of the numerous ways you were going to get him back for this as soon as you left.

“I’m so sorry. That is not what we agreed on.”

Ava was still flustered, but trying her best to appear professional.

“Possible to get extra frosting on the cake?” Bucky asked and for a brief second he seemed to be taking this more seriously.

A quick nod of her head and she jotted it down, underlining it twice. “We can do that, of course it will be extra.”

“The more frosting the better. Wanna make sure there’s plenty when I feed you that first piece.” His mischievous smirk widened into a full blown smile and this time you didn’t hold back.

“James!” You tried to glare at him, but it faltered when that stupid, beautiful, man child turned his smile on you. “We talked about this and you are not shoving cake in my face.”

“We’ll see.”

For a second that felt more like an eternity your surroundings faded into the background when your gaze locked on his.

No longer could you hear the hustle and bustle of the bakery. No pans clanging as they slid in or out of ovens, no voices rising and falling, no bell jingling overhead as customers streamed in. Nor could you smell the sugar of frosting or the sweetness of the cake samples, no richness of freshly baked bread. Nor could you hear the sound of Ava’s pen tapping against her notepad in rhythmic short bursts.

All you could hear was the steady in and out of Bucky’s breath next to you, the low timbre of his voice when he murmured, “Sweetheart.” All you could see were those sparkling blue eyes of his as they searched yours. All you could feel was the gentleness of his touch when his fingers stroked across your still scorching cheek.

No longer was it you, Bucky and Ava sitting in a back room in a bakery in Brooklyn discussing cake options.

For a few blissful, brief seconds it was just you and Bucky, lost in one others gazes.

All too soon though you were being hurtled back to reality when Ava cleared her throat for the second time that day, breaking you both out of your trances. A knowing look rested on her face, one that you had come to recognize as the same one Natasha and Steve and both of your parents used to shine down on you when your stares lasted a little too long for just friends. A look that seemed to say they had never seen two people more meant for each other.

“Have you decided on a cake?” She asked in a not unkind way.

You got the feeling she was ready to be rid of you both and when Bucky’s hand searched out yours beneath the table, the light touch sending a thrill through you you couldn’t help but feel ready to leave and get him alone.

Another glance in his direction, another silent conversation.

Out of the samples you had tried there were only two you had been able to agree on whole heartedly. They’d not only be crowd pleasers, but you also wouldn’t have to worry about food allergies with them either.

The first was the confetti cake. Vanilla bursting with bright pops of color it had been light and airy, reminding you of his mom’s homemade cakes and all the hours you had spent sitting on their kitchen counters licking the spatulas clean of the batter and watching with rapt attention as she frosted the cake, always giving you the first slice much to Bucky’s annoyance. Paired with a thin layer of vanilla buttercream that Ava had mentioned would pair perfectly with champagne you had been sold after one bite. Even better was that he had seemed to enjoy it as much as you had.

The second had been a double chocolate cake smothered in ganache and that Ava said usually came sprinkled with chocolate shavings on top, every chocolate lovers dream she had said. It had melted on your tongue after the first bite and you swore you had never tasted a chocolate so rich before.

“We have,” Bucky said slowly and for the first time today taking it seriously. “We’ll do the chocolate cake.”

“Perfect!” Ava gushed, jotting it down as she bobbed her head.

As her and Bucky talked amongst themselves finalizing details and asking follow up questions you leaned against his side, mentally crossing another thing off on your wedding to do list as the date grew ever closer.