#yes sleep is also the best most good thing

[soft-pine]

spn20rewatch: 2.20 what is and what should never be

this has got to be in my top ten episodes of all time! there is so much i love about it! it has my favorite favorite scene and then my other FAVORITE FAVORITE SCENE!!!

but before we get there it has some wonderful dean character moments.

dean's confused, withdrawn, performative kiss with carmen!

this whole scene watching his face go from performance to confusion and worry and back and forth! he is so funny and i love him so much!

but this is also a cruel foreshadowing that the next two kisses dean has are him specifically sacrificing himself and his body as a means to an end.

but we're not there yet so let's just bask in THIS!

DEAN: Well, who'd'a thought, baby. We're civilians.

or THIIISSSSS!!!

DEAN Dad's dead? And the thing that killed him was a... MARY A stroke. He died in his sleep. You know that. DEAN That's great.

or the way dean is so fucking happy to see jess and it's heartbreakingly sweet!

there is also so much that can be said about how even in dean's "dream world," he's the family fuck-up. he's never really thought much about his own future or himself but the best thing he can picture is his family (or most of them, HA!) alive and happy and safe. and i think there's a component of this where he has to remove himself (and John) in order to imagine it being possible. gutting honestly.

season two opens with dean yelling at john (though john can't hear him) and ends with dean crying at john's grave. i'm interested in the shared threads between these two iterations.

2.01

DEAN: I've done everything you have ever asked me. Everything. I have given everything I've ever had.

2.20

DEAN: Course I know what you'd say. Well, not the you that played softball but... "So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people's lives, no contest. Right?" But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero?

the speech in 2.20 is actually one of the very best explanations i feel we ever get for dean's relationship with john. because the issue is not only that john forced dean into hunting, it's that hunting saves people. like dean can rail against john and against his childhood that was stolen and against his future that will be stolen and against all the cruelty and harshness and ways he was parentified and it was subtly reinforced that his life literally mattered less than sam's or than strangers. but hunting does save people, goddammit and dean both cares so deeply about that on his own that many of these sacrifices would be freely chosen and he cannot fully hate or distance himself from his father because so much of what john did was actually just straightforwardly good.

abuse is messy. i think john winchester's characterization is perfect, actually.

dean can much more easily put to rest a father who played softball than a father who "got a bum rap around every turn. But you know what? He kept going. And in the end, he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad." (8.12)

like dean has to remove himself and john from their family's lives to picture their family getting a happy life. but for it to feel easy, he also has to make this father one who just worked at a body shop (i'm extrapolating) and played softball.

so yes, okay this episode is a nonstop thrill ride of beautiful, cute, wonderful dean moments and utter heartbreak. so of course, the next thing i have to say is THAT THIS SCENE IS SO FUCKING CUTE!!!!! i can't stand it! (rip to the "I know how it sounds" that i didn't squeeze in because it was too long. because that line just kills me !!!!!)

but look look look!!!! he's so smooth and cunty AHHH

so it follows that what comes next is heartbreak. dean wants a future where mary is alive, where jess is alive, where sam is happy and safe and in college and alive. and it's not real and he can't have it and it will kill him but he wants to stay. so he stabs himself in the heart.

and in the next episode sam dies anyway.

... well here we are, this is already so long and i haven't even talked about my actual favorite scene. which also, i think, happens to be my favorite scene in all of supernatural....

Dean realizing one of the other of the djinn's victims is still alive and catching her as sam cuts her free.

DEAN: I gotcha. I gotcha. We're gonna get you out of here, OK? I gotcha. I got you.

the way the fact that he's in pain and weak and drained is layered throughout the desperate care in his voice here.... besties i don't have words...

all hail 2.20

[aliceinborderlandsquidgame]

Gi-hun | SFW Alphabet | S1 + S2 | 

Warnings: S1 and S2 Gi-hun - He does NOT have a daughter on this - Sad!Gi-hun - Soft moments - grammar mistakes -

Template Credit

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

S1: He is so foward with it. Physical affection its a must for him. He loves to give you long hugs and kisses. Whenever he sees you he has a dumb sick smile on his face. He knows he is not perfect so he tries to compensate it with small gestures.

S2: He gets more reserved and does not smile as he used to. He still likes to hold you. In fact he needs to. Most nights he needs you in his arms to avoid nightmares. He gives short and small smiles to you. And gets more protective.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

S1: I see him becoming friends with anyone. As a best friend Gi-hun is someone who offers you a shoulder to cry, even if he has his own problems. He knows he is far from perfect and has lots of problems when it comes to gambling and debts, he would not want you to be near these two things. Maybe he will try to hide that from you so you dont think less of him.

But as I said, he is caring and does look out for you with the little things he has.

S2: More protective. He is afraid the ones from the game will come after him or the ones he loves and cares. And since you were there for him since the moment he got out from the games (yes even when he lived on the streets) he has you on high regard.

Cries to you about his mom's death and what happened during the games.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

S1: He LOVES them!! S1 Gi-hun its a softie and loves cuddles. He loves to have you besides him at the couch with your head on his chest. When in bed he likes to be the big spoon with you facing him or giving him your back. He will leave kisses all over you.

S2: Its more like a need. He needs to know he is safe from the games and that you are alive.

Nights are a most, he ends being the small spoon during them. Needing you to comfort him. Sometimes he cries in his sleep pulling you closer to him.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

S1: No. He likes the relationship you two have but does not want to take the next step and get married with you. He feels like he does not deserve you and is afraid after his failed first marriage. He is also BAD at both, mostoy needing his mom's help to keep the aparment clean.

He asks how you put up with him a lot.

S2: Yes and No. Yes because he now knows just how fast things can go wrong and how fast he could lose you. Its not like he never thought of it before, he was just too scared. But now he does want it. At least legally so he can call you his. But also no, because he is afraid you will end being a target for the ones in charge of tha games.

He got a bit better at cleaning and cooking but its not that good at it. He does it because he needs a clean space so he can install all the different things he is using to track down The Salesman and the one behind the games.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

S1: Honestly? He may not do it. He is selfish and does want you to be with him. Even if he knows he is not good enoguh or has lots of problems

S2: Its going to break him but he may do it to protect you. Even if you beg him not to.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

S1: Kind of already answered but he most likely wont want to do it. Between debts and his first marriage...yeah he is not ready.

S2: If he feels like with it he may proyect you then yes. He also knows how fast life changes and ends so he wants to be with you like that.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

S1: 10/10 He is a SOFTIE on both aspects. Loves to hug you and kiss you, its not afraid of PDA and emotionally he is an open book. At least with how much he loves you and cares for you.

S2: He gets more secluded.  Emotionally he does not want to let you see his dark sides. His mind is quiet plagued with nightmares and sometimes he is afraid on what he could do. He wants you to know he still loves you. Physically he is more reserved too. He is afraid yes, but also needs you to ground himself. He may not hug you as much.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

S1: YES!! All the time and under any type of excuse. He just loves to feel you close to him.

S2: Less of a giver but willing to get them. May look like he does not want to them but one look at his eyes and you know how broken he is. A hug from you sometimes its the only thing that keeps him going.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

S1: He feels it but does not say it out loud till long time into the relationship. Maybe he is confused at first, his love evolves quickly something that scares him. In fact he may ignore you for a few days once he realizes it.

S2: Knows he loves you and tells you every single day. Does not play around with it. He wants you to know it. If I did not tell you before he went to the games then these are the first words he mutters to you the first time he sees you again.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

S1: Yes, but because he believes he is not good enoguh for you. Thinks one day you will find someone better or realize that he is not worth of your love.

When he is jealous he becomes quiet sad and closes himself. Its not like he is angry at you but rather at himself. You will need to sit him down for a long talk about it.

S2: Oh, he is but now its mixed with him being protective and possessive of you as well. Wants no one near you. Remember the people working for him ? Yes these are off limits from you. Jun-ho ? Also a big no.

In fact almost no one knows about you. He MIGHT tell Jun-ho about you since the Man is a police but thats it.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

S1: Quick pecks when he is running late, long ones when he is at home and has time. He likes to kiss your lips and cheecks and the same for him. He also gets red everytime you two kiss.

S2: Long and passionate ones, he puts all his feelings on it. Letting you know how much you mean to him. Ends with his forhead against yours.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

S1: He is fine with them but does not want them right now. He is happy with you and only you in his life.

S2: Same thing. Even less now. May have think of it at some point even during games but seeing how broken mentally he is now he does not feel ready for them.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

S1: On work days mornings are rushed. Gi-hun tends to oversleep and ends with you waking him up and giving him a quick breakfast and kiss. On free days you two would stay in bed for long hours, sleeping, talking, such enjoying each others company.

S2: He barely sleeps, knows its morning because of a clock he has. Mornings and nights are the same to him.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

S1: He likes to sleep late. Usually because he ends seeing a program on the TV or drinking. Of course this makes mornings worse. When its a night without the worry of tomorrow then you two enjoy a movie together.

S2: Bad. He feels like his life its not his any longer and night time makes him feel worse. He needs you to be with him, you dont need to talk just be there for him.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

S1: He is pretty Open about himself. Talks a lot and fast, sometimes he will slap himself mentally because he told you something odd about himself without noticing. Its all in good heart, you just make hin so confused and happy!!

S2: If you two did not share a relationship in the past then he is a closed book and wont even try to date anyone.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

S1: With you he is quiet patient. Only when he is stressed or feels like all things are being too much he loses control.

S2: VERY. He knows he has changed and its a big thing to deal with. Does not expect you to be able to fully accept him at once or even beliving him.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

S1: Almost nothing. He may remember your favorite food but its lost with the rest. Most times its you who ends telling him that its a special date and he just goes "???".

S2: Too much focus on finding the ones from the games. But he now puts effort on remember things that makes you happy, trying to make up for when he would not even try.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

S1: When you two are alone and in silence. He loves to just be there with you. Simple things are good things to him.

S2: Pretty much the same. When he is able to relax and put his guard down and be with you. Even if its in a love hotel, he likes knowing he has you by his side.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

S1: Unless he knows you are being tormented by loan sharks (it opens up a big protective side on him, its able to even tells them to leave you alone), he is not that protective since he thinks you are safe. Would he like to be protected? Maybe, but wont tell you.

S2: PROTECTIVE MODE AT 100%. He trusts no one to be with you or close to you. If you can quit your job and be with him 24/7 then please do. He begs you to. If you say you dont want to then he will teach you to fight and manage guns, put a track on your phone and car if you use one.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

S1: Even if he does not remember much of when a centrain date is, he TRIES to make it good for you. Will use his little money to get you a small present and if he has no money for it would feel miserable. On everyday tasks he is lazy and would need for you to ask him or tell him to help around.

S2: He makes it up for how he used to be. Now that he has money gets you the most special things he can. Puts a stop for the days he wants to spent with you (even if you two are only in the love hotel). Helps more with daily tasks and even offers to do all himself.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

S1: Lazy, likes to get drunk, gambles, its lowkey a kid sometimes.

S2: More secretive, a bit cold sometimes, emotionally distant from time to time.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

S1: Could not care less. He has clothes on ? Then its good. Only when meeting up with you would he try and put more effort. Takes care of his hair since he knows you like it a lot.

S2: Same as before. He is more clean becuase he has the ways too. And dress better because he can buy New clothes but its also a show of how he has changed. Knows you miss his curly hair.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

S1: YES. He considers you a very important part of his life, if you break up with him then he would be really sad.

S2: MORE YES. Dont even leave him please. He needs someone. He knows you would be safer without him but he is selfish and wants you by his side.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

S1: Falls fast and hard. Its not like he believes in love at first sight...well maybe he does. He is a mess when he is in love. Blushes a lot around you, messes up whatever he is going to do. But is also very caring!!

S2: Its so protective of you. And also you are the only one who he lets in. No one can pass the walls he has made to be safe.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

S1: Someone who is just plain rude and violent. Someone who has no morals.

S2: After the games ? Someone who uses others for their own fun or just uses others and is abusive.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

S1: BAD. He loves to stay awake till later hours of the night. And prefers naps over a healthy sleep habit.

S2: WORSE. He sleeps when his body demands him to. And even with that he only gets four hours at max.

[joelmillerisapunk]

get to know your moots

ty for the tags loves <3 @probablyreadinsmut @itwasntimethatdidit40 @ace-turned-confused @thundermartini @kedsandtubesocks and @reddedmiller

what's the origin of your blog title?: me being an uncreative basic bitch. but it's fine we are suffering through the consequences of the most uncreative username of all time.

OTP(s) + shipname: me, joel miller AND javier pena <3

favorite color: black and mint green (yes ik its very specific idk really what to say I even have a tattoo that is partially this color lol)

favorite game: rdr2, dreamlight valley, tlou, bg3, mariooooo, zelda, assasins creed

song stuck in your head: hold the line - toto and whatever is on my fic playlist

weirdest habit/trait?: probably a lot but the most annoying as a lot of us have mentioned is assuming no one really likes me. but also doing that thing where you start a task and then see something else that has to be done so by the time you have finished you've begun 50 other tasks

hobbies: video games, reading, writing stories, poems and music, pretending I can bake cute aesthetic things I find on Instagram reels, calligraphy, collecting sea glass and sea shells.

if you work, what's your profession? i worked on a cow farm

if you could have any job you wish what would it be? a sugar baby, someone who lives on a beach, but really anything in music bts or in front or a psychologist but instead I went to school two times for things I did not end up staying with haaaaaa

something you're good at: giving you compliments until you tell me to stfu

something you're bad at: i like this answer so same -> putting myself first, also as it's been said a few times socializing, and flirting

something you love: documentaries ommmg jdkfdakjf <3 <3, downtime when I can have it, also I always forget how much I love the sun until this time of year, hearing a favorite song you haven't heard in a long time, watching stuff with people whether its movies or youtube videos or shows

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: video games, music, joel miller, the octopus lifecycle, Shakespeare, fun bts facts of my favorite movies and tv shows (I could spend days upon days looking up facts about how movies and shows are made and the little details in each of my favorite movies and shows)

something you hate: when its too hot or too cold, when I do that thing and don't buy snacks to be "healthy" and then wish I had a snack and math.

something you collect: i was collecting miniatures until they all got lost in a move, sea shells, coca cola memrobilia, Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, coral, anything vintage, trauma, and wips

something you forget: what don't I forget

what's your love language?: acts of service, words of affirmation, physical touch

favorite movie/show: beauty and the beast, most keanu reeves movies as I've been binging them lately, lotr, how to lose a guy in 10 days, donnie darko,

favorite food: potatoes any day, any way, any form

favorite animal: cows, platypus', whales and dolphins

what were you like as a child? the quiet kid who was basically a mute because anxiety sucks and being perceived is frightening - lemme just fade into the floor

favorite subject at school? psychology, english because we could read Shakespeare and really cool books, science, music class, history, french, home ec, woodshop

least favorite subject? math and phys ed cause ya girl ain't a runner but yet they're all like "ohh its not that hard" but bro you're not even doing it

what's your best character trait? why are these questions so hard though? like idk my ability to make people feel comfortable?? i feel weird answering this lol

what's your worst character trait? i guess my inability to put myself first still and my dad jokes and sometimes I get quiet because I have a huge fear of rejection or abandonment

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? that I was on vacation instead of driving around for hours today or sleeping more that'd be great

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet? Beethoven, Shakespeare, my grandparents, Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Frida Kahlo, idkkkk

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!): there's so many this is rude asking for one so I'll give you two series. recently I read late night texts by @jolapeno and the wolf you feed by @arcanefox207 these series changed my brain chemistry for the best. I could scream on every rooftop in the world about these to every person in the world like please READ THEM!!!

npt: @arcanefox207 @gothcsz @syd-djarin @sunshinehaze1 @sunshineispunk @milla-frenchy @aurorawritestoescape @604to647 @myownwholewildworld @evolnoomym @slimybeth69 @almostfoxglove @lotusbxtch @baronessvonglitter me smooching you all through the phone <3 <3 <3 cause you all deserve every ounce of love and joy in the whole world

[zanyana626]

Saw this & wanted to join in!

What's the origin of your blog's title?: "Zany" bc I joined tumblr around the time of the Animaniacs reboot, "Ana" bc my friends call me that for short, & "626" bc it's my birthdate/Stitch day!

Favorite Fandoms: Yeaaah, there's a ton! But my top 3 at the moment are: Gravity Falls, The Amazing Digital Circus, & the Pedro Pascal fandom!

OTP(s) + shipname: Again, there's too many so I'll just go with my current top 3 ships; Jinmao, Gelphie, & Abstragedy

Favorite color: Purple 💜😈🔮💟🪻

Favorite game: Other than the uQuiz personality quizzes that pop up on my dash every once in a while, I’ve been into sim games lately

Song stuck in your head: Heavy Metal Lover by Lady Gaga

Weirdest habit/trait?: Random ass noises. Like for example, when I'm happy, I'll sometimes do the Nezuko muffled hums; I think it's half my weirdo self, half my weeb self

Hobbies: Reading, writing, does sleep still count as a hobby??? 😅

If you work, what's your profession?: Currently halfway done with my Medical Assistant program, so hopefully once I get the license, I'll finally be able to get a decent job!

If you could have any job you wish what would it be?: Literally anything that pays well. But if we're talking something specific, then marine biologist. I remember taking a class about it in high school and was intrigued about all the sea critters & how we impact their ecosystems. But having to study around in the middle of the ocean, in the dark, most likely far away from civilization, not to mention the fact that I can't swim at all, well...

Something you're good at: I think I’m a good support system to my friends/loved ones when they talk about their personal issues going on in their lives & I just do my best to listen to them and give them words of encouragement.

Something you're bad at: Calculating or math in general.

Something you love: Listening to history videos, specifically the ones talking about amusement park/abandoned concepts/Disney rides history. For these types of videos, I recommend checking out Yesterworld or Defunctland's YT channels.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: Demon Slayer, Disney, & the MCU (to some extent)

Something you hate: In general, rude, homophobic, shallow, & overall judgmental people.

Something you collect: Pins & plushies! I stopped for now bc they've gotten more expensive in last few years, I'm saving up for other stuff, & plus I STILL have to organize my pin binder/overall room space for my plushies.

Something you forget: How quick I forget certain things.

What's your love language?: Words of affirmation, I never thought about it TBH

Favorite movie/show: Once again, check my Favs list!

Favorite food: SHRIMP!! I love making garlic shrimp scampi w/pasta or the occasional tempura shrimp <3 🦐🍤🦐🍤🦐🍤🦐🍤🦐🍤 And if we're talking sweets, then the one thing I'll fight to the death for is mint chocolate chip ice cream!

Favorite animal: Duckies 🦆🦆🦆

Are you musical?: I'm not gonna lie, I really didn't really care for musicals, especially in high school. HOWEVER, the pandemic lockdown changed my view on musicals. I'll forever be grateful for the Tumblr anon who recommended me Six the Musical. I also never learned to play a musical instrument.

What were you like as a child?: A complete wildcard, that's for damn sure! As of recent years, my family & I have reason to believe that I went undiagnosed of autism my entire childhood & we never really noticed bc my brother's diagnosis was more evident when we were little. But other than that, I was a shy Bratz/PPG/Sanrio/Disney Princess/Monster High girlie!

Favorite subject at school?: Marine Biology, Psychology, History, & Ceramics (yes we had a ceramics class in high school & I loved how chill it was)

Least favorite subject?: FUCK MATH, ALL MY HOMIES HATE MATH!!!

What's your best character trait?: Being empathetic

What's your worst character trait?: I tend to stress out over every little thing, also I'm lazy af! 😅😅😅

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?: The weather. It's been too cold these past couple of days, I don't even want to get out of bed at all!!!

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet?: Definitely my grandmother when she was younger, bc of all the crazy funny stories I've heard about her. But if we're going by famous people, then Selena Quintanilla or maybe my pookie Pedro Pascal so that I can be his controversial young wife & live our best lives together, <3

Recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!): Uhhhh... I'm not sure if I should, most fanfics I read are certain husbando x reader type fics (& they're the spicier ones, I'll leave it at that!)

Tagging: @boombams @greyladyblue @myscalesofjustice @princessacelilith & anyone else who sees this is more than welcome to join in!

Get to know your Mutuals

Thanks for the tag @perlen-gold, even though I’m just an unhinged follower obsessed with your writing 🙈 I started my own chain so your original post wouldn’t get too long.

What's the origin of your blog's title? My thirst for Adar and the gauntlet kink he inspired.

Favorite Fandoms: I have a lot, but The Silmarillion/The Lord of the Rings/The Rings of Power are my main ones I always fall back on.

OTP(s) + shipname: I’m a self shipper so me + whomever I’m obsessed with (currently Melkor, Adar, and Gil-galad) but also more recently:

Melkor x Mairon (Angbang)

Adar x Celebrimbor (Silverscars)

Favorite color: Orange (also partial to purple and dark green).

Favorite game: Hero Quest (I’m not a console gamer. Though I did enjoy watching my husband play Horizon Zero Dawn).

Song stuck in your head: Dog Days (Are Over) by Florence and The Machine.

Weirdest habit/trait? Oh boy, where to begin… I make random noises, I meep like Beaker to songs, laugh at my own jokes… I’m just a weird person altogether folks.

Hobbies: Writing, visiting places of historical interest, I also used to be an avid reader but then motherhood robbed me of my energy and concentration. I listen to audiobooks more now.

If you work, what's your profession? I write scientific reports and run data tables for an Early Drug Development CRO, which is as fun as it sounds. I’m also a mother. Everything you’ve heard about motherhood is true and also a lie.

If you could have any job you wish what would it be? I would be rich enough not to need to work 🤷🏻‍♀️ or working on a petting farm would be cute.

Something you're good at: Berating myself. Encouraging others/being a cheerleader. Also writing, I hope 🙈

Something you're bad at: Most things, but especially anything requiring mathematics or physical exercise.

Something you excel at: Being a silly goose 😏thirsting over fictional characters 🙈 and raging at injustices. Erm, I think that’s about it. How tragic for me 😂

Something you love: The community I’ve found here on Tumblr 🫶🏼 period dramas, Dracula, and tattoos (I have none of my own… yet).

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: Mormonism, The Wars of the Roses, the people I love.

Something you hate: Injustice, mayonnaise, and corsets improperly portrayed in period drama.

Something you collect: Cuddly toy bats, and more characters to thirst over (I need help).

Something you forget: That motherhood is difficult so to give myself more grace.

What's your love language? I don’t adhere to love languages, but I guess genuine connection over similar interests, banter/in-jokes.

Favorite movie/show: Aaahhh don’t make me choose! It’s always changing.

Favorite food: Galaxy Cookie Crumble, Mini Eggs, Yorkshire puddings, and pizza.

Favorite animal: Bats 🦇

Are you musical? I can hold a tune and I played flute as a kid, otherwise sadly no.

What were you like as a child? Intelligent, saw everything in black and white, more artistic, more outgoing.

Favorite subject at school? History and art.

Least favorite subject? Maths and PE.

What's your best character trait? I like to think I’m kind and understanding.

What's your worst character trait? I can be so incredibly lazy.

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? More sleep. Always more sleep.

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet? Bram Stoker. I’d also love to meet my mum as a young woman, I think we would have had fun.

Recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!):

Come by @perlen-gold (Angbang)

Of Convenience by @greenleaf4stuff (Silverscars)

Last but not least, show your favorite fanart of your favorite character(s) (please remember to credit/add links!):

Melkor/Morgoth

Adar

Gil-Galad (TROP)

No pressure tags for @greenleaf4stuff, @valar-did-me-wrong, @strifes13, @wowstrawberrycow, @iwanderbecauseimlost, @withallthatisleftofmyheart, @calmlyy-chaotiic, @margauxmara, @varda-starqueen, @saffronstories, @gingeragenda, @gracefallingart, @dwarveslikeshinythings, @whenimaunicorn, @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88 and anyone else who would like to play! Sorry if I missed anyone.

[mossbear-minese]

I think I shouldn't need to sleep anymore

As a treat

With the option to sleep when I want, also as a treat

But I would like to Do More Thing and Do Less Sleep

[yu3s]

** i think reading dungeon meshi and frieren and witch hat atelier at the same time does something irreversibleto you... .

[evieelyzabethh]

"glue song"

✭"don't forget to kiss me or else you'll have to miss me"✭ ~ How Arcane characters show affection headcannons {fem reader}

cast ✧ Vi, Ekko, Jayce, Viktor, Mel

cw ☞slightly pervy jayce (you can't pry him from my cold dead hands), fluff

♞Vi♞

♞Vi kisses like she is starving, and you are the first morsel of food she can get her hands on. Like she is drowning, and you are her first breath of air. It's not just desperate and hungry, but there's also a thankfulness to it. Thank you for sticking with her, thank you for being so patient with her, thank you for loving her. Vi doesn't do anything half-assedly, especially not kissing her pretty girlfriend. It's probably her favorite form of affection because it's so versatile. It doesn't have to lead to the bed if neither of you want it to, sometimes it's just on the couch, you sat in between her large thighs, positively falling into her.

♞Her favorite place to kiss you would be on your lips as she holds you chin in her rough hands. She would kiss you thoroughly and deeply, her tongue languidly kissing your own without a rush or care in the world. She is quite prone to getting overwhelmed herself, squeezing the air from both of your lungs and having the nerve to pout at you when you pull away. On her messier days, she leaves a string of spit behind, but she's always kind enough to wipe it away with a few swipes of her thumb. With every inch you pull back she leans in a mile more, chasing you as you try to catch your breath and when she does pin you down, she holds you impossibly close so you can't escape again until she's had her fill. Even then, she holds you in her large arms and tangles your limbs together, at one point sliding her hand beneath your shirt just to lay it on your tummy and feel it move as you breath.

♞Vi is also secretly a space heater. She runs incredibly hot and because of this, sleeps naked and is always down to give you her jacket. It just makes sense in her mind, seeing her clothing wrapped around you. She likes sharing most things; oddly specifically, drinks. She's gross and thinks it's hot that you're technically swapping spit. When it comes to alcohol, especially if you're not a big drinker, both of you will nurse off the same drink, her tipping your head back and pouring it into your mouth when you get a bit too tipsy to do so yourself without spilling.

♞Her go to pet name is 'pretty' and I will die on this hill. It's the thing that defines you for her. She's an idiot and a loser and she knows there's more to you than just how you look, but she just can't help it that whenever she sees you, all her reptile brain can think is 'pretty'. She absolutely abuses it, too. Besides this, I also think she would use those sleazy kinda bar pet names, like sweets or babydoll. Not in a creepy sleazy way, but that is just realistically what she would've been hearing for terms of endearment.

♞Slight side tangent, in a modern AU she is definitely one of those mascs that gets a hold to some Calvin Klein boxers and takes advantage of every opportunity possible to show the waistband off. Part of it is just her showing affection, even if you can reach tall shelves on your own, she still insists on getting the items for you. This carriers over into many things, like twisting open pickle jars or opening your soda cans if you're someone into longer nails. While she isn't as good with building things as Jinx, I think she would definitely be able to manage putting together the furniture in your shared home. Would it take all day? Well, yes! But you chose to make the best out of it and fuck on top of the furniture to test its sturdiness and congratulate your girlfriend on a job well done.

♞On the topic of nails in a modern AU, she would love a partner who gets them done absolutely goes feral if you get them customized to her liking, like coloring them after her eyes or hair or sneaking her name in there somewhere. She feels like she's made it in life when she can pay to get them done. It seems like a selfless action, but it would be a lie to say she gets nothing out of it. The scratch mark you leave on her back after break her brain a little.

★Ekko★

★Ekko loves cooking for his girlfriend! I feel like that would definitely be his main love language along with quality time. As stated before, you two would spend a lot of time in his kitchen, often times with some source of music providing a background noise to the nonsense that you concoct together, occasionally slow dancing while there's time to kill while waiting for something to finish in the oven. Food fights may occasionally occur, but he does a thorough job of licking you clean after. He claims he 'can't let good food go to waste'.

★He would also have a sketchbook absolutely full of you. You can tell when a new edition is about to be added as well. Ekko isn't loud, but he isn't quiet either. His foot is always tapping, he's usually humming something, he always has something to keep his hands busy. He's hardly ever still, except for those moments when you fully wash over him. Sometimes the lighting is exceptionally beautiful, sometimes it's in appreciation of how the wind moves the world around you, and some moments are just so breathtaking beautiful he has to take a moment to go silent, still, and stare. Sometimes he'll just tell you to be in his presence and be pretty so he can properly commit you to paint and commemorate you forever in oils and brush strokes. He's not above nude paintings, though those strokes look and feel much different.

★Ekko is the CEO of quick kisses. He's a busy guy!! He's running an entire commune. He makes the absolute most out of moments when you have the world to yourselves, but most of what you receive are quick passing kisses on your cheeks or the corner of your mouth. He misses on purpose because he simply does not believe in starting things he doesn't have the time to finish. For this reason, I don't think he'd be a big quickie guy. A kiss can easily just be a kiss, but sex is not something meant to be done in 5 minutes.

★Ekko's favorite place to kiss you would also be your lips. He's a romantic, what can I say!!! At the end of every day, you ask each other how your day was after you've both showered and gotten comfy. You both sit on his bed, set beside each other, your legs haphazardly laid over his as he casually massages your thigh. Sometimes you're both a bit too tired and aren't listening that hard, the occasional tidbit catching your attention making either of you sit straight and get closer until eventually you laid on top of him, both of you half asleep. No matter how much energy either of you has, a good night kiss is to be had. When Ekko doesn't need to be quick, he is impossibly slow. He has all the time and then some.

★Not only does he demand a good night kiss, but a good morning kiss to. He gets pouty without it. And sassy. He tells Scar, very loudly so that everyone can hear him, that you hate and don't love him anymore and he is just so deeply hurt that you would let your boyfriend, you're one true love, leave the house without kissing him goodbye and doesn't shut up about it until he gets his goddamn kiss.

★He loves picking out your outfits. He prides himself on the way he dresses and out of everyone, I think Ekko has the most domestic skills. I've already discussed how well he cooks, but I wouldn't be surprised if he also knew his way around a needle and thread. He is not just wearing any clothes; he has a sense of style that he is very proud of. This being said, he loves going shopping with you in a modern AU and he loves when you eventually get comfortable enough to not retreat into the bathroom when changing from outfit to outfit. He's the one making you do the little spin so he can appreciate the outfit from all angles.

★As far as pet names go, I think Ekko would keep it simple with "babe" or "baby" for more casual usages. I also think he would be fond of "my girl" and expects it from you in return because yes he is "your boy" and yes you are "his girl" and yes he loves you very very much. He wouldn't be a stranger to "my love", especially in the mornings or at night when your face is the first and last thing he sees when he closes his eyes. It makes him feel extra sappy.

❂Jayce❂

❂He is all over you at all times of the day omg. I feel like of everyone, Jayce would be the clingiest. This isn't to say he's attached to you at the hip, but his favorite part of the day is getting to go home to you. You're cooking and there he is sitting on the counter yapping about Hextech or something. You're taking a shower and he wants to join. And it's not just a proximity thing, it's also a touchy thing. Any reason or way he can find to touch you, he is taking it. He doesn't care if it's pathetic, dammit, he wants to be held.

❂Jayce would absolutely thrive in a modern AU. He would be the guy whose social media page are all posts about his girlfriend and does he just love to show you off. He would spoil you so good, but rather than buying anything you wanted like Mel would, I think he would also really enjoy making you presents. This isn't to say he doesn't enjoy buying you things, one of your staple pieces of jewelry is the gold anklet he bought with his initials on it.

❂Physical touch is easily his love language but he cannot handle all that, or rather, he freezes in situations where you initiate it. His hands tend to naturally find your waist and will occasionally, if he's feeling bold enough, slip down to your ass, but one time when it was freezing out, you offered your tits as handwarmers and he got a nosebleed. Jayce is definitely an undercover perv but due to never having a girlfriend before and being completely foreign with the concept that he doesn't need to hide how badly he wants to jump your bones at nearly all hours of the day, he freezes when it comes to you initiating contact.

❂He would definitely be the type to get you teddy bears and flowers just whenever. It's never with any rhyme or reason and it happens rather sporadically, just when he is out and about for any reason and thinks of you and wants to bring you something home. He thinks of you a lot, actually. Mel and Viktor love the both of you, but sometimes he goes a bit overboard when it comes to talking about you. This being said, he jumps at any opportunity to show you off. He loves going to gala's because he likes seeing you in pretty clothes and hanging off his arm. He also likes kissing you in public, even if no one's paying attention. He is well versed in the art of delayed gratification and loves getting the both of you riled up knowing full well he does not have the balls to actually fuck you with people around (he gets loud and is very well aware of this)

❂ Jayce's absolute favorite place to kiss you is your neck. He usually starts with your lips, large hands cupping your cheeks and soft lips moving over yours until he gets more antsy. His hands travel from your cheek to your neck then begin to creep under your clothes to grab and knead at your warm skin. Then he would move down your face, peppering kisses across your lips, down your jaw, then down you neck, panting as he goes along and his hands getting rougher as he tries to remain composed. He stops there for a moment, breath fanning over skin that is now slightly red from his canines nipping you and his fresh stubble scratching the area, reminding himself to be gentle and not take more than he's given. He pleads with you, his own cheeks flushed from the heat of the movement as he mutters out his "please...". He's begged you time and time again to not make him verbalize exactly what he wants, but you are relentless. At least he has the manners to ask sweetly beforehand.

❂He is the type to lay right on top of you. After you've gotten comfy in your bed, thrown on your pajama's, maybe are doing a bit of light reading before bed, he comes around to disturb your peace and lay himself right on top of you, smothering you with kisses while he lays there. He eventually moves out of his starfish position to lay his head on your chest and wrap his arms around your torse. He's like a giant, weighted, warm teddy bear

❂One of his go-to pet names would be 'baby', but only when it just the two of you. He is also quite fond of 'gorgeous' and he always has a stupid smirk on his face when he says it. His favorite would be 'sweetheart'. Slightly off topic, he would be the first to jump the gun and start calling you his wife. Especially to council members that are annoying him and taking up time he'd rather be spending with you, he is very quick to pull a "Sorry, gotta get home to my wife." He bought to matching rings for your one-year anniversary to sell the story better.

☽Viktor☾

☽As far as physical affection goes, I think he would be the least touchy. I think the touches would be concentrated on your face, lazily tracing all of your features, marking where your cheeks sink below your cheek bones, the divot between your chin and lips, and where your face is most pronounced. While he wouldn't call himself an artist, he could probably mold your face in clay from the number of times his feather light fingers have caressed every inch of it. He's utterly entranced by it. His mind often wanders while listening to you speak, eyes roaming from your lips and taking note of them in proportion to your eyes, getting lost in the color of them until his eyes flit to your nose and the way your nostrils slightly flare out. It's very mechanical, but that's just the way his brain works.

☽Less of a hugger but he does like to keep his arms around you. Especially on date nights when you're cuddled up on your couch, a myriad of snacks in between the two of you, your head resting on his shoulder while he tries to hide his snores as he falls in and out of consciousness. You accuse of him trying to go to sleep and he tells you he was just "resting his eyes".

☽He would make you all the trinkets in the world. Many of them start as failed experiments of his or scraps from projects past that need to be repurposed, but the thought is always there. He hates to waste and there's really no need to when he has a girlfriend he can make gifts for. Your vanity is full of pretty side projects, decorative boxes for your makeup, ornate music boxes, tea sets and tiny figurines. Your desk would be full of special tchotchkes.

☽Speaking of tchotchkes, I think that would be one of his playful nicknames for you. It sounds absolutely delectable in his accent. I think he would also go for the classier terms of endearment such as 'dear', 'love', 'darling' as well as variations of them in his mother tongue. He would love teaching you his native language, both as a way to bond even more but also to make sure he never loses it.

☽He would also be big on compliments. He is probably your number one supporter, but not in the loud sports fan with a huge foam finger kinda way, but in a quieter more personal way. He is extremely confident in you and your abilities as well as being endlessly proud of everything you do. He is in complete awe of you, and he tells you as such. It is impossible to feel bad about yourself in his presence, he keeps a mental rolodex of every accomplishment of yours to combat any sort of negative self-talk.

☽Not a big PDA guy. He would rather throw himself out of a window than suck face with you in Jayce's presence. He is a big hand-holder which is disastrous when doing it while walking around because neither one of you can walk straight to save your life. It's not even an issue with his leg because you do it too. You bump into each other all the time, though in the winter it is more often on purpose to keep warm.

☽Viktor's favorite place to kiss you is on your forehead. It's simple and it's sweet and more often than not what he can get away with the most. With how much time he spends in the lab, he has grown to deeply appreciate those quiet moments with you, holding your hand under the table as he works in the low light, papers rustling as he tries to find the specific formula he's looking for. Jayce is across the table, snoring loud enough to keep the both of you awake. You look like you want to kiss him, he can feel your gaze on his lips as your fingers tangle through his hair and he turns to you and gives you a small smile then a sweet kiss on your forehead. When he pulls away, he leans into you and you sit there for a moment, nose to nose. "Just a few moments, love, I'm almost done." You giggle through tiredness. "It won't be a few moments, Vik." And he appreciates your understanding more than most things in the world. "No, it won't. But I'll try to make it quick.", he promises and then plants another kiss on you

☽He really likes reading with you, or just doing activities that allow the both of you to be doing something together without necessarily needing to talk. It doesn't even have to be something he's good at, it could be a painting session, or a pottery lesson, and he would be down. He would also be the type to try and pick up on your hobbies. You like to crochet; he's also picking up a crochet needle to try and work alongside you. And he's not too proud to ask for help, he likes a relationship where both parties are constantly learning and exploring.

☼Mel☼

☼Mel is definitely the type to spoil you. She has so much money and is not afraid to use it. You really like that dress you saw while window shopping? She's already ordered it to be tailored to your exact size. You like that bracelet? You wake up to it in a box on your nightstand the next morning and spot her wearing a matching piece later on that day. It's not to try and buy your love, she just thinks you deserve the world, and if she could buy it, it would be your wedding present.

☼Mel love holding hands at all times and specifically is the type to rub the skin between your pointer finger and thumb. Her skin would also be so soft, touching her feels like touching smooth velvet. She also likes to kiss your knuckles and the inside of your wrist before letting go, the mark her lipstick feeling like a heavy imprint of her lips.

☼She is also very fond of kissing your nose. She thinks 'booping' you with her finger is childish, but she is not above a little peck on the nose, which is the abridged version of her usual ritual of pecking your forehead, nose, and lips. Those kisses are usually taken in the morning when you go your separate ways for the day, particularly those that she knows will be long and tedious. She likes to think she takes part of you with her when she does it. She misses your intellect, she misses the silent indicators of your presence, she misses how you feel. Some days, she greatly yearns to return to you. She feels like a physical weight is lifted off her back and she can actually breathe.

☼She loves spending wash days with you. Those locs take hours and you are there right by her side, gossiping and discussing everything and nothing while royal hairdressers take down or retwist that beautiful head of hair. It's even better if you're the one doing it for her. She likes the feeling of your fingers in her scalp, massaging out the wrinkles in her brain as she goes boneless in between your legs. I, unfortunately, do not think she could return the favor. She is like basically royalty; her whole life someone was likely doing it for her. She would try and learn!! It would just take a little bit.

☼I do think she would be very good at doing your makeup. She has the base routine DOWN and usually likes to do simpler eye looks, though she can do whatever you request of her. All hell breaks loose when it comes time to do lips, and her gloss would end up all over your face as she is overcome with the unabating urge to leave glossy kiss marks all over your face . You would return the favor, whatever pigmented shade you previously wore landing all over her flawless skin, and she would savor the moment with a photo she keeps in her journal

☼In a modern AU, I think she would be really good at carnival games. I can't explain it, she just would. She's not the biggest fan carnivals and fairs as they're a bit too loud and crowded for her taste, but if you wanted to go, she certainly would never say no to you. While I think Vi would try very hard to beat them only to fail, Mel would be unexplainably good at them and win you tons of prizes.

☼Mel carries a purse on her at all times and has absolutely everything in there. Pads, tampons, ibuprofen, lip gloss, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, anything you could possibly need is in that bag of hers. She also carries the big bag so you only have to carry around outfit purses than can barely handle a handful of coins. She also loves matching outfits with you!!! You probably own so many matching outfits, matching pjs, matching workout sets, as well as multiple items of clothing that are the exact same except for sizing.

☼She would be another one who constantly talks about her partner, albeit, in a much smoother way than Jayce does. Jayce jumps at every opportunity to bring you up in conversation, it's always flows naturally with Mel but she also brags far more. It's always, "That's great but my girlfriend..." or finding ways to talk about big accomplishments knowing damn well no one else can compete. See her girlfriend has a doctorate, or her girlfriend won this prestigious award, or her girlfriend was the first to do this...what were you saying about your wife though???

☼As for pet names, I think Mel would be another person who uses "my love" or "my dear" but I also think she'd be the type to refer to you as "princess". Once again, coming from royalty, she treats you as such, and that also comes down to how she refers to you. She also just likes calling you by name, usually in her sappier moments followed by her last name She can't get enough of the way it sounds rolling off her tongue and the two of you together just sounds perfect.

[kurthummeldeservesbetter]

because I’m on a meljayvik kick rn

Viktor has to sleep in the middle of the bed bc both Mel and Jayce run hot. any combo where he is not in the center has whoever is on the end sweating profusely and the person in the middle has one cold side and one warm side. it’s science.

Mel is the coolest and calmest of their heads, yes, but she is most definitely in on their “yes, and?” dynamic to science and magic. She is all for the chaos, she just wants them to wear protective equipment while doing the chaos.

Jayce designed their shower to be double the size of a normal walk-in. Their tub is pretty much a hot tub. Do with this what you will.

Jayce carries both his partners on his shoulders. He also can do many a set of pushups with both of them on his back. They’ve played chess against each other on Jayce’s back, while also asking for advice on chess moves.

Jayce and Mel have a game called “do not leave Viktor alone with Ambessa”. For everyone’s sake, they have been 100% successful. Jayce gets jealous, and the last thing Mel wants her mom to know is that they do share a taste in types of men. Viktor is unaware of this game. Ambessa is curious of the twink her daughter is hiding from her.

Mel is the first person who gets to see all their prototypes in action. She has also been woken up in the middle of the night when one (usually both) have an idea. She is 100% behind this, though she didn’t appreciate the time Viktor and Jayce woke her up for what ended up being a literal lamp re-design. They spent an hour talking about their genius and innovative light, powered by hextech, just for her to flick their bedside lamp on.

Mel has never laughed so much in her life since meeting and getting with them. She attributes these years as the best ones so far. Jayce and Viktor feel the same.

Viktor is just. Always in meetings now. Chilling out. What are you gonna do? Tell the de facto-head of council Jayce he can’t bring in his partner and tell the richest and also most influential member Mel she can’t bring in her other Boyfriend? Good luck.

He actually does not want to be in these meetings. He's there for moral support and the promises of coffee. Also Mel needs him to occasionally hit Jayce's chair with his cane when the other man starts to fall asleep.

He also sneaks notes to her of drawings and she's been mad (not really) ever since he made her snort really loudly due to his caricature of hoskel and salo. It's framed in their office.

[mygnolia]

to weave my love ⭒ n. riki

⭒ SYNOPSIS -› Riki is good at many things- dancing, making fun of his friends, playing it cool (debatable.), Hell- he’s even good at saving people from falling buildings without getting whiplash. But the things he’s bad at? Well, it’s asking you out to prom, and trying to balance the shared assignment he has with you…while being Spider-man.

⭒ PAIR -› spiderman!nishimura riki x fem-pres!reader

⭒ GENRE -› fluff, banter, action ⭒ TROPES -› classmates to lovers, idiots to lovers ⭒ WC -› 17k (i’m sorry idk why either.)

⭒ INCLUDES -› SPOILERS FOR GREAT GATSBY, cursing, non-graphic injuries (reader discretion advised), yes i made the patching up with first aid kit trope SUE ME!! takes place in a busy city similar to new york never specified, reader is rich, jake and heeseung are seniors and riki’s a junior, is riki stupid? yes… jake reveals stuff because he is also a little silly, reader wears a red dress!

⭒ GREAT GATSBY -› basically jay gatsby has this weird amt of money but no one rlly knows how he got it (nefarious reasons) and hes been in love with this girl daisy for five years but then she got married to tom buchanan but he gets rich so he can get the house across from her and wistfully watch her and he pines after her like CRAZY but he dies at the end

⭒ REN SAYS...special huge fat kiss to thena @sensitively-taken you will be in the will when im a millionaire THANK YOU for helping me with so much of this I WUV U AND I WLL BE WAITING FOR UR HUENING FIC!!! | LIBRARY

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE FROM PRE-ADULTHOOD STRESS, IF THAT’S EVEN A THING.

What exactly does Riki have to worry about as a seventeen-year-old junior in high school? Right now, his most daunting responsibility is catching up on the chapters of The Great Gatsby because the only thing Riki’s actually read from the novel is that the main character shares a name with his best friend and senior, Park Jay. His second most daunting responsibility is handling the fact that with the new seating chart in his Literature class, it means he’s sitting next to the object of his very subtle affections, you. 

See, the problem with having a crush on you is that Nishimura Riki’s committed to thinking that you’re way out of his league, and unfortunately, the boy believes that almost too well. Not only are you minted beyond his wildest dreams (having seen your posts on social media), but you’re hardworking, helpful, and dedicated to your role as student body treasurer. He’s already understood that you’d never go for a guy like him. Maybe someone more like Park Sunghoon, whose parents’ salary matches yours. If Riki lived in a rural estate with generational wealth, handling the whole ‘Spider-Man’ thing might be a bit easier for him, considering he wouldn’t have to try so hard in school. It might even change the fact that Riki dealt with some alleyway criminals last night and is currently catching up on lost sleep, as your English Literature teacher goes on and on about a project on the book you’re reading. 

In class, and even sometimes outside of the classroom, your small tendency to not pay attention to your surroundings has landed you in some awkward situations—like now. 

“I don’t really tell anyone this, but I hate Daisy.” And instead of getting a response, you glance over to see Nishimura Riki slumped on the desk. Without trying to make preconceptions about what could land him in a situation like this, you poke his arm, stifling a smile at how his eyes widen when you’ve caught him rubbing the very obvious sleep from his eye. 

“Sorry,” he whispers, still fighting the post-nap grogginess, “Did I miss anything?” 

(Nope.)

Shaking your head, you return your attention to your teacher as he continues to answer questions. The second Mr. Yoo assigned a report, you wanted to die even more considering the work you had to do on top of the impending due dates. But for it to be partnered? And for you to get seated and paired with the one boy who's known for not caring about school? Maybe things are a little stacked against you, but there has to be a reason why Riki’s somehow still passing all his classes…right?

Considering it’s the last assignment about the book, you’re glad that you already read it so many times to know what you want to put into words. And in retrospect, answering a few open-ended questions about it can’t be that hard—the hardest part would be getting your partner to stay awake in class. 

A small tap at your side makes you turn to face Riki, who you see has frantically written a page full of notes about the project in the past three minutes and how he can succeed. “Can you go over the first part? Sorry…I was…y’know.” 

“It’s a partner project. And we’re partners.” You wince at the awkward wording. 

Great! Riki was caught sleeping and that was your first impression of him for your paired assignment? Riki feels so stupid in front of you right now—in front of your meticulous notes with annotations and proper highlighting. He wants to curl up into a ball when he sees you glance over at his haphazard attempt to look like he was paying attention when, in truth, he was trying to remember the dream he had just ten minutes prior. When you offer him a small smile and nod, leaning over with your notebook in hand, he sighs in relief, thanking whoever it was that let him get away with his naps without the consequence of irritating you afterwards. 

The bell rings when Mr. Yoo stops talking, and you pause, startled by the sound. Instead of leaving, however, you pack your bag and shuffle to his side of his desk, continuing to parrot details about your report in hopes that it all makes sense. You need to make sure he knows what he’s doing. 

“I think one of the questions he mentioned was like ‘Is Gatsby a good person?’ and do you remember how in Chapter Eight…” The rest gets zoned out and forgotten in the boy’s head, because he in fact does not know what happened in Chapter Eight. He doesn’t know what happened…in any part of the book. But he agrees anyway, pretending like he understands what scene you’re trying to explain. What he notices is how thorough and dedicated you are towards ensuring he comprehends what you’re explaining, and although it could be because you don’t want him to fail you both, he chooses to believe you’re doing it because you tolerate him. 

You’re so engrossed in covering all the little details and telling him random tidbits regarding the book that you don’t realize your feet have made it all the way to the cafeteria. “But here, let me get your number. I’ll totally explain more over text.” 

Riki is definitely not freaking out when he silently grabs his phone and hands it to you with the contact page, staring a little longer than necessary at the cute smiley face you added to your name. “Thanks,” he mumbles, forcibly tearing his eyes away from the ten digits of your number, “For helping me with this, too.”

“Of course! The Great Gatsby is a fun read for me. A little hard to read sometimes because of some of the characters, but still easy to understand.” And Nishimura RIki realizes that he has to do well. He’ll read the book five times over if it means gaining your approval. 

Jake notices something a little different about the tuft of black and blonde hair when his friend walks in. The first thing is that he’s actually here, and that you’re next to him, smiling. The boy rubs his eye to make sure he’s not dreaming somehow, but when he looks up again, you’re waving goodbye and joining your friends across the room. 

“Did you get hit with something while fighting a villain that makes you more bold? I feel like I just saw you and ____ talking,” Jake starts when Riki finally joins him with his lunch. 

Riki laughs, shoving Jake’s head out of embarrassment and opening his chips. “It’s just school. Got some project in English and she says we’re partnered.” He looks over at his friend chuckling, rolling his eyes at how Jake pokes at his side and wiggles his eyebrows. 

“I better hear you two are dating by next week.” 

“Who’s dating by next week?” Heeseung places his bag of food in front of them and takes a seat, opening the fast food he got last period and stuffing a fry in his mouth. 

“Riki and ____. Let me have one,” Jake answers, reaching inside the bag. 

Heeseung looks over at his junior curiously. “You asked her out?” And the two older students hear a groan from the boy in question. 

“Me and ____ aren’t anything, for your information.” He prods at the vegetables on his tray and takes a bite before a look of displeasure washes over his face. “You’re both way too excited for two guys who do not have girlfriends.” 

“Hey! You know the girl I’m always fighting with is the reason why I’m single. I have to focus on studying to do well in school to do better than her.” Heeseung’s whining falls on deaf ears as Riki smiles victoriously, seeing how defensive the former got. 

Jake offers him a shrug of defeat. “I got nothing.”

The three of them fall into normal conversation and Riki finally explains everything that happened during English.  “So you’re telling me your plan to ask ____ out went down from 18 months to 6?” And with a nod from the younger, they both groan once more. Heeseung exclaims, “We’re both going to graduate, dumbass. Make the plan go down to like…two months? Please?” 

Jake cuts in before Riki has a chance to respond. “Make it one and a half, so we can see you with a prom date before leaving forever.” 

“You act as if you’re going to die after graduation. It’s like you’re begging to be a super senior.” 

And they’re silenced immediately. 

“Do you think the guy I was with earlier hates me?” you ask on the other side of the room. Minjeong stares at you blankly, waiting for your explanation. “I don’t know if you saw when I walked in but I was talking to this really tall guy with blonde hair and black tips. He seemed really out of it, like he kept staring at me and nodding. I think I scared him off by talking about the book too much.” 

Sunghoon, who is also listening in, opens his neatly packed lunchbox and begins mixing his noodles. “I think you did scare him off, ____.”

“Not helping,” Minjeong interjects, “Just talk to him more and maybe he’ll warm up to you. You two sit together in class anyways, so hopefully he’ll talk more?” 

“I know him,” Sunghoon comments, “Well, sort of. I’m friends with Jake who’s friends with Riki, and it seems like all that boy does is sleep.” 

“Maybe he’s really good at subconscious in-class comprehension?” you try, taking a bite of your sandwich. “I just hope it doesn’t interfere too much with treasurer stuff.” 

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE IF HE SWINGS INTO ANOTHER WALL AT 100MPH LIKE HOW HE ALMOST DID TONIGHT.

All he’s had on his mind since school ended till now is how he should probably text you, if he really discarded the slimy acid monster from last week properly, and when the prom theme is going to be released, but there’s something amiss that confuses his spidey-senses and makes Riki much more alert. 

He snaps out of whatever train of thought he had before, focusing on the situation at hand and looking around to follow his instinct. Riki cautiously plants himself on the side of a random apartment building to get a sense of what's going on. A tingle of some sort of in the air permeates the material of his suit and leaves him shivering from the cold. 

He doesn't like it one bit. 

Moving to the side of the building to the top, the boy finally catches a glimpse of something when he gets a decent view of the city and highway systems. Riki knows something’s wrong with the bridge the closer he gets. He zips from one side of the tall, metal tower to the other, crawling down on all fours making sure he isn’t caught. He feels the electric feeling once more, only amplified. It runs up his spine and he wants to slap it, almost like a frantic, summertime bug. The air around him is charged with something he has never recognized before. With a puzzled expression under his mask, Riki continues to investigate the surrounding area. 

Riki finds a lone figure with some sort of attachment to his left arm, like a long glove made out of metal. The bulkiness of it seems to have no impact on his body as the man fiddles with the contraption, and the boy watches with bated breath as the machine fizzes and spurts with electricity. It begins to glow as power concentrates on his plated palm and the superhero sees it for the first time. It’s like a fizz, like a match striking at fire only to produce a quick burst of friction, but it almost feels liquid when he watches the person play with the flickering blue ball of electricity. It dances in the dark in a hauntingly beautiful way, with bolts jutting out from the metal as it spurts and buzzes with a life-like manner. 

A spark. 

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” The sound of Riki’s voice from the end of the bridge causes the stranger to look up with wide eyes. Although Riki fully expects it to simply enhance strength or block damage, the immediate strike of blue that flies straight towards him is anything but defensive. With a yelp, he jumps away, this time refusing to show himself. 

What the hell was that?

He knows he should go back down there to change things and get the person and the metal pieces away before it escalates, but when he goes back down to watch, it's ten times worse. The bright blue illuminates the scarred face of the villain as he’s picked up the metal arm–but this time, it’s no longer clunky and sparking, but fused into his arm. 

Riki’s face pales at the sudden change before his body acts on its own and he shoots out a web to stop the man. 

The villain is shocked by the intrusion, but quickly yanks free from the webbing and flicks another bolt of electricity, one that flies much faster now that the metal flows into the arm instead of simply resting on the skin. It’s unlike something Riki has ever seen, something that is so controlled in motion and yet so erratic in nature, and it instills a deathly fear when it grazes his arm he hisses in pain. The sharp feeling springs Riki into action as he jumps away. He’s lucky another bolt isn’t sent his way, seeing how the villain’s too busy marveling at the power of his new gadget.

“You know that fucking hurts, right?” He yells out, cupping his wound. “Maybe leave the gadgets to the kids!”

The man scoffs. “It better have hurt. I sacrificed half my body for this to work.”

“But why?” All Riki wants is answers. Some sort of explanation.

The man charges up yet another bolt, almost like a laser gun is built into the machine. “Less talking, more running, Spiderman.” 

That scared the shit out of him. 

The boy doesn’t have time to think as he jumps out from the dark tunnel to the bridge and up the metal towers—he hates having to fight with people right below. The villain follows in pursuit, almost crumbling the metal with his engineered arm as he hoists himself quickly. Riki continues to jump between the structure to avoid the flashes, trying to get out and apprehend the man as quickly as possible. When he reaches the top, however, he feels death is near as he glances down at the villain below who’s quickly gaining on him. He shoots out webs to slow him temporarily, letting himself fall and swing from the side of the tower to escape. 

What he doesn’t see on the way across the bridge is the flash that misses his cheek and hits his thigh instead. It burns, and mid-air, Riki gives the wound a quick assessment before he lands on the metal, immediately forcing his body to climb. While dealing with his wound, he fails to notice the villain swinging from the bridge support lines to meet him. 

He needs to end this fast before he becomes burnt toast.

Riki doesn’t often rely on instinct to carry him, but he can tell that the villain he’s facing isn’t just a criminal. 

“Land another hit, would you?” he tries to say, his voice strained from the pain in his arm and leg. It doesn’t do much to deter the man in front of him as the arm continues to destroy and bend the metal on the way up. “What are you going to do now, Sparky?”

The man says nothing, charging energy into his metal glove again before aiming and focusing on the target: him. 

Riki jumps off, not able to properly land his web in the right spot as he goes from one section of the bridge to the other. The man behind him looks enraged at the boy’s attempt to escape—so much so that he reaches out with his normal hand to try to grasp the suit when Spider-Man swings past him. Instead of the feeling of fabric, the villain feels sticky spider fluid on his fingers. Riki shoots out a web, one that curls around the villain’s wrist and drags him off the tower. Instead of being able to launch him into the surrounding waters, the man slips from the poorly shot-out webs and falls from mid air into the sea of frantic cars, including one semi truck that collides directly with his arm. In the air, the boy winces when he hears honks and shouts from the impact, hoping it’s the last time he’ll have to witness it.

With his gaze trained on the falling figure, the weakly attached web breaks, and Riki all of a sudden starts falling down as well. He curls up defensively before bracing for impact, curling into himself when he feels the metal dent and the truck driver scream from outside of the parked vehicle, the body of the villain right in front of it. 

Riki staggers, holding onto his arm and thigh the best he can before getting up. With wobbly steps and a small jump, he lands near the unconscious man, whose metal arm is cracked and fizzling—something that Riki knows is bound to leave more scars. 

“Call the police. I’ll get rid of the pieces.” Although Riki wants to figure out who the criminal is and make sure he’s properly apprehended, the gashes in the boy's limbs leave him winded and exhausted. With hot metal scraps bound together by webbing in his hands, Riki swings out and dumps it somewhere rural, trying his best to cover the pieces with the pounding headache that 

Riki revisits the secluded spot under the bridge, looking for clues to the man’s identity, and his expression falls when he notices a lanyard dangling near a trash can. 

His name, his position, and the company. FLiGHT Corp. The company name caught the boy’s eye, and he pockets the item before leaving. 

It seemed like he was a normal research scientist, but Riki’s recollection of the scars and tattered skin leaves him retracting his last thought. He heard something about the failure of a time travel machine at FLiGHT, and if the mass of the incident was anything to go by, he was in the center of it. 

No matter how many times Riki tries to get it out of his head, on the way home, all he can think about is the inexperience he displayed and the lack of response he gave Riki during the whole time. But Riki can’t bring himself to really take away someone’s life—and maybe for that, he’s a horrible superhero. 

He knows he should stop the man before it's too late, and especially with how many self-proclaimed villains there have been, it's not easy to see so many innocent people ruin their lives chasing a power that inevitably consumes them. He knows it’ll only get worse if he lets them run free.

And while the superhero has never been fully honest with himself, there are many times where Riki hates his role as Spider-Man, and wishes that he was just some teenage boy who didn't have the lives of others in his palm. He wishes he didn't have to sacrifice so much to stay behind a mask—and he wonders deep down if there’s anyone else who felt the same. 

His swings lead him across the city above hundreds of lives he has to protect, and he tries to find some semblance of peace. He thinks about how he has his homework due despite having just risked his life, he thinks about how your project is going—and about you. 

In the night under the stars, Nishimura Riki wishes for something just a bit normal. He wishes a good night for himself, but also for you, wherever you could be.

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE FROM TRYING TO READ THIS BOOK IN ONE NIGHT.

The Great Gatsby is exactly like how you described it; a little hard to get through but fun with the plot’s eccentric characters. He’s pretty sure he could’ve just used a detailed SparkNotes explanation for the book, but having a crush can make someone do weird things. And in Nishimura Riki’s case, his infatuation has got him reading a novel about morally-skewed characters and rich society to impress you. 

When you come into class barely on time, Riki gives you a confused look when you sit down, but doesn’t comment on it any further. Instead, he takes out his book and tries to act like his eyes weren’t closing shut from exhaustion by the time Daisy was finally confessing how she loved Gatsby. 

The moment Mr. Yoo stops talking, however, Riki isn’t asleep—much to your surprise. He has his book out, pages filled with sticky notes and a whole section of his notebook dedicated to characters (written in bright red to keep him awake) and their traits. 

“I got it.” It’s the first thing he says when you two are left to do in-class work. It’s ominous, and maybe a little too enthusiastic in a high school literature class for a boy who doesn’t even care that much for school, but you’ll accept it with open arms if it means you get a helping hand on your project. 

“Continue,” you tell him slowly, leaning back in your chair to listen to him. And you don’t know why, but a small part of you thinks that the boy who sleeps every period the book was discussed wouldn’t have much to say or contribute to such an open-ended prompt, but life is full of surprises. 

What you fail to notice is how Riki is nervous and his stomach does at least twenty flips before he swallows dryly and starts rambling in hopes to impress you and redeem himself from his embarrassing slumber a few days ago. 

“So you know how our prompt is based on one character and basically all their actions?” he asks, and you nod, absentmindedly thumbing a sheet in your journal. “I’m thinking we should talk about Jay Gatsby because so much is revealed to us about him that we might as well use it to our advantage. Y’know, talking about how the theme of exploitation and secrets is veiled under Gatsby’s desire for Daisy.”

“You don’t think Gatsby’s a good character?” Riki wants to tell you that Gatsby is more relatable than good or bad, but he shakes his head. 

“I mean, not really.” He feels like with those four words, he’s completely changed the trajectory of his relationship with you from a positive slope to completely downhill—and a wave of panic washes over him. “Should I? I mean, I could see him as more redeemable if you gave me examp-“

You wave your hand to quell his worries. “To be honest, I don’t like him either. But he’s an interesting main character to write about, so I think we should go with your idea.” 

To win your approval feels like he’s won at least three fights against a villain in a row without getting any bad injuries—it feels good. And for the rest of the period, you are able to finish a detailed outline of your work for the next few weeks, mapping out sections for each other, and he even gets to see a part of prom planning on a word document you had open. He considers your shared productivity a win when he packs up and bids you goodbye before leaving for lunch. 

One wave doesn’t catch Riki’s attention from across the room. Not even two, or three calls of his name could get Nishimura Riki out of his thoughts, and Jake frowns before moving up in the lunch line. 

“Something’s caught your eye again.” Jake feigns innocence and sighs dramatically as he places the food down next to Riki’s plate. “Could it possibly be our school treasurer?” Jake laughs, leaning over to catch a glimpse of what’s got his friend so entranced and non-responsive.

Riki scrunches his nose, annoyed, but never breaking his gaze from where you’re sitting. “We talked in class–like, a lot,” is all he says, paying his friend no mind. “She’s genuinely so understanding.”

“God, I don’t think you can be any more down bad for her than you are right now.” Jake picks at his food, and despite his concentration directed towards the olives on his pizza, he’s able to dodge the flying loaded nacho that goes his way, even if he wasn’t the one with superpowers.

“Can you shut up?” Riki grumbles, laying his head on his arms as he notices you smile and point to something. “I just got pummeled into a semi truck last week. Let me have this before I die tomorrow.” 

“Very grim,” his friend notes, ruffling the younger’s hair, “I think this is exactly what all of those mental health assemblies that we get are for.” And Riki basically tunes him out, too tired to fight and too used to the teasing remarks to come up with anything useful in response. 

Riki sits up a bit, letting his head rest on his propped elbow as he looks at the school food and touches another nacho gingerly. “Y’know, I read the book for English so she wouldn’t think I’m an idiot.” 

His friend snickers, successfully pulling out yet another sliced olive from the cheese, much to the disgust of Riki. “She probably already thinks you’re an idiot.” 

The superhero debates throwing another cheesy nacho in Jake's face, before deciding to eat it instead. “Don’t say that asshole! You make it seem like I have no chance with her.” 

Jake shoots him an exasperated look that makes Riki break eye contact. “That’s because you don’t.” 

“I’ll prove to her that I’m worth her time.” Riki says somewhat wistfully, still stealing glances from a few tables away. “Maybe I’ll ask her out to prom, show up in my suit. Do that cheesy upside down kiss shit people say Spiderman does.” When his friend raises an eyebrow at him, Riki shrugs. “I will! Well-maybe not the Spider-Man thing, but prom definitely.” 

Jake continues to look at him unconvinced as he takes a bite out of a slice of pizza with mangled cheese. “You barely talk to her in class and you think you can ask her out to prom as Nishimura Riki?” And the younger grins, eyes still stuck on how your eyes crinkle and how your shoulders shake with laughter. 

“Yup.” And his fate is sealed, just like that.

“What’s your project about, anyways? Didn’t you tell me last night that she gave you her number? Must be pretty serious if she wants to text you.” Riki furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head. 

“It’s just tying the theme of the book to one character and writing about how they show it. So we did the theme of money and Gatsby, because it’s easy and mentioned so many times.” 

Jake gawks. “You must really like her,”

“I was planning to read it regardless of who I was partnered with.” 

“Okay- that’s debatable.” There goes another one of Riki’s nachos.

“Gross.” 

He thinks things are going pretty well for you two. The report is being written and your quotes are basically finding themselves, so Riki should give himself a pat on the back for pitching the initial idea for how to go about your assignment. Maybe reading the whole book offered him a few useful pointers, and he goes to sleep that night satisfied with your progress. Maybe Heeseung and Jake were right—maybe he could finally ask you out by prom. 

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE TRYING TO SAVE THE CITY FROM YET ANOTHER MONSTER TERRORIZING THE STREETS.

He wakes up the next morning, not expecting his alarm to alert his senses to danger. It rings in his head and makes him feel delirious, trying to shake sleep off as he looks out the window for any visible sign of what's wrong. If he could hear the danger in his head then that meant someone could be hurt, and he could go to school without a few hours of sleep if he worked fast enough, right? 

Riki slips into his suit without much thought and goes to crack his window open, only to look back at his clock and read the horrific time of 6:23AM. 

Who the hell picks a fight with a teenager at this ungodly time? 

Then, he shoots from his wrists, once, twice, and suddenly, he's off, covering more ground through the air in just three seconds than he ever could while walking or running for minutes on end.

The source of his tingling spidey-sense is some large metal centipede creature that was setting off car alarms in a neighborhood near the market. Thankfully, no one was really awake to be caught in the crossfire, but he has to figure out how the hell he's going to catch that thing in...he checks his watch…twenty minutes? 

Hopefully, his instinct will help him win this time—again. 

The web he shoots out does nothing to stop the monster, and considering how it connected them both, the threads only drag the superhero to the edge of the building he was initially watching from. With some yelling and pulling, he finally detaches, and realizes that the odd sizzling feeling in his bonds must be from the same source as a few days ago; Spark. 

He had this gut feeling that a villain as strong as him wouldn’t have been destroyed so easily, but his wounds were so deep and the blood loss so bad from a few nights ago that he couldn’t have truly dumped him in the ocean without fainting or suffering something permanent, and although Riki hoped things in the universe would work itself out, the presence of the giant fifty foot insect alone is proof that things were not in his favor. 

He jumps off the building onto another, working quickly as he strings up a few webs between the houses as a wall for the monster, watching it slide and knock over cars in its wild pursuit. The monster spends a few seconds breaking down the wall of webbing and climbing over it, the many legs easily breaking through. As the superhero jumps across buildings and keeps track of the centipede’s movement, he has no idea why it isn’t going for him, and that makes his job much harder without the attention of the monster. One glance at the direction the centipede is headed in sets off another ding in Riki’s head—but this time, it finally clicks why the centipede is headed away from the boy. 

It’s attracted to the power plant. 

Riki immediately jumps and swings off of a lamp post, using the momentum of gravity and the force of his swing to propel him faster than the slithering creature. Squinting, he holds out his fist and points his pointer and pinky out, following the movement of the centipede as he aims. 

Bam. 

He sends clusters of silky white threads down precisely at the first pair of legs to pin it down. The webs stop the creature momentarily, and Riki doesn’t have time to watch how the body shrinks up and fizzes out with blue shocks as it tries to wiggle loose and malfunctions. This fight would be over soon, and the boy smiles when he jumps down to shoot more webs to apprehend the centipede. It wiggles and sends electricity out through parts of its body, trying to pry itself out. He expects it to simply be a robot of sorts following a mission considering its avoidant behavior, but as he approaches the tail, the monster suddenly swings at Riki, and its mass and speed is incomparable to the boy’s reaction speed. 

Riki lands into a tree and someone’s garage, feeling the crumbling wall falling all over him and the sudden pain blooming in his lower back. 

This fight will, in fact, not be over soon. 

With his superhuman abilities, Riki grabs onto the metal of the car beside him to hoist himself up, coughing from the dust, and jumping over the rubble to see how quickly the centipede creature can get out, without regard for his current state. The sound and rumble of the giant monster is all he needs to know that the traps are effective, but not at the previous capacity. 

The plan is simple: apprehend the legs and crush the head, where Riki assumes the decision-making and programming is taking place. But the monster’s angry and erratic actions throw a wrench in his plan. Its legs move faster, digging into the cement and leaving ruin in its wake as it continues down the road. While both the villain and superhero are fast, the distance between the power plant is finite—and only grows smaller and smaller.  

Although Riki can feel the bruises coming, he runs and swings, hearing the wind in his ears as he catches up to the centipede in no time. He tries the same tactics again–aim, shoot, stick, all the while keeping his distance. Although the monster’s body spans incredibly long, and should carry an immense amount of weight, the way it snaps at Riki’s flying body and sends shockwaves through his core leaves him shivering as his body slams into the ground, coughing. It hurts all over, and it feels like there’s weight on his eyes when he tries to open them and get up. His head is spinning as he staggers onto his knees, clutching his chest as he watches the centipede shrivel and crackle. 

It seems like the voltage produced is a double-ended sword, one that burns up the centipede body as much as it deals damage, and with the way the mutant creeps towards the electricity of the plant, Riki gets the feeling there’s a magnetic pull that forces the mutant to continue to crawl even against its instinct to stop. 

Despite his waning strength, however, Riki knows better than to half finish the job like last time. He creates a net from experience, weaving together the thickest and most durable threads to trap the entirety of the slowly approaching creature. It seems to crawl slowly up the makeshift barrier, knocking its head against the white and spreading the bright blue waves of its energy throughout. The boy watches as the thin white mass absorbs all of it and clings to the creature. It works, finally, after his attempts to nullify its movements, and he knows that despite the ache in his every step, the almost mummified centipede that hangs between several roofs for all the neighbors to gawk at is his sure sign of victory. 

All he remembers is hearing a familiar call of his hero name before his legs give out and his head hits Jake’s chest. 

Holy fucking shit is the first thing Riki thinks when he wakes up. 

He’s not out of his tattered suit and he feels grimy all over, but his body has done wonders in reducing the otherwise fatal injuries he got. No human body should be able to withstand two energy-filled blasts, but his suit and superhuman healing are of greater help than ever in alleviating the damage from his wounds. 

He knows why he’s in his bed with bandages thrown over his open wounds. He knows that every time something like this happens, it’s Jake who shoos away the concerned civilians, telling them he’s a medic. Jake is not a medic—rather, he’s a seventeen year-old boy who knows about his friend’s double life and with all the times he’s saved Riki, someone might as well dub him the greatest medic of all time. 

The clock on his bedside table has only served as a bearer of bad news. He looks over to see how it’s practically midday, and he���s missed yet another day of school from fighting crime. He’s in no condition to get up or get his bag, seeing how his hair is frizzy and his cheek has a cut that would warrant questioning. It seems only fair that he stays absent, and before he falls back asleep, he only prays you aren’t too mad at him for leaving the seat next to you empty.

But you aren’t mad, just worried. The soreness in his muscles doesn’t go away though, and he groans when he sits up in his bed, with bandages around his arms and an ice pack discarded next to him. 

He’s most definitely not coming to school like this. 

While you bore holes into the clock hanging off the wall, that doesn’t speed up the time. Two minutes pass, then another minute. As your classmates find their partners and begin discussing, you notice how the room gets louder with the due date looming near. It’s the first time you’re alone without the familiar boy beside you, and something hangs low in your chest when you put in a pair of earphones and open your laptop. 

Riki’s absence should have no effect on you. After all, you’re both just high school students who’ve talked once or twice, and yet you still look over at the empty chair. Staring doesn’t make Riki appear, though, and you return to your edits. It feels empty without his insight, or without him asking you to help him with a passage. Riki was your solution to all things boring. If he wasn’t doing his work, then you two were laughing at something on his phone. And if you agreed to both do something other than the report, then you could ask for an extra opinion when deciding prom details. There was something freeing about working with him that attracted you. Riki knew how to lighten the mood on days that weren’t so good for you, but he also worked hard and let loose at the same time. There was a perfect balance in Riki’s life that you aspired to have; it was a good mix of playful, dedicated, and fun all in the same vein. 

The words blend together on your screen. Jay Gatsby this, Tom Buchanan that, it all looks monotonous the more you keep trying to read and comprehend what exactly you’re talking about. 

Before class is dismissed, Mr. Yoo steps to the front of the classroom to gather everyone’s attention. He introduces your new novel for the next month, explaining yet another large assignment associated with the text. 

Truth be told, you don’t pay attention to any of it. 

The only thing you remember to do is to grab extra copies of the printed graphic organizers, as you get out of your seat and rush out when class ends in pursuit of one specific boy. 

“Sim Jaeyun!” The call of his name diverts Jake’s attention from his phone to your waving arm as you weave through the students and finally reach him. 

“You can just call me Jake,” he explains, “what’s up?” 

You begin to reach into your backpack, trying to feel for your folder, and pull out a few sheets. “These are for Riki.” 

Jake cheers internally for his friend who’s busy recovering at home. “What, you got a crush on him or something?” 

He tries to play it cool by teasing you, but the smile you bite back leaves the boy questioning if there really is anything going on. Jake knows better than to tell you anything about Riki’s feelings, and opts to instead grab the papers and to thank you for looking out for his friend. 

“Is Riki okay?” You have to know, just to make sure he’ll be here tomorrow to cure your boredom. 

What Jake says is much different than the nonchalant wave and half grin he gives you. “He’s just bedridden.” 

“That’s pretty serious! Did he come down with anything?” He seemed fine yesterday, so what’s the catch?

He blurts, “He just got badly hurt.” 

Immediately, Jake knows he’s fucked up. 

Your confusion and silence answers him far more than words ever could–he basically hears the gears turning slowly in your head.

Jake weakly defends, “His parents had a fight with him because he hit his head or something. He’ll be fine by tomorrow. Just bedridden from sadness, y’know?” 

The look you give him is unconvinced, but when Heeseung pats him on the shoulder and waves to you, the boy realizes that maybe staying quiet would’ve been the better decision. 

“I’ll see you later, ____.” And he’s off, waving half-heartedly and dragging a very confused Heeseung out of the cafeteria. 

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE TRYING TO WAKE YOU UP AS GENTLY AS HE CAN.

Ever since March started and flowers began to bloom, your energy seemed to do the opposite, dwindling until Riki catches you mirroring his frequent in-class action: sleeping. And it worries him beyond belief, because you’re not the type to fall asleep like… ever. However, Riki does not have the heart to wake you up, even if it’s with a little nudge that you probably barely feel with how light he taps. It breaks his heart to have to ask you to review what he has done, because the bell is about to ring and the teacher might just send you to detention if he catches you off-task. 

The allergies always make Mr. Yoo irritable, and Riki knows not to get on his nerves. 

Your eyes flutter open to the pokes and prodding from none other than Nishimura Riki, who gazes at you softly when you adjust to the bright classroom setting once more. 

Panic settles in. “Wait- how long was I sleeping for?” 

He shrugs and scrunches his nose, not giving you an answer as he finishes scribbling something in his notebook. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Your hand squeezes into a fist at the frustration that you’ve let your partner down. 

And yet, Riki seems to be unfazed, frowning when he sees you stressing out. “Don’t ever sweat the little things, yeah? If there’s anything you ever need to talk about–trust me, I know what it’s like to have a lot of pressure on your shoulders.”

Smiling at him, you respond with, “Thank you, really.” 

Being treasurer is daunting in the spring. It’s full of requests, forms, and small tasks that leave you spent by the end of the day. “But,” you glance at the clock to see just how much time is left, “how’d you know?” 

He motions to your open computer with a now dark screen. “I saw your document pulled up. ____’s tasks or else she will be kicked out of student government,” he taunts, snickering when your eyes grow wide with embarrassment and you lightly nudge his shin with your foot in warning. 

“It’s not polite to snoop,” and although you say that, you catch something in your peripheral vision. It’s a few drawings of a figure and gadget drawn, shaded from rigid shapes with small descriptions pointing to different places. You weren’t sure what was more surprising; how good the drawings were, or the subject of his imagination. 

Weird. Inherently, there was nothing wrong with Riki drawing a villain, and you chalked it up to him being creative. Nothing more, nothing less. 

He puts his hands up in surrender at your last comment, his grin showing anything but. Just one look at the boy makes you realize that everything you’ve just thought about is foolish. 

There’s no way he’d have time to be a villain and a student. With one final thought, you let your raging thoughts rest and focus on the present; him. You’ve seen his hair messy, especially after his naps, but when Riki tries to style it like how he did today, you pay more attention to the streaks of blonde and how he often hides behind his bangs and scrunches his nose. It’s cute. He’s cute.

The truth is, you enjoy being around him like this, joking around and never worrying too much about your responsibilities and expectations. It’s refreshing. Being around Riki gives you the feeling that things will be okay in the end. 

You snap out of your thoughts to see that his desk is empty, while your’s hasn’t changed one bit.

“You’re going to sell prom tickets now, right?” He makes small talk before leaving for lunch, closing the notebook you were suspiciously eying before slipping it into his bag. 

“Yup,” you answer, popping the ‘p,’ “I’ll see you later,” and you two part ways.

All the long lines and constant distribution of change doesn’t allow much wiggle room for you to daydream. As time goes on, the ticket-selling line grows smaller and smaller, but the only thing you truly care about is eating the lunch your parents packed you. Your sandwich is probably sad and soggy now that there are only a few minutes of lunch left. When you finally sign off one last time after triple checking the forms are all correct, you let out a sigh, leaning back and finally getting a break. 

Then, it hits you that you’re not even sure if the boy you’re fawning over is attending the biggest event of the year, and you feel stupid for forgetting to ask. 

-

Yesterday was a rookie’s mistake–today, you’d make sure you get an answer from him.

“Are you going to prom, Riki?” is the first thing you ask when he sits down, grabbing his book and laptop with a little too much enthusiasm. 

“I’m thinking about it.” Yeah, whatever confidence he had when convincing himself he’d ask you out isn’t serving him well at this moment. Quite frankly, Riki feels lame as ever trying to be nonchalant around you. “You?” 

“I’d have to set up, so I would be there, yes. But whether or not I have a date is another story.” You smile to lighten the mood, but Riki watches you and nods, focusing back on signing into his laptop and getting his notes for the new book you’re reading. 

“Well, you’re not the only single one here.” And he wants to reprimand himself for saying something without thinking. “If someone asked, would you say yes?”

You think about it carefully, really because you don’t have anyone in mind when it comes to prom if Riki’s not planning on going. “It’d have to be someone I know—someone I talk to somewhat regularly. I’d be nice to be with someone who doesn’t make it awkward.”

Nishimura Riki might die from over-thinking if he keeps on wondering whether or not he fits that description to a tee.

RIKI'S TO-DO LIST BEFORE PROM

☐  talk to ____ regularly 

☐  don't make it awkward 

☐  be..cute? 

The boy decides that his superhuman responsibilities might be easier to complete than any of those three things. 

He switches the subject to stop his head from hurting too much. “Did you finish the report?” 

You still, and Riki’s question reminds you of the report looming over your head. In your defense, you two hadn’t brought it up much in the past week, and he didn’t seem to worry over how much of your time was spent emailing teachers or making spreadsheets. Although caught off guard, you’re quick to respond with, “What did we have to finish? I thought we were done since last week, but if there’s anything else-” 

“Sorry,” he rushes out, biting his lip, “I meant, if you finished reading it.” And the answer is no, you haven’t read it since your last edit on it three days ago. 

Within a few clicks, you find the document and scroll to the bottom, seeing the small note that Riki left that said ‘let me know how it looks.’ It’s sweet to know he thought about your input as much as you did his. 

“While some can agree that Gatsby’s rise into high society was sketchy, Gatsby still retains the same reserved character from years ago, and doesn’t manipulate others into success or use his money for nefarious purposes. It’s not like he changed after his wealth, and it could be argued Gatsby loved Daisy until his last breath and was willing to die as long as she was happy, emphasizing the theme of sacrifice. 

So, is Jay Gatsby a good person? The question targets the morality of a character who many can empathize with. Those who are charmed by his overwhelming love for Daisy would say that he’s committed textbook crimes, but focus more on the intent behind it. To pine after someone from a distance isn’t easy, but to pursue her after years of separation is even harder. It’s universally agreed, however, that love as a driving force doesn’t nullify what he’s done to others and the dirty schemes he’s enacted to gain the power he has. Therefore, Gatsby makes for an interesting main character, and highlights just how twisted a system around money can be.” 

The last page is–for the most part–his writing, and your admiration for him grows when you finish reading and scroll to hit your Works Cited page.

“It’s good,” you tell him wholeheartedly, “Didn’t think you had it in you.” 

Riki cracks a smile at your light teasing, soaking up your praise. 

“Now you know.” He shrugs. And he can only hope that you like him as much as you like his literary skills. 

NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE WHEN HE COMES TO THE REALIZATION THAT HE IS EXACTLY LIKE JAY GATSBY,JUST WITHOUT THE MONEY—DESPERATE FOR THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS, DYING YOUNG, AND A FRAUD HIDING BEHIND SECRETS.

Nevermind the last one, he has to hide when he has an identity to protect as the city’s only superhero, but Riki feels his heart sink to his heels when he read a few weeks ago how much Gatsby simply adores Daisy. When Gatsby died, he scoffed, closing the book with a sudden disinterest. If he were the male lead, he wouldn’t have been laying in a pool for target practice. Maybe being a superhero teaches you how to avoid being easy bait for all your enemies, or maybe Gatsby was too carried away with love to think straight. 

Fighting crime gives you insurmountable experience with sneaking around, but it wasn’t something he could just teach to anyone. When he gets this horrible gut feeling that something’s happened to you, he just knew something was wrong. He might not be easy to catch, but for anyone else? Definitely.  

For everyone else, prom was a month away, but for you, it was three weeks of talking to your advisor and president, arguing with your other board members, and sitting behind that damn money box for another five days to sell tickets. For you, it was realizing that you were supposed to buy streamers and balloons yesterday on your way home from school. It was the thinly veiled disappointment in your board member’s texts when they told you they were at a loss for words. ‘I’m sorry, and I know you’re busy, but how could you forget? Prom is so important for all of us. What if they don’t have what you need anymore?’ It all repeated in your head as you bit your lip in frustration and slipped on the first pair of shoes you could find. Although it was dark and dangerous, you could care less if it meant avoiding the passive aggressive comments you’d get tomorrow during your meeting.

There it is again: that little tendency to not pay attention to your surroundings. 

You yelp when you feel someone grabbing your wrist and pulling you in, muffling your screams as he pulls you along. To see him on the news was worrying, but to see Spark in person with your life on the line is even worse. 

Tears spring to your eyes as you struggle against the metal to no avail, and you curse every previous moment you spent worrying about balloons rather than your safety.

Spark suddenly stops, shoving you against the wall before his hand grabs a brick with his metal arm, beginning to climb. “Don’t let go.” And you don’t think twice before holding on.

The city view would be beautiful if you weren’t hearing your heartbeat in your ears or if you weren’t dangling from the railing of some company building, trying to wiggle yourself free of the rope around your wrists. 

Spark speaks up, drumming his fingers on the railing next to you. “You wouldn’t happen to know where your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is, would you?” And you furrow your eyebrows, genuinely questioning for a moment if he really knew how the superhero operated. 

A voice from across the street puts a temporary hold on your thoughts, and you glance up to see a flash of blue and red soaring through the air, followed by a groan and a beam of light next to you. Seeing Spark’s powers right in front of you spurs you into action, yanking at the rope and trying to take tiny steps away from where they were fighting.

“From what I’m seeing, you wanted to hold someone hostage because you’re not feeling too good, huh?” Spider-Man shouts as he shoots out webs and blocks hits. You shake your head in partial disbelief of how unserious he is, but also how unbelievable all of this seems. “You tried to take a potion or something? I’m going to tell you this now, but these usually don’t work.” 

Riki’s assumption is right, and considering how Spark now has a leg and arm from metal instead of just the arm, the procedure for the additional limb couldn’t have been easy. The superhero still proceeds with caution, making sure to pay attention to anything new as he dodges and fights back. 

The villain immediately gets back up, stumbling for a moment before he regains his stance and runs towards the boy. You hear the clanging of fist hitting metal from their fight, and considering the difference in height and build, you’d expect Spider-Man to be easily flung to the side, but he holds his weight in battle. 

Riki aims for around the left shoulder, where an abundance of stitches cover the skin and fuse the metal into muscle. He lands a hit, and almost another one, before a punch to the side knocks him from his momentum. The boy wheezes when his back makes instant contact with the ground, rolling and getting up before Spark has time to shoot. 

He notices how quickly the gadget generates electricity now. Before, the beams took longer, and were easily predictable, but now, it glows bright for a moment before it fires directly in Riki’s path. The boy dodges the first, but the second one almost hits the top of his head before he ducks and creates distance. 

From the roof-top, Riki scans his surroundings before making the split-second decision to jump. 

He swings to the other side of the building, keeping you in his peripheral vision as he works on apprehending the villain in front of him. They spring into yet another fist fight, with Riki’s agility easily letting him avoid punches and land precise hits to make the previous injuries even worse. 

You think Spider-Man has the upper hand in this, seeing as how none of Spark’s punches seem to slow down the superhero, but you hear something loud before you can register it. 

You figure out what happened after Riki stumbles and suffers a blow to the stomach, sending him tumbling to the edge of the building. Spark knew that Spider-Man was avoiding his left arm—he knew that one wrong move paired with the tungsten material would have a lasting effect on the superhero’s fist. 

Riki coughs from the impact before his spidey-sense rings, pulling him back into battle as he runs as fast as his body can take him. 

You. He still needs to save you. 

With renewed vigor, he continues to avoid the flying sparks as he ducks between structures and uses the terrain to his advantage. He can tell, though, that the villain is slowing down. The shots are less accurate–a telltale sign that the enhancer Spark tried is working against him. 

Between all of the chaos, Riki finally lands a proper web, yanking as hard as he can to pull Spark to the ground. He stumbles, grasping at thin silk before Riki lets go on his side. The villain’s balance is off, giving the boy an advantage as he closes the distance, hopping over a thrown slab of metal and landing a solid kick into Spark’s ribcage. As he stays down, Riki continues to aim for muscle and flesh, his head spinning as he packs punch after punch to keep the villain apprehended. 

Spark’s body–curled into itself to absorb the hits the best that he can– hides the growing blue flash that he’s slowly charging up with his remaining power. The moment it escapes from under his abdomen, Riki directs his efforts towards avoiding the electric glimmer. The villain rolls over, his body tattered from the consistent injuries, and he fires what seems like an intense bullet of energy. It zips by the boy’s cheek, cutting the mask and leaving blood to run down in its wake. Time slows down as the superhero tries to process the unlocked speed of the burst, and Spark loses focus marveling at his new abilities. Never before had either of them seen power so concentrated, and it inflicts both fear and excitement. 

He lifts his arm, the other holding it up for support, and Spider-Man notices the fizzle of bright blue. Riki’s about to jump out of the way, preparing for yet another high-speed bullet, but before Spark fires, something clicks. The arm doesn’t directly point to Riki–but it skews off to the right.

Except, he’s no longer aiming for Riki in the split second that the boy blinks. He’s suddenly aiming at you, where your hands are tied to the railing and your feet are dangling from the bent metal that holds you precariously over the edge, leaving a fifty foot drop in its wake. When you see the blue energy in the villain’s palm growing slowly bigger, you pull at the rope desperately with zero regard to the tender rawness of your wrists. 

In your attempt to somehow break the rope, your cry of fear snaps Spider-Man into action. 

Riki pushes his sore body to jump as quick as he can, leaping across the rooftop to the building over. He easily avoids the metal railing, grabbing onto your arm as he yanks hard on the rope, the force of it separating a piece of metal from the railing. He immediately jumps, sending out a web to swing him back up. It all happens in a flash–first, you were bound to the edge about to fall to your death, and all of a sudden, you’re tightly pressed against Spider-Man’s chest with your bound wrists still attached to the metal. Shutting your eyes, you trust Spider-Man entirely, closing your eyes to avoid seeing just how far up you were. Wind rushes in your ears and leaves your stomach fluttering with butterflies until the superhero sets you down on a secluded rooftop. 

“Please,” he begs, “don’t leave. I’ll be right back.” 

You’d be a fool to do anything but wait. 

Riki checks on you one last time before diving down, springing himself back up with another web. The damage from the blasts is recognizable even from far away, and yet, he notices the reflective shine of a metal arm on the edge of the building before Spark lets go. 

To Riki, Spark is dead after dropping from a fall having taken that much damage, but he hears no impact. Making haste, the boy fails to find any figure no matter how hard he looks, but Spark’s laboratory has to be here somewhere. The badge from a week ago was stuck on Riki’s mind, and he could only imagine the reasons why he pursued this life. Was he recreating something? If he needs to power some sort of machine, then the heart of the city is a perfect place to harness the electricity for any large scale project. As much as he wants to dedicate the rest of the night to searching the city for some sort of clue, the fact that you’re still stranded on that rooftop after having just experienced a life-changing event blares like an alarm in his mind. 

He quickly leaves, returning to where you’re seated.

Without the fear of falling to your death from earlier, you were able to focus on undoing the knots from the rope. Red scratch marks and irritation bloom on your wrist, and the reality of it all happening still hasn’t settled in. Despite not being harmed once, the fear and incessant pounding of your heart overwhelms your senses, and it leaves you heaving with confusion. 

A pair of footsteps only become apparent as Riki walks closer, taking a seat beside you and letting out a large sigh. He stares at the stars silently as if he doesn’t have a cut on his cheek and bruises waiting to paint his skin purple–as if he isn’t hiding his true self under a facade. 

“You’re not hurt, are you?” You shake your head, grateful that Spider-Man was the reason you got away without a real injury.

“Thank you, really, for saving me. I don’t know how you manage to do it.” 

Riki chuckles under the mask. “Eh, you get used to it,” you hear Spider-Man say. “You fight a couple bad guys, get over a fear of heights and eventually you get the hang of things.” 

Scoffing, you gently rub at your wrists to ease the redness. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t been taught a crash course on how to avoid being supervillain bait just yet.” 

“Maybe you should learn it sometime,” Riki responds absentmindedly, “someone like you shouldn’t have been out so late doing whatever it could’ve been.” 

Sighing, your mind drifts off to think about the balloons and streamers that are not in your hand. “I had stuff for my upcoming events.” 

He knew about all of it when you’d explain your cryptic reminders and notes on your computer, but he still feigns curiosity. “What upcoming events?” 

“Just prom,” and he hears just how strained it makes you. 

Riki tilts his head in faux confusion. “What do you have to do for prom?” 

He notices how you immediately slump, as if the mere mention of prom deflates your happiness. “It’s only a few weeks away, and I was supposed to get decorations for our venue yesterday. I just wanted to slip out before my parents noticed.” 

Despite the fabric over his eyes, Riki’s expression shifts from surprise to pity when he understands your stakes. “You still need to be careful. Is your student council strict?” 

“Not strict necessarily, but judgemental–I ran for the position because I thought I could help my school raise funds and find more opportunities, but it just feels like no one truly wants to try anything new.” You wave it off as if it’s not that important, as if it isn’t the reason why you find yourself stressed so often. “I just don’t want to disappoint or give people something to talk about.” 

Despite not being involved with school the same way you are, the boy next to you resonates with the fear you currently face. The fear of letting people down was a large part of why Riki continued to put on that mask and step into the most dangerous situation of his life; he never wanted to sit down to hear the news that Spider-Man quit. 

So he keeps doing his job, even if some days are harder and some fights aren’t worth winning–just like what you do. 

“Yeah, I get that,” he tries to console, “You must be doing a lot for everyone around you, and I’m sure a lot of people appreciate what you’ve done. Don’t beat yourself up too much, yeah? You’ll always have me.” He smiles, but he knows you don’t see it. You’re looking at the stars, trying to calm your mind and return to your life before everything happened. 

You glance over at Spider-Man, wondering if he’ll truly be around for you when you need it. “If I need to talk to you, should I step out of my house past 8PM again?” 

Riki chuckles, watching clouds slowly dim the moon’s glow in their path. “If I’m not fighting crime, I’ll show up at a moment’s notice.” 

There’s no way he means it, but you grin, feeling a lot of the pressure and stress of earlier slowly wash away. After all, nothing happened to you–Spider-Man made sure of it. Maybe things really were going to be okay. 

“Let’s get you home, yeah? Don’t you have stuff to do anyways?” 

You shrug, nothing really coming to mind. As you get up, you remember having to run a plagiarism check on your work, and how Riki told you to text him when you got home after your student government meeting. 

Riki. Spark. Spider-Man. 

“Wait,” you tell Spider-Man, sitting back down on the cement, “I need to talk to you about something else, too.” 

“It’s not like my dinner’s getting cold,” the superhero mumbles quiet enough that you can’t hear. 

“There’s this guy,” you start, paying no mind to how dirty your clothes are getting when you cross your legs. 

Spider-Man scoffs, looking off into the distance, and it makes you believe he has to be your age or older. “You have a crush on him, or something?” And a whole tidal wave of deja vu hits you in the chest. 

‘He must be badly hurt’ isn’t just something people say. People don’t just draw insanely detailed drawings of Spark’s arm and machines without notes to follow unless they knew. People wouldn't just randomly miss school without any impending signs. You’re sure of it–the tired naps in class, the random drawings of superheroes and superhumans alike, or how awkward he could act–it all makes sense.

Your classmate, aka Nishimura Riki, aka the guy who you’ve questioned if you had a crush on for the past few days, might be a villain. 

The swirling feeling of trepidation in your stomach leaves three words running around your head. 

What. The. Fuck. 

Although you tried so hard to stop thinking about it, Jake’s comment from before rubbed you the wrong way. It was sometime last week where you couldn't get your mind off of the implications of his words, but that feeling was brushed underneath your responsibilities. 

Until now. 

“Yeah, there’s this guy,” you breathe, feeling your chest constrict, “Nishimura Riki. I think he’s Spark.” 

His blood runs cold. 

“You think this…why?” 

You take a deep breath, trying to organize all your thoughts. “Well, first, it was his friend, Jake. He said that Riki was badly hurt, and I was really confused at first, but tried to let it go.” 

Riki was going to strangle his best friend. 

“And then, I was looking at him in class, right? And keep in mind, he’s pretty cute, and we sit next to each other, so I just noticed how good his hair looked that day, but his notebook was out, and I saw all these drawings of Spark. Like, the arms, the metal things, even the projectiles! Who would know the ins and outs of that thing if it wasn’t Spark himself?”

He didn’t know what to think about first; the fact that you gushed about him for the first time, or if he should even tell you that Spider-Man would know those things, too. 

“And sometimes, I notice he’s a little awkward around me. I can’t explain it. It’s like he’s paying attention to me. That must’ve been why he captured me.” He wants to laugh at how damn close you are to figuring it out, but in reality, nothing is funny about the situation. 

Nishimura Riki is actually listening to this, right now, as Spider-Man–not Spark. The awkwardness, though? It was his crush on you, and was not superhuman related in the slightest.  

“I don’t know,” he attempts to divert, pretending to focus, “I saw a badge for FLiGHT. You know the company that’s been making time traveling machines? I saw a glimpse of his name and face. It’s not that guy you mentioned.” 

You raise an eyebrow. “And you haven’t gotten him caught?” 

“Villains aren’t easy to find, y’know. It’s not like playground hide and seek,” Riki defends, crossing his arms. 

You shrink in your spot, feeling sheepish for questioning a superhero so bluntly. 

“Plus,” he continues, “Spark has never had a hostage. Wouldn’t it be pretty mean of that friend of yours to kidnap a girl from his class?” 

“Yeah—that makes sense. Thank god,” you breathe, closing your eyes momentarily. “Then what do you suspect all that evidence leads to? Maybe he’s a secret agent?” 

“I think,” Riki continues to keep up his clueless facade, “Your friend might just be clumsy. Or creative. I mean, maybe he went through a break-up?” Nice one, Riki. 

You shake your head. “No, there’s no way he has a girlfriend. You’d think I like guys who are taken?” Scoffing lightly, you then remembered that Spider-Man really would have no idea who any of you are. 

He shrugs and stands up stretching before motioning for you to follow him. “I have no idea what you high school kids do. Come on, let’s get you home.” 

As you hug him tight, the cold air whips around your body and leaves goosebumps in their wake. You barely open your eyes from the fear of seeing yourself inches from hitting a building or up in the air. Spider-Man only yells his confirmation after asking how to get you home, finally placing you on the ground outside of your large gate. 

“Thank you for saving me tonight.”

“Anytime. Figure things out with that friend of yours, and don’t go out late, okay?” You nod and take his words to heart. 

“Goodnight, Spiderman.” 

—-

Nishimura might die. One, because he has this horrible guilty feeling in his stomach, and two, because of a villain. 

Yesterday, he ignored the salmon and rice bowl that waited for him back at home, choosing to follow the coordinates he saved on his phone after he took you home. It led him to a seemingly harmless auto-shop, with an arrow on his GPS pointing to a garage that was shut down completely with nails and blocked with boxes. The exterior pointed to it being abandoned, but Riki suddenly saw some light coming from a makeshift above.

The boy scaled the wall as quietly as possible, glancing into the source of the whirring. He caught small glimpses of something–metal, glowing, blue. 

Or at least, for a few seconds it was on until the power went out. 

The voice that complained from inside the room sounded identical to the man Riki fought. Spark grumbled, turning on a flashlight and quickly waving it around. Riki ducked from the window and held his breath, waiting for the man to suspect something. 

Nothing. 

One lightbulb slowly flickered back on, and then the other dingy light followed. The space was cramped with the metal equipment in the middle, resembling what Riki had seen in the news. 

He was right–it was the same time travel portal that was ruined from a few months ago. 

Spider-Man continued to observe the man as he worked and drilled, plugging certain wires or pausing momentarily to read from a journal. To anyone, it’d seem peaceful, like some sort of renovation project. But in reality, it was so much more than that. 

Riki searched for any sort of information about the machine, trying to see what exactly was left to do until his gaze landed on something. 

There was some sort of date on a bright pink sticky-note, and Riki’s eyes widened when he finally comprehends it. 

The machine was scheduled to be completed tomorrow. 

-

A street lamp next to Riki dies out—which was a clear sign that something was powering up. From the dark, he hears the metal from the same place as last night moving again, and he knows that Spark has left. His presence sends anyone down the street and immediately running, leaving the area for only them two. 

Riki finally sees the completed metal build. Half of his body is wrapped in or replaced with metal parts as he sets down the metal portal, beginning to push it in the direction of the power plant. 

A truck or car would make things much easier, but whatever.

Riki wants to cry from fear and run away. He wants to leave and pretend he never saw anything from last night. 

He’s going to die fighting Spark and he will quite literally a) never finish highschool and get that stupid diploma, b) finish explaining how Gatsby is not a good person and is naturally selfish, and c) he’s never going to tell you how he’s had a small crush on you ever since he saw your cute campaign video as to why you should vote y/n l/n for student body treasurer last spring. 

“You sure that thing works?” Riki asks, jumping into action as he sends webs to immobilize the machine. 

“You’re annoying, you know that?” Spark sends a projectile in the superhero’s direction, hitting the wall behind him instead as Riki jumps out of the way.

With another duck mid-air and the roof of a flying car dangerously close to his nose, Riki thanks the dance practice he does for his flexibility as he shoots another web and swings away. 

Spark is uncontrollable by now, sucking the light from street lamps and fizzing wires in his wake. He has no idea how he’s supposed to get in contact with the villain like before. The body of his suit fizzes with bright electricity that sizzles and pops. It illuminates Spark’s figure, making him easy to spot, but not so easy to defeat. It’s an overload of power, causing the voltage to escape between the joints and gaps of the metal pieces in his suit. And Riki can feel it; the air is heightened and so are the stakes of this fight—and with how the man that stands in front of him looks upgraded and menacing, he knows only one person can make it out of this fight alive. 

“You injected the city’s ‘Gas and Electric’ into your system or what?” Riki calls out, making light of the situation. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s scared out of his wits seeing the six foot figure with blue and white shooting from every crack, looking like a nightmare to touch.

Riki avoids a few more angrily thrown objects, using the momentum of his jump from the side of the building to zip from the top of a yellow fire hydrant to go from one side of the street to the other. “You’re slow!” He taunts, tucking in his legs to avoid a shot of electricity directed at him. 

The screech of metal from the nearby hydrant can be heard as the top flings off, making Riki lose his anchor/ Before he can process it, instead of smoothly landing on the building, he crashes into it faster than expected, groaning when his back makes contact with the glass and he tumbles into the living room of someone’s apartment. 

“Fuck,” he curses, fighting his aching limbs to get up once more. 

And the solution hits him. Literally. 

When he steps out and quickly attaches a web to the top of the building, he’s met on the way up with a splash of water from the hydrant to his face, and Riki splutters as he wipes his mask, regaining focus as he lands on the concrete and hides behind the ledge. 

Water. If he can get it in contact with Spark and pour enough water on the right spot, the excess of electricity blazing from his mechanical body should work against him. 

“Too scared? You should know better than to run away.” The superhero rolls his eyes, crawling away silently to avoid being seen by Spark. Riki does his best to look around for something, and finds a black flower pot in the corner, using a web to grab it before he scales the side of the building and runs away while Spark is distracted as the villain also climbs the wall to face him there. But when Spark climbs the ledge and scans the premise, Riki is nowhere to be seen. 

Instead, Riki swings across the street and fills the pot with water, heaving the extra weight as he shouts out from the sudden pain in his side. He stumbles on the pavement, crying out from the injury as the pot falls with his whole plan. 

Maybe this is where Spider-Man dies. 

He sucks in a deep breath before rolling from his back onto his knees, ignoring the wound to pick up the flower pot. The hydrant still shoots out water, and the superhero rushes towards it, causing Spark to follow. He narrowly avoids another shot from behind him, reaching the yellow hydrant before dropping the pot on the ground. Spark is th 

While Spark has always been intelligent, Riki could tell that the man didn’t fear the water, believing he’d be invincible to the elements now that his suit was perfected. There was something off, Riki could tell, and he would make sure to use it to his advantage. Spark was uncontrolled, and his powers drastically decreased the more he used them. There’s no way his body isn’t in overdrive with how recklessly he’s been letting himself get hurt. 

Riki uses a web to get himself on higher ground instead of fighting, waiting for the supervillain to follow. If he could get Spark off the edge and fall into the growing puddle of water, it should slow him down. 

Spark scoffs. “Run away, then. Like you always have.” Riki hears the wall crumbling under the villain as he climbs within seconds, immediately preparing to fight when he makes it onto the rooftop. But Spider-Man was also prepared, jumping from his crouched hiding position and attempting to catch Spark off guard. 

All he can focus on now is pushing him off. There’s no way it’d be easy, considering he had to focus on his touching any of the electricity off of his suit. Riki delivers a kick to Spark in the ribcage near his heart, where he’s fused metal into flesh. The villain coughs before taking a step back, his metal arm reaching for Riki’s outstretched leg. He grabs it, twisting with anger before the boy meets the ground in a violent throw. Not only is the slam greater because of the enhanced strength, but the power seeps into Riki’s skin, leaving it hot from the energy radiating off of his palm. 

The boy groans, flipping to his side to avoid a fatal hit to the chest. He reaches for Spark’s normal arm, swinging the villain’s body away with as force as he could to create distance between them. 

Riki has been in enough fights to simply know when to run, even if he doesn’t know what’s coming. He could feel the tingle of the charge as it powered up, and with its energy so unrestrained and its user so unstable, the large attempt to hit Riki sends the villain stumbling back from the force. The more Spark uses his powers, the more likely he’s going to end up dead. 

“Your skin can handle that anymore!” he shouts, getting ready to swing himself closer as a plan manifests itself in his head. “You’ll die like this!” 

Spark seems to know that too as he wipes his mouth and recovers from Riki’s attacks. 

“You think I care?” He shouts, desperately pressing his wounds to stop the bleeding. “You think I have anything else for myself?” The vulnerability of his character shines through as he clutches his bleeding wound without regenerative powers to help. “You think I didn’t know that when I did it to myself--what they did to me?” 

Riki doesn’t respond, grimacing as he continues hand-to-hand combat. Although he takes a solid punch to his jaw that’s forming a deep purple bruise, he manages to trip Spark onto the ground.

The man stumbles back from the head injury, the pounding from earlier not letting him to think straight. Riki doesn’t try to injure him anymore, but he instead blocks an incoming punch and tries to force Spark towards the edge. 

The villain barely notices how much space there is left, and the boy lunges with full force. They tackle each other into the ground, and Riki gets off after apprehending him once more. 

The city's a mess, and Spider-Man’s eyes want to shut down so badly, but he takes a few steps in Spark’s direction, pushing him off the side of the building as quickly as he can. Riki hears the thud before he peeks over the edge, seeing the water erode all of the engineering from the machinery. He slowly descends from the rooftop. 

“You were in the accident, huh?” Riki shouts on top of the plethora of sounds. Pain, buzzing electricity, splashes of water as he lands next to Spark; it all echoes in his ears as he pours the water from the pot on Spark’s body. “Why did you try it? Why did you want to go back so bad?”

“If I could go back,” Spark coughs, trying to get away from the large pool of water, “I could’ve prevented the accident from taking the lives of the people around me. I could’ve saved them.” 

Spider-Man understands loss, and he understands the regret that comes with failure. He understands how the man in front of him feels after having everything taken away from him, but his emotions could never justify his actions. 

“You know you can’t change things,” Riki responds, “You tried your best, Spark.” It’s the last thing Riki tells the villain before his body slumps and police sirens grow louder and louder. It’s the last thing that he continues to think about, even if the medic quickly assesses the severity of his wounds. 

“I’m fine- really,” he pushes away the hands of a concerned woman as she holds a roll of bandages. “There’s something else I need to do.” 

Riki knew he had to tell you about this–he couldn’t just let you confide in him about..well, him, without your knowledge. And Riki wasn’t morally perfect, but he knew an explanation would be the only way to fix things.

Your house looks different when jumping over the fence instead of standing in front of it. When he realizes he has no idea what room belongs to you, he racks his brain, suddenly remembering how yours was the only one with a gray balcony over the pool. And so he climbs, slipping from the exhaustion creeping into his body. 

You’ll understand after he explains everything, right? 

“____, a little help?” And what the fuck is Nishmura Riki doing outside of your door? You go to investigate the muffled sound, inching towards the curtains and pulling them back to expect him there. When you hear a half yelp and a hissing sound that follows right after, without a person anywhere in sight, your heart drops to its stomach. 

Do not say it’s true. 

“Riki, where the fuck are you?” you ask, traversing out when you don’t see him anywhere across the glass. 

“Down here.” You run in the direction of the voice, and your eyes grow comically large and you gasp, staring down at the sight before you. 

“Holy shit.” 

There Nishimura Riki is, with his mask half burned off his face and his blonde and black hair messy and matted to his forehead with sweat. The suit is ripped in multiple locations with gashes and purple replacing the healthy skin underneath. His face is in more of a grimace, as he holds onto the web with both hands and one foot planted on the stone of your balcony—read; the bottom of your balcony. 

“A little help?” And you see his sheepish emotion through the tattered fabric, embarrassed after you had to find him in such a compromising situation. “I’m a little worn out and I think my webs are getting weaker.”

You’re a little frustrated with him for being out so publicly, but more scared and worried for his condition. Your gaze narrows on the mask, tattered and covered with scratches, but clearly visible. It was Spider-Man’s mask. The material gives way to a familiar face, and your mind almost blocks you from putting the pieces together. It’s impossible, almost horrifying to think of the implications of what it means to wear the blue and red suit. 

Instead of being the villain, Riki is, in fact, the savior.

The harsh truth is that your classmate, who you spent the last month working on a project with and suspected was a villain, is the same superhero that went out and risked his life every night fighting crime. It’s jarring to see him like this, breathing heavy and straining against the stone of the balcony, and his cough snaps you out of it. “What the fuck do I do?” 

Riki tries to put his hand up in surrender and shuts his eyes at your harsh tone. “Okay, okay, I get-“ and he cuts himself off with a yelp as his footing slips. 

He holds out his hand, and you immediately bend over the smooth railing to grab it, leaning back on the heels of your feet to help him up the most that you can. You’re filled with confusion when the boy hobbles over the cool surface of the balcony and lets his head rest on the stone, not saying much as he catches his breath. You watch the rise and fall of his chest and how his right arm goes to nurse the left side of his ribcage, wincing and sucking in a pained breath as he assesses the smear of red on his fingers. 

Sitting there with your mouth agape, you’re not really sure what to think about first; to check if RIki’s alright, to think about how your city’s greatest superhero is your English project partner, to yell at him for going to your house instead of his house to fix himself up, or to think about how good his side profile looks in the moonlight. Maybe you should’ve just been relieved that the boy you started to like wasn’t a fear-inducing villain.

“Okay, first of all, we need to have a huge talk. But I’m not a medic Riki- I’m going into accounting for fuck’s sake.” He hears the amount of curses flying from your lips as you ramble, and sees how stressed you look watching him sit against your railing. 

“I don’t know how to help you. And also,” you lower your voice and scoot closer, looking around at the large property to really make sure no one’s listening. “you’re Spider-Man?” 

The information all hitting you at once is worse than when your history teacher told you your essay was horrible. At least then, in her office, you could process everything. But here? You’re about to faint. 

“I’m pretty cool, huh?” And of course Nishimura Riki says such a thing, taking deep breaths as he shallowly presses on the blossoming bruises on his skin and wipes the sweat from his brow. 

“Pretty fucking stupid is what it is, Riki.” You cross your arms and try to take a look at where he’s been hurt, hoping that at least he has some sort of regeneration ability that helps him heal much quicker—because there’s no way he could deal with all of this on top of school. 

“I have my reasons,” he says, his voice quiet. 

You pause. “For being Spider-Man?” 

“No,” he shakes his head. “For coming here.”

“What could possibly make you want to come over to my house instead of the nearest hospital? What’s that important to you?”

“I really want to ask you to prom.” 

You simply stare at him, surprised. 

“You came to my house, even though you’re like, a punch away from passing out, to ask me out? And you couldn’t have, I don’t know, asked me anytime during the classes we have together?”

Riki somehow finds it in himself to frown and shrink from your angry piercing gaze. “I can’t because talking to you makes me nervous–so yeah, I’m sorry I’m half conscious on your balcony in my suit instead of at your door with a poster.” 

You’re conflicted, your mind still reeling from the recent discovery and your flood of emotions. Ever since you questioned his identity on top of your feelings for him, you had a hard time really knowing if you could like Riki if he turned out to be a villain, so to know that he proved both of your theories wrong leaves you quiet as you think. If possible, the color in the boy’s face drains even more when you go back inside, but the door stays open, and he thinks he hasn’t ruined things after all. You emerge with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a bowl of warm water, and a pristine white towel. 

“I’m not mad about that, you idiot,” you reprimand him, setting everything down as you examine the cuts on his face. You squeeze the towel and start to dab at his skin, avoiding the cuts as you clean it. “Who does this for you if not me?” 

“Jake.” 

“Seems like a pretty good friend.” Riki nods in response. 

 “I’m sorry,” he sighs, sitting up to properly address you, even if you weren’t able to meet his gaze. 

“For what?”

“For putting this on you–all of it. Not just the whole Spider-Man thing.” He knew he’d have to tell you at some point, or else it’d eat him up inside to know he kept all of it from you. 

“Look at you, saving me mid-air and talking to me as if you didn’t know who I was.”

You notice a flash of regret through his wince as you clean up a cut with antiseptic. “I meant it when I told you I knew what it was like to have a lot of pressure.”

“Guess I wasn’t so far off, then. If we never talked, would you have told me?” Riki shakes his head, and the simple motion leaves you somehow disappointed. 

“How do you ever tell anyone you’re…y’know, Spider-Man?” Even if it’s a hypothetical, you shrug, not being able to answer.

“How’d Jake find out?” 

Riki chuckles and hisses at the same time before trying to remember. “I think I just kicked his window in after a nasty poison got hold of me. He was a little too excited to have Spider-Man on his bedroom floor, and less excited to know it was me. I’m not really supposed to tell anyone, though.”

“Then why’d you tell me? You could’ve just gone back to your friends.” 

“I felt guilty–I know, I know, it sounds stupid. I’d definitely get my identity revealed at this rate.” You shake your head. 

“Not stupid. Keep going.” 

“I didn’t care that you suspected me, or if anyone else did, because I knew it was never true. But I felt so bad knowing you were sharing to me how you felt without even knowing it was me who was listening–like I was holding something from you.” 

You admire his honesty, and when you look at his furrowed brows and his lip that he’s been gnawing from worry, you can’t even imagine what he’s had to hide and do for this. In a way, you look up to him more, for trying his best even if he’s gotten all odds stacked against him. Riki’s commendable in your eyes–he always had been, ever since you woke him up in class. 

“I like those things about you, Riki. That you’re honest with yourself and the people around you as much as you can be, and you try to help others when you can. I’m glad we got to know each other more this past month.” Talking to him feels different than talking to Spider-Man from a few days ago; it feels raw, like you’re not just confessing something to a brick wall anymore. If none of this ever happened, you doubt you’d get the chance to tell Riki any of this properly. 

The boy stays silent, taking deep breaths while processing what you’ve told him. “I’m glad I could help you out.” 

You furrow your eyebrows. “I hope you know I don’t like you because you help me out. I like you because you’re attractive, and because you’re genuine,” you blurt. 

Riki laughs despite his ribcage hurting everytime he does so. Riki nods and mumbles a ‘thank you,’ also glad to truly get to know you. While his crush was more of an infatuation with your hard work and amiability, the past few weeks really opened his eyes to who you were. You never wanted to disappoint, and even if your recklessness left you in some dire situations, Riki could see how much effort you really put into things. 

There wasn’t anything else he needed to tell you–you were smart enough to see how much he cared about you.    

You’re so close, your lips glossy with lip balm as you watch him carefully. You hear and see it all; the heavy, labored breathing from his body healing itself rapidly, and the way his hand is full of rough cuts and calluses as his fingers intertwine with yours. But your eyes catch a glimpse of his mask tossed to the side, the blue shining in the corner of your eyes as you’re reminded of who he is right now, and what role you play. You are still ____ ____, but he’s a superhero.

It makes you momentarily forget whose suit you're peeling away, whose skin you're cleaning. It reminds you that he’s just the boy in your English class that you fell for. “What does that make us?”

“Prom-goers,” he answers with a slight nod. 

You smile, wiping a cut before placing the towel back into the bowl for the last time and getting up. “We can be prom-goers, yeah.” 

You’re not sure if you’re ready for anything, and you’re thankful that he understands that, too. As much as it warmed your heart to see him again and hear his confessions, the blaring truth still hangs over your head. You grab his mask, finally looking at him before handing it back and grabbing your things. His secret identity wasn’t something you could just ignore. 

“Go home, Spider-Man,” you turn your back on him, and time slows when you falter before sparing him one more look. “I want you as Riki, not like this.” 

MAYBE NISHIMURA RIKI DOESN'T NEED TO DIE–OR ALMOST DIE–ANYMORE. 

He went home that night with his scars somewhat cleaned and his bruises miraculous healing on their own, and even if slipping through the window left him clutching his side in pain, Riki silently jumped up to celebrate his multiple victories before slipping out of his suit and finally getting some rest. 

Riki’s scared of how he’s affected your relationship. He’s worried you’ll avoid him in the halls, and he’s worried you’d never want to see him again after putting you through all of it. As much as he'd understand how upset you'd be towards him, he hopes he did the right thing by telling you.

But you see him on your way to English, and you call his name. His eyes search for yours in the crowds, and you two see each other before you crush him in a hug. 

Riki isn’t sure how to feel at first, but eventually wraps his arms around you as relief settles in his stomach. 

“Thank you for saving me, Spider-Man,” you whisper, loud enough for only him to hear. 

He smiles at you, ruffling your hair as you go to English together. “Anytime, ____.” 

NEVERMIND, NISHIMURA RIKI MIGHT DIE WHEN HE SEES YOU IN YOUR RED PROM DRESS.

But first, he has to try something out. 

He curses to himself when silently zipping from a tree outside your family property to the top of your house, staring past the ledge two and luxurious stories to your well decorated porch light and door. He just prays that Google Maps is  right about how secluded the area is, so no one can see him pacing around your rooftop, with flowers elegantly wrapped in his hand (courtesy of your mother’s sleek envelope from a few days ago). 

“Fuck it,” he says to himself, shooting a web and dangling himself down. Riki’s upside down figure watches swirled window frames and meticulously designed accents as he descends, and he wonders what kind of shady business your parents could’ve done to afford something so grand. 

He faces your door—hanging down instead of rightside up, but he’s still here on time like he promised. 

The door opens at 6:00PM like he instructed you to, but what he didn’t tell you what to do was shriek and slam the door. On his nose. With a loud yelp, Riki clutches his nose, rubbing the spot you hit and trying to apply pressure to alleviate the pain. 

When the door slowly creaks open again, you face with the image of Nishimura Riki, aka your boyfriend, aka your English partner, aka Spider-Man, curled upside down in the fetal position as he cradles the sore spot on his face and swings slightly from the breeze. 

“You scared me, dumbass! How was I supposed to know it was you? It was so hard to see!” 

Although muffled, Riki’s able to mumble, “You have a porch light for this reason, _____,” and a jab at his stomach from you follows his sarcastic remark. Finally, his nose feels better, and he straightens out to finally look at you. 

Pretty, pretty, pretty, and the boy wonders how you look even more stunning with a glittering red dress and perfectly done make-up. “I like the red,” he says, trying not to freak out over your beauty. “Reminds me of a certain neighborhood superhero.” 

“I have some blue spider earrings to match.” With a beautiful smile, you turn to show him the little accent, and it melts his heart. “Are you okay, though?”

“I’m fine. I should’ve probably put more thought into that.” 

You snicker, sliding into your heels and closing the door behind you. 

“One of us is better at romantic gestures, it seems.” It warrants a scoff, and Riki brings a gloved hand to poke at your forehead teasingly.

“Let me have a do-over, then?” And the way your lips curl up into a bright smile leaves him quiet and in awe. 

“What, were you going to kiss me? Very original, Spider-Man.” With the way the fabric shifts over his features, you can tell he’s pouting. 

“I thought girls liked this.” 

You shrug, pretending you aren’t swept off his feet by the effort he’s put in. Taking a step in his direction, your hands reach up to gently pull the mask over his chin, ears, and then his nose. 

Whispering quietly, you ask, “You’ve kissed other girls upside down?” 

Riki’s quick to shake his head. “You’re the only girl I’d withstand a head rush for.” And god, you just can’t stop yourself from grinning at his sweet, genuine words.

You lean in, placing a small kiss on his nose as a silent apology. Then, you close your eyes and lean into him once more, feeling his hands carefully holding the side of your head and his lips on yours. Your kiss with Riki is saccharine and slow, making you pull away when the urge to beam at him is too much. Your cheeks definitely hurt by how romantic he’s being, and you can’t resist kissing him once more.

“I’m not gonna lie,” he starts, finally letting himself down, “It feels weird.” 

“You ruined the moment.” And he really didn’t, but you enjoy his subtle reactions to your light digs at him. 

“Whatever.” Riki laughs. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” 

You nod, sitting down on the porch and dragging a manicured nail over your lips with the ghost of his affections, thinking about how you literally just kissed Spider-Man. 

Riki comes back, dusting off his suit and smoothing out the wrinkles, with a large bouquet of red roses and one blue one snuck in there. Your lips stretch into a grin and you accept the bouquet, keeping a mental note to read the card in there.

“You never cease to amaze me, Riki.” It’s the last thing you mutter to the air before you loop your arms around his neck, urging him to lean down as you kiss him once more—this time rightside up, but still as sickly saccharine as the one before it. Your heart is fuzzy with fondness and your eyes glitter with adoration. 

“So, which kiss was better?” he asks when you pull away, a little breathless and dizzy.

You swat his arm and walk past the gates, seeing the sleek limo waiting by the curb. “I don’t know, Spider-Man. Maybe show up in your suit and we’ll try it again.” 

REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED AND ALWAYS READ!

RIKI FIC DONE!!!! ngl y/n u were right there how did u not know riki was spiderman but whatever idc she's a hard worker not smart LMFOAOAO. my first ever action fic so i hope you enjoy! also i hate the ‘oh he pined after her for 4 years she liked him for 2 months’ bs because I WAS IN IT. and it sucks so i tried to deviate from it :)

꣑ৎ permanent fic taglist (TAGGED IN TEASERS, FICS, HEADCANNONS, DRABBLES, ETC.): @dimplewonie @minleeeknow @heeheesang @mintpjzroll @llvrhee @firstclassjaylee @in-somnias-world @rairaiblog @suneng @mavlogist @sensitively-taken @sumzysworld @simpjay @moons-v @riksaes @txtari @jungwonscatcus @tya0 @sasfransisco @woorcve @shypen @pinkriki @rikisluv @saranghaohoshi @lilifiedeans @wonmyheart @k1ttyluvr @nikisgfff @ramenoil @laurradoesloveu @lvcky-g1rl-syndr0me @ikeulims @missychiefs1404 @qwonyoung23 @yangjungwonnie @onementally-unstabel-kid @microwvdstrawb3rri3s @blooqz @anormieee hi permies hope u enjoy! kith

[jin0]

Of Love, Lust and Wasted Time - Nicholas Alexander Chavez

Pairing : Prince!Nicholas Alexander Chavez X Princess!Reader

Summary : It had been a month since your wedding to Prince Nicholas. He hadn’t performed his marital duties yet. Was there a problem ? Yes. Would you communicate ? No. Would you sneak into his chambers at night in your sleeping gown ? Yes.

Warning : 18+ MINORS DNI, smut, p in v, fingering, lots of making out, titty sucking, clit sucking, pussydrunk nicholas, virgin reader, experienced nicholas, arranged marriage, cussing, slight pussy eating, slight size kink (I review the story and funnily enough, their was nothing slight about that one), slight cervix abuse, marking, talk of bedding ceremony, talk of traditional medieval marriage I guess, meant to be vanilla, don’t know if I got there.

A/N : that man’s a slut, love that. also, I promise she’s not a pick me, just really sheltered.

_______________________________________________

The customs would have it that on the very night of a maiden’s wedding she would perform the act of consummation first in front of the highest members of the court to prove her purity and then proceed with the act for her lord husband’s eyes only.

But this wasn’t a fucking barn, and people would learn to do things with manners.

Or at least, that had been the way Prince Nicholas had put it when the councilmen had insisted upon it during the wedding preparation. Their insistence upon watching the soon to be queen being defiled could’ve been equated to regular old traditions and care for traditions. The princess herself believed it to be what it was, old men hungry to devour with their eyes and feast on the most embarrassing moment of her life.

She would curse her mother and maids for the rest of her life for not having taught her the basics on what was expected of a wife or what would go into these “nightly performance” she would have to endure. Part of her knew better though, not only because her mother would pull her by the ears until they pealed off and not only because it was unbecoming of a young girl to complain but also because she had done everything in order to not follow the regular education that highborn ladies had to follow.

Because the princess had chosen to be none other than a prince.

As overly simplified as it was, it was the clearest way to express the life she lived or life as she lived it. Less than a choice, it was simply what made sense. From the moment she could stand on her two feet she was made to run after her brothers rather than walk slowly and with poise like a lady would. She was meant to chase and scream and throw herself at the nearest danger because what was danger for the crown but the daily life of any of the people they ruled over ?

While she learned to wield the sword, mount the horse and shoot arrows, she also learned what it would entail to be a princess, one day to be married. And seeing some of the men offering themselves to become her husband, she did regularly wish a battle would kill her first. A battle, or the trouble her mouth would get her into. Of course, she had learned and knew all there was to know. All except that. Sex.

With a father like hers, with a mother like hers, she was almost certain she would never marry so why waste her time learning about sex, right ? Luckily appearing like a good omen, Nicholas did not simply see himself as worthy. The initial discussion had not even concerned a marriage proposal.

When he had arrived in the neighboring kingdom, his proposal concerned trades and the opening of a route through his seas in exchange for three troupes of their best soldiers to be sent into his realm and help the thieving crisis raging through his lands. It was true that the knights of your home were known to be the greatest there ever was, loyal and strong, one of them could equate to a fleet of ten. Of course anyone would want them.

And he had wanted her too. As soon as she had walked in, dragging his lord commander by the cloak for blocking the way to the council room.

She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, she just wanted to make sure her father was fine and so were her brothers. The man at the door was unfamiliar and truth be told, rather rude. It was a misunderstanding and her response was unwarranted. She had apologized, the prince had laughed. Surprising response.

For the rest of the meeting, she had been allowed to stay and she would’ve focused on the information being shared and the heated debate between both councils had she not been busy staring at the man she knew to be staring holes into her. His heated gaze felt like the sun shining directly unto her, melting away her mind and the mere thought of reason. She felt herself crumbling in on herself the longer she sat there to be undressed in public.

He hadn’t intended to stare with such insistence. He had even tried to look away, attempting to return to the discussion. He had. Had it ever been so difficult to look away from a woman ? Never, not when thousands of them had vied for his attention since he had come of age. Yet here he was, victim to his passions, digging into her flesh with his eyes, trying to move on from the gust of wind which had blew his way when she had walked into the room, carrying the sweet scent of honey. He had wanted nothing more but to leap to her feet and run his nose along her soft neck to engorge himself in her sweetness.

She hadn’t known whether to curse her father or thank him for offering them to stay longer than intended, stay until they reached an agreement on the details of their agreement. He had spent the night and from afar she was almost certain she could feel the heat of his body next to hers, warmth radiating through the dinner they had shared and through the halls of the castle, from his chambers to hers.

He hadn’t spent a better night, sitting in his bed, kept awake by the thought of the divine princess sleeping only meters away, peaceful yet clawing at his mind as if a parasitic fungus taking power over his body. She awoke every molecule forming his being, all aware of one another, uncomfortably held together by nothing but a thread of desire and melting resolve. Poor prince who wished to be back home in that moment, in the privacy of his quarters, far from prying eyes and then need to keep up appearances. Poor Nicholas who wished he could stroke his hardened cock all night, relieved of the ache burning in his loins, and ruining him from the inside.

With very little sleep in his system and his mind and body banding together against his better judgement, he had not moved from the position he had been occupying for hours now, but his head had snapped towards the door when he had heard the noise outside his door, footsteps as light and almost inaudible, had he not been wired towards her from the moment he had seen her. He knew it was her, and the sound of clinking metal and rushing maids confirmed his suspicion.

That morning, he had listened as she was being prepared to go on a morning ride. Interesting she was, the girl of his dreams. She kept quiet while her maid tried to dissuade her from going, she would need to be there to greet the guests. She assured she would be there to break fast with them. He would admit it, he had rushed to his balcony to watch her leave.

It was still dark, but he knew she had seen him, and he had seen her, both locking eyes for a moment before she had left. She had promised to be at breakfast, he wanted her for breakfast, but he would content himself with what she had offered. In the meantime, he had slept lulled to sleep by her eyes staring at up at him. It was enough, all he needed.

She had needed to clear her head, but her head hadn’t been any clearer when she had returned as soon as the first rays started shining. She knew she had gone mad when while hurrying to meet with the rest of her family, she suddenly found herself very conscious of her body, her mind and her appearance, so conscious she thought they would all leap out of her body to be stared at by anyone looking in her discussion. The meal was difficult, but madness was kept at bay, hidden from the public. The prince invited her to join the council that would follow, her presence being of great importance to him.

Again, the councils were boring, and this one was not moving anywhere. While the proposal was good, requesting for such a number of men in exchange for a route into a neighboring sea could’ve been good but it simply was not enough, not to the lords of the councils and slowly, not the King. Madness, she had equated her strange behavior to earlier. And as a great scientist, she had confirmed it when in a burst of genius, she had made a proposal.

She remembered how her mother would speak of her father coming to offer himself as a marriage prospect. The princess had been young but the look in the queen��s eyes, she recognized it as the same she had that morning, the look they had shared together before she rode off into the night. As her mother would often say, she had seen that man and had to have him.

“Why not offer a union instead. Your kingdom united to ours in exchange for all the men you desire for as long as you desire.” Had she said, like a princess who had seen the man she had to have.

Less than an offer, it sounded like a statement, one he had accepted before it was even uttered, a statement he would obey like a soldier would obey their ruler. All noise quieted, the Lords, princes of the realm and the King stunned into silence by her words. It had been the first time she had even looked at him purposefully, looked at him like he was already dancing in her palm, a puppet to her every whim.

Before being a good king, he was a good father and as he liked to say, anything she would dream of, he would provide. She had looked at him, his little girl and he could see her assurance, almost like an impenetrable wall. He had watched in silence as Prince Nicholas smiled, accepting the proposal while dreaming of a life of love which had never interested him.

This had been the most ridiculous decision she had made but it had been made, a glorious proposal in the minds of all the councilmen, all rejoicing at the thought of killing two birds with one stone, one of these birds being her and the other being the bird of decency she was meant to keep on her shoulder.

That girl was insane, but she was getting married.

For the next months, she walked almost aimlessly, only ever coming alive when he was in her orbit. She had tried to reassure her mother the day of her departure by claiming that she would learn to love her future husband. How was she made to tell her loving mother that she had fallen as soon as she had seen the man and that this whole marriage was nothing, but a tantrum hidden under negotiations ? As awkward as she was, poor girl left her home, three of her brothers with her off course to assist her and all her maids following. The prince was strange, he had agreed to everything she had requested before leaving, even accepting to take her horse on the journey to her new home. Everything about this had been strange, all of it but she was not one to go back on her words, not when this opened such a great opportunity for both kingdoms.

She swallowed her confusion and walked in the shoes of the princess she would need to be, a role which was less arduous to play when her soon-to-be husband seemed to agree to anything and everything she could want, everything except being around her.

For the seven months which had preceded their wedding, she had grown to crave his company and attention, flowers of love blooming brightly in her chest and crying out to him, crying out for his eyes on her, like he had done that morning. She wanted him in more ways than the ones she kept to herself, and he seemed more interested in everything there could ever be. She had hoped that on the night of the wedding, they would cross the bridge together and finally, she could learn about him from his mouth and not from those of the people of the castle and the court.

Nothing had changed and here she was, the moon high in the sky, her feet cold and bare as she fidgeted with the fabric of her nightgown. The cold air was nothing compared to the warmth radiating out of her skin and seeping through the thin cloth covering her nakedness.

“What are you doing here ?”

She jumped in terror, so busy rationalizing and overthinking that she hadn’t heard the door opening or closing. Turning to face him, she wished she could die instantly, wished to be swallowed by the floor below.

There he was, just out of a bath which had taken more time than necessary but still needed to clear his head. He enjoyed to privacy of his chambers, a robe covering his manhood from her gaze. His eyes were fixated on her as soon as he had walked in, dark and tempted, he remained at a safe distance, observing as she tried to speak, gathering her thoughts and looking away before speaking.

“My apologies, husband… I… I wanted to see you…” Seen she had. “It was… It was urgent.”

“Are you okay ?” If worry spread through his mind, he made sure to hide it. He watched her nod before letting out a discreet sigh of relief and taking a seat on the chair that faced his bed, next to the chimney. “What could be so urgent that you would need to come see me so late and in such clothes ?”

She remained quiet and so did he, barely focused on his own state but entirely aware of how little she was dressed and how much he could see. Adjusting himself in the seat, he swallowed a groan, one meant to calm his nerves and snapping him out of whatever he was doing.

“I… We… We have been married for a month now, my prince.” Her voice was low and soft like the summer breeze and burning away at his decorum. He stared at her as she straightened her back and raised her head, reverting to the girl she’d been when he first met her. “We’ve been married for a month, and you have not touched me still… I do not want you to think that it is something I think of often as it would be a stain on my character that I could not withstand but… Have I done something to displease you ? Perhaps if you tell me I could fix whatever it is, and we could move on as newlyweds.”

He heard the way her breathing picked up, almost able to see her heart beating out of her chest as she spoke, trying to explain herself while he stared in silence, pathetic victim to his weakened spirit and the images it spread through his mind while she spoke.

Of course he wanted to touch her, ravish her, devour her whole. There was nothing more on his mind, no other thought consummated Prince Nicholas’ mind like the thought of her crumbling in his sheets did. He could almost feel it in her scent wherever she went, the sweet taste of her nectar on his tongue. If he allowed himself to dream more, he could feel her tightness around his length, holding him nicely while she squirmed under his body. He wanted nothing more than to have her whenever he saw her, her stature in front of his, so breakable and frail. The thought of his arms enveloping around her and engulfing her whole, like a wave.

How delicate and marvelous she was, his darling wife. How could he even think of touching her when he knew what he would do to her was beyond salacious ? How could he do that to her and ever go back to being cordial with her after ? He knew that she was poison to his mind and to his tongue, one single bite and he would never ever be able to go without. How was he meant to live a life when he dreamed of living in her skin, grinding himself down into fine powder to be breathed into her lungs. How could that ever happen ?

He had almost sworn himself to a life of sleepless nights, attempting to quench his thirst for her in the dead of the night with his hand on his cock, before she had walked into his room covered by almost nothing, asking why he had not bedded her yet.

Nicholas stood quietly, walking up to her with a dark expression on his features. He was so handsome, the most beautiful man she had ever seen, his hair still wet and his body glistening in the night.

“Are you asking me to bed you, dear wife ? Is that what you want ?”

He stood millimeters away from her, her air wrapping around his body and seeping into him. That damned scent, honey so thick and sweet he prayed to drown in it. She looked up at him, frozen by his tone and proximity. She could feel the warmth of him in her and wanted more, but a highborn lady could not want such things. Could they ?

She looked down, her eyes twinkling with disappointment and shame. This had all been wrong, a mess she had made and would have to deal with.

“I… I apologize, your grace… I did not mean to offend… I will go… Please, forget this ever happened.”

She held her hands tightly together to ground herself, taking long strides towards the door to prevent her tears from humiliating her further. She had barely reached the door that a large hand blocked the way by slamming the door shut. She jumped, surprised that all her years of training were not enough to help her notice whenever he moved around her.

She suddenly felt so small in front of him, her husband towering over her, large hands boxing her in his space. She could hear him breath softly, almost out of breath and sounding strained.

“Where do you intend to go exactly ?” His voice was deep as he spoke, shaking from the vibration it sent through her. “What… What do you think you are doing exactly ?”

He sounded pained by the very words, but she kept still, too scared to see where this would go if she turned.

“I wanted to return to my chambers, your grace…” In this whole conversation, this had been the clearest she’d been. All to say she was leaving, how annoying.

He chuckled and she was almost offended, because what exactly was so funny in this discussion ?

“You intend to return to your chambers… dressed like that ?”

Now she was offended. Was this truly what worried him ? One month married and he hadn’t touched her, but he worried about how she was dressed ? Of course, she knew why he worried, but she would still be angry at him for it, because why not ?

“The answer I gave earlier remains unchanged, your grace. Or would you prefer if I stripped completely ? Maybe then you would move out of my way then ?” There she was, the princess he had met that day, unbent by his titles. He could’ve almost laughed had the image she had planted in his mind, of her roaming bare in the halls, not angered him enough to go deaf.

He kept quiet and she almost thought he had died behind her before hearing the sound of fabric moving. Looking down at her feet, she saw the rope holding the robe closed on the floor and before she could process what was going on, she felt him move behind her pushing her into the door, his bare front against her, cock pressing into her backside as deep as she could feel it.

“You think… You think I would let anyone see you ? You think anyone ever deserved to see you ? Huh, dear wife ? Do you think anyone could ever dream of seeing you ?”

She couldn’t speak but he could hear her reaction in her breathing as it picked up, more erratic and less rhythmic. Her who had managed to remain somewhat composed until now was suddenly as quiet as a mouse, squeaking below him while he pressed himself into her.

If she asked, he would admit the jealousy and possessiveness he’d been feeling for her. Everyone could see it, but she remained clueless, too busy hiding from him. The bedding ceremony had been his last straw. Prince Nicholas was never known for losing his temper, so imagine the surprise of the lords of the court when he had raised his voice at them and his own father for attempting to keep the tradition of the bedding ceremony ? He had refused it, categorically, the idea of hungry old decrepit men staring at his darling in a moment that was form them only. Never. He would kill all of them for even thinking of it.

“I burn at the mere thought of you, your scent being the only thing I need to lose every bit of education I have ever received and… You think I would ever let you out of this room ?” His left arm wrapped around her shoulder, keeping her still. He tried not to lose it, feeling her push into him, her soft hands still holding onto her gown. He raised his other hand to move her hair out of the way before bending down to leave open mouth kisses on her neck. Deliberate and controlled, he wanted to go as slow as he could, savoring the moment. His tongue grazed her veins eagerly wherever his lips would go while he tried to keep his hips still, failing miserably and rutting into her. He could already see how nice and warm she would be around him, his sweet wife. His tongue on her skin wasn’t enough to satisfy his hunger for her. “You want me to bed you, sweetness ? Fine. »

Every word he has uttered up until now had ignited something within her which a proper lady could never dream of letting out in their lives, but her instinct called for change in that very moment, the kind that was meant to undo all she had built herself to be in front of him. Because as condescending and arrogant as he might’ve sounded, she indeed, wanted nothing more than to be fucked. Partly for the sole purpose of experiencing the act as a woman, but also because the feelings she had started to feel for the man she had slightly tricked into a union were growing out of her control and called for some form of relief. Presently, the most adequate for would be the pleasure of the flesh, which she craved to indulge in.

« Tell me no, my dear… » He pleaded in a soothing voice she had only heard on their wedding night. « Deny me the pleasure of you and I will escort you to your chambers myself. »

She had expected more roughness from him, somehow. Almost ready to be unceremoniously dragged to the bed and stripped bare, she found herself melting more from the softness of his touch on her neck. His nose ran along her veins while his hips rutted slowly into the crevice of her backside. The wetness pooling between her legs dripped like poison, influencing the madness in her. As she took hold of the hand on her shoulder, she moved it to lay flat on her lower stomach. His fingers dug into her flesh, almost to pull her closer than she already was and yet, in truth, to scare her, maybe, into refusing him like he hoped.

The complexity of his mind in the moment made him almost just as deezy as she made him. He could almost feel delirium clawing at him, new senses appearing in him. Yes, he could feel her. The tightness of her pussy and the taste of her juices. He could all feel it. The prince was indifferent to the possibility that this was all in his head. The things which had been brewing in that same head for weeks now made it all the more necessary for him to listen for once. If he denied himself the pleasure of his wife, he would go mad. For weeks now, the prince had tried to act as friendly and neutral to her, even indifferent in the days when the pull towards her was too much to handle. He had tried as hard as any man could to deny himself pleasure both out of loyalty to her but also because no other woman could ever compare to her in his mind. Not when his nights were spent relieving a hard day’s work of ignoring and avoiding his wife. But in truth, how could he ever face such a beautiful being and taint her with the gunk flowing through him ? He couldn’t control the lewd images of her in his mind and until now, he’d almost managed to keep himself in check. Until she appeared in his bedchamber, demanding he touch her like she deserved and like he dreamt.

That did not change the fact that the woman he had tried to ignore for so long had grown a place for herself in his heart, a place that made it impossible to not give her the possibility to refuse what would ensue.

« Tell me no, my love… » He muttered, lips glued to her shoulder, as one last attempt to keep things how they were, to do things the right way, someday, maybe, when he wouldn’t be as weak to his passions as now.

And as she turned to look into his eyes, Prince Nicholas knew. In that moment, he knew he was destined for a life of allegiance to his wife and her every whim. With these beautiful eyes of hers, his princess had reiterated her earlier statement. Her answer, silent but acted remained unchanged.

« I don’t want to say no… » She whispered to him, their lips ghosting over the others.

No human word could ever fully grasp whatever followed next. Her whole body was suddenly caught by a force never seen before and spun around, her husband almost overjoyed but too taken by her lips to express it with full focus. She’s never tasted anything as sweet as his lips and he could say the same. The warmth of one another’s tongue, dancing in the others mouth, hoping, Prato to burn the other’s taste into their psyche, this was what this battle for control could be described as. Beyond control, they sought to catch up on lost time and feverishly discover as much as they could about the other.

Their lips encased perfectly into the others, Nicholas’ of course more taken and familiar with the act. He had tried to show decency and control, but the feel of her hot lips on his, shyly moaning into his had uprooted all forms of control.

His hands roamed, seeking for something to hold onto, anything to either ground him or feed his hunger for her. He found her wrists, her smaller hands back to holding onto the fabric of her nightgown. In that moment, he almost felt jealous of her and the opportunity she had to live in her own skin. He who could only dream of momentarily touching her could never be satisfied with the short amount of time he would get to spend with her. Years by her side would never be enough, not when he dreamt of their skins being merged together.

While his lips busied themselves on hers with fervor, his hands explored, touching, gripping, moulding and burning the feel of her in his mind. From her soft cheeks in his palm to the burn of her breasts on his bare chest, the prince did not know where to focus. His hand seemed to struggle leaving her cheek, keeping himself as chaste as the moment allowed to reassure her before moving to her neck. His fingers grazed the soft of her throat and she remained still, a willing victim to his increased thirsts.

When the princess moaned for the ninth time in his mouth, her lips parted and swollen, he pulled away from her to admire the mess below him.

« I haven’t even begun to explore you, my dear that you’re already so weak to me. » He chuckled, kissing the top of her nose and her forehead. Oh how fun this would be for the evil him looming on his shoulder.

He pulled away, allowing air and rationality to settle between them and for a second they remained still and quiet, drinking in the sight of one another. His exposed body had to be the most magnificent thing she had ever seen, a Greek statue in the flesh and dancing in the crevice of her palm. She stared at him like never before, a whole new sight granted to her and exposing him in his truth to her, the prettiest man she’d ever seen. So handsome and so willing to bend to her every desire.

Her eyes roamed around like the painting of a landscape meant solely for her sight. She reached his hips and bit her lips, her imagination running away from her control and painting the picture of his cock entering her repeatedly. She’s heard from her brothers about the steps of the act, and while the fear of confusion had been palpable initially, it had been a complete other feeling spreading through her at the moment. The princess was hornier than ever and the her insistent eyes on her husband’s hardened cock prodding out of the robe he wore did not make it any less evident.

A grin spread across the princes’ lips, just as into being watched by her as he was to admire in return. Him who had tried to not let his eyes wander could see freely now, the way her gown barely hid her peaking nipples or the way she’d kept her thighs tightly glued together as soon as he had stepped back.

The princess he had sworn fidelity and loyalty to now stood in front of him, sleeping gown falling off her shoulder and exposing more than just her cleavage.

When she reached towards him, her hand commending him to move and do what duty demanded, he wanted to laugh. There she was, his spoiled girl, leading him astray.

« The ache between my legs, husband… You are the source of it. I believe it to be your duty to soothe it. » A newfound confidence had crept its way in her veins and it intrigued him even more. To see her finally come out of her shell and demand of him, the prince, her lord husband. Nicholas took careful steps towards her before kneeling. His left hand found her right and took hold of her, their fingers intertwining tenderly.

With his free hand, he lifted the hem of her gown to expose her legs, rushing the fabric in his fist as he kept going higher, until reaching her hip. With some of the fabric still held up by his thumb, the rest of his hand slid along her flesh, and a sigh of relief escaped him. Deep and desperate, his head dropped as he pulled her closer. He let his forehead rest on her belly, nuzzling against her and kissing wherever he could reach.

His right hand which had still been holding the fabric of her gown slid under her thigh to part her legs. The prince let go of her hand and the fabric before laying a tender kiss over her bellybutton. He pulled back and signaled for her to open her mouth before gathering the gown and placing it between her lips and telling her to bite down. Like a good wife, she went along with his commands, holding onto his shoulders when he guided her palms towards them.

One of his hands came up to her backside, grabbing a handful while his right hand slid in between her legs to reach her mound. When his fingers plunged inside her, she almost felt her legs give out under her. Never had she felt such a sensation. His two fingers seemed to stretch her apart, too much already yet enough for her to quickly want more of whatever it was they provided.

« Shh, breathe. » He muttered, his hand unmoving.

She looked down to meet his eyes, her own glistening with tears from a foreign presence inside her. She blinked back tears while nodding softly and attempting to take a breath. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, her breaths ragged and trembling in concert with her trembling body. He nails were digging in his skin, crescent shaped marks littering his shoulders but his gaze never wavered, always on her. When she was certain that the pain had passed, she nodded slowly, gaining a smile from the man.

His fingers started going in and out of her while his lips kept kissing over her stomach. He could not take his eyes away from her, not at a moment like this when she was slowly starting to feel the pleasure of his touch. He could’ve, evidently, began with an other way of easing her into the act and the look of pain on her face truly made him want to peal his skin off. Now, as things would have it, she needed to be prepared before taking anything else and from the tightness of her pussy around his fingers, he would enjoy spreading her out to take him.

The more he thrust his digits in, the more she failed to stand on her two feet. Slowly, her body seemed to fold over his, melting down and loosing strength in her limbs the more space he took in her. When he inserted a third finger, the moans of pleasure she had tried to keep in grew louder. Her lips could no longer hold the gown in, to busy pushing out sounds each more obscene than the last. Her knees slowly gave out, her legs spreading wider and her juices dripping out more and more with each thrust. And when she was certain to have finally gotten used to whatever he was doing, he started spreading his fingers in rhythm with her moans.

« Oh, Lord, please… Please, oh, oh God… » She moaned, slowly loosing control over her actions.

Nicholas never looked away, too enticed by the sight of her. The more she folded on top of him, the tighter his grip on her became and soon, his moans met hers. Loud breathing muffled only by skin, she could only fall a little more while he kissed her side. His three fingers were drenched and the prince would be lying if he said that he wasn’t jealous of them in that moment. To get bathed in her nectar would be a paradise for him.

Her arms slowly wrapped around his shoulders, using his back as support while her legs shook from his treatment of her. She had completely disregarded her gown which covered her intimacy. It was an interesting position to be in, covered yet bare for his eyes to see and hands to hold.

And while he busied his fingers with her cunt, his tongue focused on roaming her sides from under the gown which now covered his head. His kissed, licked and hit into her ribs, leaving open mouthy kissed and marks of his teeth behind him. It still wasn’t enough, not until Nicholas found her nipples, ready for him to do whatever he pleased. When his tongue grazed over the soft bud of flesh, a yelp left her mouth, and when he started sucking on it, her voice grew louder.

Everything he did, he marked it down in his head, memorizing everything she liked and disliked in the moment. Her pleasure was his only goal at the moment and in life.

Her grip changed and soon her nails were digging into the skin of his back, her walls tightening around him and her sounds louder and louder. His fingers continued at the same speed while his teeth and tongue battled each other for a taste of her tits in his mouth. One was graced with his teeth, bite marks around the areola while the other enjoy his tongue and lips sucking little marks all over. Either way, they both were getting pleasure out of it. Even he, couldn’t deny that his end would come rather quick. As soon as she would cum, he would probably follow, beyond satisfied by the sound of her alone. But the prince did not want to let his cum of hers go to waste, already daydreaming of watching it drip out of her.

No, this would all be for her, his cock and his cum would all be for her.

« Hum, my sweet girl… You demanded I take care of the ache between your legs, did you not, princess ? » He expected an answer, enjoying the torment he was causing her. « I’m speaking to you, pretty girl. »

« P-Please… » She pleased instead of speaking up, too aware of how impossible it was for her to repeat such a thing without feeling shame.

Slipping his head out from under her gown, his eyes found hers again, piercing and dark with lust, he was unrelenting with her pussy as much as with his demand.

It was only after he had slowed down, silently threatening to stop if he did not get an answer.

« No, no, no ! Please husband, p-please ! » She cried out, parting her legs and reaching her hand down to push him back in. Despite his grin, she knew he would not let it go and folded. « Yes… Yes, I asked you to make me feel good… »

His face remained neutral until a smile spread again, this time with his teeth, on his face. Without a word, he dove back in, face under her gown. She squirmed in his grip, feeling her end near as it had been described by her maids and feeling the warmth of his breath over her cunt. He kept her stable and stunned before diving in to get a taste and suck in her clit like he had done her tits earlier.

This time with more fervor, his tongue danced over the bud of flesh as she wailed louder and louder from pleasure. He pulled her impossibly close, his forehead buried into her belly while his lips kissed all over her pussy. He kissed it like he kissed her, with desire unrivaled by even the loneliest of beasts. Nicholas showed her clit just as much love as he has shown her when he kissed her. He kept fucking into her with his fingers, more and more enthusiast as her fingers moved from his back to his hair, running through his blondish locks and pulling at the root. She moved in synch with him, bouncing on his fingers like a woman starved of her release until she came loud and hard all over his fingers.

« Yes, yes, yes ! Oh, God, more, please more ! » She screamed as she crumbled over him.

He kept pushing into her, deeper and deeper while she tried to process her first orgasm. Her hips kept moving up and down, following his rhythm and slowing down slowly. She was left panting and sweating, her cum dripping along his forearm. Never had she felt like this before, all thoughts and words escaping her but his name remaining. And she looked so magnificent above him, he could’ve died a happy man in that moment. If he wasn’t a selfish one before anything he would’ve been content with this, but Nicholas was selfish and he needed to feel her cunt squeeze around him like it had squeezed his fingers.

Hiking her leg up and draping it over his shoulder, he pulled his digits out before diving in mouth first to suck in her swollen folds and droplets of cum. More than being selfish, he was also greedy and that greed burnt the delicious taste of her in his mind. Never had he been so desperate for a woman. He wanted her spread in his sheets for life, taking over his space like she did his heart.

He kept devouring her pussy while she trembled, too sensitive to handle more of his treatment of her. The prince looked up with desire, admiring the state he had left her in. He needed to see more.

Detaching his lips from her with great dissatisfaction, he rose to his full height, taking her with him and lifting her up before taking a could of steps and dropping her onto the bed. Not even a second had gone before he kneeled onto the bed and grabbed her gown by the top before ripping it apart.

« Nicholas ! » she screamed. It amused him and he apologized with a kiss to her forehead.

« I’ll have a hundred more made of the finest silks for you. Not that you will need them much in the future. »

He pulled whatever was left of the gown and his own robe, tossing them out into a corner of the room. His eyes scanned her body from top to bottom, painting down the picture of her in that state. Oh how he wished to have his mouth back on her cunt at the moment, drinking in her taste and enjoying the sounds of pleasure she produced. Instead, he satisfied himself with his fingers, sucking on all three as he took his cock in hand and stroke along the shaft. His balls were tight and full, he could feel them ready to burst from the sight of her alone. Even now, drops of cum leaked out of his slit to coat the veins running all along his member. His movements were slow and sensual, his tongue lapping up all over his fingers before licking down his arm to swallow all that had poured on him. How good did she taste, his princess, his wife. So sweet and sensitive, he couldn’t keep fucking into his hand when knew that the only thing that could provide him with the pleasure he needed at the moment was her.

She’d been watching this whole time, panting and aching even more for his cock to push inside her and make her his in the eyes of traditions. She could see it glistening with pleasure, pulsating and she wanted nothing more than to taste it the way he had tasted her. Everything about his anatomy was so new and yet, she wanted to dive in and discover him intimately. She would demand they stay in that very room and be allowed to discover his wants soon enough, but for now, the night called for more classical things. The pleasure of the flesh and hunger for one another demanded they follow customs.

Nicholas pulled out his fingers from his mouth, coated in his saliva and slipped them into her mouth while his other arm wrapped around her waist to pull her up and have her sit on the sheets. Bare in between the red and golden fabrics, she looked ready to be devoured and just like she would demand, he would get to that later. For now, he pulled her to his chest and grinned wider when she kissed his stomach, pulling out the fingers she’d been sucking to mirror his earlier actions.

For a moment, a veil of tenderness enveloped them both, softness settling between the married couple to awake a need to hold and kiss the other. Her arms wrapped around his torso and her face nuzzled into his chest, kissing whatever she could reach. A small laugh was his response, as well as soft caressed on her shoulders and cheek.

« You’ll get all the time you want to kiss me, my love. Let me do what I need to do, hum ? » He kissed her forehead after she had nodded, again more than satisfied by her obedience. Thought he enjoyed it, he would not lie, following her around and obeying to her every command was more what he liked.

Laying her down flat on the bed, his hands parted her legs to give him more space to move. From that position, he kissed her collarbones while guiding his tip in the direction of her entrance.

« I promise to go as slow and gentle as you want me. Just tap my shoulder if it gets too much, okay ? Speak for me. »

« Okay, the shoulders. Understood. » She repeated, nodding animatedly.

Her eagerness was palpable and truth be told, the apprehension of him nestled within her did made her fidget a little. But the hunger for him to stretch her out to his girth was even more taking. It but at her core and made the earlier ache return with more bite than before.

« Hum… Your grace ? » At the sound of her voice, the prince immediately stopped, looking up at her. « I… I’ve never done anything of this sort before…”

Something in the way she had spoken breathed joy within him. Not only because he was the one she had chosen to be her first but also because she had felt comfortable enough to tell him. The wall they had built around one another had been crashing down in a pile of cement leaving them exposed to the other. And through that both seemed to breath for the first time around the other, finally able to express the truth of their desire.

The lips etched onto her collarbones moved to kiss up her neck before reaching her cheeks and lips again. As soon as his lips met hers, she eagerly reciprocated the act, following after him in search for the taste of his tongue on hers. The tip of his cock had been rubbing along her slit and clit and she couldn’t help but want to see what would follow. Always the dutiful husband, Nicholas was, of course, a greedy man first. His left hand came up to her face to hold her neck tightly and her jaw in place. He pinched at the bone and forced her small mouth open with a smile before sliding his tongue in in concert with his cock sliding into her.

« Oh, God ! » She cried out, suddenly aware of how much bigger he was while inside than in front of her.

Her legs shook slightly, struggling to keep still while her insides were torn apart once again. Despite him stretching her earlier, this would’ve never been enough to prepare her for the girth and length of his cock digging into her canal and stretching her to his side. Tears welled up in her eyes and her bottom lip trembled in pain, it was all too much, too new. She couldn’t breath and should’ve been scared, yet the soft caress of his fingers on her throat grounded her just right.

« Just like earlier, sweetness. Breathe slowly. » He commanded and despite struggling to do so on her own he obeyed.

Slowly, her ragged breaths were replaced by even more ragged breathing but this time out of pleasure and eagerness. The space he took inside her demanded to be expanded and she needed to have a taste of the darkness dancing in his eyes. His eyes, hadn’t moved away from her at any point. Focused on her eyes while he kissed away her thoughts, his tongue and hers danced together, teeth clattering occasionally while drool dropped out of the corner of her mouth.

Neither of them would get over kissing the other anytime soon and it was for the best.

The prince wasn’t sure how long he’d been still within her tight walls, kissing her but he knew that the tight hold she had on him would soon drive him insane. With each hiccup her walls squeezed around him tightly. With each breath, she had him throbbing harder inside her and through all he managed to stay still. Not for much longer though, not when she wrapped her legs tightly against his waist and her arms around his shoulders before pushing her face into his.

« Move, please, Nicholas… » She muttered against his lips and like a soldier ready to attack, his hips started moving. Slowly his pace shifted to go faster and deeper, his cock fucking into her cunt with more and more grit.

Soon the room echoed of the sounds of pleasure she created as well as his grunts of pleasure. Now on her ribcage, his hand rose to her breast to squeeze one in his palm while his other hand laid flat on her back. It slowly lowered to soon reach her ass that he squeezed too, using it as support to keep her close while he bottomed out inside of her.

The princess’ senses were like heightened by pleasure, her ears picking up on the sounds of the bed creaking and banging on the wall harder with each thrust. She could also hear the sounds of his groans and moans, all different and each more obscene. Of course she could hear the way his cock fucked into her warm cunt, his heavy sack slapping against her with more strength.

She could barely form a coherent thought to explain the way she felt and the sensations running around her body. All she knew was that she wanted more and so did he. He couldn’t begin to tell how good it felt to finally be inside her and feel that sweet tightness he had daydreamed for weeks before tonight. She held onto him tighter with each thrust and he knew she felt good, so good even that she pulled at his hair again, this time screaming her pleasure from up close into his willing ear. Like a symphony of pleasure and lust, the prince had never heard any sound as beautiful as her voice crying out to him in pleasure while he dug his cock into her guts.

He was quick to find the spot that would have her falling apart, a bundle of nerves which had her begging for his cock deeper and harder than before. And Prince Nicholas was a good and obedient man, whatever his wife wanted she’d get.

Leaving her lips, his mouth moved with his face to suck on her breast again, licking her nipple before his arms moved to cross behind her. Both his hands took handfuls of her ass before lifting her up and down on his cock. The prince started moving her body in tandem with his thrusts. He couldn’t hold himself together for long, he knew it as soon as he saw her in his room tonight, and his voice was the first tell. Growing louder and louder, the prince lost himself inside his princess.

« F-Fuck… My love… Oh, yes… F-Yes, yes, take it, sweetness… Take me good, my love…Yes ! »

This time it was his turn to leave crescent shaped marks on her flesh, his nails digging into the thick of her ass. She couldn’t compare to anything she’d even seen before but the prince fucked like a man possessed, his pants of pleasure louder than the next each one after the other. Moans and cries could be heard all though the room and even beyond, both knew it.

« M-My… Oh, oh, oh, hum ! » She had tried to speak but his pace accelerated again, his cock going deeper and slamming into a wall of flesh as well as the spot he had reached earlier. “Fuck ! Ah, ah, ah, m-my… My love… S-s-slow down ! »

Her voice trembled of pleasure, the kind that neared on insanity. Now, both her hands were in his hair, finding something to ground herself on amongst the thick curls on his head. Feeling the tip of his cock get even deeper, she looked down to see it through her stomach, a bulge forming on her lower belly. Repeatedly, the large mushroom tip of his dick pushed into her cervix, showing itself to the lovers.

Nicholas’ forehead rested against hers, following her gaze while he bit hi slips to contain himself but failed. There he was, all the way inside her smaller body. He was suddenly way more aware of how small she was in comparison to him, his cock wide enough to make such a visible image inside her. She watched his furrow his eyebrows, almost looking and sounding in pain. He couldn’t handle the events. From the taunting him in her little question to calling him her love. This would kill him. But he would die a happy man.

« Oh… Oh sweet… I-You kill me, sweet love… » He could only say while trying not to look down again. He buried his face in between her breasts to hide from the obscene vision. He would come quickly and so would she, he knew it.

Her breasts bouncing against his skin was pure agony, just like it was our agony to feel her squeeze him as tightly as she was. To reciprocate the « suffering » his hand came down to push her stomach at the place he had been pushing into. She bit her lip to keep in another cry of pleasure that would quickly be replaced by more incoherent screaming while his thumb came down to rub on her clit.

He needed her to cum around him and quickly or he’d go insane. He toyed with her bud of flesh while looking at the way his cock went in and out of her, stretching her out to fit him while he fucked her within an inch of her life. A ring of cum had formed around him, white and thick. That vision alone fed into his need to cum. He needed to see more of this.

« Come for me, sweetness… » He groaned with as much control as he could muster. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head while his own crossed, his mouth falling open to let out a string of animalistic grunts and moans. Both synchronized for a moment, her meeting his thrust with her own eager movements while he pushed into her harder and harder until both came in a string of cusses.

She almost felt like she had gone blind for a moment, white light clouding her vision as well as the groundbreaking sensation of her second orgasm raging through her. And if she thought this was it, she was quickly thrown back into that coital state by his cum spurting out of his cock into her warm cunt. The princess felt her husband spread through her and fill up every crevice of her pussy. Warm and thick, she felt his cum dance inside her for the next minutes as they both came down from their end, sweaty and panting.

Both were still moaning, the prince too out of his mind to keep himself from thrusting inside her some more. He didn’t want to pull out, not when she felt so good.

Instead, he chose to rut inside her tight pussy while kissing her jaw and throat. Her own hand caressed the back of his neck while she blinked away the sleep. His kisses were so soft and tender, she couldn’t help but to reciprocate, kissing his ear and into his hair.

« Have I satisfied you, my love ? » He muttered, falling on her. His body was covering the whole of hers as she laughed.

« More than that, my prince… » Her voice was small in that moment, just as sweet as her and filled with unspoken warmth.

He was still panting on top of her, holding her close and basking in the scent of her body enveloping him as she bathed him in tenderness. Both fell asleep slowly, his lips whispering sweet nothings into her ear and kissing her into a well deserved sleep. Through the night they remained connected, holding onto the other and keeping his cum and hers deep inside her.

The next morning, when the maids came up to the Prince’s chamber to notify him of the princess’s disappearance, they were quickly thrown out, all squealing in shame from witnessing her on top of him, bouncing and taking her early pleasure from him without a care in the world. Luckily she hadn’t seen them or even heard, too busy treating herself to a morning ride, but he had and he would not have anyone disturb his wife while she enjoyed herself on him.

As mentioned earlier, she would have him disregard his duties for the day so that she could have a taste of his cock herself and he would gladly oblige in exchange of a taste of her sweet cunt on his tongue.

It became tradition to find her in his chambers or the other way around. She enjoyed being chased by him at the hours of the night in her gown to be carried back to her rightful place in his bedsheets. The knights and the maids knew better than to look. The princess on the prince���s shoulder was for his eyes only. And when both found themselves in her chambers it was due to his need to smell her on him at every turn. More than once he’d sneak in her bath with her and before he could even speak, the maids would scurry out of the room.

When both became king and queen, nothing much changed except now, no room was left untouched, the throne room first to be christened.

Their future would be constructed on foundations of love and intimacy to catch up on the lost time at the beginning of their marriage and that same marriage would be one their descendants would remember as the best to ever be. All it would take was a princess who demanded and a prince who obeyed.

[hypnobrainwasher]

I want to make you worse

Come here, gather around, all you good sluts, you dripping whores, you virgins with filthy minds just waiting to be unleashed, you bouncing bimbos, all you girls who are barely of age and all you girls who have been of age for a long time, and let me share a secret with you:

I want to make you worse.

I want to amplify who you are and what you need. I want to turn you up to 10. I want the whisper of your desires to turn into a resounding, lustful moan.

I want to make you openly beg for things you used to secretly crave.

I want you to become the things you enjoy the most.

I want the things you used to occasionally wonder about to consume you.

You used to want to lose control of your mind every once in a while. Now you're messaging your hypnotist every night. "Please, just ten minutes. Please. I need this. Please. I'll do anything, say anything, send anything. Drop me again. Do whatever you want. I just need to be down with you again"

You used to rub a little bit, for fun. Now you rub for hours each day and your pussy is a constant waterfall of arousal and thoughts leaking out of your mind. Your friends call you to go out. You have an early lecture tomorrow. You need sleep for work. Fuck it all. You need to rub more. It feels so good and if it feels good, it can't be wrong.

You had that one outfit. You thought about wearing it out sometimes. You know the type of outfit: the kind the married men in the grocery store appreciate while their wives shoot them dirty looks. Now you have five of them. You wear one of them whenever you leave your place, without fail. If the married women don't like it, that's not your problem.

And all these things are part of who you are already. Whispers in the wind of your personality. I'm not doing anything new. I'm just helping you be more YOU. So yes, I'm making you worse. But I'm also making you better. And that is the best thing of all, being authentic to yourself and who you truly are, being unapologetically the best version of yourself.

Being the true you.

[luvmanifesting]

PURE CONSCIOUSNESS 101

what exactly IS pure consciousness? well its a state of consciousness where you’re detached from the 3D and mainly aware of the 4D. your 4D is anything that is within you. (imagination, inner conversations, playing a song in your head..etc etc) THAT is your 4D, you can induce pure consciousness at any time of the day and absolutely anywhere. most people prefer to induce pure consciousness at night because thats when the body becomes more relaxed in preparation for sleep. you can always set the intention to wake up in pure consciousness, fall asleep and then lucid dream and THEN induce pure consciousness or sleep paralysis (i don’t really recommend sleep paralysis) but hey, do what makes you comfortable. you may think that its too good to be true but its not, everyone has the ability to induce pure consciousness because its simply a meditative process. the traditional way people induce pure consciousness on TUMBLR is usually by closing your eyes and repeating the phrases “I AM” or “I am in the void state” or “i am pure consciousness” it doesn’t matter what affirmation you use just as long as its the intention of inducing it. you cannot fail this because it is impossible. news flash.. you induce pure consciousness as soon as you fall asleep every night.

you cannot force pure consciousness thats a thing most of you guys do, you wanna rush because you desperately wanna show your haters wrong. stop that, you don’t force yourself to sleep right? you don’t force yourself to breathe.. so stop trying to force pure consciousness. that will only keep you in the awake state. (awake state being you reading this right now and everything you see around you).

whats also common when people wanna induce pure consciousness is they wonder when they’ll start getting symptoms (floaty feeling, tingling, senses going out) etc, guys that’s simply just your brain checking to see if you’re awake, one of the reasons you “tap out” of pure consciousness was because you placed your awareness back on your body. as soon as your senses go out then you’re there. theres no “but i got floaty feelings and then i affirmed and i got nothing” well then you were not pure consciousness. and then theres your fear that comes into play whenever inducing pure consciousness.

you’re scared of failing, (you literally can’t fail a mediative state this isn’t rocket science) you’re panicking because you swore to yourself you would induce pure consciousness over the break and live your dream life and then you didn’t. *loud heavy sigh* you can’t fail this guys, its okay to be worried but this isn’t something that just can never not work for you.

now lets see pure consciousness from a law of an assumption pov, as we all know our best friend is law of assumption, works instantly and effectively. all you have to do is assume. “well ayami how do i assume?”. my response would be that the sky is glittery with magical rainbows. you would reply with “no its not” i would reply “yes it is” 1 second later the sky is glittery and has magical rainbows. why? because it was my assumption. i didn’t need any stupid proof, it was my assumption so it had no choice to happen. now if you told me “ugh im such a master at inducing pure consciousness” and i said “no you aren’t” you are NOT going to say “oh you’re right im not” YOU ARE GOING TO SAY “um what’re you talking about yes i am? you’re just jealous i can induce it instantly and effortlessly”. okay now bam you can instantly and effortlessly induce pure consciousness whenever you want because thats your assumption and you stood firm to it no matter what was said or shown to you. starting NOW you will assume that you’re a master at inducing pure consciousness and you will stand firm in that state no matter what the hell is shown.

now go induce pure consciousness.

[harmoonix]

🦢 нєανєη 🦢

Astrology Observations by harmoonix

🦢 - Mars in Leo/Cancer/Gemini/Virgo can easily feel under pressure when they're stressed, they can feel like the world is ending!!

🦢 - Mars in Libra/Mars in the 7H are so complicated. Finding the peace and the harmony within your romantic relationships can be stressful

🦢 - Gemini Saturn/Virgo Saturn/3H Saturn/6H Saturn are possible anxious places for Saturn! They're so heart-warming, though!! At some point every anxiety attack will end

🦢 - If you have malefics in your 11H like Saturn, Pluto, or Mars, if you have friends that talk bad/shit about their other friends, be sure they talk the same to them about you!! Is so predictable!

🦢 - Cher has a Gemini Venus that makes her look young even though she is 78. DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE ???

🦢 - Your 2H can talk about your metabolism!! Since it is heavily associated with food! For example, a fire sign in the 2H can talk about a fast metabolism

🦢 - Having Sagittarius in your 2H or 2H ruler in the 9H, it can make you proud of your traditional/cultural food!!

🦢 - Leo Placements have a dark side like all of the other zodiac signs, because they're always in the spotlight. It is quite hard to know how they feel or if they fake their feelings. Not everyone knows how they feel behind close doors

🦢 - Sagittarius/Scorpio and Aries Mars can have a bad temper at times, some even anger issues, and is because Mars gets crazy in those placements

🦢 - If you have your south node in the 9H/Sagittarius, the school or some educational institution can get stuck in your memories/past forerver

🦢 - Jupiter aspecting Moon makes someone to radiate kindness! That person you wanna protect from bad people

🦢 Pluto - Mercury aspects can make someone have a deep voice indeed, which is also that typo of person to their voice hoarse most times

🦢 - Venus in Cancer/4° 16° 28°/4H Venus will make someone love you so passionately! They will build a castle inside your heart

🦢 - I feel like Capricorn Placements are always the ones to stress/overthink about the future 🙁, there is always something 'What if that will happen'

🦢 - Venus/Moon in your 9H can make your relationships/marriages blessed! Is a very beneficial house for those planets

🦢 - Mercury in air signs have a specific way of communicating! It can be a fast reply to your messages, instant calling, using a lot of gestures while talking!

🦢 - If you have Sagittarius Mercury/Mercury in the 9H, you probably have a very good type of humor! Makes everyone to laugh

🦢 - Pisces Mercury and the 12H mercury are also people with good humor! I honestly appreciate their energy

🦢 - Can someone tell me why like Cancer and Capricorn Saturn BOTH give a very nurturing energy?? Is like I connect with mother nature

🦢 - Libra Placements are honestly precious! They appreciate the beauty of everything! They can find beauty even in bad things

🦢 - I have no major Saturn - Venus aspects, but I have quincunx instead, which can be manifested as such sad energy because you basically don't feel anything at times

🦢 - Lilith and Sun aspects are the symbol of a black diamond! Always shining after all they have been through

🦢 - If you have major 6H placements especially Pluto in the 6H, your health both mentally and physically is VITAL. Always prioritize that!!

Replying to your ex: No

Prioritizing your mental health: Yes

🦢 - If one of your parents have their sun in the same sign as your rising you can look a lot alike! Is honestly one one if the best combos to share with your parents

🦢 - Venus conjunct south node but also Libra south node gives me the vibe of a widow in a past life, someone who could've have suffered in love

🦢 - If your 3H is connected with the 11H you can be best friends with your siblings, if your 3H is connected with the 9H you tend to be best friends with your cousins

🦢 - Saturn/Neptune/Mars and Pluto in the 12H need proper sleeping if they're usually tired is a sign to just relax and take a nap

🦢 - Venus in the same house as your Mars can make you addicted to topics like art, music, sex, history, and even culture

🦢 - Mars in harsh aspects with Venus tend to flirt more than the good aspects, because Mars here is looking for competition

🦢 - Virgo Venus and Venus at 6° 18° can be picky with their partners, they can also have multiple types of people as their crush

🦢 - If you have got your 4H connected to the 7H your family can help you with getting into a relationship

🦢 - Jupiter in harsh aspects to Pluto tend to force their beliefs/religion/habits into others, something even without realizing

🦢 - Uranus in your 4H or Aquarius in the 4H can talk about your family can have quite unique habits, is like your family is different from the rest of the world because something makes them to just stand out

🦢 - People who have Sun in their 4H or IC at 5° 17° or 29° can really be known because of their family, is giving popular family

🦢 - Earth Signs over the 8H can be very private about their intimate lives and their sexual life

🦢 - Mercury aspecting Moon can make the native so empathic emotionally, you can understand everyone's feelings usually they're soft at heart

🦢 - Mercury in the 12H can be attracted into things that seem 'undiscovered, or unknown', they're always curious about things they dont have much info about

🤍🤍🤍🤍 harmoonix

[gollancz]

Guys. Christmas is coming. Consumerism is in the driver's seat and GAWD don't I know about the existential ennui of all these faceless corporations trying to schill you their wares. It's cold. Impersonal. Bleak.

So I, a fellow tumblr user, will instead try to schill you MY wares, so that when you purchase these items you can say "Hey, that person from tumblr worked on this", and feel the warmth of HUMAN CONNECTION in a way that is completely normal and not parasocial at all. We really are friends. I promise. Yes, you. Love you, bestie. Remember the boop war? Good times. Fond memories.

THIRTEEN STOREYS and FAMILY BUSINESS by Jonathan Sims

Tumblr's favourite Nightmare Factory @jonnywaistcoat has two novels out and they're phenomenal horror that also punch you in the throat with SOCIAL COMMENTARY and FEELINGS. He's so adept at tapping into the specific part of my brain that feels fear like a small child - not the adult creepy scared that I normally get around horror, but specifically the kind of fear that almost freezes your limbs and vocal chords with a terror you don't quite understand because there is so much in the world that you don't know, but you know that somehow this thing might be quick enough or smart enough or sneaky enough to get you before you can get to the safety of your parents sort of fear.

THIRTEEN STOREYS is a haunted house novel, but set in a refurbished block of flats. Each chapter follows a different resident being haunted in a different way, with a style to match the flavour of ghost. It's all tied together phenomenally and brutally.

FAMILY BUSINESS is a story about ghosts in a different way, following a woman who joins a post-mortem house cleaning service while grieving the death of her best friend. But as she removes the stains from the houses of the dead, she begins to suspect something else is removing even more.

Both of these titles are available from Gollancz worldwide!

THE LAST UNICORN, THE WAY HOME, THE INNKEEPER'S SONG and A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE by Peter S. Beagle

Obviously Peter's work needs no introduction, and our editions aren't available in the US and Canada, but I've had a wonderful time working with Peter and his team to bring these beautiful books back to the UK. Meeting him at Worldcon this year was such a magical moment, and he was jet-lagged and I had gone through sleep deprived into hyper and was bringing an Extremely Weird Energy to every interaction I had that day, resulting in this photo:

THE LAST UNICORN and THE WAY HOME are a matched pair of wonderful fairy stories. THE WAY HOME has two novellettes in it, and the first - 'Two Hearts' - won the Hugo award. It will also destroy you.

A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE was Peter's first ever novel, and it's wistful and romantic and so beautiful.

THE INNKEEPER'S SONG is his epic fantasy quest, it's an adventure story that reads almost lyrically. Also there's an orgy in the middle which caught me by surprise when I was reading it for the first time on the train into work.

HIGH VAULTAGE by Chris and Jen Sugden

It's possible that someone on this website doesn't know I was involved with this book but don't worry, I will HUNT THEM DOWN AND TELL THEM. This is the first book I took all the way through the editorial process from end to end and I am SO PROUD of it and Chris and Jen and their wonderful world of @victoriocity. Officially one of the seven funniest books published in the UK this year, shortlisted for the Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. It's a chaotic, bonkers murder mystery set in an alternate Victorian London which is the most gleeful dystopia I have ever encountered.

Featuring:

Grumpy Sunshine besties

The Victorian Equivalent of the Chuck Norris Meme

A robot who undertook a course in People Management

An indefatigable beagle

This is another book that you can get from Gollancz all over the world, and you SHOULD because it's amazing. Go into your local bookshop and ask them to order it into stock. It's a great Christmas present. It's my firstborn book baby (like that's a completely normal thing to say when I didn't even write it). Also if you're a fan of the podcast, why not tell the Guardian how great it is, and make a nuisance of yourself until they review. (I would, but the form asks for your name and then they'd know I didn't suddenly discover Victoriocity this year. Either that or think I was a very careless editor.) If you've not listened to the podcast yet, you absolutely should. It pings all my Douglas Adams receptors in the best way. If you like HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE, if you like CABIN PRESSURE, VICTORIOCITY is the perfect addition.

HAMMAJANG LUCK by Makana Yamamoto

SLIGHTLY cheating because HAMMAJANG LUCK isn't out in North America until January (pre-orders make great Christmas presents guys), but it IS out in the UK and the rest of the world next week! This is my second big editorial project and it's a Big Gay Space Heist ft. disaster lesbians, trans characters, and a tech billionaire getting put in his place. It's joyous and energetic and crammed full of Hawaiian pidgin as a love letter to the diaspora. @makana-yama is a phenomenal writer and this is their love letter to their communities, families both born and found, while also a statement on the victims of gentrification (and how those are disproportionally BIPOC communities). PLUS:

friends to enemies to cautious allies to lovers

trans cyborgs

Suck It Space Elon

You know that One Scene in Charlie's Angels where Cameron Diaz is in the white body suit and breaking into the safe and has to stretch out to hit two buttons at once? Yeah. That's the vibe.

Being able to work with Makana is a delight, and HAMMAJANG tapped into all the feelings I got watching LEVERAGE for the first time, so I went to watch it again while I was editing. Also OCEAN'S 8.

DEEP BLACK by Miles Cameron

So, barring Branderson, Miles Cameron may be one of our most prolific authors. He writes a minimum two books a year, one SFF and one historical fiction (as Christian Cameron) and he is... An absolute phenomenon. He IS the Chuck Norris meme. I'm obsessed with him. He's former US military intelligence turned naturalised Canadian Hippy, has written over fifty novels, can turn his hand to any genre and write it fantastically, is a practical archaeologist - running large scale re-enactments from a variety of periods ranging from Bronze Age right the way up to the Victorian era, using traditional techniques to allow academics to study how the practicalities of weapons, clothes, food etc. would have worked in practice. Two years ago he won a medieval combat tournament in Verona, a clear ten years older at least than the next oldest competitor, he teaches Historical European Martial Arts, but ties it into the history of martial arts globally. He can make his own clothes, ink, leatherwork. He's a ballet dancer. I once took him for a day out and he ended it in a different shirt and shoes from the ones he'd started in. I asked him for an author photo and he sent me this:

DEEP BLACK is the sequel to his critically acclaimed SF debut ARTIFACT SPACE, where he has taken his research and experience of global historical cultures and extrapolated to create an interplanetary future where the best of all are celebrated. And then Aliens Happen. And then, in reaction, Capitalism Happens (which is covered in the short story collection BEYOND THE FRINGE).

He's such a thoughtful and erudite speaker, if you're curious about his work, I'd recommend listening to his episodes on the Friends Talking Fantasy podcast, and also his appearance on The Publishing Rodeo.

If SF isn't your bag, he's also got:

Arthurian fantasy

Bronze Age fantasy

Medieval Mages fantasy

A CURSE OF CROWS - Lauren Dedroog

I actually inherited Lauren when a colleague of mine departed for fresh pastures, which gave me the great opportunity to work on this series which is so vastly different from my usual fare. It's epic, sweeping, romantic and lush, with such detailed description and complex political machinations, while also being brutal, dark and heavy (tw: for sexual assault, torture etc, etc.). If you like Sarah J Maas and Cassandra Clare, this should hit the sweet spot. Lauren is an ICU nurse when not writing, and this was somehow created when she was putting in a million hours in hospitals during COVID. The feat boggles my mind.

A CURSE OF CROWS is out now in the UK, Australia and Europe, and it won the People's Choice for Standaard Boek's Book of the Year award in 2023, in her home country of Belgium. It will be hitting shelves in North America next September! A DANCE OF SERPENTS is where I get to pick up the editorial mantle, and that has just landed in my inbox this week so I am excited to dig in.

Featuring:

Harold, they're lesbians

Murder baby is actually a cinnamon roll

Sensitive wings are sexy

For serious, though, I'm lucky enough to work with a lot of authors I'm genuinely obsessed and astounded by. And yes, I do get to work on Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson and Andrzej Sapkowski, but they're not MY authors - they're led by the incredible Gillian and Marcus who I'm not 100% certain sleep. There are so many people on the Gollancz list who I could recommend for DAYS (and will, if you so request), but this is my stable of superstars.

[enhard]

sim jaeyun — “you’re in safe hands”

pairing: s.jy x fem!reader

not proofread, enjoy! (MINORS DNI)

: you can’t handle looking at your boyfriend’s nice and veiny hands without doing anything about it.

cw: SMUT SMUT ALLLL SMUT, everything is consensual, hand kink (obviously), a bit of size kink, unprotected sex, creampie, fingering, riding, jake calls you princess most of the time, playing with your tits, slight choking, mentions of sending nudes??, lots of whimpers from him, jake slaps your mouth, established relationship, jake has a drivers license woahwoahwoah

—————————-⋆｡°✩ ✮⋆˙—————————

you faintly hear the ringtone of your phone through the buzzing in your ear. you slowly open your eyes, let out a sigh and immediately grab your phone to stop that annoying sound.. until you look at the now lit up screen of your phone, that your boyfriend jake is calling you.

you quickly sit up in shock, trying to clear your throat and answering the call, remembering that you were supposed to go on a date today.

“mm..yes my love? how are.. you?” you say, trying your best not to yawn in the middle of your sentence.

you can hear jake laughing at you through the other line. “princess, you’re still sleeping at this hour? i’m sorry for waking you up but.. it’s 4 pm already.” wait.. what?? 4 pm?? you were supposed to meet up 3 hours ago. how is it possible that you slept this long?

“don’t worry.. sunoo told me that he tried calling you since morning and you never answered, so i just let you sleep. instead of lunch.. could we go out to dinner now..?”

“ugh..fuck.. i’m sorry. i didn’t realise i slept that long.. is it okay in 3 hours..? i need to shower..” you reply as you’re massaging your head from the massive headache you got.

“of course love. i’ll come pick you up.. although.. does this mean i get no shower sneak peek??” he chuckles, and you just roll your eyes at his words.

“hold your horses now.. you might get to see me another time.” you smile.

there’s a few awkward seconds of silence, then he decides to hang up so you can get ready.

truth is.. you slept this long because of the hangover you’re having after a longgg night partying with your best friend sunoo. main reason why your headache is also present. —

you hop in the shower, actually debating to send jake a little picture or a video but.. you decide to be a bit of a tease. you just finish your shower and start getting ready.

you get dolled up all for him, putting on a nice laced dress and your favourite ysl lipgloss, that jake bought for you as a present not long ago. you get your phone and keys, locking your huge metal gate. your phone makes a few clicking sounds while you search for jake’s number to call him.

“baby, i’m right in front of my house. i’ll be waiting for you.”

“okay princess, i’m almost there. i can’t wait to see you”

you smile at your phone as you hang up, already seeing the blinding lights of his black suv, stopping right next to you. he gets out the car to check you out for atleast 5 minutes, offering you a kiss and then opening the car door like a true gentleman. you get in the car, the seats all warmed up. “good.” you say in your mind. it’s mildly snowing out, you needed this.

jake sits back in the driver’s seat, getting ready to leave. you turn to look at him while he’s focused on the road and you can’t help but admire him. you would lie if you said that he’s not the hottest man you’ve ever laid your eyes upon. with his slick back black hair, a nice black suit hugging his waist while also complementing his eyes.

your eyes suddenly slip to his arms, more specifically his hands. they’re resting on the top of the steering wheel, his fingers so long and pretty, multiple veins following from his forearm up to the back of his hand. that scenery alone made you squeeze your thighs together, knowing you couldn’t act on it here..

there is only one thing you thought about on that silent car ride, his long fingers inside you. you needed that more than anything. right now. instead, you try to look the other way, your body as stiff as a rock.

jake looks at you for a split second wondering why you’re moving around in your seat so much. he smiles, reaching out one hand to place on your inner left thigh. “what’s wrong love? are you uncomfortable?”

you thought you would let out a moan right there, right as he placed his hand on your inner thigh. you quickly shake your head left and right trying to diffuse the situation. you accidentally look downwards at your lap, and see that same hand, now grasping the soft skin of your thigh, one vein getting more prominent with each squeeze.

you continue through this hell for a few more minutes until you arrive, exhaling when he gets his hand off you.

. . . you get to your table, through the reservation that jake made previously. the place is pretty packed for a high end restaurant like this one. you’re both making small talk, asking how your day was and.. what plans you have for tonight.. he’s flipping through the menu and all you can stare at are those hands. you begin to breathe more rapidly, getting impatient.

“who cares about food right now? all i want are those fingers in my mouth” you think, trying not to slap yourself from the realisation of what you just almost said out loud.

still, you finish eating, he pays with his black card of course. even though you keep insisting that you want to pitch in. he loves spoiling you every time and all you can give him in return are kisses or.. something more.

after another few excruciating minutes in that car, you arrive back at your home. jake sits down on the couch, manspreading while you take your shoes off.

“thank you my love.. the dinner was amazing. what can i do to repay you?” he plasters on a confused look on his face, almost replying with “you don’t have to repay me” but.. seeing how beautiful you were for him.. how you looked and how you got ready all for him.. made him needy. in a blink of an eye. he knew he was lucky dating you, and the thought that you were all his made him so excited.

“hmm.. there might be something you can do for me princess. you think i’m stupid? i saw how you were drooling over my hands. you really love them huh?”

you get a bit embarrassed, but you’re way too horny to deny anything right now. “yeah.. i really do… i need them. please.” you say already biting your bottom lip.

you can see him slowly form a grin on his face, not saying a word. he pats his thigh two times, to show you the seat you’ll have for the rest of the night.

you eagerly walk up to him and take off your coat to take your seat on his lap. he pulls you into a kiss that turns into a make out session. he travels his hands down to your waist, and you move yours to hold onto his shoulders. you don’t pull away from his lips for a long time, the taste keeping you addicted.

he makes you pull away at one point, smiling at you. he takes his own coat off, having only a white satin shirt underneath. two buttons of the shirt are already undone, showing his chest real well.. with a nod from him as agreement, you begin unbuttoning his shirt, in a few seconds leaving him shirtless. you saw those abs and muscles countless times yet.. it still makes your body have a reaction you can’t explain.

he softly tugs on your dress while whining and pouting. you laugh at his pouty face, finding him so adorable yet so demanding. “go ahead”, quiet words leave your mouth while looking into his eyes.

he does not hesitate. he takes off that dress almost ripping it off out of excitement, leaving you in your underwear. he uses his middle and ring finger to open your mouth, shoving them in and wetting them with your saliva. you suck on his fingers a bit, getting to be a bit of a show-off.

he pulls his fingers out of your mouth, taking off your panties now. he immediately starts rubbing your clit first, flicking it a bit and getting it all wet.. then he moves down to your folds, moving his fingers back and forth. you grab onto one of his shoulders for support, digging your nails in it.

“l..love please.. put them in..”

he does exactly as he’s told. he shoves both fingers inside you, slowly pumping them in and out.. you’re rapidly losing your mind, this is everything you wished for. you grab onto his wrist with your other hand, trying to make him keep going but.. to no avail.

he stops, giving you a signal to ride his fingers instead. you get into position, trying your best to move your hips back and forth. you moaned feeling his fingers in you, not being able to resist anymore already. when he curls his fingers up inside you, he was almost convinced you were about to cum.

you ride his fingers as well as you can, trying to get on his good side. he’s not quite satisfied with your pace, so he gives you a slap over the mouth. “ride them faster princess, what’s up? tired already?” you’re fucked up as is, his words are making this WAY harder for you. the moans are getting more and more consistent, figuring that you’re going to cum soon.

“okay slut, slow down now. i don’t want you to get too tired. i’ll make you bounce on my cock just like this if you’re a good girl for me.” but… you don’t slow down. with how much energy you have left, you keep going. “ahh..i need to cum..first..plea..” he cuts you off, his tone getting more irritated.

“oh? you wanna cum? let me help you cum then whore.” he grabs onto your neck, choking you ever so slightly while fucking you with his fingers. he’s moving his hand as fast as he can trying to make you cum. you moan uncontrollably at this point, getting so close to your release and not being able to talk properly from the choking.

you do end up cumming all over his veiny fingers and pants. the grasp on your neck loosens, leaving a red mark around it.

“mmm.. since i stretched you out so well with my fingers.. how about we put that to good use?” he smiles, that smile being far away from innocent. you know exactly what he wants and you’re willing to give him that.

you catch up your breath, grabbing onto his shoulders again. “let me ride you then.” you reply, trying to be as nonchalant as you can.

you move your hands down to his pants, slowly slipping them off him. the bulge in his boxers is huge, obviously you already knew that but the thought didn’t comfort you. he’s usually hard to take in, now imagine being all fucked up and having to ride him. you let out a small scared sigh, while taking his boxers off too.

his cock springs up immediately and you lick your lips looking at it. you grab the base to stroke it a few times, before getting into position to ride him. you intertwine your fingers with his as you slowly go down on him. you almost feel like giving out when you take him all in but you need to make him feel good.

you slowly start riding him, his size almost being unbearable to take. he loves it though, he loves how you struggle to take him and how that small bulge appears in your stomach everytime you bounce up and down. he grabs and pulls on your hair just to make you speed up, teasing you with that hair pull each time he feels you slowed down.

you pick up your pace significantly, moving up and down, back and forth on him. your eyes roll back from the pleasure and it really feels like he’s splitting you into two. he stops holding hands to take your tits out of your bra just to fondle them a bit. he’s running his thumb all over your nipples, sending you shivers down your spine.

“such a good girl.” he remarks, coming from him this is a compliment. you smile at his words, motivating you to keep going. he’s very deep inside you right now, any sudden movement almost making you cum a second time..

you can hear him getting more vocal over time, he’s whimpering and cooing.. the usual tough guy that would control every movement of yours, is now getting so vocal.. you love it though, your favourite part of it might just be his moans.

you clench your teeth and force yourself to go as fast as you can, just to make him cum.

“fffuck…. princess hold.. on.. i’m close..” just music to your ears. you want to let this man fill you up right now. you push yourself even more to overstimulation just to make him cum.

he lets out a whimpery moan getting so close already.

“cum.. inside me.. please my love..”

those are the last words you can say before he cums all in you. he’s filling you up to the brim and you can do is smile, feeling his cum leaking out of you. you give him a sweet kiss on the lips then on the nose.

“fucking hell… maybe we should go out to dinner more often hm?”

you laugh, running your fingers through his hair. “you’re so cute.. now, wanna join me in the shower? no games this time.”

“waittt.. so this is why you didn’t send anything from your shower today.. let’s go for another round baby. what do you think?” he says, hugging your waist.

“hmmm.. maybeee. if you use those hands of yours again.”

“well, you know you’re in safe hands with me.”

[helpimstuckposting]

From Santa

Prompt: Magic | Rating: G | Wordcount: 2,957 | AO3 | @steddiebingo

Steve was seven when he found out that Santa did not exist. He tried, once, the whole ‘Santa’ thing. After hearing the stories from kids at school, he ran over to Melvald’s and bought a tin of cookies with his allowance before skipping excitedly home. Some of the kids mentioned feeding the magic deer, because flying took a lot out of them obviously, and Steve wasn’t quite sure what magic deer ate, but he left out a few carrots in the yard just in case.

He was so excited, setting out the cookies in front of the big tree in the living room and hoping he’d wake up to find a present underneath, just for him. Maybe it would be a cool Hess Truck like Tommy wanted, or maybe it would be an action figure, or comic books, or maybe his parents would come home. The other kids said Santa was magic, that he could do anything, so Steve wasn’t picky.

He went to bed excited and could barely close his eyes to sleep, but the other kids said Santa didn’t come if you were awake so Steve tried his very best. He finally fell asleep with the taste of ginger snaps on his tongue (there was a whole tin, and Santa had hundreds, maybe thousands of cookies every night, so he didn’t think Santa would mind one less).

He woke up to a spotless and quiet house, no puddles from snow on Santa’s boots, no bites out of the cookies, and no present under the tree. No parents either. Steve didn’t have any more cookies that day. He couldn’t bear it.

When his parents arrived a week later, Steve was greeted not by hugs and exclamations of how much his parents missed him, but by his mother loudly and forcefully demanding answers to why her yard was scattered with gross old carrots, drying and cracking and covered in mud from the melted snow. So he told her. He told her about Santa and how he wanted him to come, how he went to bed early like a good boy, and waited all night. How he didn’t show up.

She laughed.

It was cold and icy, like the shards still hanging from the gutters on their roof. She told him he shouldn’t be impatient for his presents — they were in the car like always — and really, Steven, it doesn’t look good for a boy to be so demanding, and the presents certainly weren’t from Santa because the man did not exist.

Santa didn’t exist.

So yes, Steve knew from a young age that the jolly man in the coat and hat was simply a lie — told to children to excite them and give them something to look forward to. He didn’t really get it at first; were the presents not enough? Was the week off from school not exciting? Did they not look forward to Christmas morning without the story of a man sneaking down the chimney? But he’d also fallen for it. He was so excited, he liked the idea of feeding the magic deer, and leaving a treat out for someone delivering gifts out of kindness. He liked the story, that a man with so much power wanted to use it to make children happy. He liked being thought of, liked being remembered by someone he didn’t even know, liked that it was a reward for being nice throughout the year.

But it wasn’t true. And that was fine, Steve tried to convince himself. He still got the presents, and he still got his parents, even if they were a week late. He still got a hug from his nanny, and his mom let him have the rest of the ginger snaps, and he didn’t even have to clean up the carrots from the yard.

His parents left again, and school started again, and it was fine.

It was fine, until Tommy came barreling through the door with his Hess Truck held high and the praise of Santa spewing from his lips, and Steve noticed that not everyone shared in Tommy’s delight. Most of them did, and a lot of them brought their favorite toy to school just like Tommy, but a few kids (maybe three) sat still in their chairs — like they could avoid any questions if they blended into the background. They ducked their heads and they sank in their seats, and Steve wondered if they also found out Santa wasn’t real.

But Tommy singled one kid out at recess. He dragged him out, to the center of the playground, and told everyone that Santa didn’t go to trailer parks, that the kids in Forest Hills didn’t get presents from Santa, because only good kids got presents, and how could they be good if they lived in a junk yard. Those words didn’t sound like Tommy, but he was always repeating things his dad said, copying him and taking his word as gospel.

The kid, scrawny with a shaved head and angry brown eyes, sank into his shoes. Not in retreat, not in a cowering way. He sank into his shoes like he was grounding himself, like he was making sure his footing was firm and steady, and he shoved Tommy right into the ground.

Of course, only then did a teacher interject, and only the boy Steve didn’t know the name of was dragged away to the office. Tommy angrily scrambled to his feet and spat at the ground where the kid had stood, remarking that he was right and the Forrest Hills kids were definitely on the naughty list, Steve, wasn’t he right? Did he see that? What a freak that kids was.

Steve rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything. He knew interrupting Tommy was just more hassle than it was worth, and Tommy was wrong anyway because Santa wasn’t real. He’d figure it out eventually, Steve supposed, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

It was his walk home that gave him an idea. He saw the bus pass by as he trudged along, down the road and off in the direction of Forrest Hills trailer park. He wondered if that kid from recess was there, if he saw Steve out the window as he passed, if he really didn’t get any presents. He thought about all the gifts his parents gave him that were still packaged up in his closet because he had too many and he didn’t really like them all. And he thought about how much he wanted someone to think about him on Christmas, with no other purpose or desire but to make him happy.

So, with an inkling of an idea creeping its way through his head, he ran the rest of the way home and pulled out the phone book from the hallway table, as well as his yearbook from the previous year. There weren’t many numbers from Forrest Hills, but he did find the three kids from his class and a couple from the year above. He picked out which of his unopened presents he thought they’d like the most, and he wrapped them crudely in leftover paper he found in the study. He ripped off a few pages from the note pad by the phone, and wrote out in his best writing:

From Santa, sorry I was late

And then:

P.S. my elf wrote this

Because his best writing was still pretty bad.

It took him a couple days to plan and gather things, but in the dead of night — after his neighbors clicked off their porch lights — he piled all five presents into a little red wagon and tied the wagon to the end of his bike. He took off toward Forrest Hills, a little list of names and addresses crinkled in his pocket. He tip-toed around the dirt paths, freezing in fear every time his little wagon’s wheels squeaked, and placed the presents and the notes from ‘Santa’ on the doorsteps that matched his little list. He checked it twice, just for fun.

He felt lighter on the ride back home, and not just because his wagon was empty.

Steve was seven when he decided to become Santa himself.

It wasn’t obvious, the next day at school, and Steve didn’t do it just to listen to kids whisper about Santa visiting Forrest Hills a week late, but he did notice something. The three kids who had sunk low in their seats the first day back, who avoided talking to the others to brag about their presents, were no longer trying to blend into the background. They sat comfortably in their seats, and whispered among themselves, eyes twinkling a little more than they had a few days ago. Steve was ecstatic. He sat, buzzing silently with excitement as he tried to keep his face blank and neutral. Santa had to be kept secret, after all.

He did it again the next year, adding the newest kids to his list from the years below him, and saved up his allowance to get some cuter presents for the girls; some nail polish and art supplies, some coloring books and beads. This time he wasn’t late, and his handwriting had improved a lot from the year before (though he still blamed the elves for his wonky letters).

He had fun, learning how to wrap the paper around each gift, saving up his money to pick out presents he hoped the other kids would like, wondering what their faces looked like when they opened the door to find a present on their front step.

He was a little worried that the kids would be concerned Santa hadn’t made it inside, being magic and all, but he also noticed that none of the trailers had chimneys so maybe that was okay. He also learned that most of the kids in Forrest Hills did get presents, and he felt a little stupid for assuming they didn’t just from Tommy’s dumb comments, but he also knew they weren’t the fancy presents other kids got like bikes and new games.

He tried making his Santa presents a little more extravagant. After all, why would Santa give Tommy a brand new Lego set, but give Willie across town a pack of baseball cards? Steve just wanted to even the playing field a bit, knock Tommy down a peg or two when he tried humiliating another kid on the playground and that kid said Actually Tommy, I got the new Hess Truck from Santa, too! And Steve remembered wrapping it up, much neater this time, and almost getting caught on the stoop when a dog started barking at him. He muffled a giggle into his hand when Tommy floundered for something to say, coming up empty handed.

As the years passed and the kids in his grade stopped believing in Santa, he scratched their names off his list. He kept adding to it as well, though. He paid attention to the new kids in each grade, noticed if they had a little less than those around them, noticed if they were on the outskirts or if they looked a little nervous as the holidays drew nearer and nearer. He left presents for the Byers one year when he heard that Jon’s mom lost her job after his dad left. He left presents almost all over town, had the phone book highlighted with every address he wrote down in his notebook — a much needed upgrade from the crumpled piece of paper in his pocket. He wrote a list, he checked it twice, and he made sure to slip through the dark like a shadow, avoiding anything that might give him away.

He was always surprised when no adults tried to stop him. Surely, the stoop presents were well known throughout town by the time Steve reached high school, but maybe they didn’t want to know who was behind it. Maybe they wanted to keep the magic alive, too. Either way, Steve played a successful Santa for nearly two decades before anyone found out.

It was Eddie.

It was always Eddie.

Eddie, the boy who knocked Tommy clear to the ground that first winter. Eddie, the boy who made Steve want to help. Eddie, the boy who received the first ever gift from Hawkin’s own Santa, though Steve kind of hoped that was a secret he could keep.

They were putting up the tree in their apartment, the first Christmas they were spending together. Eddie had brought several old ornaments from the trailer, ones that he stole from right under Wayne’s nose because lord knows the man wouldn’t want to part with them if he didn’t have to — a collector, that man was. Steve picked up one that, at first, had been unassuming, a clear bauble filled with glitter. Hanging it on the sad twiggy branch of their Charlie Brown tree, however, he noticed a little piece of paper inside. It was aged and a bit crumpled, but not too shabby for how old it was.

From Santa, sorry I was late, it read in squiggled, messy handwriting, the wonky letters leaning to one side more than the other.

P.S. my elf wrote this

Steve stared at it for entirely too long, catching Eddie’s attention as he hung the last ornament.

“Wayne made that one, if you can believe it,” Eddie said, tapping the plastic bauble with the nail of his pointer finger. “I mean, not the note,” he clarified, “that was Santa.” He whispered the last part conspiratorially, as if letting Steve in on a huge secret. Steve felt like he was going to cry, suddenly, the tears pricking behind his eyes. With a start he realized, selfishly, that he didn’t want Eddie to know. He wanted to keep this mystery alive for just a little longer, like a parent too sad to let their child grow out of the world of magic and wonder, like it was too soon though the secret had been brewing for nearly twenty years.

Eddie wrapped a cautious arm around Steve’s shoulders, unsure of where his sudden teary-eyed expression came from. Instead of facing his questioning look, Steve tucked his head into the crook of Eddie’s neck and listened as the man regaled him with the story of his first ever gift from the Santa Claus.

That year, Wayne had lost his job as a trucker because Eddie had fallen into his lap. He couldn’t leave the kid all alone, had to stay and take care of him, and he was between jobs until the holiday snuck right up on them both. They had a tree, just as shabby and sparse as the one they currently stood in front of, but there was no money to spare for gifts. Wayne had apologized, and Eddie had been very understanding for an eight year old — after all, he had been learning not to rely on adults, anyway.

He’d gotten in trouble when the school year resumed, however, for shoving an insufferable Tommy Hagan to the ground during recess. Of course Tommy hadn’t gotten in trouble, since vigilantism was an under appreciated form of justice, Eddie declared. Steve snorted into Eddie’s neck, just imagining the ranting tirade the skinny boy with a shaved head must have gone on, trying to defend himself to the principal.

Eddie was furious as he got back home, pissed off at Hagan, pissed off at his parents, pissed off at the world. And then — what to his wondering eyes did appear — two days later, Wayne had opened the door to the shittiest wrapped present he’d ever seen. Steve bit his tongue. It was for Eddie, according to the name scribbled onto the wrapping paper, and the little note declared it was a lost gift from Santa.

“Like magic,” Eddie smiled.

Steve had no idea that was his first Christmas at Wayne’s, and he had no clue what that first shove on the playground could lead to. He could still picture Eddie’s scrunched brow as he glared daggers at Tommy, could still remember the way he sank into his shoes and grounded himself for a fight, like he was used to it, like he knew what was coming. He wished he could picture Eddie’s face as he realized Santa hadn’t forgotten about him.

“Anyway,” he said, startling Steve from his thoughts, still tucked away in Eddie’s neck, “Wayne kept that note, and I think he’s got the one from the next year, too. He’d saved enough money for a couple presents that year, but I think he was grateful for a little extra help.”

Steve pictured himself, a tiny little thing, curled up in the living room, all alone on Christmas Eve as he wrapped up presents and wrote out his Santa letters. He remembered feeling less alone for the first Christmas in forever, because he was too busy sticking too much tape onto glittery wrapping paper and worrying about not getting caught to care that his parents weren’t home again.

He thought about the bag full of presents, tucked away in the back of the closet so Eddie wouldn’t find them, and his list of kids he collected from the library’s giving tree. He had planned on sneaking out, planned to slip away from Eddie’s prone form and deliver the gifts alone, like always, but Eddie squeezed his shoulder and kissed the top of his head and he realized that he didn’t have to be alone anymore. Maybe this year there could be two Santas, delivering gifts to the children of Hawkins in the dead of night. Maybe this year he could have some help. Maybe this year, there could be twice as much magic as the year before.

—

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