coolcsi123-blog

[wearjoplins]

Sustainable Sunglasses

Sustainable sunglasses combine the perfect blend of fashion and accountability. These trendy sunglasses, which not only guard your eyes against the fierce sun but also help preserve a green globe, have simply become an ideal fitting for the responsible customer.

[inkskinned]

how odd, to watch the creative writing exercises of angry men in the comments of instagram. you noticed it first in the comments of conventionally attractive women - but then it started appearing everywhere else, too.

a young man talks about what lunch he's packing his wife. there is a little story under it, with 300 likes, fabricated from nothing. "this is pointless. if you treat her like this, she will take the lunch to her office and fuck her boss and divorce him and take all his money."

you scroll. a young woman talks about what lunch she's packing for her husband. it is always uglier when the subject of the video is a woman, you've noticed. "you sit on camera and you smile and you are cheating with the neighbor and then you're going to lie about being sexually assaulted by your husband and -"

you stop reading. it has 567 likes.

where did this even become a thing? people making up stories in their head, disgusting long-winded assumptions about intention and sexual disgrace. the evil twin of fanfiction.

like - it's just a lie. it's a lie that they are telling, baldfaced and assumptive. the undercurrent is of course misogyny, but the trouble is that they're so fucking certain. that's what makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise. there is this pervasive, inventive desire for them to be right. that they must be right. all women are cheating, lying, gold-digging bitches. no exceptions.

in the reverse, when women say i'd rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man - men funnel in from the sides. they defend each other with a vibrance and capacity for empathy you wish applied to like, the other half of the population. a man could be saying i absolutely did kill her and these creatures in the comments would rise up with king shit. she made it happen. they love each other to the point of this sick strange self-gaslighting, a fervent and unhinged cognitive distortion. all men are good, wonderful people. all women are terrible, conniving, seditious, annoying.

and when did it become okay to just, like... say that kind of a thing? at one point, you find yourself typing out a witty and snappy retort. why are you spending so much time fantasizing about other people babe. but as you stare at the screen, some part of you pictures this man in public, saying these things to your face. his soapbox, high and mighty. his mirrored sunglasses and his empty life: tired and lonely.

what a sad and horrible loop he's locked in. he is terrible to women, so women don't talk to him, which he uses as an excuse to act more terribly. he blames this "failure" on women, rather than on his behavior. it cannot be that he is the problem (that the solution is to just put his ego down and accept women as equals) - he begins to invent a sculpture to replace the flesh frame of each person he sees.

it isn't just a woman posing on the beach. it is now a slut with a desperate need for each person to crave her body. it isn't just a woman yelping with surprise during something upsetting. it is a hysterical, unhelpful cretin who will probably make things worse instead of better. it isn't a person.

someone's very sweet wedding vows get moderate attention on instagram. in the comments, a man says good fucking luck you'll waste your life providing while behind your back she's absolutely fucking the best man. this will be so cringe in 2 months when she walks out on you.

you think - is that what you need to be true? is that what you need to happen, for the world to make sense to you?

[tpwrtrmnky]

lockdown

[ID 1: Three-panel comic, first out of four, with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: The sky is blue and peaceful, with some clouds. Someone says "Ah..."

Panel 2: An orange person with dog ears is laying on the grass.

Orangepup Dogsaturated: "Despite the weirdness, it's nice here.

I think... I'm enjoying my fate as an orangepup dogastur-"

They are interrupted by barking.

Orange: "Huh?"

Panel 3: A green person with dog ears and a tail, who is holding a gun, stands over Orange. There is a tree in the background and some windmills on top of a hill in the distance. The barking continues.

Green: "Comrade Hot Pink is sounding the alarm. Come quick. We're going on lockdown."

Orange: "Huh? What are we-"

Green: "No time. Now."

ID 2: Three panel comic continuing from above.

Panel 1: Orange is led by Green down some stairs from outside.

Orange: "What's going on? Expository doctrine please?"

Green: "It's too dangerous. Safety first, explanation after."

Panel 2: Green shuts a vault door as Orange and a blue person with dog ears and sunglasses, as well as some sort of bandolier and a walkie-talkie, watches. The room is a plain beige with a simple ceiling light.

Green: "There."

Orange: "ok can someone explain now"

Blue: "Allow me."

Panel 3: Zoom in on Blue, who looks down dramatically.

Blue: "You must understand, young Orange. As much as we wish to trust you, there are circumstances where safety for the commune comes first.

We are aware that you have certain... Rhetorical susceptibilities, and so could not risk having you make contact with them."

Orange: "Who? Who are they?"

Blue: "One who destroys discourse."

End ID 2, begin ID 3.

Three panels once again.

Panel 1: A split view of a loft and the bunker. A hot pink person with fluffy ears is speaking on the walkie-talkie, while an onyx-colored person with dog ears and long claws is aiming a rifle out the window.

Hot Pink: "Comrade Blue. Onyx is ready. Do we have majority ethical consent?"

Blue: "Take the shot. If we later vote against, I will take accountability for the decision myself."

Orange: "What"

Panel 2: A view of Onyx staring down the scope of the rifle from outside of the window, as Blue narrates.

"You must understand, Orangepup Dogsaturated.

There are many who despise us. Many who would do anything to see us destroyed."

Panel 3: The narration continues from a view from the outskirts of the farm area. A mountain is in the distance, and a pair of grayscale legs are in the foreground, framed by some tree trunks.

"The horrific lesson we have learned...

Is that there is no low that outsiders can be trusted not to sink to.

And the danger of this interloper lies in their ability to provide others with all the excuses they need to justify their hatred."

Interloper: "I..."

End ID 3, begin ID 4. You know what this image is by now.

Panel 1: The Most Illiterate Person Alive, a grayscale individual wearing a book on their head, emerges from the woods, saying: "I am the most illiterate person ali-"

They are cut off by a view of Onyx pulling the trigger, which results in a view of the bullet going straight through the head of the most illiterate person alive, emerging in a shower of gore.

This continues to be a crudely drawn stick people comic.

Panel 2: Inside the barn loft, Hot Pink and Onyx are contacting the others.

Hot Pink: "Comrade Blue, we've confirmed a direct hit! Target eliminated!"

Onyx: "Wait. There's movement."

The Most Illiterate Person Alive: "Holy.

Fucking.

Shitfuck."

Panel 3: A front view of The Most Illiterate Person Alive, blood seeping out of the hole in the front of their face. They are framed in darkness and surrounded by a menacing red glow.

The Most Illiterate Person Alive: "I cannot believe"

The text color is inverted and changes to a more hostile font.

"You actually thought that you had any chance of killing me?"

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

[ratatouillewastakendammit]

OMG I LOVED THE Tomorrow, I promise SO MUCH 😭🔥🙏🏻 have you considered of making part two? id be begging on my knees

I'm so glad you liked it!! Thanks for the request! (Also for the person who requested the Hawks version of this trope, it should be done soon! 💙)

Tomorrow, I promise

Pairing: Dabi x Reader

Warnings: language; slight smut/suggestive; as always I have no beta reader and this was made in maybe under two hours because I wanted to get it to yall quickly <3

Find part one here!

"You ready to beg yet?"

In all honesty, your answer would've been yes.

The desire to give in was heinous, to throw away your pride for the tickle of heat budding below your abdomen and that wicked smile coming from the man above you.

Then you heard the knock on the door.

Practically falling off of the bed, your right knee hit the floor, pulling a curse from your mouth as the wood scraped against your skin. You scrambled to your feet, allowing yourself a deep breath for composition before turning the knob.

Magne and Compress met your line of sight, both looking upward as your door creaked open, the hinges rusted with age and lack of care.

"Good morning!" The redhead grinned, lowering her sunglasses to get a better view. "We figured it had been long enough for the quirk to wear off, so we wanted to check on how you were doing..."

Her voice trailed off, face scrunching in surprise. At first, you weren't actually sure why.

Until you felt the wave of heat gnawing at your back.

Eyes narrowed, Dabi had a hand placed on the left side of the door frame, leaning slightly and wearing an expression of pure annoyance.

Magne bit her lip. "Did you two-"

"No!" You sidestepped a few inches, heat blooming in your cheeks. "We definitely did not."

Dabi scoffed, muttering a quiet, "Yeah, thanks, assholes."

"Plus Shigaraki wants to see you two, talk about tomorrow's mission or something." Compress, seemingly able to ignore the less-than-kind comment, nodded to the stairway. "Unless, of course, we're interrupting anything."

Grabbing his free arm, you yanked Dabi in front of you, effectively pushing the group out of the room. "Nope, sounds good. See you soon, bye."

The hurried burst of words was followed by the slam of your door and a sigh. The sound of relief echoed through the space, now devoid of that warmth you kicked yourself for missing. Body resting on the wood, almost like a barricade to the world outside, you pushed yourself forward and towards the dresser.

Picking out a pair of jeans and a hoodie was easy.

Facing the rest of the League was not.

You tried to listen to your leader's explanation of what would be going down tomorrow, fidgeting under the cerulean gaze stemming from across the room.

For what seemed like hours, Shigaraki droned on and on about how pissed off he would be if you messed up again. It felt like a millennium before he waved you all off with a lazed flip of his hand.

Jumping up from your chair far too quickly, you sped-walked to the stairs, going at least two at a time in the direction of your room.

Unfortunately, you weren't fast enough.

Deft hands slid around your waist from behind, picking you off from the mismatched wood and tossing you over Dabi's shoulder.

"Put me down, asshole!" You yelled, ignoring the way his hand rested ever-so conveniently over your behind.

"Sorry, doll," he replied, ushering a soft squeeze to the area above your thigh. The sound he earned drew a wicked grin across his features as he opened the door to his own room. "But not happening."

Locking clicking into place, he marched forward and tossed you onto his bed.

That seemed to be happening far too often lately.

"Wanna know what else isn't gonna happen?" He was on you before you could sit up, hands placed on either side of your body and arms caging you in. "You aren't gonna sit there and pretend like you don't have a thing for me."

"Why the hell does it matter?" You scoffed. "You don't feel the same, so just let it go. Try your best not to be a prick for once."

The words pulled at your chest, but the silence was worse. Abundant and humid, it hung over the air like a toxic gas as Dabi stared at you.

"Are you fucking serious?"

"I-"

"Do you know how fucking hard it was to watch you sit there and bat those pretty, little eyes and go on and on about how much you liked me? How hard it was to say no when you, of all people, are practically begging for me to take you?"

"So, you just wanted to sleep with me."

Rolling his eyes, he smirked. "If I wanted a simple fuck from you, I would've done it yesterday when you were frothing at the mouth."

"I was not." You mumbled, face heating.

"Oh, come on, princess. You gotta admit how needy you are for me at some point." Dabi cradled your chin with his hand, pulling your face upward as he inched closer, the warmth of his breath tickling your ear and sending a chill down your spine. "Or else I can't show you how much I like you."

Tongue running across your neck, his free hand moved under your shirt, hesitating just enough to give you a chance to pull away. When you didn't, his fingers traveled beneath your bra, cupping your chest gently.

He pinched your nipple, earning a small moan. "So, let's hear it."

"Fuck," you cursed, back arching into the warmth of his touch. "Yeah, fine. I like you too, or whatever."

A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. "You can do better than that."

"You're an asshole."

"And you're an idiot." He pushed his lips against yours, tongue skimming the bottom, begging for entrance, a request that you happily indulged.

The heat of his touch coursed over your body, warm and inviting and absolutely nothing like the mask he wore. It felt safe, a pure contradiction to what the world saw. The idea that he was only like this with you made your chest feel light.

When he pulled back, taking that heat with him, it was like the air had been sucked from your lungs. Still, the way that he looked at you had a pleasant fervor running through your limbs.

"How the hell could I not like you?"

[in-the-multiverse]

Now I’m thinking about how a wood carving culture would form on sbk

After figurines, they’d make wood accessories too. Necklaces, earrings, friendship bracelets with beads of different wood types. As time goes on, those become fashion and status symbols. Like, one month, carved rings are all the rage. “Proposals” become a way to ask for an alliance, partners in crime business, and everyone gets a good laugh out of it. When the rings get too crowded on their hands, they switch to putting them on necklaces. And then necklaces become trendy!

They come up with a bunch of designs, and hey, why not cute earrings to match? Or wooden framed sunglasses? Those can be any shape! Before long, there’s all sorts of carved accessories and home decorations everywhere you go, it’s as normal as living in the sky. Despite their abundance, there’s no shops for it. A few do sell every now and then, at a shiny price. They feel attached to what they make or get gifted. Every little thing is special

Someone gets the idea to make their own crown, and the others are like oh my god why didn’t I think of that?? Boom- crown season. Shortly after, people are making thrones. What’s a kingdom without a cool crown and awesome throne?

Wearing other wood types is an indicator on who’s buddy buddy. It’s like a big neon sign saying who trusts you the most. Petty disputes and victims of pranks means someone will swear off a specific wood because they don’t want to be seen showing off the enemy’s fashion, at least until they’re on good terms again. For a while, that’s pretty cut clear. But in the situation that one kingdom is fed up with another, wearing the “forbidden” type becomes a rebellious act. Because 1- it’s stolen, and 2- it’s saying they’re not afraid to retaliate >:)

If they wanted to take it a step further, in perhaps the biggest offence, it would be very twisted to publicly wear the rival kingdom’s crown

[butmakeitgayblog]

Guten tag! I was just wondering, in your clexa au’s minus the canon one, what are each of Clarke and Lexas lockscreen?

Ooo German that's so fun 😀 I always think it's so mind blowing finding out where people are from all over the world. It's surreal, in a wonderful way 💕

Ok so, I thought a lot about this

MBFW: depends on when you were to look at it. If we're talking Lexa in the friendship era, generally it's a picture of whatever was the last time they were together, so generally a holiday photo or a pic of them on some beach: heads pressed together and sunglasses perfectly dipped to "make it fashion💅". Maybe the occasional stolen pic of Clarke napping on her chest. Ya know. Totally normal friend things... If we're talking marriage era, then it's always a family picture. A selfie style shot with Clarke and the kids flaked out on the couch for movie night in the background. A Griffin-Woods gang lineup of them hanging out by the pool on a summer day. Everybody in matching reindeer pajamas, standing in front of their Christmas tree loaded with presents. A very bizarre tablue of characters depicting everyone dressed up for trick-or-treating. That kind of thing. Lexa loves keeping stuff like that as her lockscreen cuz not only can she look at them any time she has to travel, but it's an excellent excuse to show off her little family so easily 😌

For Clarke, it is always Lexa. Always. Friendship era, family era, whatever. It's Lexa in some shape or form. Their kids always have a place on her homescreen, but Lexa has her lockscreen all to her own. That's her wife and her best friend in the entire world, always has been. That's her other half, and she had to spend an obnoxiously long time waiting for her, so she's damn well gonna look at that face any time she feels like it 😤

AWTR: Lexa had a flip phone because she was an 85 year old woman stuck in a 23 year old's body 🥴

Clarke keeps one of their wedding reception photos as it for a long while. A candid moment Monty had snapped when Clarke was laughing at something just out of frame, but all Lexa had eyes for was her. She looked happy. And very much in love with Clarke, for some inexplicable reason. They have classier ones from that day, but Clarke liked that one in particular a lot. For awhile after that it was the picture Raven took of them together that night when they'd hung out with the delinquents, when Lexa had held her and kissed her neck as a tipsy Clarke just relished in the closeness. Breathing in the way Lexa's hair smelled like shampoo and autumn bonfire smoke. Clarke liked that one too, enough that it gets framed and hung up in her house wherever she goes. But as time goes on she does evenly decide it's ok to choose other things. Pictures of art pieces that move her mostly, sometimes snapshots from her travels.

Demon au: Canot stress enough how little neither of them would care lol. If anything, Lexa would put something entirely inappropriate and private enough to have a once-human Clarke turning 10 shades of red. But as it is, Clarke would just find her ridiculous girlfriend funny and just so fucking Lexa, and thus try to give her something sinfully new to change it too next 😏

Cruel Intentions: they're disgusting. It's all very sappy. Always pictures of them kissing, if them wrapped up in each other's arms, of them draped over each other in bed. They have no filter and no fucks to give. But that's also how Clarke always knows if Lexa is annoyed with her about something and just not talking about it. Because if she sees her wife has replaced her with that godless chicken she pretends is a cat, she knows she's fucked up somewhere.

CoA: Clarke is functionally allergic to caring about her phone. She's busy, she works on computers a decent amount and spends her days with tiny patients, so when she's home she just wants to be home. Her phone is like... a tool in her mind. It's just the square in her pocket that she googles actors names on and that Raven uses to harrass her through text messages and that she can use to track down her wife around the hospital to see of she's free to go to lunch. So it's pretty much the same picture of them together on her couch (and the one of Lexa stretched out naked and asleep in their bed as the wallpaper) for several years until the women in her life start giving her shit for never changing it, and then it gets replaced by a new one of Lexa or both of them. Rinse and repeat every few years when she gets bored of hearing about it.

Lexa changes hers too often to narrow it down. Anything that feels fun in the moment. A pretty landscape. Clarke's face. A waterfall they saw on vacation. Clarke's face. A piece of architecture or art that makes her feel something. Clarke's face and a tasteful hint of her breasts. Her interests vary, you understand. She contains multitudes.

[ijustmissyouraccenths]

Too Sweet

CW: Smut

Word Count: 3,887

Nights like these were what Charlotte lived for. She reveled in the excitement of going out with friends, hitting up bars and clubs, and indulging in the thrill of hooking up with strangers. It wasn't something she actively sought out, but once she was in the midst of it all, she couldn't resist. The pulsating energy of the alcohol coursing through her veins, mixed with the throbbing beats of the music, sent her senses into a frenzy. It was a wild and intoxicating experience that she couldn't get enough of. 

As she weaved her way through the throng of people, her body brushed against others and she felt the warmth of their skin. The smell of sweat and alcohol mixed in the air, creating a heady atmosphere. But she didn't mind - in fact, she relished the closeness and connection with strangers that this crowded space provided. Finally reaching the bar, she scanned the crowd for her friends but they were nowhere to be seen. Just moments ago, she had caught glimpses of their familiar faces among the sea of strangers, but now they seemed to have vanished into thin air.

With a quick flick of her wrist, Charlotte pulled out her phone and unlocked it, tapping furiously at the screen to open the Girly Girl Group chat. The small group of her closest friends had created the chat to keep their conversations contained and private. "Hey," she quickly typed out, trying to keep up with the rapid pace of her thoughts. "Where did you all go? I can't find you anywhere." After what felt like an eternity, her hand buzzed in response, signaling a new message from one of her friends. "Em got sick," it read, "we're taking her home. We totally forgot to find you before we left." Charlotte let out a sigh of frustration as she read the message, wishing she had been there to help take care of her friend.

The bar was unusually quiet and Charlotte easily made her way through the sparse crowd to the counter. Despite the emptiness, a few seats were still available, including two to her left. She fervently hoped that no one would choose to sit next to her; she longed for a night of solitude after being unable to let loose with her friends. The air in the bar was thick with the smell of alcohol and sweat, mingled with the faint aroma of cologne and perfume. Dim lights cast a warm glow over the dark wood furnishings and the low murmur of conversations created a cozy atmosphere. Charlotte relished in this moment of peace, sipping her drink and taking in the sights and sounds around her.

She scanned the room, her gaze lingering on each person before finally landing on a man sitting directly across the bar. He appeared to be in his early twenties, his features chiseled and strong. He held a glass in his hand, swirling the liquid inside before bringing it to his lips for a small sip. As he placed the glass back on the counter, he caught her eye with his piercing green gaze. The intensity of his stare sent a shiver down her spine, and she couldn't help but feel drawn to him.

His hair cascaded down to his broad shoulders in loose waves, each strand catching the light and reflecting shades of a chocolatey brown. She couldn't make out the intricate designs, but she could see glimpses of colorful tattoos peeking out from beneath the sleeves of his plain button down shirt. The fabric hung ever so slightly oversized on his frame, adding to his rugged yet effortlessly cool appearance. A pair of sleek sunglasses dangled from the edge of his shirt pocket, completing the picture of a confident and strikingly handsome man before her. He was a beautiful sight to behold.

As she drifted deeper into her thoughts, the bartender's voice broke through Charlotte's trance. "Hey, can I get you anything else?" She glanced up at him, her eyes taking in his rugged features and easy smile. "Yeah. Um, can I have another rum and coke? And could you also order me another of whatever the man across from me is having?" Her gaze shifted to the man in question.

The bartender nodded knowingly and smirked. "For him?" He turned his head and pointed towards the man. "That's Harry. He's an old-time regular around here. Travels a lot so I don't get to see him often. But let me tell you something, he never pays for his drinks." A mischievous sparkle lit up his eyes as he leaned in closer. "If you catch my drift."

Charlotte caught it all too well. In just a few words, the bartender had conveyed that her idea of buying this man, Harry, a drink was far from original and most likely wouldn't lead to any kind of connection with him. She sighed inwardly but thanked the bartender anyway before turning back to her drink, disappointed but not entirely surprised by his revelation.

She observed him expertly crafting their drinks, his hands moving with a fluid grace as he added just the right amount of each ingredient. Her drink was placed in front of her spot at the bar, and then he walked over to Harry and placed his drink down, explaining that it was bought for him by her. Harry nodded, got up, and left. Charlotte's heart skipped a beat. Was buying the drink too forward? Did she make him angry? But before she could dwell on it any longer, he returned, not to his original spot but to the one next to her. She felt a nervous flutter in her stomach. This was what she had hoped for, but after the bartender's warning about Harry receiving drinks all the time, she didn't expect it to actually happen.

Harry leaned casually against the bar, his gaze fixed on Charlotte. "Well, aren't you just full of surprises?" he drawled, taking a sip of his drink.

Charlotte couldn't help but smile at his teasing tone. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" she countered playfully.

"Oh, it's definitely a good thing," Harry replied, his voice low and confident. "I'm Harry, by the way." He extended a hand towards her.

She took his hand in hers, her fingers lightly brushing against his skin as they shook. "Charlotte," she murmured softly. "It's nice to meet you, Harry."

"The pleasure is all mine," he said with a grin. "So what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Well," Charlotte began hesitantly, not sure how much to reveal about herself so early on in their conversation. "I came with friends, one of them got sick and they all left without me, so here I am."

"Must be your lucky day then," Harry quipped back, winking at her cheekily. "Because I happen to be here too."

Charlotte couldn't help but chuckle at his boldness. "I guess it is my lucky day," she replied, matching his playful tone.

Harry couldn't help but smirk at Charlotte's response. He liked a woman who could give as good as she got, and from the way she seemed to be enjoying their playful banter, it was clear that she knew how to have a good time. "So tell me, Charlotte," he said leaning in closer to her, "what do you do when you're not getting drinks for strangers or being left behind by friends?"

"Well," she began, tilting her head to the side curiously, "when I'm not stuck here with you, that is," she added with a playful smirk of her own, "I actually work for a travel magazine."

"Really?" Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. "And what exactly does that entail? Traveling the world and writing about it?"

"Something like that," Charlotte replied with a grin. "Although sometimes it feels more like researching destinations and coaxing people into telling me their secrets."

"Sounds like an interesting job," Harry said thoughtfully. "But I bet there's nothing more thrilling than discovering those hidden gems all on your own, right?"

"You know," Charlotte mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully, "you might be onto something there. Maybe I should start exploring more on my own."

Harry chuckled softly at her response. "Well, if you ever need a travel companion," he suggested casually, his eyes never leaving hers, "you know who to call."

Charlotte felt her heart skip a beat at his words. There was definitely something brewing between them, and she couldn't help but feel excited about the possibility of where this newfound connection could lead them. However, before she could respond further, they were interrupted by the sound of clinking glasses coming from across the bar.

"Hey guys!" a voice called out cheerfully from down the bar. "I just overheard that Harry over here has been getting free drinks all night! That's fantastic news!" The group of people around him erupted into laughter as they all turned towards them.

Charlotte couldn't help but giggle along with them as Harry groaned in exaggerated annoyance. "Oh come on now," he grumbled good-naturedly, rolling his eyes at his friends' antics. "Why ruin a perfectly good rum and coke moment?"

Charlotte smiled at the playful banter, feeling grateful for the unexpected interruption. She glanced back at Harry, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he shook his head in mock exasperation at his friends' antics.

"Well," Charlotte said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "it looks like you've got quite the fan club here, Harry. Free drinks and all! I might need to start hanging around you more often."

Harry laughed, a warm sound that made Charlotte's heart flutter. "I'll have to watch out for freeloaders now that my secret's out," he joked, his gaze lingering on Charlotte.

As the night continued with laughter and shared stories, Charlotte realized that perhaps the best hidden gem she had discovered that evening wasn't a place or a secret, but rather the connection she was building with Harry. And as they exchanged smiles and easy conversation, she knew that this chance encounter was just the beginning of an exciting new chapter waiting to unfold.

As she turned back to Harry, she noticed him sipping his drink slowly, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. She watched his throat move gracefully, unconsciously following its movement with her eyes. The smell of smoke from the nearby table wafted over from a group of smokers outside chatting animatedly about their night so far; it mingled with the scent of stale beer and flowery perfume from a woman who walked past them moments ago. She wanted him. Badly.

As the laughter from Harry's friends echoed in the background, Charlotte decided to take a leap into unknown waters. Her full lips curved into an impish grin as she leaned closer to him, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper. " I was thinking of heading back to my place...but I wouldn't mind some company."

Harry choked on his drink, a surprised cough bouncing off the dim lights of the bar. His azure eyes widened for a moment before they smoldered with a heat that made Charlotte's belly flutter. "Are you sure?" he asked, his rich baritone sending shivers down her spine.

Charlotte felt her body react to his words - anticipation pooling deliciously between her thighs. She responded by tracing her finger up his arm, her touch light but incendiary. "I've never been more certain," she replied confidently, the huskiness in her voice revealing just how much she wanted him.

With a swift movement, Harry grabbed their jackets and led Charlotte out of the bar. The cool night air did little to douse their palpable attraction; it only seemed to heighten it further as they stumbled into the backseat of the taxi waiting outside.

As soon as they were alone, Charlotte found herself pinned against the plush leather seat, Harry's large hands roaming over her body. Their lips met in a fiery clash of teeth and tongues. Each fervent kiss made Charlotte whimper and gasp for breath - her body quivering under his masterful touch.

His fingers found their way under her shirt, tracing tantalizing patterns on her silken skin. Her nipples hardened instantly beneath his touch, causing Charlotte to arch into him and moan wantonly into his mouth.

Harry's grip tightened as a low growl escaped his lips, interrupting their heated kiss. He glanced around, suddenly aware of their surroundings - a cramped taxi with a bemused driver in the front seat. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he pulled away from Charlotte and muttered an apology to the driver before paying the fare and exiting the vehicle. They stumbled up to Charlotte's small flat, fumbling with keys and struggling to open the door in their urgency. Finally inside, they were consumed by each other once more, the intensity of their desire seemingly boundless.

Finally, they descended upon each other once more, the intensity growing. Within moments, clothes were shed and strewn about the room. Harry gently pushed Charlotte onto the bed, his hands exploring her body with an insatiable hunger. As he leaned down to take her nipple in his mouth, she grasped his erection, stroking him firmly as she felt his breath hitch in response. Their bodies intertwined, Harry's fingers found her wetness, teasing her and coaxing a desperate moan from her lips.

Their tongues tangled in an erotic dance as their bodies writhed together in a symphony of lust. As Harry's hand gripped Charlotte's thigh, he pulled her closer, grinding his hips against hers. She moaned into the kiss, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

"You taste so good," Harry murmured between kisses, his free hand trailing down her side and dipping beneath her waistband to find her wetness once more. He plunged two fingers into her core, eliciting a gasp from her lips as she arched her back off the bed.

"Fuck," she groaned, "Don't stop."

His thumb circled her swollen bud while his fingers pumped in and out of her in a rapid rhythm that sent shivers down her spine. Harry's other hand found its way between their bodies, tracing the hard line of his erection against her stomach before slipping lower to tease at her entrance.

"I want you inside me," she whispered hoarsely, rocking her hips towards him in desperation. Without another word, Harry positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside slowly but surely until he was fully sheathed within her tight warmth before removing himself as a tease. 

"Fuck," he growled deep in his throat.

Harry grabbed Charlotte's wrists and pinned them above her head, holding her captive beneath him. His lips crashed down onto hers in a fierce, passionate kiss that left her breathless. He nipped at her lower lip before slipping his tongue inside her mouth to explore every corner of this beauty beneath him.

As they made out, he ground his hips against hers, teasingly rubbing himself against the wet folds of her entrance. She moaned loudly into his mouth, unable to resist the intense desire coursing through her veins. Her body arched off of the bed as she begged for more of his touch.

Harry pulled away from their kiss, trailing hot breath along Charlotte's jawline until he reached her earlobe which he nipped softly before whispering, "You're going to love every second of what I'm about to do to you."

Without further warning, he thrust into her tight warmth with forceful precision, claiming her body as his own with each powerful stroke inside her welcoming depths. She cried out in delight at the incredible feeling of being filled by him so completely. His hard muscles flexed against her sensitive flesh as he held most of his weight on his arms while continuing to pound into her relentlessly hard.

"Oh fuck!" Charlotte groaned out loudly as she felt herself being taken over by waves of pleasure she had never experienced before from this rough yet beautiful session with Harry who was treating her like an object for his lust but still keeping it safe.

As Harry continued his violent invasion of Charlotte's body, she let out a long, low moan that reverberated through both of them. "Oh... my... God..." she panted, her head thrown back in ecstasy as he thrust deeper and harder into her with each passing moment.

His rough hands gripped her hips tightly, holding her in place while he took her with a ferocity that left her breathless. "Uuuuhhh... harder," she begged between gasps for air. She could feel herself getting closer to the edge with every stroke of his thick cock inside her.

Harry obliged, slamming into her with renewed force that made every particle of her being sing with pleasure. She arched her back off the bed, crying out in delight as he filled her completely. "Fuck! You feel so good," he groaned between harsh breaths.

Charlotte couldn't help but moan in agreement. "Aaaahhh... yes!" She tightened her grip on his shoulders, urging him on as he continued to pound into her at an unrelenting pace. Every time he bottomed out inside her, she felt herself being pulled closer to the brink of orgasm.

Their bodies moved together in perfect harmony, each one responding to the other's every move with a desperation that only fueled their passion further. As they neared the peak together, Charlotte's breath came in short gasps and whispers of encouragement. "Oh my god... I'm going to cum."

Harry's thrusts grew even more frenzied as he felt himself getting closer too. "Cum for me," he growled into her ear before pulling out roughly and shooting his hot load across her stomach and chest. 

Charlotte screamed out his name as the intense sensations washed over her, taking her over the edge too. Her body convulsed around him; she arched off the bed and shuddered violently as waves of pleasure coursed through every fiber of her being. 

Finally spent, they collapsed onto the bed together, panting heavily as they tried to catch their breath from this intense encounter filled with raw lust and unbridled passion. It was clear that neither one would ever forget this night anytime soon....

As the weeks went by, Harry and Charlotte's fiery encounters continued. They would meet at the bar, share a few drinks and laughs, and then head back to Harry's place for wild nights of passion.

But as much as Charlotte enjoyed their steamy rendezvous, she couldn't help but develop feelings for Harry. She found herself eagerly anticipating their next meeting and craving his touch even when they were apart. 

And it wasn't just about the physical chemistry between them anymore. Charlotte loved the way Harry made her laugh with his dry wit and dark sense of humor. She loved the way he took care of her after sex, bringing her water and cuddling with her until she fell asleep.

One day, as they lay in bed together after another mind-blowing session, Charlotte couldn't keep her feelings bottled up any longer. "Harry," she whispered, running her fingers through his messy hair.

He turned to look at her with those piercing green eyes that always seemed to see right through her. "Yeah?"

"I... I want more," she said, feeling a little vulnerable but also relieved that she had finally said it out loud.

Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. "More?"

Charlotte nodded, suddenly feeling a rush of courage. "I want us to be exclusive." but unlike Charlotte Harry did not want the same things.

Harry's expression shifted, his features hardening slightly as he processed Charlotte's words. He sat up, pulling away from her touch, a furrow forming between his brows.

"Exclusive?" he repeated, his voice tinged with hesitation. "Charlotte, I thought we were on the same page about keeping things casual."

Charlotte's heart sank at his reaction, but she steeled herself and met his gaze head-on. "I know we started off that way, but I've developed real feelings for you, Harry. I want more than just these occasional hookups."

Harry ran a hand through his tousled hair, his jaw tensing as he pondered her words. "I... I care about you too, Charlotte. But I'm not sure if I can give you what you're asking for."

Disappointment washed over Charlotte, but she refused to back down. "Why not? What is holding you back?"

Harry looked her dead in the eyes, “You’re too sweet for me.”

Anger ignited within Charlotte at his dismissive response. Her voice laced with frustration, she shot back without missing a beat, "Don't use that as an excuse, Harry. It's about being honest and upfront about what you want."

The room felt suffocating as their confrontation escalated. Harry's jaw tightened further as he stood up, towering over her in a display of defiance. "Maybe you're just too naive to understand," he retorted sharply.

Charlotte rose to meet him at eye level, her own anger rising to match his intensity. "Naive? I know what I want, and I won't settle for anything less," she declared firmly.

Their voices clashed like thunder in the room, echoing off the walls in a fierce battle of wills. Harry took a step forward, his posture challenging as he looked down at her. "You think you can change me? I take my whiskey neat, I’m up until three am most nights. " he challenged, his tone daring her to prove him wrong.

Charlotte didn't flinch under his gaze; instead, she stood her ground with unwavering determination. "I'm not trying to change you, Harry. I'm asking for honesty and transparency in what we share," she shot back defiantly.

The air crackled with tension as their words hung between them like a gauntlet thrown down.

"Maybe we're just too different," Harry stated bluntly, his tone final.

Charlotte refused to back down, her voice firm and resolute. "Our differences don't have to tear us apart. We can find a middle ground if we're willing to try."

The room felt charged with electricity as they stood locked in their battle of wills, neither willing to yield.

The tension between them reached its peak as they stood locked in a silent standoff, the weight of unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. Finally, Harry broke the silence with a resigned sigh. "I don't know if I can give you what you're looking for," he admitted quietly.

Harry's gaze bore into Charlotte's, his expression unreadable. "I need time to figure this out," he finally admitted, uncertainty coloring his voice.

Charlotte nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his face. "Take all the time you need. Just know that I won't settle for less than I deserve."

The tension in the room eased slightly as they both took a step back, their gazes still locked in silent understanding.

Charlotte's shoulders sagged at his admission, the reality of their differences sinking in. With a heavy heart but steely resolve, she met his gaze one last time before turning away.

"I understand," he said softly. She walked towards the door.

As she reached for the handle, Harry's hand shot out to grasp hers gently, stopping her from leaving. The room fell into a tense silence as they shared a moment of unspoken understanding before Charlotte pulled away slowly and walked out into the night.

[thisapplepielife]

Written for a @astrangersummer.

The Remnants

Week #11 Prompt: Sunglasses | Word Count: 898 | Rating: T | POV: Karen Wheeler | Characters: Karen, Steve Harrington | CW: Prior Major Character Death (Unspecified Member of The Party) | Tags: Future Fic, The Party, Unnamed Character Death, A Look at Grief, At Loss, Steve Harrington is Still Their Babysitter Person, The Kids Are Home For A Funeral

Inspired by the song Pink Skies by Zach Bryan.

The kids are in town for a funeral. 

Karen has been listening to them move around the basement, getting ready to go. She doesn't want to make them wait, not on her. Not today.

She's touching every surface in her kitchen, every counter, frantic. It doesn't make any sense. They were just here. She's sure of it.

She laid them out with her purse. She swore she did. 

She's yanking open drawers, then slamming them shut, over and over.

"Can I help you find something?"

It's Steve Harrington, standing at the edge of her kitchen.

She's not surprised to see him, because the kids don't want anything from anyone, except Steve Harrington, and she's had to stand back and accept that this isn't something she can fix.

She can't make a pot roast, and let them run wild on their bicycles. Not now.

If Steve can ease any of this for them, in any way, she'll be grateful. 

"My sunglasses," she says. They have to leave, and soon, but she can't go without them. 

Steve pulls his own sunglasses out of his shirt pocket, and hands them over, "Until yours turn up."

Karen takes them, isn't sure what else to do, and lets him lead her to one of the waiting black cars. He's not a kid, not anymore, none of them are, even if she'll always see them that way.

Even as they have to go to a funeral. 

After, Karen watches as Steve Harrington herds the remnants back through her house. All that's left of their little group. The Party. The fuss and fight gone out of them, now. The boys, and later, the girls, that trampled up and down her staircase, excited and loud, are now long grown. Men and women, somehow here in their places. 

They haven't all been gathered together, not all of them, not in years. Maybe not since Ted's funeral. 

Burying parents, that's the stage of life they've reached. It's a rite of passage that sneaks up on you, hard and fast, and often before you're ready. But it's the order of things, to be expected, even when it's a complete surprise.

But they shouldn't be burying each other. Not yet.

And now that they have, now that the seal is broken, they won't ever be whole again.

It's unfair. 

Now, they're silent as they walk past the doorway, and don't even look at the growth chart they all spent so much time and energy trying to be the tallest mark on. 

She listens to them go down the stairs, and maybe it's her imagination, or her failing hearing, but they still sound exactly the same as they did as kids. 

Now, though, the noise stops too soon. One pair of feet too few.

She leans in the doorway. Listens. Hand touching the carved-on piece of wood. The growth chart on the door frame started as Nancy, then Mike. By the time Holly came, all these other kids had scraped their own right alongside her kids. Cheating, standing on tiptoes, so desperate to grow taller than each other. 

The funeral was beautiful, but the kids are all pretty stoic. Like they didn't even notice. They aren't kids, not anymore. But they still feel like her kids, always will. All of them, and now one is missing. 

They've had a practice run at this at twelve-years-old, but then they got a do-over. They learned to believe in magic, to believe in the impossible being possible.

She knows that won't happen again. This time it's for real. One of them is really gone, dead and buried, and they don't know how to act.

She doesn't know how to act.

She's still supposed to be the adult here. The mom.

They'd spread their wings. Flew far, and wide, but always flocked home, together. 

She's pretty sure that won't happen again. They're cleaning the basement, clearing the drawers, mopping the floor. Steve's been up and down a dozen times, digging under the sink for cleaning supplies, then carrying up box after box, taking them out the front door, and she doesn't know where it's all going. 

Just that it's already gone.

The basement, their safe space, can't go on with one missing. Won't.

So, they're closing up shop. 

And she's having to watch from afar. Only getting kernels of secondhand knowledge from her daughter's ex-boyfriend. 

It's a strange life they've all lived.

But once they got past that, she thought they'd made it. That they'd all be fine. 

That she would eventually go first.

She wishes she could go back to the start. When Mike was so little, and just meeting Dustin, Lucas and Will for the first time. When they were just old enough to ride bikes down the driveway, and then later, out of sight. Not to be seen until the streetlights came on again.

Kids don't roam like that now. Her grandkids sure don't. Their parents, far too well aware of what can go bump in the night.

She listens.

It's quiet, too quiet, down there. 

She misses the sounds of screaming, tumbling dice and curse words they weren't supposed to be saying, but did anyway when they thought they could get away with it. 

She settles in her chair, and gets poked in the thigh. She reaches down, and her sunglasses aren't lost. 

Just broken. 

Just like everything else here today.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @astrangersummer and follow along with the fun!

[thosewickedlovelies]

Private Eye, chapter 2 | Tim Rockford/Marcus Moreno x F!Reader

Summary: With too much evidence and not enough progress, you and “Agent Rockford” go and meet the neighbors. But you’ll need a more creative solution to get into the rest of the mansion…

Tags: vague murder(?) mystery; workplace romance; we meet Marcus's powers 👀

Word count: 5,460

Note: welcome to chapter 2! I've lost perspective on this one honestly, but please enjoy the promised sneaking around in the dark 🥷🏻

ch 1 | Masterlist

It’s clear from the get-go that you and Marcus make an effective team. Your strengths balance the other’s weaknesses. You’re both thorough and driven to make something of this strange case- but you’re drowning in evidence, and the potentialities pull you every which way.

“We need a board,” Marcus declares.

It’s day three since his arrival, and he’s made himself at home at a desk in the basement. So have you, for that matter- it’s easier to keep everything related to the case in one place, so you drag a spare desk next to his and divvy up the paperwork. The wood-paneled walls are about 30 years out of style and the space is full of old metal filing cabinets, but it could be worse. There’s some natural light. Plus, you have the bathrooms all to yourselves.

At his pronouncement, you glance at the clock. “It’ll make a late night to start it now,” you point out.

“I don’t care, I can’t make sense of anything while it’s all piles of paper.” Marcus groans, sitting up and rolling his neck. 

He sees your expression and falters. “You don’t have to stay. I don’t mind doing it. Or starting it, anyway.”

Your sigh flutters the documents strewn over your joined desks. “There’s a drawer of takeout menus upstairs. Any preferences?”

His face lifts, and it honestly defies logic that a man can look simultaneously so rugged and so adorable.

“Do you have a good Chinese?”

--

Marcus is surprisingly adept with chopsticks, making you wonder how many evenings he’s spent like this. Maybe he just really likes Chinese food? You’re adamant about separating food and work- taking an actual dinner break- and he seems perfectly happy to follow your lead.

He makes a good dinner date, easily balancing personal chitchat with lighter topics. Despite the looming task ahead, it’s a refreshing change from your normal quiet evenings alone.

After tracking down the promised corkboard, thumbtacks, and enough red yarn to commit a murder yourself, you’re ready to carve a path into the uncharted jungle that is this case.

“Okay,” Marcus finally sighs. “If we’re gonna do this, I need to show you something. And you can’t laugh,” he warns.

His tone gives you pause. You regard him warily, until he takes out…a glasses case?

From the case Marcus removes a pair of glasses with dark, round frames, and lifts them to his face with exaggerated reluctance. He looks for all the world like a schoolboy sitting in the principal’s office. Laughter begins to bubble beneath your ribs.

As if he can sense it, he pins you with a warning look.

You clap your hands over your mouth, but the giggles spill out regardless. “Oh my god, is this why you’ve left your sunglasses on every time we’ve gone to the mansion? Are they prescription?”

“Yes,” Marcus sulks. His pouty lower lip only enhances the schoolboy effect, and your laughter redoubles.

“I can see why you don’t wear them around the other officers. They’re so cute,” you tease. “I just want to pinch your cheeks.” You don’t, but you pinch the air toward him for effect.

At your words Marcus ducks his head. Is that a hint of color in his cheeks?

You clear your throat, quelling your amusement. “Okay, sorry, I‘m done. They are cute though. Very…suburban dad.”

The glasses lend him a perfectly harmless air. With his suit jacket long since shucked off and his tie loosened after-hours, you could easily imagine him waiting on a little girl after soccer practice, arms open for an energetic hug. He’d be the heartthrob of the soccer moms with his handsome face and old-school manners, you think wryly. His shoulders in that gun holster don’t hurt either.

Marcus snorts. “Huh. Well, you got me there. That’s my other job.” He says it with perfect nonchalance, but your mouth parts. Marcus avoids your gaze, suggesting that he’s well aware of the trust he’s placing in you by sharing such information. You’d wondered at his ring, but still…

As if reading your mind, he holds up his left hand. The matte silver ring on the third finger glints in the light. “Widower, though. So, no one to come after you for flirting.”

You sputter and choke on your noodles. Marcus laughs.

--

“Do it again,” you beg. “Pleeeease.” 

Two days later, and you’re considering bringing down another corkboard. The one across the room is nearly covered already. Newspaper clippings, photographs, evidence files, interview notes. All overlapping and criss-crossed with red string in an array that would make a conspiracy theorist proud.

Marcus tsks. Despite himself, he lifts your proffered thumbtack into the air with a point of his finger. It hovers between you, yellow plastic glinting around the metal barb- until with a flick, Marcus embeds it into the corkboard on the opposite wall.

You had inquired only briefly about Marcus’s powers the first day you met. “Metal manipulation,” he’d replied, still sitting beside you at the captain’s desk.

“Must be useful against bullets,” was all you’d said.

But today, watching him remove and rearrange the bestringed tacks in the board like a conductor before a symphony- you had to ask for more details.

With a quick glance at the stairwell, he’d reached into his jacket and removed the gun from his holster. “Actually carrying around a gun is mostly for other people’s benefit. It can be anything I need it to be.” Marcus then proceeded to crumple the metal into a ball, stretch it back out into a crowbar, form tiny fragments into keys with which he unlocked every lock in the room, and finally, with his eyes closed in concentration, returned the pistol to its original form. 

Your mouth hung open.

Marcus offered the reborn gun to you for inspection. 

“Wow.” The metal was faintly warm to the touch. You turned it over, opening the chamber and clicking the trigger, but everything seemed to be exactly the right shape it should. “So you’re basically a metalbender. Like from that kid’s show.” 

Marcus’s laughter warmed the air. “Exactly. My daughter loves that show. When she was little she was obsessed with Toph, because she was ‘just like me.’”

His smile was infectious, full of pride in and love for his daughter. Suburban dad heartthrob strikes again, you thought, your cheeks warming.

“I can do other, less flashy things, too. That’s kind of the point of my branch of the FBI. They train us to use our powers in ways you wouldn’t immediately consider. For instance, I can tell you the elemental composition of every metal object in this room, just by concentrating. I can usually tell if there’s foreign material in or on metal things, too, even trace amounts.”

You thought about what that could mean. “So if someone didn’t clean a piece of evidence well enough, you’d be able to tell even if forensics failed?”

“That’s right,” Marcus confirmed. He looked strangely somber about it, as if the morality of his powers was a question whose weight never lightened. 

“Huh.” 

That was something to chew on. There was a stretch of silence while you mulled over all he’d shared.

It didn’t last long, though, as if Marcus was afraid of what conclusions you might come to.

“It also means I can do stuff like this-” and then he’d levitated a thumbtack and shot it across the room like a bullet.

“No more, now,” he says, stern but apologetic. “We have to be careful at work.” Still, a conspiratorial light twinkled in his eyes.

Marcus stands from his desk with a stretch and a groan. He approaches the board you’d just had him flinging thumbtacks at and regards it.

“Who are we missing here? Is there anyone else involved who could be a suspect?” The stubble on his cheeks scrapes audibly at his thoughtful scratch. He’s squinting slightly- his glasses lay half-covered by an evidence bag on his desk.

A knock sounds from the top of the staircase. “Detective? Agent Rockford? Some new data for you.” 

“Come on down,” you call.

“Don’t tell me it’s more knives,” Marcus groans.

The junior officer, Richards, falters at the base of the stairs, clearly cowed by the sight of the big bad FBI agent turning his scowl from the corkboard to him.

You stifle a laugh. Scowl, your ass- how no one has ever clocked that for the myopic squint it is is beyond you.

“Stand down, Agent,” you drawl. Pointedly, you rustle the bag hiding his glasses as you stand. “Thanks, Richards.”

The officer hesitates, glancing between the file he’d just handed you and the corkboard Marcus is studying. 

“...Did you have some thoughts on the case?” you prompt.

Marcus looks over alertly, and the officer scampers. “No, no, not until I read up on it some more. See you around!”

You snigger as you head over to the board, skimming the file as you go.

“Friendly guy,” Marcus remarks, although his glance toward the staircase is bemused. 

Your snicker turns into a full-belly laugh. “Normally he is friendly, Rockford. If you didn’t always look like you’re suspicious of everyone, he’d probably ask you out.”

“What?” Marcus’s brow furrows.

You exaggeratedly imitate his grumpy-looking squint, putting an elderly pucker in your lips for good measure. You plant your face about an inch from the corkboard.

“Oh.” Marcus grimaces. “I know, it’s a terrible habit. Missy is always warning me I’m going to get even more wrinkles.” He sighs in resignation.

You hide a smile, your glance skipping over the fine lines around his eyes and mouth- signs of age that a child wouldn’t understand the appeal of. “I hope your FBI team has a super-powered eye surgeon.”

“Actually- uh.” Marcus cuts himself off, his mouth turning down. “That’s probably classified,” he mumbles.

--

“Any plans for the weekend, Agent Rockford?” You make an effort to use Marcus’s fake name every so often, so you won’t forget and slip up around others.

Marcus leans back in his chair. “Nothing exciting. I thought I might check out the mansion again, maybe see if the neighbors are in. Get some interviews.”

You look at him. 

After a second, he realizes that you haven’t responded, and looks over. “…What?”

“People usually make non work-related plans on the weekends, Marcus.”

“Oh. Well…” Marcus shrugs, fidgeting. “Missy’s going to be at a school thing, so I won’t have anything else to do. And we haven’t made much progress with the neighbors,” he points out.

He’s right, but still.

You hesitate. You don’t have any exciting plans either, and people might be more likely to be home during the day on a weekend…

“All right. Let’s do it.” 

Marcus looks confused. 

“I’ll come with you to interview some neighbors this weekend. It’s a good idea,” you clarify.

“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting that you had to come with me,” Marcus says hastily. “Just that..I don’t mind, and, you know, I’m not doing anything else.” He shrugs again, looking away.

“I know. I’m saying that I don’t mind either, and you’re right that we need to interview the neighbors. They might be home on a weekend. We can get a feel for the neighborhood.”

His mouth opens and shuts. Marcus hesitates, like he thinks he should argue but can’t think of anything convincing. He settles on a grateful smile. “Okay.”

--

It’s a sunny day. The sky is clear, and you have a great view from the top of the hill, which is, naturally, where the mansion sits.

It’s not a very tall hill, but it’s enough of a slope that one could easily feel superior looking down from atop it. The residents of the houses below would be unable to avoid seeing the mansion whenever they looked up. The old New England houses echo the style of the mansion, albeit on a smaller scale- stately, grand and yet sort of homey at once. Highlights include spires topped with weathervanes featuring quirky animals and turrets with children’s drawings taped in the windows.

The air smells of greenery- all the hedges in the garden, probably. And something else; the odd smoky whiff of a weekend barbeque, interspersed with something…sweeter. Mom with oven mitts inside while Dad lights the charcoal outside. Apple pie America, indeed.

You survey the suburbia laid out below. You and Marcus agreed to meet at the mansion and strike out on foot from there, and now you’re deciding on a plan of attack.

“I say we canvas this street,” he’s saying, pointing to the uppermost houses, “maybe the next one, and see what the vibe is like from there.”

“What the vibe is like?” you repeat, amused. “Did you pick that up from Missy?”

Marcus coughs and shuffles a bit. “Did I use it right?” he asks, sheepish behind his glasses. The normal ones today- the round lenses made him seem sweet and trustworthy. 

It’s impossible not to laugh. “Technically, I guess. Come on then, hip guy.”

The hill isn’t very wide, or steep. These streets make up just one small subdivision venturing up into the woods, branching off the two-lane highway. There are others further along, clustered more densely closer to the town. The houses here are arrayed like a waterfall, with the mansion as its source.

The top street, in fact, is only four houses long. The first two are uneventful. One man answers the door with barbeque tongs in hand, his New Balance sneakers gleaming as white as his smile. He offers you and Marcus burgers to go, which you politely decline. You glimpse a woman coming up behind him as the door closes; her face is as stiff as her husband’s was welcoming. Interesting.

Things get even more interesting at the third house. 

“Oh, you’ll want to talk to the neighbor if you’re looking into Ursula.” The young person on the threshold nods their head to the only house you haven’t been to. “She can go on about her for hours, especially if you mention the pie.” They roll their eyes in a long-suffering expression.

You and Marcus exchange a look. “The pie?” Marcus slowly starts to reach for the small notebook he keeps in his jacket pocket.

“Yeah. Ursula liked to bake. Won the county fair pie competitions almost every year. Winter and summer, even after they made it anonymous and started rotating the judges.”

The neighbor and resident of the fourth house introduces herself as Olivia Tate. A woman with a somewhat jowly resemblance to a bulldog, she nearly starts slavering when your questions turn to Ursula’s pies. Her kitchen is the source of the sweet smell you caught from the top of the hill- a picture-perfect, lattice-topped pie bakes in the oven, which, Olivia laments, you could have sampled if you’d arrived half an hour later. 

Her jaw clenches at your implications about Ursula’s baking. “I’ve been baking pies 30, 40 years, and I’ve never had anything taste like hers. That’s the real mystery- what she puts in them!”

Her voice pitches higher the more you probe about Ursula and her pies, and the fledgling business around them she had apparently just started.

At the end of the street, Marcus jots hurriedly in his notebook, noting everything you had learned at Olivia’s house. When he’s done, you turn your head toward the top of the hill. “Should we go back to the mansion and have a closer look around the kitchen? This is the first we’ve heard of the pie business. It could be a fresh perspective.”

The mansion’s main kitchen is an enormous, envy-inducing affair. A stunning tile backsplash, an island bigger than your kitchen table, and a stove nearly as big as the island. At first glance, the single knife block and magnetic rack above it appear perfectly in order- there’s nothing to indicate the volume of knives the department had found stashed in the rest of the house, some of them nearly the size of machetes.

With fresh motivation, you start opening cabinets, nudging aside canned goods and tubs of flour. You and Marcus have hardly begun, however, when a thumping gait sounds from within the house, clearly getting closer. You exchange an alarmed glance.

A white-haired, wide-shouldered figure swings open the door. Mud flakes off the galoshes on his feet. Long gardening gloves sheath his hands. The man stands still for a long moment, silently measuring you.

“May I ask what you’re doing in Boulton house?” His voice is coarse with age, but his tone is unmistakably flat.

--

After being unceremoniously removed from the mansion, you stand by your patrol car, fuming. “Can you believe that guy? We’re investigating a crime scene. You can’t tell me he doesn’t know something.”

The groundskeeper had, of course been interviewed straightaway upon the breaking of the case. He hadn’t had much useful to say, and you’d released him thinking that you’d try again once you had more context in which to question him. But for him to claim now that your searching was out of bounds..!

“Probably. But he is within his rights to kick us out.” Marcus watches you cautiously. 

Leaning against your car, you face the street below, both lost in your own thoughts. From this height you have an unobstructed view of Olivia Tate’s house. It’s close enough, you realize, to make out her silhouette bobbing at a window, presumably rolling out her umpteenth pie crust. 

Marcus seems to realize it too. Gesturing to the window, he starts speaking again as if you’d been mid-conversation. “So these women could have easily watched each other from their kitchens while they baked. I bet on a good day you could even smell the pies from the other house. Every year they compete at the county fairs, and their rivalry gets worse. One day the neighbor snaps?” His eyebrows lift.

“A little unlikely,” you say. “Since there’s a clear view down the drive, she’d have to come at night, or by some secret back way. And she’s barely younger than the grandma.”

“True. But that means they’d be at even odds,” Marcus points out.

You concede that it’s technically a viable theory.

Glancing around, you indicate for Marcus to get in your car. 

An anticipatory silence grows while you consider your words, longer and louder until it’s drowned out only by the metallic creaking of the car itself. Marcus clenches his hands into fists to stop their fidgeting. 

“So,” you finally say. “We have to come back, right? Investigate this place properly.”

Marcus exhales. He looks pensive. “Yes. But how?”

“Look, I don’t like it, but I think we’ll have to do this slightly…off-books.”

You make a plan. By day, you’d return and continue to examine the inhabited portions of the house with the rest of the team. But by night…

“We can’t ignore the possibility that our culprit is using the closed-off parts of the house. It’s a perfect excuse- ‘nobody goes there, it’s falling down, it’s dangerous’. We can’t risk not searching it.”

You and Marcus agree to meet back at the mansion in a few nights- long enough for the groundskeeper to relax his guard.

--

On what little hill rises above the mansion, there’s an old hiking viewpoint jutting out of the forest. Although you’re sure people still use it for hiking during the day, by night, well…there was enough sniggering and elbow jabbing amongst your townie colleagues for you to figure out what it was used for at night.

It’s about a half hour hike from the viewpoint to the mansion. You and Marcus will be starting your nighttime searching from there, since parking or walking from anywhere else would get you spotted. 

You sit in the passenger seat of Marcus’s car while he drives. It smells like him, clean and masculine- probably nothing more than a combination of his laundry detergent and a no-nonsense deodorant, yet in such confined quarters it makes you light-headed the longer you sit in it. To distract yourself, you take a discreet look around. 

There’s not much to see. No trash or trinkets, just a road atlas in the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat. Except- sticking out from under the backseat is the crinkled corner of a magazine cover emblazoned with pink and yellow headlines and, just visible, the swoop of a youthful hairdo. The evidence of Marcus’s daughter makes you smile.

Gravel crunches under the tires as Marcus turns into the lot. His headlights reveal another car on the far side, with condensation glimmering on its windows.

“Didn’t expect to find anyone else doing night hiking,” Marcus mutters.

He continues his slow route toward the other car, to your mounting horror. “Don’t park next to them!” you hiss.

“What? Why?” Marcus’s question is utterly guileless. But he obeys, turning the car smoothly and ending up parking roughly in the center of the line of spots. 

You sigh. “I mean first of all, parking right next to the only other car in an empty lot, at night? That’s weird. Second of all, those aren’t night hikers.”

“Then what…” Marcus turns his furrowed brow toward the other car. Under the still moonlight, he finally seems to put all the pieces together- the short drive from town, the isolated location, the car’s fogged up windows. “...Oh.”

You can’t help but laugh at Marcus’s mortified expression. His full lips turn down, his cheeks darkening with a blush. “Well…now what do we do?”

“Let’s just go. The path is on this side, anyway.” You nod your head toward the end of the viewpoint that’s not currently occupied.

You and Marcus gather your small packs and exit the car. The slam of the door is like a shout in the silence and he winces, darting glances to the other car all the while. You cough to cover your laughter. “Great conditions for some night hiking, right?” You say loudly.

Marcus looks at you, startled. You widen your eyes at him meaningfully. “Oh, yeah,” he says, catching on. “Sure is.”

You grin. “Come on, this way.” You lead your partner away from the lot and the scene of his embarrassment. 

Your hike is quiet. These trails are unfamiliar to both of you, especially in the dark, but you keep your headlamps on low, wary of being spotted- more so the larger the mansion looms through the trees. 

A low brick wall marks the edge of the property. There’s no gate nearby that you can see, but it’s an easy task to pull yourself over it- probably the least risky activity you’ll undertake tonight.  

The gardens are slightly too overgrown to pretend you’re on a romantic nighttime stroll. “This reminds me of a corn maze; you know, the kind you get at pumpkin patches in the fall,” Marcus says, low and hushed. 

It’s an apt comparison. Tidily partitioned squares of greenery, once neatly groomed, had sprouted out of control, spilling onto the paths and obstructing your view. Wire towers for climbing vines now resemble buildings in an apocalypse movie- so thickly smothered with vines that their original structures are no longer visible, their trailing tendrils now falling to sway in your faces as you pass.

“Ha, I see what you mean. I’m not sure that makes it more or less creepy.” Another thought makes you shiver. “As long as nobody with a chainsaw starts running after us,” you mutter.

Marcus lets out an unexpected, loud bark of laughter. You look at him in astonishment, and he slaps a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, it’s just...” He clears his throat. “If you remind me of this later I’ll tell you why that was funny.”

At the mansion’s back entrance, you glance around quickly, then let yourselves in with the key. Safely inside, you stand in silence for several moments. 

“Nobody’s here,” Marcus whispers.

The house is silent, and dark. Without any neighbors, there are minimal streetlamps to provide light from outside. Most of the windows are framed by heavy, ornate curtains as well, blocking what meager moonlight falls in. Only the beams of your headlamps illuminate the dark wood floors and wall panelings.

You make your way toward a door at the end of the hall, stepping quietly, just in case. “How far do your powers reach?” you ask Marcus. “Like, you’re definitely sure there’s no one in this whole house?”

It’s slightly difficult to look at Marcus without blinding him with your headlamp. If you twist your neck and look sideways, you can make out the thoughtful press of his lips. 

“I can sense the rough outline and structure of the house thanks to all the little metal things- nails, window fittings, doorknobs. Any metal object within those bounds, I can reach. But sensing blood is tricky to begin with. It’s such a tiny amount of iron, in such a weird form…I can sense your blood just fine, because you’re right next to me. Somebody across the room would be no problem, likely even somebody in the next room, but across a whole house?” Marcus shakes his head. “Blood moves, so that tends to give it away. That sense of flow is primarily what I look for. But to answer your question…” Marcus does the same sort of neck twist to look at you. Beneath the white light emanating from his forehead, his face is serious. “I can’t be one hundred percent sure this place is empty.”

Interesting, if not entirely reassuring. “Well, I guess keep your eyes open then. Or not your eyes, but your..senses? You know what I mean.”

“I think the official term is ‘spidey sense’,” Marcus quips.

You laugh at that, and it eases the tension that had crept up alongside you like mist in a haunted house.

It doesn’t take long to reach your goal. The innocuous door looks like all the rest that line the hall- it could just as likely hold a fancy sitting room as a dilapidated once-home. 

You adjust your headlamp determinedly. “Ready?”

“Lead the way, Boss.” There’s a playful quirk to Marcus’s lips as he repeats his words from the day you first met.

You snort, ignoring an odd little flutter in your belly. “Sure, ladies first, they say, step right up to the dangerous door…”

“You can tell me to go first, if you want,” Marcus suggests. “Perks of being the boss.”

“Am I your boss?”

You’re stalling, is what you are. But it is something you’ve wondered. If push came to shove, would Marcus have to obey you?

“I could probably go over your head if I felt it was necessary,” Marcus admits. “But practically, we’re supposed to follow local jurisdiction. Supplement your abilities, not..take over.”

He meets your gaze. “I’m not worried about questioning your orders.”

Before you can react, Marcus continues cheerfully, “You’re stalling, Boss. Come on.” He lifts his hand, and the door swings open.

You brace yourself; for what, you’re not sure. But all that happens is a gust of dusty air hits you, and you have to stifle a sneeze. 

It’s nearly pitch-black. Marcus lifts his hand higher, and a tinny screech comes from across the room, where metal rings scrape against a curtain rod, dragging open a tall set of drapes. There’s still not much light, but the room now appears more gray than black.

The carpet runner beneath your feet is thick with dust, its pattern blurred. The room you’ve entered looks like it was indeed once a sitting room or living room of some kind. Dust covers in the shape of couches squat around a table on the far side of the room. Other furniture against the walls has also been covered. In the gray darkness, lit only by the swinging beams of your headlamps, it’s impossible not to think of ghosts and horror stories. 

“Do you sense anything?” you whisper to Marcus.

He lowers his hand. “No. No one hiding, and a normal amount of metal for an old living room.”

You let out a tense breath. “I’ll admit, this is creepier than I thought it would be.”

Marcus laughs softly. “Tell me about it. I don’t even like scary movies.”

It’s reassuring, at least, to have Marcus’s powers on your side. You tell yourself firmly that nothing bad can happen with him around, and it mostly quiets the part of your brain dwelling on every zombie movie you’ve ever seen. Mostly.

You set to searching the room. You pull off dust covers and lift cushions, but all you get for your troubles are grimy hands and some disgruntled spiders. 

The next room is more of the same, only there’s even less to search. The open space contains little more than an ornate fireplace and a bar built into one end of the room. You stand in the center and spin slowly, your hands on your hips. “Are we missing something?”

“It’s here.” Marcus is standing at a section of wall blank except for squares of wood molding. 

“Huh?”

He reaches up and pushes a small section of the molding. It clicks, and the whole portion of wall slides sideways like a door. 

“Whoa!” You hurry over, the solid blackness of the opening sucking up your headlamp’s beam until you get closer.

“A servants’ kitchen, maybe,” Marcus says. “I’ve been doing some research on the history of this house, and other houses from the same period.”

The disused kitchen is barely the size of a closet and smells faintly of mildew. You follow Marcus, your mind turning. “A big old house like this…it’s got to have like, secret passages, right? Real ones, I mean, not just servant shortcuts like this.”

Marcus’s face wears a thoughtful grimace. “More likely than not. I already found one in the central dining room.”

“Wait, you have?” This is the first you’ve heard of it.

“It wasn’t anything dramatic. Just a passage to the kitchen, a shortcut for staff. The housekeeper was still showing us around when I found it, so she told us. She didn’t look too happy about it thought…I bet she knows where they all are.” Marcus trails off in thought.

“Shouldn’t you be able to sense them?” you ask.

“Well…yes and no.” Marcus looks vaguely uncomfortable. “House walls have metal in them anyway- all the nails and whatnot- and sometimes construction companies do weird things, so it can be tricky to sense when there’s metal out of place. That goes double for old places like this, where all sorts of random stuff has been stuck in the walls over the years. I tried pulling on something the very first day and nearly brought down that massive portrait over the fireplace- you know the one of the guy with the-” he makes a gesture near his face. “Turns out I was pulling on some convoluted hanging system.”

Marcus rolls his eyes, eloquently expressing his frustration with the entire situation. You wonder if the blueprints to house are accessible somewhere. They’d be in the city planning archives, surely…

As you step back through the doorway, you hear a click. The sliding door rumbles toward you with surprising speed, and you freeze for a split second before your muscles tense to leap out of the way-

But before you can, a strong grip encircles your wrist, and you’re yanked back and held tight against a wide, solid mass. The mass is warm, and expanding and deflating rapidly, and nearly crushing you to it with the steel strength of his arms. 

The door thuds closed with a force that makes you flinch. The thin beams of your headlamps seem insubstantial against the sudden near-complete darkness. 

You twist your neck to look at Marcus, your eyes wide with surprise. He does the same to look at you. His hold and the angle of your heads puts your faces only inches apart- far closer than either of you anticipated. 

He releases you immediately, taking a step back for good measure. “Sorry. It was a reflex.” One hand comes up to rub the back of his neck.

The warmth of him still clings to you. “I do have several years on the force under my belt,” you point out mildly. You reach out and squeeze his arm. “But thank you.”

You turn back to the door. The flat, featureless door that looked remarkably wall-like again. 

“Um,” you say. “Can you get us out?”

Marcus chuckles. “Now that I know it’s there…” There’s a click and a rumble, and the wall slides aside again. “Yes.”

Gray light pours in, so dark before but like sunlight after being trapped in the windowless kitchen. You breathe deeply of the air in the open room.

“I think that’s enough for tonight.”

Thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist

[wearjoplins]

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[bungalowbear]

The Curse of Mother Grime

Pairing: jobless!Naoya Zen’in x fem!reader

Summary: A museum date with Naoya produces unwanted circumstances.

Warnings: mention of male masturbation, some foreplay, suggestion of sex at the end, reader is described to have breasts, curse from a dead woman, naoya can’t get it up

Word Count: 2,740

A/N: This is my fun and silly little entry for @bastardblvd’s House of Slimy Horrors Collab. My prompt was curses. This is my first time writing Naoya, so if you feel anything is ooc it probably is. You’re also seeing him at arguably his lowest point lol. Also, I have an obsession with Grime Town McDonald’s, so I couldn’t stop myself from adding it here. I had so much fun writing this and I hope you all enjoy! And happy haunting season!

Dividers by @anlian-aishang.

The Grime Town History Museum is a spare room on the second floor of City Hall, a donation from some sunglasses model during his failed attempt at running for Mayor. You’re here with Naoya because it’s your turn to choose where to have date night and you think he can use some cultural enrichment.

“A museum?”

Naoya frowns, staring at the tattered banner above the double doors.

“I’ve always wanted to have a cute museum date.” You do a little spin to show off the outfit you meticulously chose for the occasion. “And it’s my turn to pick so you can’t back out.”

“Whatever.”

Naoya throws his arm across your shoulders and you both walk through the open doors. You take in the state of the room. The floral patterned wallpaper is faded, peeling at the top corners. There’s a large rust colored stain in the carpet that you take care to walk around. The subtle damp smell makes your sinuses feel a bit stuffy.

But you’re determined not to show any signs of discomfort, instead opting to guide Naoya along the wall lined with old newspaper clippings thumb tacked to the walls. Some are older and some more recent. You both share a laugh over the article about the Condom Shortage of 2007. 

After perusing the newspaper articles you cross the room toward the only thing on the wall that’s not pinned. A sepia toned portrait of a woman hangs in a bronzed frame. The plaque below her portrait says she was the wife of Grime Town’s founding father. To the right there’s a vanity secured by caution tape. The vanity is made of dark wood with a large oval mirror. The piece was clearly made by expert hands as the floral carvings around the mirror are stunning.

Naoya notices a piece of paper stapled to the caution tape and bends down to read it. 

“Beware: if you look into the mirror and say her name three times you’ll be afflicted with the same curse she put on her husband,” Naoya recites.

He hums, standing up straight.

“That’s a little…weird,” you say.

“Dare me to do it?”

“I don’t know.” You bend down the reread the sign. “It doesn’t even say what the curse is. What if you go bald?”

“It’s probably just a scare tactic. It is almost Halloween.” Naoya scoffs. “Nothing’s gonna happen.”

Before you can protest further, Naoya stands directly in line with the vanity. He squats down to be at eye level with the mirror and says her name three times. You hold your breath, waiting for something to happen. After a long minute of nothing you startle, heart racing when Naoya suddenly lets out a booming laugh.

“See. I told you,” Naoya says through his laughter. “Nothing happened.”

You grab his arm, scolding him for scaring you. But he ignores you and continues laughing as you pull him along to the next display.

The next day you’re at Spirit Halloween for your early afternoon shift when your phone vibrates in your back pocket. You ignore it as you help two teenagers decide between matching devil or lumberjack costumes. Eventually they decide to just get one each. After they’re gone you realize your phone hasn’t stopped buzzing, so you ask your manager if you can step away from the sales floor to use the restroom. 

When you turn the lock on the stall door you take out your phone. A picture of Naoya asleep with drool sliding down the corner of his mouth lights up your screen. You swipe to answer the call and wince when his voice pierces through the speaker. But his words are coming out too fast for you to make sense of them.

“Slow down, Naoya,” you tell him. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

You hear him take a deep breath.

“I was watching Days of Our Grimes and you know I like to stick my hand down by boxers when the housewife—”

You growl into the receiver. “Get to the point.”

“I can’t get hard.”

You pause, brow furrowing as your mind processes his words.

“What?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” he whines.

“I don’t understand.”

“My dick is broken! Mother Grime fucking cursed me!”

“Naoya.” You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “This isn’t funny. I’m at work.”

“I’m not joking,” he insists. “This is serious!”

“I have to get back. We’re really busy. Halloween is in a week and the entire store is half off.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” you promise as you’re about to end the call. “Bye!”

After his stint as a dealer went sideways Naoya spends most of his time moping around your apartment, which is why you’re certain the phone call was just a cry for attention. You feel a little bad about hanging up on him so you decide to surprise him.

When you step into your apartment you slip your shoes off and hang up your jacket.

“Naoya,” you call out to him. “I’m back.” 

There’s no answer.

“Naoya?”

You hold the plastic bag to your chest as you wander through the living room and the kitchen with no sign of him. Shuffling down the narrow hallway, you reach your bedroom to find the door wide open. You frown at Naoya face down on your bed with his arms and legs spread out like a starfish. 

“Hey.” You try to turn him over but he doesn’t budge. “What are you doing?” 

You can’t make out what he says as he mumbles, kind of pathetically, into your comforter. You try moving him again but this time you can feel him purposefully resisting. You huff, rolling your eyes before going into the bathroom. 

Locking the door behind you, you place the plastic bag on the counter and take out the costume you brought home. With the sale going on and your employee discount it was practically free. You feel giddy as you start to undress and then slip into the costume. You take a look at yourself in the mirror, applying gloss to your lips and touching up your mascara before opening the bathroom door.

“Naoya.” 

You say his name softly, a gentle prod for his attention, as you stand in the doorway with your hands folded in front of your stomach. He doesn’t react, so you try again.

“Naoya, baby?” You voice is sickly sweet with fabricated concern. This wouldn’t be the first time the two of you role-played in the bedroom, and you’re sure once you get him to look your way you’ll have him in your clutches. “Are you not feeling well? Maybe I could nurse you back to health?”

You watch Naoya slowly lift his head, turning slightly to look at you over his shoulder. His eyes widen and he perks up. Hastily, he turns his body to sit up. His gaze travels from the nurse’s cap on your head and down your body clad in a tight white uniform. Naoya stares at your chest, where the top two buttons are left undone to expose more of your cleavage. You turn in a slow circle to give him the opportunity to see the back of the short skirt that barely covers your ass.

Naoya says your name in a breathy whisper. You recognize the lust in his eyes. The way his fingers twitch with the anticipation of grabbing hold of you sends shivers down your body.

You walk toward him and as soon as you’re within reach his hands go directly to your chest, roughly grabbing and squeezing your soft flesh. One hand wanders down to your waist and then to your back. Naoya’s touch travels over the swell of your bum and reaches further to take a large handful of your left cheek. Hungry kisses are pressed along your neck as his touch sets your body ablaze. You need him so badly that you start to palm him through his pants. It usually doesn’t take long to get him hard, but after a few minutes you realize he’s still completely soft.

“Uh…Naoya?”

“I told you.” He drops his head in defeat, words muffled with his face resting between your tits. “I’m fucking cursed.”

“There’s no such thing as curses.”

You chuckle and he grips your waist firmly with both hands in response.

“Then why am I still limp when all I want to do is shove my dick inside you?”

“It’s all in your head.” You soothe your hand over his dyed blonde hair. “We can do other stuff in the meantime.”

“I’m telling you, it’s that bitch—”

Suddenly, a sharp crack makes the two of you jump. You turn your heads to your full length mirror and gape at the glass that is now splintered right down the middle.

“Maybe we should consult an expert,” you say.

Standing at the McDonald’s counter, you greet Aki with a smile and he stoically returns the greeting. Naoya hovers behind you as you order yours and his usual meals. Aki asks if that will be all. You’re prepared to say yes when Naoya lowers his head to whisper in your ear.

Aki raises a brow.

“And a pumpkin pie, please,” you say.

You pay and walk over to the soda fountain. As you’re pouring your drinks you catch the tail end of something crawl underneath a table. You grab Naoya by the hand and lead him toward the corner of the dining room.

You bend down and see Toji and his worm splitting a single french fry. 

“Hello, Toji.”

“Hey, gorgeous.” The older man flashes you a cocky smile, stretching the scar on his lip. Then his eyes move to Naoya and he frowns. “What do you want?”

“Did we really have to come and see him?” Naoya asks.

“He’s the best chance at solving your…problem.”

“Little cousin’s got a problem, huh?” Toji sits with his legs crossed. He leans forward to rest his massive forearms over his knees. “And what would that be?”

Naoya hesitates. He sips on his drink and looks away.

You nudge him with your elbow. “Tell him.”

The younger Zen’in pouts. He heaves a giant sigh before turning his head away, muttering out a few words. You roll your eyes. Toji brings his hand up to curve around his ear.

“What was that?”

“My dick can’t get hard,” Naoya hisses, glaring at his cousin. “There. I said it. Happy now?”

Toji laughs, a full bellied laugh. But then his brow furrows and he’s looking at you.

“What do you want me to do about it? Jerk him off?” Toji curls his lip in disgust. “Just because I changed my name to Fushiguro doesn’t mean we’re not still related. Who do you think we are? Targaryens?”

“Ew, babe.” Naoya mimics his cousin’s expression. “Is that what you brought me here for?”

“No, you idiots.” You drag your hand down your face. “Toji ran the fortune telling booth at the summer block party, so he has some experience with the supernatural.”

“Supernatural?” Toji sounds intrigued. “What exactly happened, little cousin?”

Naoya recounts your museum date. He tells Toji about Mother Grime’s vanity, the cracked mirror in your room, and how he hasn’t been able to get an erection since.

“Did you not see the caution tape? The paper stapled to it?” Toji shakes his head at the end of Naoya’s recap. “Every guy in this town knows not to go messing with Mother Grime unless you never want another boner ever again.”

“No one told me!” Naoya argues.

Toji shrugs.

“So can you, like, look into your crystal ball or whatever and tell me how to fix this?”

“Depends.” Toji rubs his chin. “Let’s talk payment.”

“What do you want?”

Toji hums as he contemplates, his cheek resting on his propped up fist as he stares at the floor. After a few short seconds he angles his face up at Naoya. The smile he wears can only mean misery for the younger Zen’in.

“I want your pumpkin pie.”

“I didn’t get a pie,” Naoya denies immediately.

“You always get a pie,” Toji retorts.

Naoya clenches his jaw, annoyed that he’s been caught.

“I’ll buy you another one,” you whisper.

Naoya looks at you out of the corner of his eye, obviously displeased, but one nod from you has some of his tension falling away.

“Fine.”

Toji smiles, victorious, and pats the floor in front of him. Naoya scoots closer, ducking his head to fit underneath the table. You giggle at the sight of the two grown men hunched over to fit in the tight spot.

“Give me your hand,” Toji says.

“What for?”

“I’m going to read your palm.”

Naoya reluctantly does as he’s told. “I thought you used a crystal ball?”

Toji grins, haughtily. “I’m a man of many talents.”

Naoya rolls his eyes.

“So what does my hand say then? What do I have to do?”

Toji hums, turning Naoya’s hand this way and that. The older Zen’in traces a large finger over the lines of his cousin’s palm.

“You’re not going to like it,” Toji warns.

“I don’t care. I’ll do anything.”

Toji chuckles. He knows his cousin means it.

Aki calls out your order and you go to the counter. You eye the cousins warily before going to collect your food. You ask Aki for another pumpkin pie but he says they’re out. You sigh, your head already aching because you know Naoya is going to throw a fit.

Naoya walks into the living room with a sour expression. You snicker as he pulls down at the hem of the puffed out skirt of the maid costume. 

“It’s too short,” Naoya complains. “It barely covers anything.”

“Just the way you like it,” you tease.

He throws you a glare before snatching the feather duster off the low table. Per Toji’s instructions, Naoya is to be your maid for three days. One day for each time he chanted Mother Grime’s name. And lucky for you the first two days happens to be on your days off.

So you watch from the sofa as he cleans the apartment. Sweeping, scrubbing, dusting. You ask him for the occasional refill on your snacks and he dutifully, yet begrudgingly, fulfills your every request. Watching him cook is even more enjoyable. After he burned the rice he opted instead to prepare instant ramen.

When you go back to work on the third day you expect Naoya to have shirked his duties but when you get home he greets you at the genkan. The apartment is spotless. There’s dinner ready for you. Ramen again, but this time with a thick piece of ham and a soft boiled egg split between your two bowls. You’re very impressed and you tell him so, not missing the way his eyes shine from the praise.

The morning after the third day you wake up to something hard pressing against your back. You don’t recognize it for what it is until Naoya suddenly gasps and sits up in bed. He shoves the covers down, leaving you shivering at the sudden cold air, and lifts the waistband of his boxers.

“Yes!”

“N’oya,” you whine, blindly grabbing the cover and pulling it over your head. “I’m tryna sleep.”

“But, babe, I’m cured. We can do it now!”

His excitement would be endearing if it weren’t so early in the morning. You burrow further into the mattress, intent on ignoring him and hoping he’ll just take care of himself.

“C’mon.” You feel his large presence hover over you. “It’s been so long and I really want my first time again to be with you.”

You groan in protest. 

“I can put the maid costume on.” Naoya pauses. His eyes meet yours when you peek your eyes out from under the cover. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you checking me out. Or how much you liked bossing me around.”

He looks down at you in silence. Then a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth when you drop the cover to expose the rest of your face.

“Okay,” you agree. “But you have to make me breakfast after.”

Naoya leaps out of bed and into the closet. You smile to yourself as you watch him change into the costume, frantic and desperate to finally put his rehabilitated member to use again, and send a silent thanks to Mother Grime.

[coqxettee]

Coquette Spring

Romanticizing my Spring 🌸

Spring has been so peaceful so far. I spend my mornings reading, doing yoga, journaling in bed and eating a light breakfast whilst looking out my cottage window at the birds and wildlife that come into my garden ♡

Only wearing the sweetest of colors for my cotton candy aura, baby pinks and blue’s that radiate Spring time. Pink gingham, denim shorts, floral dresses, milkmaid dresses and jelly sandals with frilly socks to give into my inner child ♡

Wearing my baby pink, heart shaped sunglasses now the sun is making it’s way here ♡

Coating myself in sugary, vanilla, floral body sprays and perfumes for Spring. Marc Jacob’s Daisy & Miss Dior ♡

Watching cartoons or reading fairytales in the garden, and imagining what life would be like if I was whisked away into the fairy stories I read about ♡

Walking up to the local shop and listen to “Lana del rey” to stock up on lollipops and bubblegum, the perfect sweets for this time of year ♡

Picking out a cute outfit to go to the market. The markets are on every weekend and I love when the sun is shining and I can find a quiet spot under a tree at the market, to read or write in my diary ♡

Baking heart shaped cookies, or cakes with sugary-sweet icing for my family to enjoy, whilst listening to vintage music in the kitchen, and wearing a sweet little apron. All the pastel baking utensils too! Ahhhh! ♡

Collecting heart shaped plates, mugs and cups, pretty picture frames and vintage things to adorn my country kitchen with ♡

Hanging out my nightgowns and pretty Spring dresses in the garden to dry, makes my country cottage garden even more beautiful ♡

Eating strawberries and cream lollipops whilst flicking through my vintage magazines on my bed, and swooning over all the handsome actors in them ♡

Long Spring evening walks, then coming home in the garden and making flower crowns and daisy chains ♡

Trips to the garden centre on sunny days, wearing a cute outfit and taking my tote bag, drinking lemonade in the cute cafe and having girly, gossip chats with my mum. Looking at all the cottage core accessories in the gift shop and going to the indoor market afterwards to buy fresh fruit and Vegetables ♡

Light Spring meals of fruits and vegetables that I’ve picked out at the garden centre that day ♡

Coming home in the evening to watch “Bridgerton” and play board games with my family ♡

Eating ice lolly’s on particularly sunny days and writing in my journal at my vanity ♡

Wearing coconut body lotion and rose scented hand cream to stay the sweetest girl in town ♡

Buying fresh bunches of flowers to put in my cottage and in my bedroom, so everywhere smells sweet and delightful ♡

Splashing in puddles on really rainy days, dancing in the rain with my pink raincoat and catching raindrops on my tongue ♡

Running about the garden in my pink milkmaid dress, going to the local farm to see the alpacas and chickens ♡

Feeling like a Spring woodland fairy, trying to spot wild deer and bunny’s in my local wood ♡

Having Picnics and Tea Party’s with extra special treats. Sugary biscuits and fruity tea’s to feel like Marie Antoinette ♡

Pretty baby pink or yellow manicure. Light colored nails for this time of year ♡

Painting watercolors and doing Spring crafts as the nights draw out and the days get longer ♡

Fuzzy socks, warm cups of tea and Disney movies in the evenings. Bambi, Cinderella and Sleeping beauty ♡

Collecting Sylvanian families to put in my little doll house in my bedroom. I’m growing my collection hehe ♡

[doonarose]

Precarious, But Worth It

Rating: Explicit, nsfw, no minors

Summary: Aziraphale returns to the bookshop, more cynical and in need of Crowley’s help after months of frustration and failure in heaven. They have the fight they need to have, shouting a lot of the stuff that they probably should have said quite pleasantly to each other several centuries ago. Crowley pries a love confession out of Aziraphale and then one thing leads to another and that thing is exactly what you think it is: finally getting off together against the desk.

(Un)rationale: I tried to write a quick little fight and fuck fic based on all the wonderful headcanons floating around about Aziraphale and Crowley really just needing to scream at each other for a bit and then make out like teenagers.

It grew into an 8000 word fight and fuck epic that still achieves exactly what I set out to do, it just took over my life for 48 hours. Which is fine, I haven't committed smut in almost a decade.

You can read and see the warnings at AO3 of just read the fic under the cut.

Aziraphale returns to the bookshop at three in the morning on an uncommonly warm summer night. He tries to barge straight in and upon finding the door incomprehensibly locked, expends more energy that appropriate yanking on the doorknobs until the planks of wood are shaking in their frames. Aziraphale assumes he can swan right back in, but he can’t. The door doesn’t even unlock in response to a particularly demanding miracle because Crowley is on the other side, sprawled in his armchair, urging the doors with every ounce of available willpower to remain impervious.

Crowley flicks his wrist and an old, dusty pair of sunglasses wriggles out from under some papers on the desk and fly into his hand. He slides them on with a sigh that’s just a little bit shaky.

Finally, Aziraphale relents, and it goes quiet for a moment. Then he starts pounding, fast, heavy, hard-fisted knocks against the wood. “Crowley, I know you’re in there! Let me in! This is my bookshop!”

Anger boils in Crowley’s blood, anger and shock, that Aziraphale could even think for a moment that he would just come back and walk in and start up whatever again. Because that’s why he’s here, he needs help, or he got bored, or he decided it was time to come back. Crowley allows the front door to swing open but maintains the invisible barrier that protects the entire space from anything outside that he doesn’t want coming in. He doesn’t bother getting up and is extremely careful not to even look in Aziraphale’s direction.

“Not your bookshop, not anymore,” Crowley says, voice snaking from low in his chest, quiet and oh so dangerous.

Aziraphale seethes, “Let me in.”

“Absolutely not.” Crowley tips his head back and sinks further into the armchair.

“How are you even keeping me out?”

Crowley stares at the ceiling to stop from looking at him, he wonders exactly what Aziraphale is looking at, he wonders how he can look and not implode. “Not your bookshop anymore, not a heavenly embassy, it’s mine,” is the only explanation he offers.

“Well, you still can’t keep me out.” And Aziraphale moves to step over the threshold in a flourish of his new angelic light grey overcoat which sparkles with its silver embellishment. Now Crowley watches, as fascinated and cruel as a schoolboy with a beetle under a magnifying glass, as Aziraphale’s body shifts into the door frame only to be bolted back with a flash of white lightning that burns hellish hot through him, making him yelp.

Crowley doesn’t move, remains expressionless behind the glasses, holding still even as Aziraphale cries out and recoils. But now he’s looking at him. Aziraphale’s not wearing anything Crowley’s ever seen him in: beneath the long grey overcoat is a crisp white shirt and a necktie and slacks of muted slate grey. Even his white hair has been brushed flat into carefully controlled waves. It’s sterile and exactly what Crowley imagined. Even the embroidered pattern on the overcoat looks meaningless.  

Eyeing the threshold again, Aziraphale whines, “Crowley, you have to let me in.”

Crowley chuckles darkly. “Done that one too many times, I reckon. Fool me once and all that.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“Second coming, I’ve heard.” He’s had enough, Aziraphale is back because he needs help, which doesn’t matter because there was never any reason that would have make him coming back now okay. Not after months of being gone, not after he left in the first place. Crowley stretches like a cat waking up, teases the idea of getting up and then settles back into place. He watches as Aziraphale notices for the first time the state of the bookshop, the dust and the scattered books and the dozens of lush green plants sitting atop them.

“That’s heaven’s plan, isn’t it?” Crowley says. “God’s judgement for all, erased to non-existent oblivion if you’ve ever stolen some bread, or used Her name in vain or any sin, really.” He grips the arms of the chair to stop from propelling himself up and over to Aziraphale, form saying it an inch from his face so he might actually listen. Too late for listening. “Any moment of pride or laziness or gluttony and you’re done for. Seems fair,” he says with a sardonic hiss. “Seems right.”

“Crowley, invite me in, I need to talk to you.” Aziraphale’s pleading but Crowley isn’t falling for it, acutely aware it’s a ploy, a manipulation, just the trickster angel employing the needy tone of voice he’s used for millennia to get Crowley to do his bidding.

“Absolutely not. How dare you even deign to return.”

“If you weren’t waiting for me to come back, then what are you still doing here?”

That makes Crowley pause because he’s worked very hard not to think about that, not to ponder how many centuries he will mope around the bookshop before he flings himself into some far-off corner of space – definitely not Alpha Centauri. He lies: “I wanted to be here when you realized just how catastrophically you fucked everything up,” he bites every word out, letting them trip bitterly off his tongue.

Aziraphale doesn’t look even the slightest bit bothered and Crowley hates him for that. No shame or embarrassment or regret, chin in the air, defiant, which just makes Crowley’s blood boil in his veins.

“You’ve being juvenile about things.” How dare he use that singsong, playful tone with him now. After everything.

He can’t sit still anymore, propels himself up and stalks the half a dozen steps to the door to say it: “Oh, fuck you. You destroyed everything; I’m allowed to be furious about it.”

Aziraphale looks around pointedly, leaning in as close to the bookshop as he dares. “Everything looks quite fine here, although you could have taken a moment out of your wallowing to dust.” It’s cutting, how easily Aziraphale swipes at him. 

Low and warning, Crowley just says it again because it’s easiest now to just stay angry. “Fuck. You.”

Except for just a moment, Aziraphale’s countenance fails, his hands fidget in front of him and Crowley sees past the shimmery white-grey outfit, the flattened white hair, and he clocks the fear and uncertainty in Aziraphale’s eyes. Crowley thinks he looks astoundingly anguished with his pursed lips and his deadened, defensive eyes, looks like he’s on the brink of collapse, and then that’s gone.

“If you don’t let me in both of our names are going to be scratched from the Book of Life, it could happen any moment now.”

That is a serious threat, but Crowley is still so angry. “Frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck.”

“Liar.”

They stand in stalemate, Aziraphale now leaning against the doorframe, waiting, until Crowley asks, “Why would they want to scratch you, Archangel Supreme, Effervescent Warrior-Chief of the Angels, from the Book of Life?” But he is a liar, he does give a flying fuck, perhaps not about himself, but even in his darkest, most wretched hour, he never wished Aziraphale never existed. Just the thought twists tight around his heart and chokes the breath out of him. Never seeing Aziraphale again was awful, but he had made his peace with it. Never having known him at all was unfathomable. Crowley knows immediately that he’s going to give in and help, he doesn’t have a choice.

He clicks his fingers returning the bookshop threshold to normalcy and turns to walk back into the room, trying to get his heart and his skin and his face back under control and hoping Aziraphale doesn’t notice. “Tell me what you’ve done?”

***

The anger simmers just below the surface as Aziraphale explains the second coming and heaven and why he’s back. Crowley sits with his arm across the back of the sofa, skin turned overly warm even though he’s in his thinnest jeans and just a woollen turtleneck. Aziraphale sits primly, still dwarfed by the grey overcoat that he chooses to keep on, in the armchair pulled back from what used to be his desk.

Crowley’s still angry at him for leaving and now also for coming back, he’s livid that he’s being drawn back into something worse than life and death, but that’s nothing compared to how furious he is to have to care about Aziraphale again. He keeps circling back to the idea of him never having existed, that Crowley would never have known him, wouldn’t even know to miss him.

Perhaps, most of all, he’s angry that it’s becoming abundantly clear, that Aziraphale gets it now. He’s returned from heaven cynical and candid, no longer speaking about that place, or the people in it, with any sort of adoration or wonderment, rather like it’s all gone sour on the back of his tongue. He only shows any sort of respect for God Herself, and even that is fleeting and wholly immaterial to their predicament.

At the end of all the exposition, all Crowley can offer is a drawn out, “Wellll…” and then “We’re fucked, basically.”

Aziraphale huffs and silence falls between them. Crowley should just kick him out; the situation is dire, but he has as much chance of fixing it on his own as he does with Aziraphale there. The minutes tick over, the grandfather clock’s second hand audible in the stillness of the room.

Aziraphale’s voice cuts through, quiet and careful, “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt sooner?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did you wait until I had to leave to say what you said?”

Crowley fights the urge to throw a punch, or at the very least the hardest backhanded slap he can muster. He grips the back of the sofa with one hand and his own thigh with the other and stares Aziraphale down from behind the glasses. “You don’t get to ask me that.”

“Was it because you were scared?”

Crowley stares at him harder, eyes locked, Aziraphale unflinching even though he must be able to feel the crackle in the air, the threat of bodily harm if he continues.

“Was it because you knew that if we started something it would get back to our respective head offices and there would be consequences – ”

Crowley cuts him off with a sneer. “They would have discorporated both of us in an instant, and then hell knows what the punishments would have been. Eternal torture for me, I reckon. And perhaps something worse waiting for you in heaven.”

Aziraphale just nods and folds his hands in his lap. “And then after Adam, when we finally had our own side and no head offices, what about then?” He gives Crowley the chance to answer but he doesn’t. Then, “Were you still too scared?”

It’s like Aziraphale’s needling at him on purpose and if Crowley’s entire being wasn’t burning up he might stop to wonder why. He holds his voice remarkably level: “Fuck you Aziraphale, and I really, genuinely mean that. Was the point of this whole night to come back here and mess with me? World’s ending, book of life, blah blah blah, last chance to go and mock the snake? Has heaven turned you that cruel, that quickly?”

Aziraphale looks taken aback, as though that wasn’t what he was going for at all, but that’s certainly where he hit. “I’m simply asking why you chose to do what you did when I’d already told you I had to go to heaven – ”

“Because when else was I going to get the chance to say it? I wanted to speak first – not that it would have made a difference – because you’d already made up your stupid little mind, chosen heaven, and you were leaving.” Crowley clamps his mouth shut, presses his lips together and casts his eyes up; Aziraphale does not get to see him hurting.  

“And I was wrong,” Aziraphale says softly. “And I – I apologise, I’m very, very sorry Crowley. But I’m back now.”

Crowley keeps staring at the ceiling, hating that he can feel his eyes growing wet. He’d sooner scratch them out than start to cry. He keeps the crack out of his voice, “Don’t suppose any of it matters now. We’ll both pop out of existence sometime soon and this entire conversation won’t have ever happened.”

That should be reassuring, in a way. The pain and misery and heartache are all going to have never existed; no point crying over something that never happened. Crowley levels his gaze back at Aziraphale and presses back harder into the softness of the couch.

Aziraphale looks upset, angry, even, as though he expected something else from Crowley. “I really hate that you left us the way you did,” he says.

And the anger wells up again at the cruelty of him. “If you hate me you can leave. Again. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“That is so unfair – ”

“What’s unfair is that you left me, I told you the truth, and you chose heaven over facing up to that. You chose that shithole and all those arseholes and their bullshit instead of choosing me, instead of staying with me!”

“Because I had to,” Aziraphale snaps. “It was the only way to protect you and I thought, I thought, it was a way we could finally be together. And yes, I was wrong, but staying here, I knew Michael would end up in charge and Michael hates me almost as much as she hates you. If I was up there, I thought maybe I could fix things.”

“You thought you could fix me!” That’s enough, Crowley’s face burns with the shame of it and it’s only made worse when Aziraphale’s face morphs into pity and he reaches for him, shifting forward in his chair and reaching out. Crowley jumps to his feet and stalks straight across the shop floor, between the shelves, hiding pathetically, at least long enough to rake his hands back through his hair and slide his fingers behind his glasses to swipe away the tears that keep welling up and threatening to fall.

Aziraphale follows him, around the back of a shelf and appearing in front of him just as Crowley presses his glasses back against his eyes. “What are you even talking about?”

Crowley wheels around again, turning away with his shoulders hunched up high as he fights the urge to throw himself into the fight of it all. He only takes a few steps forward, into the centre of the shop, poised between the stairs up to his right and the door out to his left, both options promising a billion miles of space to run in any which direction. Except Aziraphale needs to admit his part in this, so Crowley turns back to him, stumbling backwards when he’s right there, brow furrowed and mouth set in a frustrated frown. “You just wanted to make me an angel again, all this time and the first opportunity to make me into precisely what I’m not and you thought that was right.”

“What? I didn’t – ”

Crowley speaks over the top of him, “Oh you did, you said, I’d be restored. That for all you cared for me, needed me, you could get heaven to fix me, to forgive me my sins. That’s what you meant when you say you wanted to save me. You didn’t even want me to be me, and instead of… You just forgave me.” It’s too honest an admission, too much, a weight lifted but just more anger settling in its place. When Crowley blinks, he feels the tears spill, catching in his eyelashes and gathering moist behind the glasses.

“That is not…” Aziraphale takes another step towards him and Crowley stumbles on the edge of the rug as he steps back, now trapped in the alcove with the desk and the armchair and all of Aziraphale’s dusty books. “I didn’t say that.”

“That’s exactly what you said.”

“But I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted you with me to help me. I wanted you with me so we could be us, together… And I didn’t know what you wanted me to say, you were so angry, you just gave up and – ”

“I wanted you to say you accepted me as is,” He didn’t want to have to admit that bit out loud but how could Aziraphale still not know? “I wanted you to choose me, I wanted you to say you loved me. Not that you forgave me, I’m a demon.”

Finally, realisation flickers across Aziraphale’s face, albeit, once again quickly replaced by anger. “But you must know that I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t want you to come to heaven and turn into one of them – “

“Now that you know what they’re like,” Crowley sneers.

“Yes, I mean, no, even before, I wasn’t trying to change you. You knew how I felt about you, and… and honestly, Crowley, I don’t know how many times I can apologise when you are being so wilfully obtuse – ”

“Wilfully obtuse?! And you haven’t even apologised for that particular mistake!” Crowley shouts. “And what am I meant to think, angel? I put all my cards on the table, I’m ready to spend forever with you, but instead you offered to make me your second in command for the literal end of everything and when I said no – for extremely good reason – you fucked off to heaven, anyway. And now you’ve only come back because everything’s gone to shit.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” Crowley snarls. “You’re just back here because you want someone to talk to, someone to solve your problems. You hate that I was honest, that I kissed you, which is just fine because I hate you for leaving me.”

Aziraphale is practically shaking with barely contained rage, defiant in it but also seemingly about to stomp his feet and start screaming for the sake of it. “I do not hate that you were honest, or that you kissed me, and I do hate that I left you, but I am back now and I don’t know what else you bloody well want from me.”

Crowley laughs, miserable and half caught in his throat. “You still can’t even admit you love me!” he challenges, driving the knife into his own heart some more.

Aziraphale roars back: “Well, technically, neither can you!”

That stops everything in its tracks. It’s nonsensical to Crowley for a long moment – of course he loves Aziraphale, of course he does – and it’s unclear what Aziraphale is even getting at. It’s that delay in logical thought that lets Aziraphale say it, voice going soft, still angry, and fiercely honest, “I do, though, I do love you and I think it’s more than anyone has ever loved anything or anyone in over six thousand years. It’s… a lot.”

It punches the air right out of Crowley, square in the guts like a freight train; even though he knew it to be true, he’d given up on ever, ever hearing it. Eventually he takes in a shuddering breath. It doesn’t change anything, though. “I knew,’ he admits, as quiet as Aziraphale now. “I know.”

The anger remains, just beneath the surface, frustration at the world, at heaven and hell and God, pooling and mixing with the abject fear of non-existence and what comes next which provokes the tiniest, most pathetic glimmer of some sort of hope.

Aziraphale watches him, hands balled into fists at this sides. “Do you know, though, really?”

Crowley nods, “I do,” of course he knows but somehow Aziraphale doesn’t seem to believe him, his head shaking just slightly from side to side until it’s not, and he’s nodding to himself, like he’s made up his mind.

"You don’t.” And then Aziraphale’s on him and it’s too much, too fast, and it’s everything.

Aziraphale’s mouth, hot and wet and pressing so insistently at his, hard enough to feel the teeth through their lips and to know he’s stopped breathing. Aziraphale grabs him, rough scratching handfuls of the wool at his chest pulling Crowley into his body and then pushing him back against the desk, catching him there, and then not stopping, pressing up hard and close and Crowley’s forced to slide back, arse on the edge, wood digging into his thighs when Aziraphale step into the gap between them and is covering him completely.

Crowley’s hands searching blindly for purchase on the desk, three books and the plant perched on top of them tumble to the floor and then it takes a split second for Crowley’s body to give in completely and utterly. And then only a second beyond that for Crowley to consciously decide that if this is the moment they’re burned from existence, at least it’s at the very top of their game.

He kisses Aziraphale back, a hand into his stupidly coifed hair, intent on ruining it, and the other wrapping around the middle of his back, hand grabbing at the softer-than-it-looks velvet – he discovers – of the stupid angelic overcoat.

Aziraphale is licking at his lips, increasingly wet and demanding, and not very angelic at all. Crowley chases the touch and closeness, mouth falling open and he can’t help but moan at the feeling of Aziraphale licking inside, searching out the inner heat and slick of his top and then his bottom lip, back again and again and then inside, across Crowley’s teeth and then darting up behind. Aziraphale tastes and smells the way he’s meant to taste this close, the disinfected, bleached smell of heaven dissipating as it’s overwhelmed with earthy, sweet, Aziraphale.  

They kiss raw and open and messy, without any finesse and there’s still a recess in Crowley’s mind that holds onto the anger, and another stuck cornered by fear. Any moment… any moment he won’t just lose this, it will never have happened.

The thought and Aziraphale’s teeth closing around his bottom lip, biting and sucking, pulls a pained whimper from him that he’s never heard himself make before and Aziraphale pulls back, eyes wild, a question there. Are we really doing this?

And Crowley drags him back down. More warm, flushed, heady kisses, too much spit and too many little sounds of surprise and surrender. Aziraphale’s hands eventually find there way up Crowley’s chest to his neck, dipping inside the turtleneck to skirt a thumb over his Adam’s apple, to scratch fingernails across the nape. Around his jaw and into his hair, angling him and guiding him until Aziraphale can pull his lips from Crowley’s mouth and kiss across his cheek, still too sticky-wet and remarkably tender as Aziraphale tilts his face to kiss and then nuzzle at his temple, sucking in the smell of his hair through his nose even as Crowley pants against his neck.

Aziraphale’s hands find Crowley’s glasses and tentatively, he slips them off to reveal Crowley’s amber irises, ignited, glaring, defiant and turned on, his lashes wet and clumped and the skin just beneath his eyes still tear-stained. A soft, gentle, “Oh,” escapes Aziraphale’s lips as he holds Crowley’s face in his hands. “Oh, I never, ever meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry I…” He presses his mouth to Crowley’s temple as Crowley’s eyes flutter closed. Azirapahle presses three small kisses, moving in towards the hollow of his eye socket and then down, ever so careful, kissing at the salt and his eyelashes. Aziraphale’s thumbs press and knead at Crowley’s temples and then he kisses up his nose, from the tip to the bridge to his forehead, and then across each closed eyelid. He traces that path again and again, soft and tender, until Crowley’s left clinging to him, a heavy, hunched weight in his arms, face upturned and revelling in the affection.

When Crowley smiles, easy and open, as his eyes glowing, Aziraphale takes it as his penance served, and returns to Crowley’s mouth. He kisses him deeply, pouring such heart into it that Crowley can almost feel his eyes welling up again. But then, Aziraphale tilts his head, and shifts to kiss from the other side of Crowley’s face, and very quickly, it all stops being tender and soft, and shifts to urgent and hot and desperate.

The unmistakable press and pull of Aziraphale’s tongue in and against Crowley’s, rhythmic and insisting, sets them on the course for more. It bolts straight down Crowley’s spine, out to his fingertips, and into his cock which was already half-hard, but now gives a twitch that he feels reverberate into his thighs. Even in his wildest dreams, he never imagined… Even twelve seconds ago, he thought he would take his chance to kiss Aziraphale until their lips were numb and the sun was high in the sky and then that would be it. That or they’d kiss until they stopped existing.

Aziraphale’s mouth has found his jaw again, no longer content just with wet, warm kisses, he’s biting, raking his teeth along the bone there and then stopping to suck until the blood vessels burst and blossom into marks. It’s pulling needy, downright embarrassing noises from Crowley but he doesn’t have the cognizance to care right now. Instead, he twists his neck to try to give Aziraphale the best access, choking on a moan as his eyes flicker open to catch Aziraphale throwing him a smirk before he latches back on to the spot just below Crowley’s ear and sucks.

Tugging the neck of the turtleneck down, Aziraphale murmurs something displeased, unable to get to enough of Crowley’s skin with the scratchy wool caught between his chin and the column of Crowley’s throat.

As Aziraphale bites another mark into Crowley’s jaw, he murmurs, “You don’t know how much time I thought about this in heaven,” and Crowley arches beneath him.

Crowley had been aware that he was fully hard in his jeans, straining against the denim and dribbling a wet spot into the cotton of his underpants, and now, with the forceful push of Aziraphale’s hips in to meet Crowley’s arch, inching him forward on the desk, he can feel the unmistakable pressure of Aziraphale’s own Effort. It’s equally hard, hot and over-whelming, and, still tripping over thoughts to respond to Aziraphale’s confession, it drags a plea from Crowley, “Fuck, Angel, really?”

Aziraphale kisses the underside of Crowley’s jaw. “I hated it there, almost as soon as I arrived. I missed you. And you’d just kissed me. And so I thought of this, of us.” He tries to kiss down beneath the turtleneck again and growls his frustration into Crowley’s ear when the wool gets in his way. “I wasn’t sure if they would know but I couldn’t help myself.”

Aziraphale’s hands race over Crowley’s shoulders, down his arms and his back, feather-light even through the wool, over his ribs and down to his waist. The material has already ridden up, escaped where Crowley’s jeans have slipped dangerously low around his hips, and there’s a strip of pale naked skin there. Aziraphale’s fingers find it before he pulls all the way back to watch as they caress across, from hipbone to the teasing line of flame-red hair just above the belt buckle. Crowley doesn’t breathe but somehow his belly still trembles, he wonders if Aziraphale can see that the hair grows thicker the further down he goes, that it’s ticklish and painful and burning hot all at once when Aziraphale scratches his nails through it, catching ever so slightly. Surely the unmistakable bulge in his trousers is obvious, too. And he just wills Aziraphale to touch him.  

“I want more,” Aziraphale says, both hands petting back and forth across Crowley’s skin.

“Anything,” Crowley manages.

His hands slip instantly under the wool of the turtleneck, flat to Crowley’s stomach but not wasting any time. Aziraphale pushes them up, over Crowley’s chest and Crowley raises his arms obliging so that the garment can be slipped easily over his head.

Dropping it to the side, Aziraphale looks positively ravenous in the moment he takes to rake his eyes over Crowley’s chest – pale and flecked with red hair, dusky red nipples, and really nothing Aziraphale hasn’t seen before – and then press his whole face into Crowley’s neck.

Biting, licking, blowing cold air just to watch the stretch and tilt that Crowley reacts with, to listen to the sounds he can drag from him. He takes his time but works quickly, finding the spot where he can feel Crowley’s pulse against his tongue before he descends to mouth across one clavicle and then the other.

“My turn,” Crowley growls, only when it’s become a mantra in his head and he can’t stop himself. Aziraphale looks startled, like he was lost in the skin under his mouth. But Crowley doesn’t wait, both hands going to that dreadful, over-starched tie, ready to yank it free and drag it from Aziraphale’s neck –

“Hell, that’s a clip-on!” he’s utterly repulsed and Aziraphale laughs at him.

“I tried to get them to give me a bowtie, or even just a proper tie, but they said this was more practical.” Aziraphale pouts, his lips kissed red and slick, his hair increasingly back to the twisted curls and tufts that Crowley loves. “I think it’s ghastly.”

“Well fuck that then,” Crowley says and then yanks the offending item away, flinging it halfway across the shop. He then sets to work on the buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt which he instantly finds over-starched and the buttons, frustratingly, just a little too big for the buttonholes. Two buttons down though, and he can get a kiss to Aziraphale’s neck that draws a sigh of delight. More buttons and he can lean down his chest, burying his face in the white curls and breathing in before he bites across a pectoral muscle and closes his mouth around a pretty pink nipple.

“Jesus,” escapes Aziraphale, all high pitched and breathless as his hands thread into Crowley’s hair and twist.

That hitches Crowley’s breath and he rewards it with his teeth, gently nipping at the skin just beneath. “Blasphemy,” Crowley teases and then shifts to lick across to the nipple on the other side. In some dim corner of his mind, he really can’t believe he’s doing this, that Aziraphale is letting him do this.  

Rather, Aziraphale is asking him to do it, because his hands are still racing tracks across the planes of Crowley’s naked back and his chest and his belly, rougher each time through the descending line of hair there, scratching lines across his belly button on the next pass, and then teasing at the belt with his thumb. And he’s babbling, still coherent and overly verbose, but clearly struggling: “Crowley… Crowley dearest, I… uh – I need you closer.” He pulls his face up to his and kisses him off-centre on the mouth. “I need – ” he keens as Crowley cuts him off with a bite to his lip. “I need all of you.”

“You have me,” Crowley admits, against his better judgement and all rational thought, and as Aziraphale’s hands drop to his belt with clear intent, Crowley’s own start to push back Aziraphale’s already hanging open shirt and the heavy velvet monstrosity of a jacket that lays on top of it.

Except he simply can’t get the garments off Aziraphale while Aziraphale still has his hands on him. Suddenly, the belt buckle springs open and the leather strap that encircles Crowley’s waist is being yanked all the way free and getting to Aziraphale’s shoulders stops being a priority. Crowley’s hands race to the clasp of Aziraphale’s trousers: another blaster button, then another and then a zip. It’s a race with only winners and a scramble of fingers and fabric and Aziraphale’s still trying to kiss him through it.

Then he gets his hands inside Aziraphale’s trousers, pushes his pants down his thighs, letting Aziraphale’s cock fall into his palm and it’s hot and hard and so very right. They should have been doing this for six thousand years. And then Aziraphale’s hand, hot and slick with spit or sweat – it doesn’t matter – has slipped under the waistband of Crowley’s pants and wrapped around his aching erection.

Aziraphale strokes maddeningly slowly from base to tip and Crowley groans out an, “Oh fuck,” as his own grip tightens around Aziraphale.

Aziraphale continues to stroke, too slow and not quite tight enough but still better than any feeling Crowley’s ever experienced. Crowley’s mouth hangs uselessly open in a permanent gasp and so Aziraphale gives up trying to coordinate kissing him and just rests his head against Crowley’s shoulder. Together, they stare down at the complete lack of space between them, trousers still caught, clinging to their hips, their cocks and hands shades of red and pink and pale cream, coarse curls of starkly contrasting hair scratching against each other. “I’ve got you,” Aziraphale murmurs, all wonderment and potent pleasure. “I’ve always got you.”

He lets his hand leave Crowley’s cock to twitch between them, catching against the backs of Crowley’s fingers where they’re still wrapped around Aziraphale. Aziraphale grips Crowley’s hips and pulls him forward, right to the edge of the desk and it instinctively makes Crowley’s hands loose from Aziraphale’s cock and hip, flung out to grab onto the wood so he can steady himself. His legs come up of their own volition to wrap tight around Aziraphale’s hips. His stupid jeans are still on though, the waistband across his ass cutting into the skin as it’s pulled tight and low, the cold sharpness of the undone zipper framing his dick, uncomfortably tight just below his balls and Crowley has to silently will more give into the material to let him stay like this, wrapped around Aziraphale.

Then their cocks catch between them, lined up perfectly, caught between bellies and scratchy hair and the heat of it all. Aziraphale gives an experimental rock of his hips and it’s glorious if entirely not enough and too dry and at an awkward angle.

And perhaps it’s all too much, too fast. Crowley had given up on ever seeing him again only half an hour ago, had despised him enough to want to never see him again even more recently. And now… now they’re this. Everything and raw and vulnerable and Aziraphale has him.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you for leaving,” Crowley says and somehow he thinks maybe it will come off playful and teasing, but he still regrets it as soon as the words spill out. He’s baiting Aziraphale and for what?

Aziraphale pulls back but his hips remain tightly pressed into Crowley’s, holding him up on the desk. A flash of hurt crosses his vulnerable face and Crowley feels it prickle at his heart.

He wants to take it back, but he can’t, so he just tilts his hips down, rolls them and grinds and tries to get the leverage from his grip on the desk to make them both feel good in some sort of tactile, sybaritic apology.  

Aziraphale chokes on a soft, mewling, desperate sound and then asks, “Do you love me, though?”

Crowley blinks, frozen, feels the heavy breaths being drawn deep into Aziraphale’s belly against him, the coolness of the sweat across his own chest, the thrum and thump of the blood in his veins, all the way down through his cock and right up against the heartbeat of Aziraphale.

He knows. He must know.

“Because you’ve not, technically, actually said,” Aziraphale says.

Oh. “Oh, yes. Yes, I – yes completely – ” He still hasn’t said it, and when he does it’s more matter-of-fact, less romantic than what Aziraphale probably wants. “I love you. I love you entirely, all-consumingly. I’ve loved you since… A long time. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.”

Aziraphale kisses his lips, simple presses, messy and hot with everything that’s come before. “We can work on the forgiveness stuff later then?” And Aziraphale breathes, reaching in between them, hand wrapping around them both and stroking again from root to tip.

“Yes,” Crowley hisses, head falling back for a moment, lax in his relief but his grip on the table and around Aziraphale’s waist still tight, straining. Aziraphale continues to stroke, both of them hard and in hand, haphazard and the pressure relegated more to one side because he can’t possibly make a proper fist around the weight and the heat of them but it doesn’t matter. “Yes, just like that,” Crowley encourages as he brings his mouth back to Aziraphale’s.

Another dirty kiss, sumptuous and slow, just tongues and heavy breathing, grunts and moans as Crowley tries to angle up just right, and Aziraphale tries for the right kind of friction. Unbidden, Aziraphale confesses into the corner of Crowley lips, “I really want to get my mouth on you.”

It draws a new, higher pitched keening cry from Crowley and he’s too close, that could be the end of it except he still wants more. “Next time,” he mumbles, “Next time, I promise,” and he wills that reality into existence.

Aziraphale grunts and his hand retreats, Crowley arches to maintain the friction, lets go of the desk for a moment but almost topples, and then whines to try to convince Aziraphale to touch him again. Aziraphale’s lips leave his and Crowley chases, eyes still closed as he tries to narrow in on the growing pleasure between them – that’s what he wants and he’s gluttonous for it, lusting after it, happily sinful if Aziraphale would just give it to him.

But instead it’s Aziraphale’s fingers on his lips, pushing inside, three of them, and Crowley’s eyes open with a start. “Suck,” Aziraphale says, low and rough in a way that makes Crowley’s balls tighten and his cock throb, a heavy drop of precome pulsing out onto their stomachs.

He sucks, diligently, wetly, refusing to swallow anything until the spit is dripping down his own chin and Aziraphale’s wrist and Crowley’s watching him look absolutely rabid with it. When Aziraphale wraps his hand around them again, it’s slick with precome and Crowley’s spit and from the drag of that first blissful stroke, Crowley wonders if Aziraphale’s miracled up even more slick than he could take from his mouth.

Lips against his, the squeeze and stroke of their cocks together is certainly too much now and Crowley can feel his spine turning to liquid. He can’t kiss, can only breathe and chase the touch with the tilt of his hips and the low, guttural groans escaping his lips.

Aziraphale remains strikingly coherent. “Tell me about next time, Crowley?” and he gives a devilish smile that Crowley can sense against his cheek. “What will we do?”

“Everything,” Crowley manages as Aziraphale’s hand catches just below the head of his cock and twists.

Aziraphale hums against his cheek, begging more.    

“Anything you’ll let me,” Crowley confides, biting the inside of his cheek and then at Aziraphale’s neck to hold himself together.

“Tell me,” Aziraphale says and his thumb slicks across the wetness right at the tip of Crowley’s cock, pressing in on it and swirling it around and then grinning delightedly at the little, involuntary buck of Crowley’s hips.

Crowley breathes out, squeezes his legs around Aziraphale’s waist and he’s so close, he could come if Aziraphale would just let him. “Angel,” he warns.

“I’d let you do anything,” Aziraphale tells him and finally the crack in his voice gives away just how close he is as well. “I want you to take me apart.”

That would have been the end of him except Aziraphale grips the base of them both and then stills. As though he can feel just how close things are, and still wants to drag it out, he unwraps his hand and then and then dances his fingertips up along the damp line of hair to Crowley’s bellybutton. “Tell me about next time,” he demands.

Crowley leaves the mark he’s bitten into Aziraphale’s neck, knowing they can miracle it away afterwards but hoping desperately, that they won’t. He just wants and if Aziraphale wasn’t holding him up against the desk, Crowley’s sure he could have Aziraphale up against a wall or a bookshelf or on the floor. That’s next time, and his hips rock up at the thought. He grabs handfuls of Aziraphale’s arse, his grip under the overcoat but over the fabric of his trousers, and grinds hard against him.

“Next time, everything,” he says and Aziraphale scratches down his chest and grips their cocks together again. He doesn’t move though, stares at Crowley, eyes locked, waiting for the assurance, for a promise.

Crowley licks his lips. “Next time, you’ll let me fuck you, won’t you, angel?”

Aziraphale’s lips fall open and he nods. He starts to stroke again and immediately they’re both shuddering into it, half-aborted spasms of their hips as they both hold taut and try to make the moment stretch but now they really are too far gone, they’re going to come just like this, on a desk, in their bookshop, half dressed, and frantic and not quite forgiven.

Crowley wants to make him come first, though, wants to watch him fall apart, wants that small victory and he can see what his words are doing. Unfathomable reactions from his imperfect, beautiful angel, even as Aziraphale touches him like sin and presses him hard enough into the edge of the desk to leave bruises.

“Next time, you’ll let me open you up with my fingers, you’ll let me take my time, you’ll let me use my tongue.” Aziraphale moans and thrusts up into the fist of his hand, along the length of Crowley’s cock and it makes him stutter. “Or… or maybe you can do all that to me? Next time, or the time after – ”

Crowley doesn’t know how’s he’s still in one piece, the steady leak of liquid from his cock, from Aziraphale’s and now it’s almost too wet, too slick, too hot, too much, the sharp tug and drag of Aziraphale’s hand bordering on pain because he’s been holding himself back for too long, but he needs to take Aziraphale, need to see him fall apart, needs to know it’s just as bad for him.

Crowley arches back, forces his eyes open so he can see Aziraphale, sweating and breathing stop-starting and heavy, chest and cheeks flushed, and one hand working fast over both of them even as the other continues to hold on to Crowley by the back of his neck.

“Look at you, you’re gagging for it,” Crowley reveals before he can stop himself and Aziraphale’s eyes snap open and up and instead of being affronted, he just grins lascivious and shy in equal measure. “My angel and all you want in the world right now is to get those pretty little lips wrapped around my cock so you can swallow me whole and – ”

Aziraphale’s eyes fall shut and he clings to Crowley, hand tightening around them both as his cock spasms and he rocks hard into Crowley’s hips. He breathes out an almost silent ‘Fuck!’ as he starts to come.

And Crowley feels the throb of him, sees him spilling, pearly white, warm and viscous, between them with a look of such deep concentration and bliss painted across his upturned face, and that’s all it takes to push him off the precipice.

Precarious, but worth it, he lets go of the desk with one hand and wraps it over the top of Aziraphale’s, fingers sliding between his and grasping where they’re hard and blood-filled and intimate, tight and hot and sliding as everything inside him breaks like a wave crashing on rocks.

Crowley shudders and chases every last pulse of pleasure, every last twitch from either of them, the back and forth of friction and reaction dragging it out while Aziraphale breathes hot and hitched against his ear and Crowley finds skin to dig his teeth into. They hold there until their hands still, and then their bodies, and finally their breath. Then it’s just Crowley’s hand interlaced with Aziraphale’s around their softening, over-sensitive cocks, and an ungodly mess of spit and sweat and come.

They disentangle slowly, fingers refusing to leave each other’s and their linked hands settling clasped somewhere between their chests. Crowley’s legs unloop from Aziraphale’s back and his feet find gravity and support on the floor even as his jeans slip immediately down to his knees when Aziraphale takes a half a step backwards to give him just enough space to stand in. They lean forehead to forehead and Crowley debates what to do about his pants, about the mess, about the fact that he’s still thinking about Aziraphale’s mouth on him and that that feels like it’s making his blood change direction in his veins.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts his train of thought which is probably for the best. “I’ll clean us up?”

He mumbles something, finding his tongue heavy and not quite correctly connected to his brain yet, but it must sound affirmative because with a flick of Aziraphale’s wrist, everything is clean and dry and, even though it’s disgusting, Crowley instantly misses it. His jeans have even inched their way back up his thighs, to the point where they can’t make any further headway because Aziraphale’s still pressed too close to him.

With an obvious look of reluctance, Aziraphale steps further back and Crowley catches his jeans and hikes them back up over his hips.

Aziraphale clears his throat. “I think… I hope…. Well, I think we should probably save the earth. And if not the earth, at least ourselves.”

The hanging dread of everything comes crashing back in, but something in Crowley is defiant in having at least experienced this before he’s wiped from existence. Some romantic, irrational part of him even begins to think that the enormity of his love would survive him never having existed. “Yes,” he says in answer to Aziraphale’s hopeful, beaming face, still flushed and his lips kissed red, a scattering of red marks across his neck and chest and two that are already purple. Aziraphale hadn’t cleaned any of that up and it makes Crowley feel ambitious. “But probably the earth as well. I know you like it here.”

“Yes, please,” Aziraphale says. “And then I think we should talk.”

“Of course.”

Aziraphale’s tucked himself back into his trousers and done up both buttons. His hands find Crowley’s again, clean and smooth, their fingers interlacing and tugging. “Just… I think we can figure this out. I think one day you’ll forgive me, and I promise I won’t ever try and forgive you again.”

Crowley huffs at that, but it’s a foregone conclusion. “I can do better as well,” he admits. “And we will work this out. This and the Book of Life bollocks.” He brings one of Aziraphale’s hands up to his mouth to kiss across the knuckles, immediately turned on again to find them still, ever so slightly smelling and tasting of them both together. Metallic and bitter and filthy and he knows Aziraphale left that there, either for Crowley or for himself and his eyes go wide with the unexpectedness of it. “Just please, please promise we can do this again…” He sucks on a knuckle and looks at Aziraphale through his lashes as he does it.

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes out. “Yes, most definitely.” Crowley moves to suck at another knuckle but before he can be too drawn into it, Aziraphale’s pulling his hand back with a pout. “Book of life, my love.”

Crowley thrills at the new pet name and tries to keep from preening. “Stop the second coming, save the world, and then lunch at the Ritz?” he asks, shifting to focus on the enormity of the task ahead even as he tries to draw one more smile from Aziraphale.    

Aziraphale gives him a look, a soft little grin and an arch of his eyebrows, a playful warning. “I believe you already know what I’ll be putting my mouth around once all this is taken care of and it is most certainly not lunch at the Ritz. Best get on with it!”

And even though in that moment Crowley’s balks, a choked laugh escaping him as Aziraphale grins, they do get on with it. All of it. Everything.

[rottenpumpkin13]

SOMEONE accidentally crashed a helicopter containing Tseng and the boys, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere for a few days until rescue comes. Who loses their sanity first?

SOLDIER Vlogging Shenanigans pt. 39

[The camera is turned on and immediately pointed to a smug face. Genesis is all smiles as he walks along a shoreline. The sun is splayed on his face, his hair is made redder by the warm sunlight, and he's eating an apple]

"Evening, friends and fans." He takes another bite of the apple to keep himself from laughing. "Today I bring you—"

"Are you FUCKING VLOGGING RIGHT NOW!?"

[Angeal's exhasperated screech makes Genesis turn around, still keeping the camera pointed at himself]

"WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRISIS!" Angeal screams from somewhere off-frame.

[Genesis takes another bite of the apple and winks at the camera]

"Crisis are my aesthetic." He tosses his hair from his eyes. "It's crisis-core."

[A coconut is violently lobbed at his head. Genesis let's the camera fall into the sand. The video blacks out]

-

[The next video also starts with Genesis. He has the camera pointed to himself as he sits in the sand. Sephiroth and Tseng are seen in the background preparing a fire. Angeal comes up behind them carrying some wood]

Genesis sighs dreamily. "When the war of the beasts brings about the—"

"NO!" Angeal, Sephiroth and Tseng scream in unison.

[Genesis ends the video]

-

[The next video starts with Angeal filming himself. It's early morning the next day. Crashing waves and birds are heard. Tseng is seen in the background preparing a fish]

"I need to add context to this nightmare since all Genesis has done so far is be an ass."

[Genesis's laugh is heard from somewhere off-frame]

"We were on the way back from an assignment that...."

[Tseng gives Angeal a dirty look]

"That I cannot disclose. But Genesis the idiot—" Angeal pauses to glare at him. "—Insisted on flying the helicopter. He lost control because he's an idiot—" Angeal glares at him yet again. "—And then we crashed."

"We almost died," Sephiroth says in the background. "I saw my entire life flash before my eyes."

[Tseng stops preparing the fish they caught to look back at him]

"Was that before or after you punched that Sea Worm?"

[Angeal pans the camera to film Sephiroth, who's laying on a fallen tree trunk as if it's a therapy bed. He looks reflective]

"During it," he replies. "It kind of looked like Professor Hojo."

[Angeal veers the camera back to Tseng, who's now looking directly into the lens]

"He also said that about the Beachplug he butchered two hours ago."

[Angeal quickly pans the camera back to Sephiroth, who hasn't moved an inch but now has a concerning smile on his face]

"I have a lot of anger, Tseng."

[Angeal points the camera back to himself as he grimaces. Genesis's continued laugh is enough to make Angeal film him. Genesis is lounging on the sand on top of his coat. He has his copy of LOVELESS in one hand, an apple in the other, and is wearing sunglasses]

"I don't know you're so calm during all this," Angeal huffs. "I thought you would've gone nuts by now without access to the internet and coffee."

[Genesis puts his book down and shrugs]

"Why pine over creature comforts when I have everything I need right here? I'm on a free vacation with a copy of LOVELESS, my friends, and there's an apple tree right there."

[Some voices behind them makes Angeal turn the camera back around. Tseng is wrestling the fish knife away from Sephiroth]

TELL ME, TSENG, HAVE YOU EVER FELT THE DESIRE TO CONSUME DEATH AND DANCE WITH THE GODDESS?"

"SEPHIROTH, MAN, LET GO," Tseng screams.

[Angeal ignores this and pans the camera back Genesis]

"I just think it's a little suspicious how eerily thought out this all was, that's all," Angeal says.

[A commotion off-frame makes Genesis sit up straight and has Angeal pan the camera back around. Tseng is seen running after Sephiroth, who in turn is attacking a coconut tree with his sword]

"SEPHIROTH!" Tseng shouts. "THE TREE DOESN'T SUSPICIOUSLY LOOK LIKE PROFESSOR HOJO, YOU'RE JUST DELIRIOUS!"

[Angeal turns the camera back to Genesis, who takes a bite out of his apple and sighs]

"And now I have free entertainment. This is paradise—why are you looking at me like that?"

[The camera moves in on Genesis. Angeal's heavy breathing is heard as he approaches him]

"Hey, hey! No, not the face!"

[The video ends right as Genesis screams]

[positivexcellence]

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[ladylooch]

Smutty Submission - Miles Wood

Summary: A submission from 👢 anon about vacationing in Central America with Miles Wood.

Having a vacation with miles means two things for you. He's going to torture you or you guys are not leaving the room.

This year, he decided that the whole family was going to travel (probably Central America). And you're fine with that.

You woke in miles' arms after your first night. God, you're going to love it here. The little sun is coming in through the curtains, hitting miles in all the right spots. He looks like a God, and that's not fair at all.

You guys have a family breakfast and decide that after lunch, you guys will spend the afternoon at the pool.

You're getting ready for the pool when miles come into the bathroom. You have your bottoms on and are trying to tie the top. He looks at you like he's going to eat you right there. But he behaves, the thing is the cat and mouse game you guys are going to play. Starts now. He helps you, tying for you. He lets his fingers linger more than they should. Making you shiver a little.

After getting ready, you guys head to the pool to meet the rest of the family. The kids are already in the pool, and they want uncle miles to play with them. You smile at him as he takes his shirt off. Pecking his lips, you send his way. You linger your eyes at him because holy shit, those muscles and his v line are showing more this summer.

You sigh and curse mentally. You lay in the chair, asking for a drink and watching miles playing with the kids. He's such a kid.

But then he decides to come out of the pool through the stairs. You look at him, thank god for your sunglasses. Miles knows that you're looking. He always knows. So what he does is the thing that drives you crazy. He pulls his trunks down, a little too low there, but not enough to see his pubes. You watch the water moving through his body and v line to exactly the spot you lick when you're blowing him.

Miles winks at you, and you lift your drink. You lick the rim before taking a sip. Two can play this game, mr. wood. And you will win. Your self power is stronger than his.

Miles is talking to his brother and a few more people. And he keeps checking on you, in case you need him or someone bothers you. You wait until he's lost in the conversation to turn around.

Showing what drives him insanely crazy, you're ass. Your swim bottoms are a little smaller than you normally use.

Miles starts to lose focus. After all, his second head is working now. His brain is not functioning anymore.

Miles can't focus, and it's funny to you. You decide to go all in. You untie your top, you don't mind the tan line. But since you're teasing him, you do it.

It doesn't take long for his big frame to block your sun. You look at him, lowering your sunglasses. You pout saying that he's blocking your sun.

Seeing his eyes, dark with desire makes you smirk. You're looking all innocent. Miles crosses his arms, asking what you are doing. At that moment, you're watching the water on his v line, and he knows it. You lick your lips before looking at him to say that you're just tanning.

He doesn't buy it, and his eyes show you that. You ask if the water is cold, he says a little, and you reply, "Maybe you should go in then, cool your head down." He knows what you're referring to.

Sitting down at the chair closer to you, Miles brings it closer. He starts to run his finger through your spine until the top of you ass. He's sending chills down your spine, giving you goosebumps.

He licks his lips as his eyes wander lower to your side boob. The anticipation is killing both of you, but you're not giving him the satisfaction. Yes, your bottom is getting soaked, but he's also getting hard.

Miles leans to give you a kiss, but an 'uncle miles come play with us' bursts your bubble. You chuckle as miles groans kissing your shoulder.

You were saved by the kids, thank god. Miles whispers that "this is not over, and you're going to get what it's coming." He stands up, you look at the line that you're the only one capable to do it.

You bite your bottom lip before batting your lashes, saying that "maybe he should run, to the pool. To take care of his situation, uncle miles."

He looks down and groans before cursing. He looks at you. He mouths that you're going to pay. Then he runs, throwing himself in the poll. The kids cheer and move to play with him.

You go back to your tan moment. Then you check the time and realize that you should go take a shower, to get ready before the dinner with his family.

Miles is watching you as you carefully tie your top, throwing one of his shirts over your body. You don't want to take the risk, someone beside miles seeing your boobs. He adjusted himself, getting a splash of water on his face. He wasn't paying attention.

You get your things, leaving his shirt and the room key for him. You move to the edge of the pool calling for him. You say that you're going to shower and for him to enjoy. You peck his lips and move to your room. He checks you out until you're out of his line of vision. His brother chirps him, that he's so gone for you. That means wedding. Miles doesn't care, that idea is awesome.

You leave your bikini at the door of the bathroom. You'll take care of that later. You're mid way through your hair routine when you feel his body coming behind you. Pushing you close to him, making you feel his erection on your ass.

You humm. You teased him that the water wasn't that cold then. Miles starts to move his hand to touch your clit. But you pull his hand, saying nope. He's lost now.

You spin in his arms, hand on his abs, pushing him against the shower wall. He loves it when you have that confidence.

You give him a messy kiss before moving down. You stop at your favorite part of his body. You kiss and lick his v line, you hear miles hissing. You look at him, licking your lips and say that "I won, and I'll get what I want. And that's you." You wink.

You take your time on his v line. You guys will probably be late for dinner, but you don't care. You suck the skin at the end of his v line, marking him but not enough to leave a hickey. Miles is a mess against the wall.

You stroke him, locking eyes with him, you say "mine" and take him deep inside your mouth. It's so hot seeing you take charge, and he needs a lot of control.

He's panting, eyes closed, enjoying your mouth on him. When he looks down, you're touching yourself. Miles can't have that. He pulls you up. He kisses you as he touches you. You moan against his lips. Miles ghosts his lips. He says that "you're not cumming on nothing, you're cumming on my cock sweetheart." The pet name always kills you.

Nodding, you kiss him before miles turns you to face the shower wall. As much as you want him to show his strength, it's safer this way.

He can't wait too long, spreading your legs, miles lines himself. Slaps your ass before he slides in slowly. Bringing a long moan from you and a grunt followed by a praise.

He holds your hips tight and will leave a mark there for sure. Miles slaps his hips against your ass. The only sounds in the room are your moans, his praises, and the sound of his hips against yours.

He's struggling to keep it together. He rubs circles on your clit to bring you to your high first. After that, it doesn't take long for you to come on his cock saying his name. Your own high brings him to his. Both of you are happy messes.

Miles kisses your shoulder before pulling you against his chest. He kisses your neck and lips as you rest your hand on his thigh.

You're breathing heavy, but this game you guys play sometimes. Always gives you good sex.

Miles, pull off you, and you guys finish showering. You guys don't say much, but an I love you came from your mouth.

While you guys get ready. You're getting your makeup done. Miles says that "i'm winning next time." You smile looking at him over the mirror. "You wish wood."

Miles comes to hug from behind. God, his cologne smells so good. You guys lock eyes and you say softly "I hope your family doesn't think, I'm a whore." He kisses your cheek and whispers "you're my whore, but don't think that."

You guys are 5 minutes late for dinner, getting knowing looks from all the table, beside the kids of course. Your cheeks get so hot, but miles is a soothing presence.

He pulls your chair. He kisses your cheek and says out loud that he loves you. Before the kids pull his attention to them.