#your pokémon love you and understand you

[minnlahzz]

amethio, silver x hex maniac reader.

requested

amethio and silver! oreo and jalapeño duo (this is separated.) sorry for the big wait, school is biting my toes. uhh silvers is very short, because I feel like ive mentioned most of the things silver would do in other fics. I don't wanna seem repetitive or uncreative!

— AMETHIO

amethio would initially be unsure what to make of you. your eerie aura and cryptic way of speaking would intrigue him, but he’d be cautious. he’s logical, so he’d view what you do as something he needs to understand rather than dismiss, because every person is different why judge them. he’d probably think, "are they like this all the time?" when you casually mention something spooky like the “ghosts watching over” him.

amethio’s edgy demeanor and your crazy words would balance each other out. he’d act as the grounded counterpart to your whimsical nature, often giving you a deadpan look when you go off on a supernatural tangent.

“amethio, the spirit (random gengar) says this battle will be tough.”

“the spirit is stating the obvious.”

your comments often catch him off guard, not because he gets scared of it. it's just becuse you just say it so randomly it's kind of concerning, leading to some amusing exchanges.

“The ghosts approve of you, amethio.”

“good to know. now, tell them to get out out of my way.”

your unpredictability often throws him off balance. whether it’s your cryptic compliments (“the spirits find you quite handsome today”) or your sudden affection, he finds himself flustered more often than he’d like to admit.

your spooky vibe complements his calm and calculated style perfectly. he’d use your unnerving presence to throw off opponents while he plans a precise attack. he might even ask you for “spiritual advice” during critical missions, though you’re never quite sure if he’s joking or went insane.

he isn't really phased from ghosts, neither is his pokemon. ceruledge is one of the few pokémon that isn’t fazed by your team. it often stands protectively between amethio and your more mischievous Pokémon like (for example) misdreavus, who enjoys pranking people by floating off with their belongings. ceruledge gets really paranoid and assumes all your ghosts are evil at first.

amethio never disregards your interests, and tries his best help you enjoy them, even if he's not a fan of it himself.

— SILVER

silver is honestly pretty game with whatever crazy stuff you do, he didn't stop loving you after you did questionable things in order to see ghosts (he'd be apart of it anyway.)

first time meeting you silver already felt discomfort/concern. (not negative) he’d wonder if you had some hidden agenda, but over time, he’d notice how kind and sincere you are, even with your random outbursts, which would ease his initial distrust.

silver reluctantly tags along when you explore spooky ruins or abandoned buildings to “connect with spirits.” he’d grumble about how impractical it is, but goes anyway. (his honchkrow becomes your flashlight during these adventures.)

your spooky jokes and ghostly references catch him off guard, but he grows to enjoy your sense of humor. he won’t laugh out loud, but the corner of his mouth quirks up when you say something particularly clever. silver might even use them too, but to an extent. gold never understand the jokes...

when travelling on a mission sent by professor oak by the dex holders (gold, and crys mostly) he makes sure to find and pick up eerie trinkets and paranormal items to give to you on his return. he'd just silently sneak them in his pocket without the other two knowing, sometimes what he does though leads to a bigger problem.

"hey silver what are you doing! this place is completely abandoned don't touch that!" crys silently yelled (if you get it) in the corner.

silver unresponsive, shrugs and picks it up... suddenly a locked door opens "WHAT DID YOU DO?" gold yelled from the other room, echoing through the entire building.

"silver you pay for my life insurance."

"it's just another room, there might be something important we could give to professor oak there. you guys are just overreacting."

"GHOST!"

silver knows alot of paranormal information because of you, and it definitely saved the 3 idiots lifes maybe twice. lesson learned: don't go to abandoned haunted building, (unless you're a hex maniac the ghosts are pretty cool with you.)

it's not just him that gives the other trinkets, it's also vice-versa! you gift silver supposedly "haunted" charms, he's skeptical but carries it around anyway. when he wins a tough match, you proudly point at the many trinkets you gave him.

"the spirits were with you, horray!" you say celebrating.

"or maybe it was my training, but you know that works too."

silver has a beef with your pokemon, doesn't matter which he hates them and they hate him. (don't worry though) your pokemon like taunting him and whenever he complains, you brush it off as them bonding together.

“tell your pokémon to stop stealing my items,” he says, holding up a poké ball with a stone faced expression.

“it’s just trying to bond with you!” you reply.

“...bond less.”

[goldensunset]

i love a lot of games but pokémon legends arceus really feels like it loves me

[melonthesprigatito]

Holy trinity of Mascot Legendaries whose designs are not really my taste but the game did such a damn good job at endearing them to me by giving them adorable/ goofy and charming personalities that I would die for them.

[brutal-aku]

I have a few scars from the times I had to restrain Goji. Note that these are scars instead of lost limbs or parts of a corpse. This is because I did it right and Goji never attacked me for real.

why does getting caught in the gear of any of theklink line always give the hottest scars .like up until recently I've always been ashamed of them because they're from when I almost got my arm ripped off by my partner klinklang while I was trying to calm them down but as of recently everyone has been like "ooh humina humina awooga" and confidence has skyrocketed tbh. And I gotta agree they're the hottest pokemon induced scars

They can't beat top surgery scars tho they are ALWAYS badass

sadly no one ever sees my cool awesome majestic klingklang battle scars (zig zagged notches on my back (and top surgery)) because i am a normal guy who wears shirts. sad

[deadghosy]

I love your work so much imagine ben Drowned in hasbin hotel.

Them crawling out of the TV and alistor is like I don't like tv but can you mess with vox😭.

SURE!! LOL! 🦆💗If anyone wants to do a creepypasta! Reader, I will make it a fanon version cause that’s most easier since I’ve always seen the fanon side of creepypasta when I was into the fandom💗

HAZBIN HOTEL X BEN DROWNED! READER

prompt: after jumping into a tv to hide from being stabbed by Jeff…you accidentally went into a show called HAZBIN HOTEL……

Your dumbass didn’t even check what was on tv…it was just left on as you are now falling to a city in a shape of a…..pentagram?

Welll shit…you are in a hell cartoon…

Meanwhile with Jeff: “where the fuck is that short tacked bitch…” he said holding his knife tightly as his eyes glanced at the tv. “That bastard!”

MEANWHILE WITH YOU: You pointed to a service pole and started to surge through the electrical wire into some random old tv box. You pressed your hand through the tv screen and came out of it. As you came out of it a gasp was heard to see a bunch of characters…..oh boy…

After basically getting chased around the hotel and interrogated…they let you stay by Charlie’s words as she was excited to have another member to her crew at last. 

Few weeks later, they have gotten use to you. I mean Alastor still keeps an eye on you as you play games and go through electronics around the place.

Angel thinks it’s funny for you to hack Valentino’s page to make his bio say “I have a small dick.”

Vaggie makes you go out on errands until she can find you a decent duty at least. But she appreciates how you help around a lot.

Husk thinks your pretty annoying because of your gen z & gen alpha humor. I headcannon ben and you to basically be a media specialist to learn the lingo around and to understand the generation.

“Hey husk…” “hey kid…” “you’re so not alpha male…” “…the fuck?” “Sooo not slay.” “Get the fuck out my face.” *cue you doing a gremlin ass laugh*

I can see Velvette making fun of you for wearing the link fit😭 she would be confused as if you were a stinky cosplayer kid-

“GOOD HELL?! What are you wearing dear..” the female vee says as you look down to your link outfit. “What’s wrong with it? I think I look ✨f a b u l o u s✨” you said with sass

“You look horrendous. THAT’S what you look like.” Velvette says. You rolled your eyes as she snapped her fingers giving you black converses, tan brown pants, and a green hoodie. She had let you keep your link hat as you actually liked how you looked.

Maybe when you get back to slender’s mansion you can spend his card to buy an outfit like this.

I imagine Charlie or niffty trying to wipe off the blood tears of your eyes thinking you were crying as you stand there like “what is going on-🤨” most definitely the face look like this “:T”

Angel dust brought you a gaming set from a thrift shop as you smiled happily at this and started to play….only to find out it had knock off versions of the games in the human world….impta?! (GTA) PENTACRAFT?! (Minecraft) hellmon?? (Pokémon)

You immediately thrown the gaming set outside and decided to go hack Vox’s system for fun again.

I can imagine reader sending random “if you don’t like this, Lucifer is coming for you.” posts to random sinner to fuck with them.

I can DEFINITELY see Alastor asking you to go mess with Vox’s tech even if he doesn’t like those picture boxes. “Ben/Reader, my fine fellow..I got a favor to ask of you.” After he asked you to go mess with this dude named Vox. You smiled as you transported into your own tv and go to the vee tower.

You hacked into Vox’s system as he spit his coffee out to see “nya cat” on all his computers and devices as you snicker seeing Vox’s face trying to fix it. You laughed showing yourself as your bloody tears roll down your face because of laughing. “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” Vox asked angrily

“IM YOU! BUT BETTER! GET HACKED LOSER!” You said before disappearing from his system as Vox claws his desk in anger.

Alastor had a good chuckle when you told him what you did. “I never liked this picture boxes…but you my friend, are true entertainment.” After this your relationship with Alastor grew as he would pay you handsomely with snacks as you go and piss Vox off on any other day.

Valentino and Vox hate your guys to the point they want to kill you while Velvette is just chill with you as she helps you with your outfits and aesthetics.

I imagine since Ben drowned also looks like link, you have long hair like link but sometimes cut it down to bit length to not trip on it.

You give off that “new worker at McDonald’s” vibes as you would just play around instead of helping the residents😭

“Can I have keycard?” “….how about no?”

I imagine you just tapping on and off a lamp post boredly as Valentino keeps going towards it and away from. “On….off…on…off…” you liked to mess with people

You had tapped on sir Pentious’s device once and it exploded…yeah you were pretty much banned from his room and lab. But it was worth it.

You definitely wrestle with husk as husk will just try to claw out your eyes only him to just get pepper sprayed by you.

“AGG MY FUCKIN' EYES!!” “I didn’t know this shit would work on demons..”

Lucifer was definitely intrigued with your appearance as you seemed like a human. But also had a demonic appearance. So he questioned you and you just kept saying “SWAG!” He got tired of it and demanded you as the ruler of hell.

It didn’t work as you just shrug with a “:D” face and transported into a wire. Lucifer was bamboozled as he just stood there like “what just happened”

You showed niffty how to beat any person during a game as you, yourself is a hacker and can beat any game personally.

You looked at the phone that you stole from that flat faced dude as you smirked having an idea as you transported into the phone to try and go find Jeff. And lucky you did as he was sitting on the couch watching wrestling.

“Heyyy buddy.” You said looking through the tv to see Jeff. He scoffed seeing that his favorite program was ruined by your face. Jeff turned off the tv. Your face was like a pikachu shocked face. “THAT BITC-”

[cherrieflavouredheadcanons]

hi luv! i hope you're doing great. Saw your recent post and i do have a hc request (since im having a haikyuu brainrot rn 👀), what would you think of making papa!haikyuu hcs 😩. How would these volley boys make as a father! (especially kenma, tsukki and noya) and you can add your favs too 💕sjsjjsjs hope you have a great day ahead!

I'm doing okay, I hope you are doing good and that you have a nice day! I hope you enjoy this post and it is to your liking

Them as fathers

Characters: Kenma, Noya, Tsukki Gender neutral reader, it is not mentioned whether the children are adopted or biological, Kenma’s is longer than the others because i had way too many ideas for him

Kenma Kozume

First things first: I don’t think Kenma would have more than one kid, if you really wanted to have more he would relent but he is perfectly happy with just one, he thinks 3 people is the perfect number for your little family.

You may think he wouldn’t be that involved in his kids life, but that is a big misconception,

No matter how much work he has to do he makes sure to spend time with you and your kid.

Kenma would never show his child on the internet in any way, he wants to keep his private life private and keep his child safe, he knows how cruel the internet can be, no way in hell will he put his young child into that kind of situation.

Once your child learned to crawl he brought the three starters of Pokémon black and white (gen 5 best games I don’t take criticism) to see which one your child would choose.

Based on what they chose he will be sulky or proud. (I nearly made this into Oshawott propaganda but I didn’t you’re welcome). But at the end of the day he knows that they just choose one based on colours and shapes, he would teach them once they are older how to perfectly choose a starter.

Best believe that as soon as your kid is old enough to understand things he will show them all kinds of (age appropriate) video games.

You enter his gaming room with some snacks for him and you can just see him play Slime Rancher as your kid sits in his lap, eyes glued to what their father is doing.

He already has started a Stardew Valley coop farm for you three to play together one day, he is just waiting for the day your child is old enough.

Now enough video game talk, (though I have so many more ideas about this lol) your child loves it when Kenma reads to them before they sleep, his voice is very soothing to them.

Once they are asleep Kenma stays at their side a bit longer, watching them sleep a serene smile on his face.

Kenma can’t say no to your kid, he will buy them anything they want. You sometimes wonder how he can be so responsible with his money in any other situation, but your child just needs to point at something and he will buy it for them unless you intervene.

Lastly, be prepared for Kenma and your kid to team up against you. Board games? Yeah they are a team even if the game isn’t a game for teaming up. (Monopoly is a nightmare with them, Oh you need a red? Too bad your kid and Kenma are trading it between one another instead of giving it to you) But you can’t really seem to mind when you see the way Kenma and your kid smile. (Unless you are like me and are fiercely competitive in games then you may want to strike Kenma down)

Yu Nishinoya

Noya would take longer to have children with you, at least until he is done travelling, he does want kids but is aware that travelling the world with them wouldn’t be ideal, he wants them to have a stable home.

Once you two do have kids, he wants at least 2 or 3. Noya wants a big family.

I feel like he is the type of Dad that throws his kids in the air and then catches them (he won’t do it high) and it always gives you a heart attack.

Instead of reading them good night stories he always tells them (embellished) stories from when he travelled the world, for example he once exclaimed to one of your kids how a mermaid vied for your attention but he fought them heroically off.

This does bite him in the ass years down the line once your kids are teens, they will bring these stories up whenever they can to tease him.

Asahi is basically an uncle to your kids, he often visits you and brings the kids many gifts. He loves to spoil them.

And yes Asahi designs the clothes for your kids as well, it often leads to many people asking you and Noya where you got the clothes for them from since they are such a high quality.

Yes, he will teach your kids “Rolling thunder”. No you can’t stop him. Even if your kids don’t play Volleyball they will still know the move.

This leads to your kids looking for his old jersey’s from highschool, putting them on and pretending to  be their dad. No he is not crying, he just got dust in his eye.

Vacations and holidays are important to Noya, while he can’t travel the world with your kids, he will take them on memorable vacations across the country when they are old enough to remember them.

He wants them to have a happy and fulfilled childhood with as many experiences as they can have.

Kei Tsukishima

When you first brought up having children with him he asked “Are you sure you can take care of a child? Don’t you wanna practise with a pet rock first?” You lightly punched him in the chest for that and he had his signature smirk on his face.

He is honestly neutral on the aspect of having kids, he is not against it but also it was never his dream of having them, so he is fine with whatever you want.

Just like Kenma he would probably only have one kid, with his Job as a Volleyballplayer and everything he isn’t home that often, so if you had more than one kid he would feel guilty leaving you home alone with them.

Tsukki is probably the first one from Karasuno to have a kid, so he is smug about the fact that he is ‘better’ than the others in that regard.

The first team reunion after you two had your child will have him holding his child proudly, while he tells all the others how slow they are for not having kids yet, which has everyone rolling their eyes. He is very proud of his kid so that he will hold it up Lion King style so everyone can admire it.

Unluckily though he miscalculated the height of the ceiling and bonked your kids head on it, which left everyone in the room in a stunned silence (True story from my infant days, my dad did this exact thing with me)

You had made him change every diaper for 2 weeks for the heart attack he gave you with that, even if your kid was fine and wasn’t hurt.

Tsukki and you switch every night who is going to read your kid, while you pick different topics every time, he only ever chooses dinosaur stories to read to your kid.

Speaking of dinosaurs, Tsukki once claimed he had to educate your kid on certain things while you went out grocery shopping, when you came back you saw that the thing he was educating your child on was “The land before time” which made you smile.

Now no matter if the child is biologically yours or adopted, it somehow interhits his sass, which means you will be surrounded by two sassy little pieces of shit (affectionate).

Though you get both of them to calm down their sass by offering them some strawberry cake if they stop, it surprisingly works better on Tsukki then on your kid, who would have thought?

[hateblackies]

late night talks

"Loves dumb. People get too caught up in it. They forget who they are chasing that feeling," a young Gojo Satoru said, twirling a pen carelessly in his hand as he sat in his study chair, looking into your eyes through the reflection of the window. When he saw you weren’t replying, he continued.

“People die. What then? Chase after the void they left? Yeah, right," he scoffed. It perturbed you despite the gravity of the words he was saying, he seemed so brash.. so eager, and so careless.

"Love is natural," you said, holding a pillow close to your chest as you sat on his bedside. Satoru turned his chair, watching you snuggle up to the pillow. He rolled his eyes, then looked back in the direction of the window, with a pout that was meant as humor.

"What..?" you said quietly, your eyebrows furrowing, clutching the pillow harder. He turned his head over the headrest and smirked at you “You’re hugging that pillow as if it were your lifeline.”

He leaned back, propping himself up with his hands behind his head. “That thing isn’t going to love you back, you know...” he snickered. “Oh, shut up!” you said in annoyance, throwing the pillow at him from across the room now.

He caught it with one hand, his eyes narrowing. “Oh wow, you’re really mad, huh?” he teased. His lips tugged into a smirk, and he raised his eyebrows. “Someone’s jealous of a pillow?” he asked dramatically, now holding the pillow close to his chest himself.

As much as she wanted to leave his room, she couldn’t bring herself to. She stayed sat on his bed, arms now crossed. She was silent for some time. “If there was no love, we’d all be empty, soulless people,” she whispered beneath her breath. Satoru hated the gushiness.

“If there was no love, there would be no pain,” he countered, still staring at you with soft eyes and an amused look. Satoru wasn’t trying to start an argument at all; he just wanted to see how she would respond.

Her eyes widened. Her breath got stuck in her throat with his sharp words. “That’s.. not true.” He furrowed his eyebrows in curiosity at her response.

“How is it not? How could someone suffer the pains of loving someone so much you can’t see them leave-” He was caught off guard by being interrupted.

“I won’t leave,” she blurted out, suddenly clasping her hands over her mouth at her words, her face reddened. He tilted his head, confused and amused at your sudden outburst.

“Eh?” he said, smirking. He kept his gaze on you expectantly, and raised a brow. He was a dumb teenager. He didn’t understand girls.

She dug her head into her hands now looking down, not saying another word. He was silent for some time. Probably thinking about Pokémon, or something.. by now.

“Why… why aren’t you saying anything?” she said softly, eyes now peeking over her arms, observing him. “Hm? What am I supposed to say?” he asked, keeping a straight face.

She huffed. Maybe an ‘I won’t leave you either’? she thought, but heck, she knew he wouldn’t commit to that. “You’re trying to be a smart ass.” She said.

He laughed, this time genuinely. “Am I?” he said with a cocky undertone.“Besides. Did you seriously expect me to say something mushy like ‘I’ll be with you forever’ type of thing?”

“Especially not to you…” he said with a cheeky grin. His statement was half-true and half-sarcastic; It’s just what he did, but he was serious in a sense; he wasn’t the type of person who would just go around saying romantic stuff. He liked to show rather than say when it came to things like love. And besides, he wasn’t the type to be able to commit to such a thing. He was Gojo Satoru.

“Maybe.. I did.” She said softly, trying to hide her evident frustration in him as she propped herself off his bed, taking steps toward the door.

He stared at her in utter amusement. He crossed his legs and watched her walking toward the door. “Aww, Going already?” he said as he heard the door shut closed, He thought they were having a good time; her leaving was a little surprising to him, despite the way he’s acting. Oh well.

“hm. girls are weird.”

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

It's a Match! || poly!141 x Reader

[Chapter 23] || [Chapter 25]

Pairing: 141 x gn!Reader Words: 1.8K~ Summary: While overcoming recent heartbreak, you decide to join Tinder in search of a rebound. Your friends advise to just Swipe Right indiscriminately... What happens when 4 soldiers from the same squad match with you? a/n: just cute little moments w/ a lot of banter bc ofc

Chapter 24: Pokémon?

“So, yeah, now, even their Captain wants to…” You trail off awkwardly as you press your lips together, looking at the dropped jaws on the other side of the brunch table from you.

“Hun, I don’t- We might-” Leah starts as she stares at you, blinking away the surprise as she holds the utensils.

“Right?” Mia retorts as she stares at you. “The candle I lit for you worked too well, I reckon…”

“No, really, we girlbossed a bit too close to the sun… Manifested this too hard.” Leah adds, making Mia agree eagerly.

Your face warms up and you lower your head, taking a sip of your tea. You definitely shouldn’t be having this talk about your love and sex life inside this French bistro… but alas.

“Four? I mean… Four fwb would be understandable, you know?” Mia adds and Leah nods.

“But four boyfriends?” Leah adds. “And they’re all friends, and work together?”

“They’re not my boyfriends!” You retort as you say sharply, your face burning up a bit.

“Oh yeah? Are you seeing anyone else?” Leah retorts, ever the more logical of the three of you.

“No, but like, when would I have the time for that?” You retort and that earns chuckles from all three of you.

“Good point.” Leah concedes as she sips her own warm cappuccino.

“Regardless, they literally BEAT-” Mia lowers her voice when she realize she’s being too loud. “they beat Ethan’s arse for you.” She whisper shouts. “Fwbs don’t do that, boyfriends do!”

“Right!” Leah agrees and gestures at them. “They’re absolutely your boyfriends.” 

“I hate you both.” You retort and shake your head, amused, which causes all three of you to break into giggles.

“So, which one of them is, you know-” Mia asks in a mischievous tone just as you just ate a bit of omelette, causing your eyes to widen as you stare at her.

“I feel like I’m being mocked.” You quip.

Once again the two of them erupt with laughs. “I’m sorry, hun, but we’ve gotta live vicariously through you!” Leah says, Mia nodding in agreement.

“Nooo, you’re taking the piss out of me!” You reply with a chuckle.

“C’moooooon! Gossip with us! We barely see you nowadays!” Mia begs as she puts her hands together in pleading.

“Oh bloody hell…” You retort. “I don’t know-”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!” Mia begs.

“Alright! Gosh, I was going to say ‘I don’t know because I haven’t been with all of them yet’!” You reply.

“You haven’t?!” The girls say with a loud gasp that attracts loads of side-eye from the other patrons. You’re probably going to get kicked out soon.

“Will you shush?” You scold them, eyes widened and lips pressed together. “No, I haven’t.”

“You’ve got to!” Mia tells you.

“We’ll get there, we’re taking it slow.” You reply.

“Babes, they beat up your ex-” Leah tells you. “They’ve all slept over at some point, they pick you up from work every day, as long as they’re in town-” She continues to list, counting with her fingers.

“Right, you’re skipping through all the loops. There’s no ‘taking it slow’!” Mia adds. “Hop on those cocks, bloody hell!”

“MIA!” You scold her with a dropped jaw.

“Oh, don’t play coy now! You’ve got four boyfriends!” Leah retorts and narrows her eyes at you, sticking her tongue out now.

“Right, collecting them like trading cards.” Mia adds, causing the three of you to laugh again.

“They’re like Pokémon, you’ve just Gotta Catch’Em All!” Leah adds, causing you to cover your mouth to hide a snort of a laugh.

“Fuck you both, honestly!” You quip playfully. You missed them, missed the laughs they’ve provided you.

“No, but really now.” Leah says once you’ve all calmed down. “They make you really happy, we can see it.” She looks at you with a warm smile on her lips.

“They do.” You confirm with a sheepish nod and smile.

“I really hopes it works out between you and them.” Mia adds. “It’s so nice to see you smile this much!” Her tone is sincere and sweet.

“Thank you…” You say softly. “I hope so too.” You tell them.

“It better, or I’ll go after them with my pipe!” Mia warns, referencing an inside joke between the three of you, a piece of rusty pipe a repairman left behind at her flat after fixing her bathroom sink, which she now uses as her ‘signature weapon’.

“Right, you’re gonna pipe four soldiers?” You joke a bit, sarcastically.

“Oh no, hun, they’re the ones piping you!” Mia adds and you all lose it laughing again.

“So when are we going to meet them?” Leah teases.

-

You shouldn’t have been surprised that Kyle would answer your texts so quick.

You also shouldn’t have been surprised that he brought Johnny in tow.

And yet you were. 

You texted Kyle your location and in less than 20 minutes he was jogging up the pavement, Johnny hot on his heels. You could see them coming through the window.

“Bloody hell…” You mutter as you watch them turn to go through the front door of the café/bistro.

“What?” Leah asks and before you can say anything, they both turn to look at where you are, finding Kyle and Johnny strolling right in and in your direction, cute little smirks on their lips.

Your friends recognize them immediately, of course, you had shown plenty of pictures, especially when you had just matched them on Tinder… But seeing them in real life is always different.

Kyle’s pretty boy-ing as usual. White v-neck to show off his collar bones and defined chest, grey jeans, white Converse and a black denim jacket overtop of it. He has his cutest smile on, pretty lashes fluttering as he comes to stand by your side.

“Hi, lovie…” He greets you and leans down, kissing the top of your head, before turning to greet your friends. “Hey, I’m Kyle!” He says politely.

He barely has time to say anything else before Johnny, throws himself onto the free chair next to you, the last one at this table for four, his arms wrapping around your shoulders.

“Mo leannan, ye look so bonnie…” He says before gripping you around the jaw and stealing a direct, open-mouthed kiss from you. Your eyes widen the moment he does, causing you to carefully hold onto his beefy forearm, returning the kiss to the best of your (embarrassed) abilities.

Just as you’re pulling away, you can hear Kyle justifying the kiss to your flabbergasted friends. “Forgive ‘im, he was raised in a barn.” 

“Haud Yer Wheesht! I was not!” Johnny retorts as he turns to look at your friends. “Hi, I’m Johnny.” He adds as a greeting, a lopsided smirk on his face, as he reaches forward to… shake hands with your friends.

Johnny smells strongly of deodorant. That Lynx body spray shite he always sprays on himself. It’s not bad, but it’s strong… You’re only lucky the leather jacket he’s wearing conceals it a bit.

It’s an old thing, maybe a couple of decades’ old, the leather starting to wear out over the shoulders, and he’s paired it with a light blue hoodie, dark jeans and black combat boots.

“Was too.” Kyle retorts, a bit childishly as he comes to stand by your side, his hands caressing your bare arms in the t-shirt you’re wearing. “You three been having fun?” He asks you and your friends. Ever mature and considerate, he is.

Your friends are still just staring. Sure, they knew you haven’t been lying to them as you told them about your relationship with these men but it’s one thing to hear about it, the other to see it.

“Yep, we had fun, Gaz…” You say softly, catching the way Johnny’s just serving himself to the dessert you haven’t yet touched on your plate.

“You really were raised in a barn.” You tell him. “Don’t even ask permission to eat my food?” You scold him, which causes him to smirk again.

“Either I stuff my mouth with food or with you. And I’m still civilised enough to know the last one is frowned upon to do in public.” Johnny retorts, then his smile grows into an impish grin. “Unless you’re into some… kinky things.” He winks.

That causes you to sputter and look away, grumbling under your breath as his ever-present tendency to make dirty jokes.

“I like ‘im!” Mia announces suddenly as she stares at Johnny.

“I knew you would. You two think the same.” You tell her and shake your head. “Which is why I only asked Kyle to come.” You add and stare at Kyle with a cocked brow, as if questioning why he didn’t come along.

“He was on his knees begging to come. What was I supposed to do? Leave ‘im behind?” Kyle quips, a playful smirk on his lips.

“Was not!!!!” Johnny retorts. “I just figured out he was coming to see you and joined in!” He adds. “Plus, my feelings are hurt you didn’t want me to come!” He tells you with a fake pout.

“Oh, piss off, it’s not that I didn’t want you to come!” You say simply. “It’s just that you’re…”

“A dickhead.” Kyle finishes for you.

“NO!” You scold Kyle. “I was going to say ‘Intense’.”

“Intense? That feels like a euphemism for something bad, mo leannan!” The Scot tells you as he pops a macaron into his mouth.

“That’s ‘cause it is.” Kyle replies for you.

“It’s not- Kyle!”

“And your friends already like me, don’t ye?” Johnny turns his attention to the girls.

“Yes, we do!” Mia replies and nods. 

Leah still hasn’t shaken out of her stupor. “My God, there’s two of them.” She says as she looks back and forth between Mia and Johnny.

“I know… I know…” You soothe her in a playfully annoyed tone.

“So, Johnny, is it?” Mia quips and leans forward to whisper conspirationally. “Give it to us straight. How does it work?” She points vaguely at you and him and Kyle.

“Mia!” You scold her this time. “I thought we were past those topics?”

“‘Those’ topics?” Kyle asks as he lowers himself near you to listen in better. “And what topics would those be?” He adds, as if he’s not perfectly aware they mean you guys’ sex life.

“Oh my God, Kyle, not you too!” You whine as you look at him.

“Nae, it’s fine that they’re curious!” Johnny quips on the other side. “I’ll gladly tell ye all about it!”

“Johnny!” You scold him again, sounding ever the more exasperated.

“Oh, you wouldn’t have anythin’ to tell either way, you dickhead.” Kyle retorts. “I’m the only one that has all the tea to share.”

“KYLE!” You scold him too, your head going back and forth between the two men flanking you.

The banter continues, your friends seemingly absolutely engrossed in the two sergeants, the way they’re making you sweat, and almost begging for the side of the gossip you had swiftly evaded earlier in the brunch.

“God help me survive this-” You murmur to yourself, feeling crescently embarrassed as everyone on the table takes the piss out of you. “I hate you all… I should’ve just invited Simon…”

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

taglist (CLOSED! not adding anyone else, sorry!):

@daisychainsinknots , @bunnysdaydreams , @iite-cool , @lahniu , @pagesfalling , @tapioca-milktea1978 , @live-love-be-unique , @thelaisydazy , @littleghosthunter , @bossva , @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago , @chamomiletealeaf , @ghosts-hoe , @kariiiel , @ltbarnes , @irregulardongyoung , @spacelia , @hayleybarnesx , @cod-z , @frescoisnotinthemilitary , @leeeenistop , @lucienbarkbark

@severenswife , @enarien, @agoodmoviekiss , @l0lziez , @whos-fran , @greatstormcat , @openup-yourmind , @neoarchipelago , @sodavrr , @cutiecusp , @lilliumrorum , @c-nstantine , @kneelforloki , @comeonatmebruh , @codsunshine , @waiting-so-long , @captainquake42 , @gazspookiebear , @mynameismisty , @reap3erslov3 , @reaper-chan666 , @poohkie90 , @kitwithnokat , @stick-the-dumbass , @mothsdrabbles , @justanerd1 , @thesinsoflust , @thriving-n-jiving , @blckbrrybasket

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Hiiiii, I have a request for the newly arrived Indigo Disk-

A really happy ending for Kiki where after the whole DLC, he then starts to make amends with the BB Elite 4, his sister and protag which eventually gains him Ogerpon's recognition, prompting her to wanna go with him as an extra treat after all his angst (quq)

Yessss we gotta give him the happy end he deserves <3

.........

Setting up a small picnic within the Terarium, you brought your current Pokémon team out to play, deciding to take in the beautiful coastal biome and its warmth.

Even though you knew it was all artificial, it didn't make much of a difference to your companions. They happily frolicked in the sand and grass, although some opted to take a nap under the sun after a hard day of battling.

Meanwhile, you were fixing up a sandwich for everyone to share, deciding to add a little bit of spice to it (at Crispin's suggestion, of course). You didn't want it to be too flaming-hot for your Pokémon--or at least none that were fire types who could handle the heat.

However one in particular just seemed to be hungry for anything, as upon hearing a crystalline trill, you looked down to see Terapagos at your feet. It was gently pawing on your leg, eyes sparkling as it wondered what you were cooking up.

"Hey, little guy." You cooed, reaching down to pat its head before you scooped it up, allowing it to climb into your lap. "Smells tasty, huh? I bet you're super hungry after sleeping all those years."

It only responded with another happy trill, and you just sighed.

Who would've known this would be the legendary "Hidden Treasure" of Area Zero Heath and [Turo/Sada] sought after, the creator of the Terastal Phenomenon...

And the Pokémon that put up one hell of a fight against you, Carmine, and Kieran?

Speaking of whom...

It's been roughly a month since those events down in the Underdepths, and for the most part things have been looking up for both you and him. You were just happy to see that spark return to his eyes...

The spark he had once lost...mainly because of you.

Part of you would always remain guilty over unknowingly setting him down such a dark path--obsessing over defeating you in battle to the point where he didn't care who got hurt in the process.

He didn't wanna be that weak little kid you kept beating back in Kitakami anymore, always bragging about how much he's changed and demanding you to never hold back.

But after being humbled in front of the entire school, he was willing to do anything to have at least one victory against you.

Even if it meant utilizing a dangerous legendary Pokémon he had little understanding of....

He tried to control it, and as punishment it attacked him directly.

Arceus only knows what could've happened if your 'raidon didn't absorb the blast in time, and that selfless act made him feel all the more guilty for the way he acted towards you.

He idolized you, hated you, and yet.....you saved his life when you could have just saved yourself, his sister, and Briar instead.

He cried like a baby the whole way home, overwhelmed by everything that's happened from last year up to now, yet you comforted him and didn't tease him once.

After returning to Unova, he made a promise to fix things between you and everyone else he hurt, finally letting go of his envy and deciding to start fresh with you. His request to be your friend again had you laughing, much to his confusion..and a little worried you were making fun of him.

Then he almost sobbed after you explained that you've never considered him an enemy at all.

Despite everything, you never stopped seeing him as a friend.

Sometime later you went home to Paldea, although not without exchanging rotomphone information with him so you could have more chats.

Yep. Kieran finally got his own phone, but being from the countryside made him only somewhat familiar with the basics. You and Carmine helped him with that, of course. He loved the camera function and would often send you photos of his Hydrapple doing something cute.

They're mostly blurry, but he's getting the hang of it.

You eventually went back to the BB Academy to further your studies of the biomes, and winded up taking a small picnic break within the Terarium. No rules said you couldn't, and Drayton did insist that you didn't overwork yourself...

Which is funny coming from the guy who had to repeat classes, although you took his advice.

"Roto-to-to-to~"

Your eyes lit up as you received an incoming call from Kieran, and you greeted him with a smile, waving. "Kiki! How's it going?"

"Hey, [y/n]." He smiled back, and then he blinked upon realizing how familiar the background behind you was. "Wait..you're back in Unova? In the Terarium?"

"Uh..yeah! I was gonna surprise you, but I guess it's too late for that now." You awkwardly chuckled. "How are things going with the League?"

"Better than..I thought, actually." He sat back in his chair, tying his hair up. "Drayton and I are finally on speaking terms again."

"Oh that's great!"

"Mhm. We both felt kinda bad about how we treated each other with the whole "ex-champion" thing...said some stuff we didn't mean. Last week we were avoiding each other, and now we're having casual Pokémon battles to ease the tension between us."

"I'm glad to hear that." You nodded, taking a bite out of your sandwich.

"I..really do owe you one for bringing the club back together. I've been so bitter and didn't realize how much it was hurting Lacey and the others...not to mention how many people I wrongfully kicked out. I promise I'm gonna get all of them back into the club. I swear."

"I fully believe you. Just don't run yourself dry trying to patch up everything with everyone, okay?"

Kieran nodded in understanding, although he suddenly went quiet. You wondered why until you realized he could see Terapagos, who was currently climbing onto the table trying to get some lettuce.

"Heyyyy that's not for you, you little scamp." Teasingly, you scooped it up again, keeping a gentle grip on its belly and shell before you looked back at your friend, bashful. "Don't mind Terapagos. It's always hungry."

"I see." He chuckled. "You've been taking care of it well?"

"Yep, but have you been taking care of yourself, too?"

"...yeah." He muttered. "Carmine's been getting on my case about properly eating and sleeping again. Don't tell her this, but I appreciate it more than she realizes. And..I'll admit I was turning into a jerk like she used to be, and that's not something I want..."

"Well sounds like you're doing much better now..don't beat yourself up over it." You reassured him.

His shoulders relaxed. "I'm..trying not to....so [y/n], do you think we could meet up in person? Like at your dorm? I...feel like we haven't talked face-to-face in a while."

"Sure! I got nothing planned later so....see you in a few hours?"

"Sounds good." He smiled. "See ya."

The call ended as your rotomphone dropped back onto the table. You picked it up and stared at the case, feeling giddy about seeing him again after so long.

And to think when you first arrived here..you felt nothing but tension whenever he was in the same room as you, feeling the negative vibes rolling off of him like an aura of Bitter Malice.

You were glad those days were gone and he was your friend again.

"Pon?"

"Huh? Ogerpon..? You were here the whole time??" Surprised, you glanced over to see the grass legendary sitting on the ground beside you, being sure to stay clear of the camera view. She lowered her mask and looked at you with a knowing smile.

Considering the way Kieran freaked out when you brought her into the championship battle (not to mention him doing everything in his power to knock her out)...you would've thought she'd never wanna see or hear from him again--especially since her "betrayal" was still a fresh wound.

Yet apparently she was listening to your entire conversation with him, and had this understanding look to her starry eyes.

"Pon, ponnn?"

"Huh?" You blinked. "You wanna..see him, too? Are you sure?"

She hopped to her feet, nodding eagerly before pointing in the direction of the academy.

"Okay. Maybe..it'll be a good thing." A smile appeared on your face, although in the back of your mind you hoped that seeing her again won't scare Kieran too much.

...........

"Okay, so the Golurk congregate here....and they're usually guarding the Goletts.."

Back in your dorm room, you were just jotting down notes about recent Pokémon outbreak sightings. Ogerpon was sitting on your countertop, swinging her legs while munching on a bowl of her favorite berries you've found for her throughout Kitakami.

Right as she finished the last one, there was a knock at the door, and you both immediately knew who it was. She was a little nervous, but you reassured her that things will be okay before you went to answer it.

Sure enough Kieran was on the other side. He's never been to your dorm until now, and as he walked in was surprised and intrigued by all the stuff you had hung up on the wall.

"Excuse the mess." You chuckled, closing the door.

"Don't worry, my dorm's worse." He shyly smiled back at you, although his expression faltered as his gaze went to a certain legendary..

He immediately tensed up, not out of anger.....but like he was expecting her to use Ivy Cudgel at any given moment. "What's the Ogre doing here--wait, no..that sounded rude. I'm sorry."

"No, no. It's fine. There's actually something we've been meaning to talk to you about."

"..oh?" Turning back to you, he tilted his head.

"So Ogerpon overheard our little chat earlier, and she wanted to see you."

"She did?"

"Yeah," you nodded, feeling your heart start to race with anticipation. "And..um...maybe it's easier if she explains."

Kieran was confused as you gestured to Ogerpon, but his eyes went wide when she approached him. With no mask on, she wore a confident expression as she handed him...

A pokeball?

No..

It was the pokeball you caught her in.

"What is this? Some new trick you taught her?" Looking to you for an explanation, all he could see was your smile. "Why isn't she...afraid of me?"

"Because she knew you were trying to make amends with everybody." You patted her head, beaming. "I think she finally recognizes you as a strong Pokémon trainer, and...she wants to be yours."

".....huh?"

"She wants to be yours." You repeated, watching as he tried to process this information. And his jaw damn near dropped to the floor, but he closed his mouth and shook his head.

"Y-You're joking, right?"

"Nope. We both decided that she's ready for a new partner. Someone who's believed in her side of the story since-"

"No, no, no..I..I-I can't do that.." He shook his head frantically, backing away from Ogerpon. "I'm sorry. But she's yours, [y/n]. She chose to go with you. You passed her test and...I didn't. I was being stupid and selfish and-"

"I think I was being more selfish."

Looking up at you, he blinked a few times.

"Listen, I know everyone likes to say such great things about me...but I'm not some perfect angel." You frowned slightly. "I lied to you, I stole the Pokémon you've idolized for years...and I hurt someone who considered me a friend. You called me out on that and you had every right to."

"........"

"If anybody here needs to apologize..it's me." Bowing your head, you sighed softly. "So I'm truly sorry for the way I treated you, Kieran. I'm sorry for never considering your feelings before. I wasn't a good friend, and I wanna be a better one. So I'm gonna make this right...both of us will."

You looked back up at him, seeing the shock written all over his face. Then you glanced at Ogerpon, taking the pokeball and instructing her to get her masks off the wall. She nodded and did just that.

"You deserve to know what her power is like. The masks, the TMs I taught her...you can have them all. No trades. No strings attached..except for us staying friends, of course."

Finally, Kieran found his ability to speak again, but he was already getting choked up. "[Y/n], the apology is...th-that's more than enough for me." His eyes watered. "I forgive you. There's no way I can take her from-"

"You're not taking her away. I'm giving her to you, silly." You chuckled.

"....I..I still don't know if I can accept that. I'm not worthy of her even looking my way anymore. I was disrespectful to her wishes, I stole her mask..a-and you're saying...she forgives me?"

"I think she's gonna let bygones be bygones. Isn't that right, 'pon?"

"Ponio! Pon!" With her masks together, Ogerpon gazed at you, nodding confidently. You could only smile back as you patted her head again, seeing that she was ready for a new adventure.

You've trained her well, helping her grow stronger than ever before as you've mastered her abilities with all four masks.

But now it's time that someone else had the chance to bond with her...

Someone like Kieran.

After sending her into the pokeball for the last time, you gazed at the purple-haired boy. His whole body refused to move, so you approached him and took his gloved hand, placing the device snuggly into his palm.

For the longest time, he stared at it, and then he looked back at you. "A-Are you sure I can't just...keep her for a day and then give her back?" He began to sniffle, face growing bright red. "Because if...wh-what if she doesn't-?"

"I want you to have her permanently." Knowing what was coming, you brought him into a tight hug, feeling him wrap his arms around you and rest his head on your shoulder. "Don't worry. She's gonna love you, Kiki." You rubbed his back. "She trusts you now. She's all yours."

All he could do was nod, your shirt getting soaked by his tears as he hiccupped, thanking you over and over again. He wasn't bawling loudly like before, but he still had a tough time keeping himself together; so you led him to your bed where he was more comfortable.

You're 99% certain this poor guy's never received a hug in his life, given how he refused to let you go. So you allowed him to hold onto you for as long as he needed or wanted.

At last you got out all of the things you've been meaning to say to him...and even Ogerpon got to apologize in her own special way by wanting to be his partner Pokémon.

You thought this would have been too much for Kieran to handle, but you could see he's grown a lot and that he was ready to accept this huge responsibility.

Terapagos will remain with you, and Ogerpon will be his forever.

After everything that's happened, it's what he deserves.

[deanbrainrotwritings]

—  GIMME HALF

REQUEST : “hi!! I was wondering if you could maybe write an age gap (legal obv) with female!reader × dean winchester where the reader is like in her 20s and dean's in his 40s :) just some rough smut with choking and hair pulling and spitting (if you're comfortable with it) and dean being like super "hungry" for her, like he's waited a long time for it to happen. also lots of dirty talks cause i absolutely love them hahah :) anyways im in love with your writing and all your stories! thanks a lot! <3” — anonymous

PAIRING : dean winchester x professor!reader (f.)

CHARACTERS : miracle, sam winchester

WARNINGS/TAGS : explicit(18+), angst, enemies to lovers, age gap, voyeurism, smut, oral sex, p in v, praise kink, choking, hair pulling, dacryphilia, rough sex, spitting

WORD COUNT : 8.4k

A/N : devil wears prada song title. @spnkinkevents : #12daysofspnkinkmas2023 — chair sex and food play. I wrote this half-asleep while listening to ASMR, like… that’s how I write most of my stories, plus, they’re always written between 00.00-02.40. Doctor Who references, ‘cause I’m a nerd. I got carried away…. Cliffhanger bc I’m cruel.

There were countless pros and cons to having houses built so close together with windows facing the same direction. 

Pros: Accidentally seeing your hot neighbour walk around naked in the living room and kitchen. Accidentally catching your hot neighbour jerk off when they think that everyone’s asleep.

Yup, she’s seen all of that and more. All from that nameless, freckled, green-eyed man next door. 

Even wholesome things, like him playing with his cute dog, babying the little rascal and spoiling it. Him cooking and baking, being wholeheartedly content with feeding it to the tall, Hazel-eyed puppy dog of a man, the tall man’s gorgeous deaf wife, and his tiny adorable son; the blue-eyed, dreamy dude in a trench coat; and that endearing young boy with blue eyes who looked like a combination of all three of the men. 

There were times where she’d seen the green-eyed man dressed as a cowboy and even a princess to entertain the little baby boy—his nephew. For sleepovers with him, he’d read him bedtime stories while being completely animated. He’d build a bunch of forts, with sheets, the couch, pillows, and some Christmas lights. He'd talk to the little boy and hold serious conversations despite neither of them being able to understand each other. He’d teach the young boy and the baby boy how to fix cars—at least he tried to. He’d pack his best friends' lunches every morning with his hair unkempt, half asleep, while sipping on some coffee. He’d even take naps with the baby, treating him as his own son. 

He’d do ridiculously endearing things, too, such as baking bread at night when he couldn’t sleep. He'd read books only when he was alone, as if he’d be made fun of by his friends, and she finally understood why. They were either romantic, erotic, or completely nerdy and abstract. He had range. He’d watch cheesy soap operas and rom-com k-dramas when he did chores. He loved to collect things such as Pokémon cards and even legos. 

There were a million things he did that she thought were cute. The windows into his house were like the screens of a television, like her favourite character, she got to see him when he’s relaxed and surrounded only by those who love him 

As for the cons, we’ll get to that…

When they first moved in, it was about three and a half years ago. She’d been visiting her family in Kansas City for her oldest brother’s birthday in June. 

When she returned to Lebanon, they had already settled down. There was a brown and beige Ford pickup truck, a black Subaru—both parked in the front, and a sleek black Impala in the driveway.

The youngest, Jack, waved at her one day when he returned with Cas after buying groceries. Then, Cas awkwardly introduced himself and Jack, and gave her the names of the other two men who were brothers, Sam is the tall one and Dean was the freckled one. 

Sam was the most social one. He’d spark up conversation with her whenever he saw her, dropping bits and pieces of information about himself, his brother, his fiancée, Cas, Jack, and Dean’s loyal dog, Miracle. 

After seven months of living together, Sam moved out with his wife, Eileen. They’d just gotten married, and they both invited her. She’d gone, the wedding was pretty, cute, and modest. Y/n had spoken to a few of their close family and friends. Dean, however, kept to himself the whole night as if he were grieving. He’d smile occasionally if any of his friends came to him, he was enthusiastic, and then he'd go back into himself.

Four months later, Sam and EIleen returned; she was pregnant. It was a boy, he’d planned on naming him after his big brother, which Y/n thought was adorable. He hadn’t told his brother, but planned on telling him the day his son was born.

Y/n could tell Dean had mixed feelings about his brother’s departure, mostly negative feelings. He loved Eileen and his nephew. But when it was just him, Cas, and Jack, he'd often drink, despite concerned, useless interventions with Cas. Unless Sam, Eileen, and his nephew were there. He’d never even glance at that top-shelf cupboard.

The good thing was that at least Dean was a happy drunk.

The first time she interacted with Dean was a few weeks after she’d returned from Kansas City, she assumed two things: his heart was closed off to new people, and he’s one hot, irritating, grumpy, sour, old man.

It was the spring semester at Kansas University. Y/n was grading her students’ creative, personal essays in the office downstairs. She was perplexed by the small percentage of her students and their inability to use proper grammar or follow the thorough, detailed checklist she created to get them to pass easily. 

Just when she thought she’d gotten great at making their lives easy, they return the shittiest, half-assed essays. She felt bad for the bad grades, but since the rest of her students managed to get perfect scores or at least proficient scores, she couldn’t just let them pass. 

Loud banging on the door startled her from reading an impressive essay. Her blood ran cold and she scrambled up from her rolling chair, ignoring that she pushed it halfway across the room. 

Her socked feet were quiet on the wooden floor, making her way quickly down the hallway until she got to the shelf where she kept her gun. She pressed it against the door and looked through the peephole, then relaxed when she saw Dean.

She was irritated by the loud knocking, though, regardless of how cute he looked when he was clearly pissed off. She opened the door and set the gun down on the table where she usually placed her keys.

“Lady, have you seen the mess you made outside?” Dean asked her, pointing behind him. She stared at him, stunned by how much prettier he looked up close. Her cheeks turned hot, but she looked past him trying to see whatever he was pointing at. 

She looked at her red Mustang parked in the front as a reminder to restock the kitchen, then looked close to where his house was. She winced at the mud and the running water from her hose going into his nice lawn.

“Shit,” she murmured, toeing her socks off before moving past Dean to turn the hose off. She got distracted by the mud and the puddles as she pulled the hose, and coiled it back where it should have been. It’s been a while since she last let her bare feet feel this beneath, the smell of wet dirt was amazing, even when it wasn’t caused by rainfall.

“Do you always do shit like this?” He asked from behind, his tone harsh. 

She frowned when she turned to look at his furious face, careful to not touch her forehead with her muddy hands when she used her wrist to move hair away from her face.  

“I’m sorry,” she apologised, tilting her head at him. He just rolled his eyes at her, then he stared at his lawn, and ran his hand down his face. “Did I do somethin’ else to piss you off?” She asked, looking around to see if there’s anything else she may have forgotten.

“One, your cat’s too damn loud, crying and meowing for my damn dog when you let him out,” he started, which made her blink in confusion. She didn’t expect something like that to get on his nerves. “And B, why the hell do you have cameras facing my place?” 

She narrowed her eyes at him, her ego being injured fueled her anger and defensiveness. “Okay, listen, Doctor Who, I said I was sorry, okay?” She could tell her words stunned him by the furrowing of his brows in bewilderment, disarming him and shutting him up. “It’s not my fault your dog likes my cat, too. And the cameras are off, they’re there to scare people, so fuck off,” she snapped before she stop herself. 

Dean scoffed at her, “fuck you.” She rolled her eyes at him this time, staring daggers into his back when he turned around to get to his home.

“If you’d fuck me, maybe you wouldnt be such an asshole.” Her snide words made him freeze. He laughed dryly and he turned to face her once more, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Pretty sure I’d still hate you, sweetheart,” he chuckled, crossing his own arms. That stung, even if she didn’t know him personally and half the time she spent romanticising him based on the little bit of information she had. “And I’d rather go fuck some other chick.” She clenched her jaw and breathed in slowly, angry heat began rising up her neck the faster her heart started to beat.

Entirely unintended, she venomously spat, “according to your brother, you haven’t been lucky enough, and you’re not going to be.”

“You talking to my brother about my sex life?” He stepped closer to her, his nostril flaring in anger. Betrayal and hurt crossed his features and she realised her mistake.

“No, just overheard him ‘cause you’re an overbearing douchebag,” she lied smoothly. Truth was, Sam and Eileen did accidentally—drunkenly—tell her how hard it was for Dean to maintain a serious relationship for more than three months. They don’t remember sharing that information. It was easy for her to casually ask about Dean’s love life and availability, masking her attraction to Dean as mere surprise as to how the younger brother got married before the older one. “Makes sense now why no one will sleep with you,” she laughed mockingly, stepping closer to him defiantly.

His face was red now, too. Angry, offended, he rolled his eyes at her smug face and body language. “You don’t know shit about me.”

“Sure, yeah, if that makes you feel better,” she snorted, patting his very nice, broad shoulder with her muddy hand as she made her back into her house. Preoccupied by the small mud-print on his beige Henley, he couldn’t get the last word in or stop her from leaving him flustered in her swampy driveway.

That was the start of a horrible relationship with her neighbour. The neighbour she had a crush on. 

He found all kinds of reasons to complain. Big and small. And she secretly did things to piss him off, occasionally sabotaging his plans. 

The thing was that deep down, she still liked him, but he made her so angry and frustrated. And it felt good to see him angry and frustrated by things she caused either on purpose or accidentally. Any attention was better than no attention.

Eventually, that all changed. The fun, the it’s-better-than-nothing feeling, it didn’t last. Fourteen months later, she stopped the cruel games and decided to avoid him completely. 

When her friends offered to take her out, she agreed, even if she wanted to stay home. If Dean was home, she made sure to never say no to them, and sometimes she’d offer to take them out. Wherever.

She’d started to grade at the cafe, library, or the diner, even if Dean went to all those places often. At least he wouldn’t say anything there around all those people. 

When she grew closer to Sam, Cas, and Jack, she’d find excuses not to go over to Dean’s when they offered either food, game nights, movie nights, or random hangouts. They started to notice too—the tension, the avoidance, the hostility—and they’d go over to her place instead, often without Dean, who’d choose to go out to avoid staying home alone.

It was awful. The rejection started to hurt, yet, he had her heart in the palm of his hand. Deep down, she knew that Dean wasn’t a bad person; he just didn’t like her.

Eventually, Dean ended his animosity, too, and everything went back to ‘normal’. She slowly started to reject offers from her friends to test the water, stayed home to grade, and didn't permit her cat to leave even if it cried for an escape. If she took him out, it was with a leash she eventually got him to get used to.

They ignored each other when they crossed paths—in the driveway, at the grocery store, at diners, at the cafe. They acted like complete strangers. She’d keep her curtains closed, at least she did for the windows that face his house. She made her presence as unnoticeable and as invisible as she could to prevent causing more damage to each other.

Then, about two months ago, on Halloween, Sam, Eileen, Cas, and Jack went to her house to collect candy. Sam made a point of staying back while the rest of them walked to where Dean was waiting—looking anywhere but at her house—to convince her to go to his and Eileen’s place for Thanksgiving. 

He was honest, cute, wide hazel eyes attempting to convince her to try and make amends with Dean. She didn’t doubt it, when he told her that Dean felt guilty, but her pride was bruised, and her heart was broken. She told Sam she would be visiting her own family for that holiday. She omitted that she’d be going to her mother’s house a few miles away, still in Lebanon. And she easily convinced her mother to let her stay the rest of the week until she had to go back to work.

Now, Christmas was near—in four days, to be exact. It wasn’t the holiday spirit that made her change her mind, it was the hurt and the exhaustion of planning her life around avoiding Dean. 

So, she called Sam, she asked if he could do anything to get Dean alone tomorrow. 

For the rest of the day, she would start to prepare everything—even though it was Dean who created the mess—she was willing to make the first move and hopefully meet him halfway. 

She couldn’t lie that she felt embarrassed by how excited she was to see Dean. She couldn't even differentiate the meaning of the butterflies in her stomach, but she powered through her fluttering heart and her shaking hands as she prepared everything before going to see him.

She considered not doing it at all, calling it quits—but the consequences of that quickly made her miserable. That would just mean more avoidance, more hiding, more changing everything about herself to make him happy.

All of this over one little misunderstanding. One bad day where her mouth ran without consulting her brain first ruined what could have otherwise been a good friendship—perhaps even a romantic relationship.

She was twenty-six and just like Dean, she hadn’t had a serious relationship since… Well, ever. The last time someone convinced her to date them was in highschool, and even before that, it took her a month—or less—to figure out she wanted nothing to do with them. She didn’t like the people she dated. She realised quickly that she didn’t even want a future with them, she didn’t even allow them to kiss her or touch her. So she figured that if she didn’t want to marry them, what was the point of wasting her time?

For so long, the first thing she thought of when she felt attracted to someone was: can I stand the thought of their touch? Can I see myself kissing them, letting them kiss me? Can I stand the thought of the fights and staying with them through thick and thin? Can I picture myself with them in the future, permanently?

The answer was always ‘no’ and the attraction died immediately after the realisation. 

With Dean, the answer was different. Not for some stupid reason, like fate, or the boy-next-door trope. No. This was reality, and the real reason was the fact that she got to see who he was before she was attracted to him. 

It was the selflessness, the love in everything that he did, the gentleness of his heart, the kindness that radiated from him, and the ease in the way he did chores, the way he made his friends laugh, his playfulness, the loyalty, the way he was clearly protective. 

It was the open windows of her house into his open windows that let her see through him, down to his very beautiful core. It was the lack of hidden things, the openness of his soul because he felt safe, unwatched. It was real because Cas, Jack, and Sam were proof that even though Dean wasn’t perfect, he was worth it.

The Doctor did say once: the good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant. 

For the first time, she was willing to take a chance.

She smoothed down the silky emerald-green dress. It was pretty, flowing down her body perfectly, stopping at the middle of her calves…. Actually, now that she looked at herself in the mirror, her curls perfectly maintained, the light touch of makeup, the heels… was it too much?

She ignored those anxious thoughts and made sure she had everything she needed and everything that she prepared before stepping out into the cold.

The spaghetti straps didn’t stop the cold, but the heat of her nervousness at least did something as she walked up to his door and waited after knocking gently. 

When he opened the door, he was stunned to see her.

“What?” He asked bluntly. 

She could tell that the way she was dressed caught him off guard. His eyes moved from her face, up to her hair, back down to the boxes in her hands, and lower to her feet. 

“I’ve got pie,” she said the first thing her mind thought of. Yes, it was blunt, yes, it disarmed him further… It was not smooth, but Dean looked behind him, and then he looked at her once more while biting his lip before opening the door wider, and stepping out of the way for her to enter. 

She exhaled shakily as he scratched the back of his neck. Out of habit, she slipped out of her heels before stepping inside his home, planting her bare feet on the soft, long rug he had. He kindly, wordlessly, took her heels from outside and placed them on the shoe rack he had inside before shutting the door behind her.

She felt so… warm. Finally, she was inside the place she longed to be in. Right where Dean was. Along the walls there were dozens of pictures, but she didn’t go too far, she waited for him.

She felt his presence behind her and it made her shiver, but she couldn’t bring herself to look back at him. Instead, she stared at photos of him with Cas, Sam, Jack, and other people she hadn’t met. Women and Men. Dean was smiling in all of them. And in a large majority of them, they were looking at him while he looked at the camera. 

What a funny thing. 

“Here,” he said from behind her, his deep voice sounded soft, gentle, unlike the last time they spoke to each other. It made her shudder. “Let me help.” She slowly braced herself when she turned around, staring into his beautiful green eyes, illuminated magically by Christmas lights. 

“Thanks,” she whispered, carefully loosening her grip on the objects in her hand for him to take what he wanted—which was everything. 

She stepped to the side when he murmured, “no problem,” and started to walk off to the kitchen. She followed him slowly, took a look around, respectfully, curiously, just when she heard the clicking of nails and the thump of paws on wooden floors, and the bark of his dog headed in their direction. 

“Miracle,” Dean grunted, setting everything down on the table, “not inside.” While the fluffy dog did stop its excited running, his enthusiasm was not lost as he wagged his tail, and playfully got down on his stomach in front of her feet. Still on his belly, Miracle approached Y/n slowly, paws and tongue at her toes, as if testing the waters. 

“Hey,” she greeted softly as she squatted slowly and laughed quietly, gently scratching Miracle’s head as he nudged her hand with his wet nose, staring up at her with adorably wide eyes—much like Sam did. “You’re so cute,” she cooed, her heart warming up when Miracle barked quietly.

He then jumped up and turned towards Dean, who was watching them—perplexed, happy, conflicted. 

“You were asleep,” Dean scolded, but sweetly took Miracle’s head in his hands and kissed him between his ears. Miracle whined and stepped away, sitting in front of Dean as if saying ‘I’ll be good if you let me stay’. “Whatever,” Dean groaned with a smile, which made Miracle happy, because he laid his cheek on his paw and stared up at Dean, resting.

Now, it was awkward. 

Dean caught her staring at him, her expression inquisitive. She cleared her throat awkwardly, but she couldn’t form words. She only now noticed that he was wearing a faded black shirt and hotdog pyjama pants. 

“So…” Dean began instead, “pie.” It wasn’t any better, but it’s as she always said: it was better than nothing. 

“Yes,” she confirmed, “strawberry… you weren’t getting ready for bed…?” She inquired, tipping her chin in the direction of his attire. 

“Not to sleep,” he reassured her, taking a few steps toward the cupboards to pull out two plates, glass cups, and then some utensils from the lower drawer. “Why are you doing this?” Dean asked quietly from where he was across the kitchen, everything still in his hands.

“I deserve better that’s why,” she snapped. He blinked at her, guilty, but she paused and took a deeper breath. Careful to not smear her eyeliner, she rubbed her temples instead. She reached behind her to wrap her ankle around the leg of a chair to pull it out and sit down. “Sorry, I don’t like… being angry,” she breathed out, looking out his kitchen window into her dark living room. She switched the Christmas lights off. “It's very stressful because I…” She turned to look at him and forgot her words as he came closer. 

He looked cuter in person and prettier, still. Three years and nothing has changed, he still had her heart right in his hand. 

“Why?” He pressed, placing everything down on the table in front of her. Looking up at him felt intimidating, so she averted her gaze. He was much older than she was… it made her… feel dumb. See-through. Like he could figure her out in seconds. 

“Because I’m friends with your friends,” she admitted without looking at him, then she reached out to arrange the plates, cups, and utensils. He sat down thoughtfully, and watched her unstack the small boxes she brought over. 

“You’re doing this for them,” he laid out flatly, but he took a seat next to her and stared at her. His eyes on her made her self-conscious, flustered. She bet he could see everything, all the ugly and the weird in her.

“I’m doing this for me,” she corrected him gently, “I just want to be happy,” she sighed, removing the plastic wrap she placed over the pie she baked. “Is that selfish?” She wondered out loud, taking the knife, she stared at it. 

“No,” Dean sighed, wrapping his hand around hers to take the knife. She inhaled sharply at the warmth of his touch, his calloused palms brushing against the back of her hand, sending warmth over her chest, pressing into her wrist with her heart excitedly pounding against her ribs.

She released the knife into his hold, trying to hide how much he affected her, but she doubted she could fully do that with the Christmas lights exposing the blush she could feel on her face. She could feel her veins pumping blood faster, caught up with the heavy beating of her heart. If he looked down at her neck, he could probably see it in her veins.

She looked away, down at Miracle who was still peacefully laying on his belly, and Dean looked away towards the beautiful pie to start slicing into it.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, taking her plate to give her the first slice. She looked up at Dean, taking the plate with a generous slice of strawberry pie. 

“I wanted to be the first to say it…” She complained playfully, trying to maintain eye contact with him, but his beauty was intimidating, forcing her to look away, “soon as my ego stopped being sensitive,” she added. 

Dean laughed softly, placing his own slice on his plate. The sound of his laugh made her smile, her stomach flipped with elation, at the crinkles by his eyes. Her breathy exhale made him look at her.

“Well, I’m forty-four, my ego’s been bruised enough times,” he told her, “I don’t care much for it when…” he trailed off and chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. She bit her lip, too, trying not to stare too long at his pretty mouth. 

“Well, thanks,” she murmured, her jaw twitching as she looked away from him. 

“I’d consider all this an apology,” he told her, gazing at her as she opened two rectangular boxes. She smiled, shaking her head. She pulled out a bottle of homemade eggnog along with a decorated jar filled with white frosting, and a small container with crushed peppermint candy. “This isn’t… poisoned, right?” He teased, still watching her while she opened the bottle of rum eggnog, she tilted her head at him, amused. “Just making sure… you did make all this…” he trailed off, impressed.

“Taste the pie,” she encouraged as she started making the drinks.

“You’re just trying to shut me up,” he chuckled gruffly, but he picked up his fork and started to dig in. The strawberry filling barely touched his tongue when he moaned, she watched him not even begin to chew. His brows furrowed and he closed his eyes, savouring the pie. 

It made her blush, but she focused on covering the rim of the cups he brought with the whiskey frosting she made and the peppermint candy shavings before filling it with eggnog.

“You made the frosting, too?” He asked, tipping his head towards the jar. His mouth was full, some strawberry filling dripped down the corner of his mouth, but he picked it up with his tongue. She licked her lips, trying to stop herself from breathing airily, and passed him the eggnog with a nod and slid the jar of frosting towards him to serve herself some eggnog. 

Dean dipped his finger into the frosting, collecting a large amount before wrapping his lips around his finger to suck the frosting off. She forced herself to look away from how hot he looked and ate her own slice of pie instead.

“I’ve seriously been missing out,” he murmured regretfully. “I was real childish,” he told her, “I never should’ve gotten pissed over… everything-”

“Dean,” she interrupted him, giving him a sheepish smile, “you already apologised and I forgive you. Besides, I did things, too.. on purpose… so, I’m sorry.” She pursed her lips and took a sip from her eggnog, swiping her tongue along the sweet frosting.

“You did things on purpose?” He repeated, a smirk on his face. She breathed out a laugh and nodded bashfully. “Why?” he wondered, leaning into her curiously, subtly moving his plate of food towards her. She considered being blunt, but she chose to test him instead.

“Probably the same reason you got pissed at everything I did and didn’t do,” she laughed, pulling a piece of strawberry out of the pie to put it in her mouth.

“I doubt that,” Dean muttered, picking up his own drink, and taking a large gulp. She eyed him closely, her eyes becoming hooded when he licked across his lips after drinking to collect the thin layer of sweetened alcohol on his mouth. 

“What was your reason then?” She wondered flirtatiously, her voice low and seductive. She pushed her plate away with her arm., and mimicked his body language, scooting forward in the chair. 

She watched as his eyes darkened and his jaw clenched, his hand tightening around his fork before he dropped it. She’d never quite been stared at that way before, but it suddenly—almost, made her laugh. Her legs felt weak, her stomach heavy, almost fooling her into thinking she couldn’t get up, but she did.

With a rapid heart and shaky knees, she pushed her chair back, and Miracle lifted his head in alarm. Dean leaned back in his chair, sliding his palms up his thighs, and watched hungrily as she lifted her dress up her legs, squeezing in front of him and part of the table to sit on his lap. 

“Seems like we’ve both been missing out on a lot of stuff,” she whispered, her stomach fluttering for a variety of reasons, but mostly from excitement. He bit his lip, eyes twinkling as he placed his hands slowly on her thighs. She sank her teeth down on her lip, too, breathing heavily when his hands began sliding up her thighs, lifting her dress higher, and higher.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered, continuing to move her dress up until his hands were wrapped around her hips where he could realise she wasn’t wearing any underwear. “I thought I should tell you, before I ruin you,” he rasped, tightening his hold on her hips.

“Fuck,” she moaned, moving forward in his lap until their hips were pressed together. She brought her hands into his hair, and pulled it gently, bringing her mouth close to his, but she never kissed him. She breathed against his lips and when he leaned forward to kiss her, she pulled back teasingly.

“You’re seriously gonna make me wait?” He whispered, slowly rolling his hips up into her, his hard cock pressing into her wet core. She gasped softly against his mouth and laughed breathlessly.

“You feel good,” she praised, flushing as she ground against him harder.

“I’d feel better inside you,” he smirked, sliding one of his hands farther up her dress, his warm palm flattening up her stomach reverently, stopping beneath her breasts..

“I bet,” she moaned, arching into his touch before finally pressing her tinted lips against his. Dean moaned softly against her mouth, pressing against her hungrily, then lifted her up, carefully moving his plate and cup aside to lay her down on the table. 

“Miracle, bed,” Dean ordered when he pulled away from her lips. The dog obediently stood up and excitedly made his way to where Dean’s room was. Dean kissed her once more, drawing her attention away from Miracle and back to him.

She’d never been kissed the way Dean kissed her or touched the way Dean touched her. His hands were everywhere, testing, learning, skillful. He scratched her skin sending sparks down to her already soaked core, kneading her body roughly until she moaned against his mouth. He squeezed her and made her wet. He dug his blunt nails into her and made her nerves ignite. His hands smoothed across her, sailing over her body like she were an ocean and he was a sailor. 

He was desperate, devouring her mouth with his tongue and his teeth, putting his all into the kiss, licking her lips, teasing the inside of her mouth, brushing against her warm tongue. He yearned to memorise the taste of her mouth, to feel close to her, pressing and moaning against her the way he’d done when he ate the pie and frosting. He nibbled on her lips, tugging, biting, claiming, taking the air from her lungs and pulling away at the perfect time. 

He rolled his hips into her frantically and finally started to move away from her now-swollen lips, the colour of her raspberry tint robbed and replaced by the redness of his kiss. 

He dragged his teeth teasingly along her jaw and licked his way down her neck, pressing his stubbled face into her neck, kissing and sucking softly, searching. She rolled her head to the side, giving him all the access he needed, until finally, she moaned loudly when he sucked into her sweetspot. He smiled against her throat, feeling her take handfuls of his shirt, her hips wiggling impatiently beneath him.

He kissed lower still, then back up to the other side of her neck, and bit her collarbones, kissing every inch of her skin, her shoulders and her sternum. She loved every second of it and slipped her hands beneath his shirt, touching and scratching his skin, pulling him closer as he bucked into her bare core.

“Did you know your shirt was see-through when we first met?” He whispered into her cleavage. She laughed and replied with a breathless ‘no’. “Well.. your tits on display, legs bare in those tiny shorts, all pissed as hell… it was hot,” he chuckled, lowering the thin straps of her dress until the top started to reveal her breasts. 

“Is that why you jerked off that night?” She asked, gripping his hair and tugging hard. He grunted and laughed, staring into her lustful eyes.

“You saw?” He teased, bringing his hand to her breast, squeezing roughly. “The answer’s yes.. And everytime after that, it was also ‘cause of you,” Dean confessed, “couldn’t stop thinking about you, every day and every night. I thought I hated you, but I guess I just needed to fuck you.” 

She chuckled, gripping the hem of his shirt, dragging it up his body as he latched onto her nipple. She hummed softly, tugging hard at his hair, in complete bliss as he wrapped his mouth around the bud, licking, sucking, and biting until she whimpered for him to give her more—which was impossible. He moved onto her other breast, savouring her warm skin with his hotter mouth, tugging her neglected nipple with his fingers, twisting and pinching. 

“Please,” she moaned, yanking his hair so he’d pull away. Dean growled against her flesh and bit down hard on her breast, before pulling away, drawing a mewl from her of his name. 

“You could be nicer,” he muttered, allowing her to lift his shirt up off his body, but he continued to kiss her breasts, sucking gently around the flesh to leave red marks. He lifted her feet up on the table and pressed her thighs close to her chest, opening her up to admire her soaked sex.

“We’re long past nice, pretty boy,” she teased blushing and biting her lip when he stood up straight. She didn’t look at him, too insecure to watch him as he brought his hand to the inside of her thighs, teasing her vulva.

“You think I’m pretty?” He grinned, circling her entrance, moaning at copious amounts of arousal on his fingers. “So wet… you that needy for my cock inside you?” He asked smugly. 

She looked at him now, heat flooding up her face at his obscene words. Before she could say anything about it, the tattoo on his chest drew her attention away from the adorable pride on his face.

“You’re a hunter,” she stated, stunned, blinking at him with a smile. He looked down at himself then at her, speechless. She lifted her hips and hitched her dress up higher to reveal her ribcage where she had the same tattoo, twice as small.

“You’re a professor,” he remarked with arousal on his face, pushing his finger into her. He lowered himself down her body and wrapped his arm around her legs, holding her open as he breathed warmly against her wet cunt.

Before she could close her legs to him demurely, Dean dove in, his mouth hot on her pussy. He ate her out the same way he kissed her, teeth making her whimper, his tongue parting and tasting, picking up the flavour of her wetness as she moaned. 

He salivated on her, humming in satisfaction while he sucked her clit into his mouth while he fingered her. Her hands found his hair once more, pulling hard and almost painfully, but his cock jumped each time inside the thin material of his pyjamas. Dean added a second finger as he moaned against her swollen clit, knuckles deep, pressing against the front of her textured walls, drawing silent moans from her, making her squirm more and more. 

“Fuck,” she panted, “you’re so good,” she praised, flexing her hand above his head before gripping at the honey strands. He slurped lewdly, devouring her pussy, squeezing her hips desperately holding her close to his face while she pushed him harder against her cunt. “Dean… I’m close,” she moaned, closing her legs around his head. 

He moaned again, adding another finger, shoving deep as he circled her swollen clit with his tongue, drawing figures on her clit possessively. She gasped loudly and cried out his name, tensing up when she orgasmed, her walls clamping down on his three fingers. The rapture of her orgasm seemed endless as he continued to tongue at her clit, it made her writhe uncontrollably, and he smirked against her pussy.

Her whiny laugh and the way she squeezed his head to stop him made him chuckle, and he tapped her thigh once he pulled his fingers from within her pulsing walls. She released him, melting into the table while he licked his fingers clean of her release.

“You taste good,” he told her earnestly, “so fucking good.” She bit her lip, giving him a look of disbelief. He narrowed his eyes at her, leaning down to lick a long stripe up her pussy, then down, pushing his tongue past her clenching, wet hole. 

“Dean, fucking…” she moaned, “oh, God, why does that feel good?” She snickered, then he pulled away hovering above her. She opened her eyes to his smug face, his clean fingers squeezed her cheeks roughly until she opened her mouth. She furrowed her brows, whining out with her hands around his wrist so he’d release, but she shut up when he spit in her mouth.

“Taste yourself,” he ordered, licking his lips. Her pupils dilated as she looked into his eyes, the tangy taste of herself made her mouth water and she swallowed. “D’you know how hot you are?” He asked rhetorically, kissing her roughly once more, ravenous and stopped only when he felt her hands pushing his pants down his legs.

“I want you, Dean,” she whispered against his mouth, biting his lip before returning the passion of his kiss.

“Where?” He asked teasingly, wrapping his arm around her waist, he sat her up on the table and gently held her face in his hands, before releasing her to strip completely. 

“I want you inside me,” she told him coquettishly, hopping off the table to slowly let her dress pool around her feet. “I want to ride you, to feel you stretch me open…” she walked towards him, watching him completely aroused, a look of pleasant surprise on his face, “I want you to fill me up, and make me cum on your cock…” she licked her lips, staring down at his cock, erect and leaking precum. “... I’ve never seen a dick this nice,” she told him, wrapping her hand around the base and stepping closer to him.

He grunted, “suck it then.” She laughed through her nose, releasing his cock to fondle his balls. He moaned, stumbling slightly.  “I’ve been wanting to shut you up with my cock in your mouth,” he told her, a smirk on his face, “now, I’m just thinking how pretty you’ll look with your lips wrapped around me.” Dean reached up and curled his fingers around the back of her neck. 

She looked behind him, removed her hand, and tipped her head to the chair, “sit.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he grinned, kicking the chair towards him like she had earlier, then he sat, legs wide and tempting. “You’re sexier than you were in my imagination,” he told her, watching her get down between his legs, kissing his thighs while looking up at him through her curled lashes. 

“Keep talkin’,” she grinned up at him, taking his heavy cock in her hand once more. Dean gave her a sexy look, smug and aroused.

“I wanna finish in your mouth,” he told her, “want to see you swallow my load.” Pleased, she moved forward and began kissing and licking the length of his cock, teasingly and experimentally feeling the velvety, veiny texture against her hand, tongue, and lips. “I want to hear you choke on my cock, and see what you look like with tears in your eyes as I fuck your pretty face.” She moaned softly, intrigued by the description of his fantasy. 

She dipped her tongue into the slit, moaning at the taste of his precum, drooling over the soft head of his cock before sucking him into her mouth.

“Fuck,” he moaned, tangling his fingers in her hair. She slowly took him deeper, pulling him out of her hot mouth teasingly, then swallowing inch by inch of his hard cock. “You’re so good at that, baby,” he panted, letting her take her time at her own pace, but he gripped her hair tightly. “Don’t stop,” he moaned, staring into her eyes as she continued to take his cock, bobbing her head, not stopping until he hit the back of her throat. She swallowed around him, and he bucked his hips up, releasing a whispered curse, attempting to keep his eyes open to watch her suck him off.

She got comfortable between his legs, taking his freehand to put it in her hair. He took her hair, put it together, and waited for her permission before slowly lifting his hips, pushing his cock slowly into her throat. When she gagged, he slowly pulled back, then pushed back into her, lips parted, releasing quick breaths. 

Eventually, he started to fuck her face in earnest, lifting his hip up off the chair, pulling her hair hard to guide her on and off his dick. Her spit dribbled down her chin in a mixture of his precum. She swallowed as much as she could, moaning and blinking tears that tickled her eyes and her jaw. 

“You look so fucking…” he chocked on a moan, “so damn sexy.” 

She ignored the soreness of her jaw, relaxing it as best as she could as he fucked her near mercilessly. Her pussy throbbed with every sound of his pleasure, clit aching for attention at the way he gazed down at her with burning desire, but she refused to touch herself, enjoying the build-up, the desperation for another orgasm, for his touch. 

He throbbed in her mouth, turning to mush beneath her mouth. He even began to whimper and moan her name, praises and dirty words becoming scarce in attempts to hold back his orgasm, edging himself with her mouth. It didn’t take long for him to hold her with her nose against his pelvis breathlessly. 

He pulled her off his cock, and released her hair to wipe tears tenderly from her hot cheeks with his thumbs, trying to get his mind off the near-pleasure of her mouth around his cock while catching his breath. 

“Yummy,” she rasped, pulling a breathless laugh from him. She wiped her chin with her shoulder and smiled up at him, slowly getting up on her knees to get rid of the ache of sitting on her legs.

She got up, leaning back against the table, admiring him in his red, flushed, somewhat sweaty state. His hair was a mess from her hands and he had a blush around his neck to his ears. She knew the hardness of his body accounted for the fact that he was a hunter, as well as the scars she felt beneath her soft hands, bite marks, bullet wounds, and healed slashes.

“Come closer,” she told him and he laughed, bringing himself and the chair closer, stopping when she sat on his thighs, fixing herself over his strong thighs. “Gonna cum if I tease you?” She asked, tapping the head of his cock. It twitched instantly and he moaned.

“Depends,” he replied breathily, sliding his hands up her body. She hummed softly, spreading her legs, positioning his cock near her soppy folds.

“On what?” She cackled playfully, parting her folds with one hand, circling her clit with her fingers. He watched her lustfully, the wetness that made her pussy shine coated her fingers.

“How wet and warm you feel on my cock,” he replied truthfully. He grabbed her hand and moved it out of the way anyway, taking his cock to push it between her folds, pressing the tip against her clit. 

“Fuck, Dean,” she moaned softly, grasping his shoulders, “you feel… I need you,” she whimpered, rolling her hips along the length of his cock. He moaned with her, moving her hips closer to him, her wetness coating his cock.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, sweetheart…” Dean moaned, watching her lean back against the table, positioning the soft head of his cock to her entrance. Completely enthralled, he watched himself slip inside her, and she watched him, biting her lip hard in concentration, the stretch of her walls around him almost painful. “Fuck… I can feel how bad you need me… I need you just as bad,” he panted, flexing his hands on her thighs, desperately trying not to thrust up into her warmth. He dug his nails into her flesh, his head tipping back, his hips rolling up.

“Dean,” she moaned again, starting to lift herself up and down his cock, reaching up to cup her breast. “Shit, you feel amazing,” she breathed out, grinding her hips against his until he was fully inside her. 

“You okay?” He asked, one of hands drifting up to knead her breast comfortingly. She nodded, buried her fingers in his hair and brought him in for a kiss as she bent her knees, and tucked her feet in between his thighs.

“I could cum like this,” she mumbled against his lips. His chuckle rumbled through his chest and he shook his head, her pussy clenched at the sound and she started to lift herself up again.

“Don’t worry,” he told her, sucking on his lip momentarily. “I’ll make you cum so hard…” He paused to moan, thrusting up into her slowly, meeting her hip. “...you’ll never want to fuck anyone else,” he promised her, building up the pace of his thrusts until she stopped moving with him altogether, letting him fuck up into her needy cunt. 

“You’ll only wanna be fucked by me,” he continued, watching her lean back with her elbow on the table, her hands roaming his warm body, “and I’ll be there, ready to fuck you hard.” He looked over her shoulder, at the jar of frosting. “Pounding into your sweet cunt,” he swore breathlessly, reaching behind her, dipping his fingers to gather frosting, “makin’ you beg, makin’ you impossibly wet.” He smeared frosting over her nipples, over her collarbone, her sternum, until he had no more while she moaned his name needily. 

“Makin’ you feel things you’ve never felt before.” He gripped her hip with frosting-coated fingers, leaning forward to lick and suck the whiskey frosting from her body. “I’ll fill you up as many times as you want,” he vowed, smoothing her hand up her back, into her hair once more, pulling until she whined his name. “I’ll fuck you wherever you want.”

Her pussy continued to gush over Dean’s cock the more he talked—his breathless, husky voice taking her over the edge. Each rough pull of her hair made her mewl and whimper as she rolled her hips desperately against his. 

“Dean, please,” she whispered, scratching down his back, digging marks into his skin the harder and faster he thrusted into her. Loud skin slapping, the wet sound of her pussy being penetrated, with every push of his cock in and out of her, squelching and driving her crazy. She dug her nails into her palm, making obscene sounds that made her self-conscious.

“I’ll fuck you all over your house, all over mine.” Another moan of his name, another rough pull of her hair. “I’ll fuck you in my car, in your car, anywhere and all over town.” He pulled away from her sticky chest, licked his lips at the sight of her, so she screwed her eyes shut. She felt a warm pool of wetness on her pelvic bone, opened her eyes to him spitting between their bodies, watching his saliva drip down her folds to her clit. 

She’d never heard of or experienced sex quite this raw and dirty.

“I’ll make you scream my name, make you forget how to talk, how to walk…” She leaned back into him, panting into his ear, keeping him close while rubbing her clit. He yanked her hair, forcing her to look at him. 

“Dean…”

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he whispered, closing his eyes, he breathed against her lips, “and I want you forever.”

As he promised, she cried out his name when she came, squeezing his cock hard, coating him in her release. He grunted her name, cursing loudly as he came inside her, his hot seed spurting into her, filling her as he said he would. 

He circled his arms around her as she writhed once more, releasing her hair as she put her arms around his neck, panting and catching her breath until the pleasure subsided.

“I want all of that,” she murmured after a few moments of silence, kissing his cheek. He squeezed her and moved back, bewildered. He moved hair from her face and tilted his head at her, drawn to her nakedness, her flushed beauty. “First, I want to shower…” Slowly, carefully, she climbed off his lap, her legs shaky, her pussy releasing the mixture of their pleasure. 

“That’s a good start,” he told her softly. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled when he stood up from the chair and looked around at the mess in the kitchen. “No one’s coming home anytime soon… thanks to Sammy…” Dean trailed off, smoothing his hand over his head to fix his hair.

“Thanks to me,” she came clean with a shy smile, bringing his gaze up to hers. His eyes twinkled and he laughed loudly, tugging her towards him again by her arm, his lips pressing against hers.

➥ sempiternal

taglist

@rominaszh @livingdeadmak @lanassmarty @murdockscumsock @zepskies @candy-coated-misery0731 @stxrgazer03 @epsilonsagittarii @lyarr24 @spnfamily-j2 @globetrotter28 @deansbbyx @lickmybawls @jackles010378 @winchstrdean @deanwinchestersgirl87 @the-achievementhunter @deanfreakingwinchester @k-slla @madzzz0797 @laylaackles @fanfic-n-tabulous @kristophalis @mrlonelycat @taylortotsworld @evznackles

main masterlist

dean winchester masterlist

kinkmas2023 masterlist

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO DEANBRAINROTWRITINGS 

do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or republish my work on another platform

[trashmouth-richie]

𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: escaping Hawkins was impossible, but he did it. when a ghost from your past shows up unexpectedly, bringing with him old memories and holding up a mirror to the train wreck life you’re living… you find it hard to trust him again.

𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+ no minors, depictions of poverty, child neglect/ endangerment, drug use/abuse, alcohol use/abuse, endangerment, 18+ sex working, 18+stripping, violence, smut. no use of y/n reader has a name that’s introduced in the first chapter, and another “nickname” that is lightly used throughout this series. eddie also has a nickname given by reader.

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎: this series switches pov’s between reader and eddie, thank you to @succubusmunson @joejoequinnquinn @choke-me-eddie @sweetsweetjellybean for helping me read through the first chapter, helped me brainstorm etc i love you

there are two easter eggs in this let me know if you catch em! like pokémon only not

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞: here i come, but i ain’t the same

masterlist

Stupid fucking bitch.

One dial tone waned into another, a monotonous wave taunting you from the end of the receiver. Your fingers tap impatiently against the counter. How long could a phone actually ring before it stopped or someone finally answered?

Too damn long apparently. 

Giving up and counting your losses, you slam the receiver back on the wall, muttering more choice words as you skirt your hips behind the wooden bar, thumbing through the blue lined notebook schedule.   

Work was packed. More-so than any other Friday night, but since it was the beginning of graduation weekend for Hawkins High— every Sam, Dick, and Harry had wandered into the bar looking for a cheap escape and a sugary drink. 

Lucky for them, that was exactly what Queen of Hearts had on the menu. And if you talked to the right person, the luck didn’t stop there. 

“No answer?” Jolene called over her shoulder, hands full with a bottle of Jack Daniels. 

Scribbling an angry dark mark through the name Ginger on the schedule, you toss the notebook back into the drawer shutting it with your hip.

“Just rang and rang,”  you say, annoyingly jumping in to help her finish pouring three Jack & Cokes. The soda fizzes under your thumb, “and before you try to cover for her, this is the fourth time she’s done this.” 

She lets out an exaggerated sigh, taking the cans from you and tossing them into the trash.

“Really thought this one would work out,” her long legs cross behind you to slot the liquor bottle back in its designated spot, “she had kids.. poor thing needed the cash.” 

The familiar ache of neglect radiated through you, “I found a babysitter for the nights she was working, told her I’d help pay… that asshole she keeps around probably found out she was working here.” 

Jolene raises her eyebrows. Her slender fingers hold the three drinks with ease, setting them on a tray.

“Can’t believe Jackie skipped town with that rich salesman,” she sighs heavily, leaning an elbow on the sticky bar, “lucky girl, something like that would never happen to me.” 

Jealousy pings in your chest but you shake it off, “he was really dreamy huh? Those beauty marks? His hair? His ass?” You wolf whistle, “cut me a slice.” 

You weren’t jealous that Jackie was now probably driving a BMW, that her life would be nothing but luxurious from here on out, or even that her boyfriend was movie star hot. 

What made your blood boil over was the fact that she got out, and you were still stuck here like hardened gum underneath a table. 

The club was a part of you. Like an unwanted birthmark, this lifestyle was something you couldn’t get away from. Understanding at a young age, when most girls were playing with dolls, just exactly the kind of life you were destined to live, and unfortunately it wasn’t outside of these four walls.

“Your time will come,” Jolene smiled, looking into a compact and wiping a smudge of lipstick from her teeth, “you’re still young, Miss Assistant.” 

You rolled your eyes, placing the tray on her awaiting palm. Since Jackie was gone, her job was now yours.  Tacking on added responsibilities with no pay raise in sight. You found out all too soon what a fucking joke that title of ‘assistant’ actually was. 

“Told him I didn’t want it, but you know how that went.” 

“I do kid,” she sighs, looking down at you, her eyes sweeping over the still pink scar in your eyebrow, “I really… oh honey, you’re gonna be a busy little bee tonight!” 

You breathe heavily through your nose, dragging your hands down your face, “don’t remind me.” 

“I’ll help out wherever, ‘kay?” 

Jolene had taken you under her wing when you first walked into Queen of Hearts. Freshly eighteen almost down to the hour, naive waters brimming your eyes, forced into this life. 

Her motherly ways comforted everyone, only thirty-three but in this industry that was practically ninety. Just like you, Jolene had deep roots in this place. 

Her tall frame slinks over to the waiting guys sitting at the stage, a pleasant smile on her lips. Twirling the ends of her black hair twisted into schoolgirl pigtails, laying the charm on thick. 

Staring over at her in a forlorn gaze, you hated to think of yourself still here ten years from now, a permanent fixture to this place, like Jolene. The lemons of life were squeezed and you had made the lemonade, but it was sour, bitter.. you longed for something sweeter. 

The bubbly fantasy is popped when Mickey Fritz’ oversized hand hits the counter like he’s a toddler in a highchair.

“Hey sugar tits, I’m empty o’er here!”

Your nightmare reality comes back into view. 

The walls at Queen of Hearts were draped in deep shades of red velour, a cozy ambiance to invite strangers and locals alike. The bar was backlit and stocked with a decent selection of polished bottles of whiskey, gin and bourbon. 

His boots clapped along the wood floor as the pair walked further inside, leaving a plume of smoke in their wake, catching on the neon lights and creating a smoked crimson haze across the dark club.

The raised stage was centered, creating an aisle on either side of it, clad with leather backed red chairs surrounding it at every angle. For a night club in the middle of Indiana, it wasn’t half bad compared to the places he was used to out East. 

A row of booths were tucked onto the left side of the club, high top tables stood crowded with drunk college students, yelling loudly and making asses of themselves to impress the working girls. 

The music blaring over the speakers was a little cliche and too “pop” for his liking—fuck, had he really turned into one of those guys, questioning what a strip club was playing for music? 

He rolls his eyes at his own false pretentiousness, turning it into a wink at a cocktail waitress carrying a tray full of plastic flutes filled with a gut rot of pink liqueur. The gold thong she was wearing sat high on her hips, matching the cheap glittery cowboy hat on her blonde curls. 

Dark eyes follow her long legs to a nearby table, a fist to his mouth as he whistles and licks his chomps.

“Damn! Can you believe this used to be the Hideout?” Jeff squawked, not so casually adjusting himself as they slid into an open booth, “that was Gareth Emerson’s twin sister, she really grew up huh, remember him?”

He didn’t.

Much like anyone else Jeff had tried to bring up since he had agreed to meet up for a drink on the occasion that they were both home, he hadn’t given high school a second thought since the night he left. 

“Nah, man,” he said, grabbing for the sticky menu on the black table top, “I don’t.”

It had been years since he had seen Jeff, and he was surprised that he had recognized him at the gas station last night when he was filling up his motorcycle. 

His own appearance hadn’t changed much, dressed a little better, wore cologne now, normal shit that came along with getting out of puberty. 

Back then Jeff still had braces, a small lisp when he got really drunk. Now, he was a grown man. Living in Phoenix with a big important job at some company, home for the weekend to visit his parents, and watch his youngest brother graduate.

There would be no visiting family or old friends for him on this trip back to Hawkins. The thought of running into anyone he knew and having that painfully awkward small talk about the ‘good old days as a Tiger!’ made him cringe, as if that ever were the case for him. 

Having left this shit hole in the middle of the night seven years ago, he took nothing with him but some saved cash, his guitar, a full tank of gas and the clothes on his back. 

The heavy ache in his chest, brim filled with remorse, was an added carry on, something that didn’t go away with the miles he had put between him and Hawkins. 

He had planned to keep this town in the rearview, but life, probably karma, had other plans. 

Back in Hawkins strictly on “business,” that's what he told Jeff when the smiley old friend grabbed him into a bear hug in the checkout line, crushing the chips he was carrying to a powder in its aluminum bag. 

Technically, it was family business. But he hadn’t mentioned that to Jeff. He didn’t want the questions, didn’t want the pity.

He barely even knew his uncle that well anyway, but being the only living relative of the deceased, he didn’t have a choice when the call came through that he had passed. 

A week. That was the timeframe he told his job that he’d be gone for. Leaving just enough time to plan the funeral, and sell the trailer. 

Coming home to the haunting shadows of Hawkins was like playing in a graveyard filled with demons of his past. Sorrow filled every dark corner, looming around him like a fog, making him unable to forget the damage left behind. 

For years it had worked out fine, he had moved on. But every now and then, he had to push his inner demons down, and still to this day, years after the fact, they kept trying to crawl back up. The shame of his past coming to the forefront.

The music changes to another upbeat song that was popular on the radio, Jeff nods along to the beat, strumming his fingers against his belly like he was playing the guitar. 

He looked over at his old highschool friend and smiled for the first time since being back here, “still play?”

Jeff stretched a wide grin across his face, chuckling a little too loud, “only in my dreams… working seventy-hour weeks doesn’t really allow me to have that kinda freedom.” He nodded and smiled a little at the waitress who was coming to take their drink orders, “so what have you been up to man? It’s been years!”

He knew all too well about not having free time to spend the way he had wanted to. He didn’t even own a guitar anymore. The last time he saw his Warlock, it was sitting in a pawn shop in Nashville— the last of his many possessions sold to make ends meet. 

Ordering a beer, he counts his budget for this trip in his head, deciding to buy Jeff’s drink too. Maybe being back wouldn’t be so bad after a drink or two, a little liquid courage to get him through the night at least.

The pleather seat creaks beneath his weight when he leans back further into the booth, stretching his arms out wide. Trying to gain a sliver of comfort since being home. 

Working the pole to Ginger’s song of choice, Once Bitten, Twice Shy, you found it hard to get into music you could care less about. But you didn’t have time to complain. 

Legs crossed and spinning upside down, bare besides a face full of makeup and a red thong, you pretended that you were anywhere else but there. 

How nice it would be to not have to crawl across dirty dollar bills, teasing a faceless man with your body so that he would be eager enough to slip a twenty into your g-string.

Collecting your tips from your set, you tap them against your vanity in the dressing room, counting out loud your mind already knowing how much money will be put away after bills are paid. 

The long jagged crack in your mirror served as the only looking glass you liked to look in. The warped shapes of your face looking back at you made it easier to swallow the life you were living, as if it were a fever dream, a disturbed Alice in Wonderland type reality. 

In the mirror you weren’t a dancer at Queen of Hearts. You could be a nurse, a librarian, a cook in a shitty home town restaurant who went home smelling like grease instead of men’s cologne and wearing suspicious stains. 

It could be easy, simple really. Bus tickets weren’t terribly expensive. Going to any city, a map in your hand and the saved coffee can of cash tucked into your purse. You could almost imagine the taste of the ocean. The thought of even stepping outside of Indiana was enough to power you for the rest of the night. 

As easily as the daydream came it fluttered away when the boss stepped into the dressing room. 

His eyes loomed in a dead stare, sweat pooling on his temples. The ice in his glass shifted as it melted into the whiskey. A Colombian cigar tucked into his fat mouth had an inch long ash waiting to fall. 

He wasn’t much taller than you, barely older, but his attitude and small dick made him seem eight feet tall. 

“The hell are you doing in here? Fucking Christ woman, the girls are drowning out there, those needle dick college fucks are about to swing fists and you’re in here staring at yourself?”

“Just takin’ a little break Tommy, I gotta change.” 

“I don’t need any lip from you, better watch it before I match that other scar y’ hear me?” 

His threats didn’t scare you, it was who he answered to that made you terrified. A bad report to the big boss and you’d be drinking your meals through a straw. You knew because it’s already happened. Turns out you don’t need your mouth to swing around a pole. 

“Loud and clear.” 

This type of life was the only one you had ever known. You quite literally grew up with this environment right under your nose, and everyone at the club knew it. 

The romance novels you kept in your purse were full of knights in shining armor type of men, another fallacy to your looking glass. 

The thought of anything else was only real in your daydreams. Escaping the festering wound of Hawkins was impossible, almost unheard of. No one with your background got out. 

But he did.

Shoulder to shoulder, squeezing in sideways with grimy singles fisted in their hands, the club was stuffed to the hilt with sweaty, drunk, and extremely horny men. 

“… here!” you slam two more drinks onto the heaping tray and shove it into Wendy’s hands, “take this to those asshats and tell them we are out of triple sec, no more Long Island Ice Teas, if they want a drink they can order beer like everyone else.”

Wendy swung her hips with the Long Islands in tow over  to soften the hearts of the college boys. Batting her lashes, sitting topless on their laps and letting them tell her stories of the parties they went to, the classes they skipped and the girls they fucked. Anything to keep them from hollering and starting a fight with the locals. 

Lisa Ann was working over the business men from out of town, their briefcases shining with a matte patent leather, expensive watches adorning their wrists. Her pretty Marilyn Monroe smile on display as she brought over their drinks, tussling their hair between her pink fingernails, putty at her fingertips.  

Between the rest of you rotating between pouring drinks, collecting payments and trying to wiggle past the grabby hands of Donny, the roar of the busy hour had started to lull. 

All of you were tired and crabby, legs cramping and toes pinched in uncomfortable shoes. Jolene wiped her brow and blew out a deep breath. 

“Take fifteen,” you said to her, “I got it from here.” 

She shot you a wink and disappeared into the dressing room. 

Peeling the soles of your boots from the floor you lean your back against the shelf of liquor bottles. Working your hands on the base of your neck behind your head.

The usual crink that ached when you were stressed was flaring up again. Causing your shoulders to tense up and sending a pinched dull ache from your back up to your throbbing temples. Radiating your jaw, with a heat so fierce it could melt glass and it wasn’t even eleven o’ clock yet. 

Your eyes are pressed closed in a tight squeeze, maybe you could shut the pain out by pretending it wasn’t there.

“Tiffs just about done in room D,” Veronica chirped, her bracelets jingling in a metallic tune, “the ‘doctor’ again,” she explains with air quotes chuckling to herself.

“He’s only here on nights she’s workin’” you say exhaustedly,  “she’s his favorite.” 

Being one of the few regulars that wasn’t married, he was somehow the slimiest worm in the dirt. Tall and slender framed with icy white hair, he seemed to stare down his nose at the girls, his voice an eerily calm when he asked for Tiff, handing over the crisp fifties to secure her for the allotted amount of time. 

Beads click together as she stumbles in from the back, adjusting her lipstick and holding the ripped strap of her bra, followed behind her like clockwork was the doctor, tucking his oxford shirt into his slacks. 

Your jaw felt like it was going to ignite, as if it were covered in tension rods and the gears were  cranking it tighter and tighter, sweat beginning to form on your back, “can you hand me my purse?” 

Rustling your bag from underneath the bar, Veronica hands over the canvas tote, her emerald eyes staring at you expectantly like a serpent watching its prey, “care to share those little party favors?” 

Rolling your eyes, you move your hand through the contents inside. Pushing past a checkbook, lipsticks, and the papered corner of a tampon. Finally your fingers close around the smooth unlabeled bottle. 

Two tablets land in your palm when you pop the cap, and you shake it begrudgingly to release another tablet from the bottle for Veronica.

She giggles and grabs two shot glasses, pouring bourbon into them both. 

“Only one,” you instruct, a serious look in your eyes, “I’m not picking you up from the floor later.” 

A coy little smile on her lips, she brings the shot glasses over, handing one to you, “you worry too much.” 

Placing the pill in her free palm, you clink the glasses together in a little cheer. 

“To us,” Veronica grins, “may our titties stay perky, our asses juicy, the boys pockets fat and our kitties not loosey.” 

You roll your eyes and she laughs, her lips close around the glass the same as yours, and you swallow down the liquor, wincing at the taste. 

Within fifteen minutes the temporary high coats your brain like a warm blanket, floating you to a place far away from shiny poles, 6 inch heels, and ass slaps, away from Hawkins. 

Jeff listens intently as he explains a very bland and watered down version of how he left Hawkins and traveled east, working odd jobs. 

Skipping the part about how he lied about his age to find work, and how he spent an entire month getting his ass kicked after dishwashing shifts at some swanky restaurant outside of Raleigh. 

He explained the good stuff, how he worked part time at a tattoo shop for one of his buddies he met in Philly. His full time gig being a lead shift at a factory. 

It wasn’t that impressive, he knew that, but he couldn’t make himself give a shit what anyone thought of him. For only being twenty-three, he was proud of having a paycheck every two weeks from a legit place. 

The click of the waitresses shoes on the floor had Jeff looking up, thanking her for the drinks. She was dressed a little more conservative than the other waitresses had been, wearing a black mini skirt and a see-through red long sleeved top, showing off black sparkly stickers that covered her nipples. 

But that wasn’t what had him taking a second look. At first glance he thought maybe it was just a note written in pen, a reminder of some sort on the top of her hand, lots of people wrote on their hands right? But when she set the drinks down, reaching past them and across the table to grab a napkin, sopping up spilled beer, he almost choked on air.

It wasn’t something written in pen, or a weird unlucky shaped birthmark. The marks on her hand were two small symbols, they had faded with time and were blown out a little on the edges. 

Of course they were, because the identical marks on his hand were blurred the exact same way. Two little symbols, done on the hottest day in July. The smell of his childhood room stung his nose as he thought of that day. 

A day when you were both only thirteen. 

The regulars were bellied up to the bar holding an aluminum can toast to their long gone friend, hollering for you to play some David Allen Coe in a final goodbye. 

Flicking through the jukebox to find “Never Even Called Me By My Name,” you were too busy to pay any attention to the toast of the deceased buddy.

Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have been completely blindsided. 

“Clovie?” A disgustingly sweet saccharine voice laced between bubble gum pink lips sang out from behind you, tapping you simultaneously on the shoulder, “be a dolly and run the drinks over to table 8, would ya?”

“Why c—”

Tiff was already gone, the door to the dressing room swinging shut in a shower of White Diamond perfume before you could even spin around and tell her where she could shove those aforementioned drinks. 

Outside of collecting her own tips, and pleasuring the doctor, Tiff never lifted a finger to help. 

Wiping your hands on the cleanest towel you could find, your muttering goes unheard as you cross back over to the bar and grab the cracked black plastic tray set with two large overflowing mugs of draft beer. 

The ground was sticky under your boots, like walking in half dried paint, sometimes you wondered if Wendy actually served a full drink to anyone. 

Balancing the heavy tray on your palm and shoulder, you pray that it won’t snap before you’re able to place the drinks down. 

Table 8 was occupied by a guy you had seen before but couldn’t remember from where, and a long dark curly haired woman who was facing away from you. 

The smile on your face was the fakest one you could make, hoping to maybe get a good tip before Tiff could notice and take her claim. 

“Alrighty,” your customer service voice sang with a false sweet sincerity, “looks like we have two Busch Lights?” 

The guy you had greeted smiled eagerly, moving his elbows from the table allowing room for the frosty mugs to be placed. 

Your fingers work gingerly to set the ruby colored drink napkins down first. The beer was placed carefully, his greedy fingers grabbing the handle before you could barely remove your hand from it. 

The second beer started to slide on the tray, and you over corrected causing it to land with a thud on the table, sloshing the pale ale all over the table—luckily not on the woman. 

So much for a tip, huh?

Apologizing quickly, you lean across the table and reach for the paper napkins. Wiping up the mess hastily you toss the wet heap onto your tray. 

Turning to the woman to offer her a look that’ll hopefully get you in her good graces— well enough that maybe her husband would reconsider tipping, “I’ll go fetch a rag and come back with another beer free of charge sweetheart,” you start to smile sheepishly, “I’m so s—”

The eyes you were met with were the deepest shade of brown, struck with astonishment, crowded by a grove of thick lashes, a look of dismay etched into them. 

Blinking once, twice, you couldn’t register if you were truly seeing this or hallucinating. 

You hadn’t seen those eyes in years, a flash of recognition drops on your face and the perky smile fades. Heart falling to the well of your stomach, punching the air from your lungs, heat rising to the surface of your cheeks. 

In an instant, you’re brought back to many years before tonight. When those eyes were younger, full of teenage angst and rebellion. 

Hell must’ve froze over, pigs were without a doubt flying overhead: Eddie Munson had returned to Hawkins. 

taglist: @mmunson86 @sidthedollface2 @winchester-angel @mrsjellymunson @joannamuns9n @tlclick73 @mewchiili @spacedoutdaydreamer @emxxblog @maybeisthemoon @str4ngergirlw0rld @chrrymunson @insertcoolnameherethanks @kellsck @prestinalove @mandyjo8719 @onegirlmanytales @mopeymopeymouse @veravee-blog @taintedcigs @eddies-acousticguitar @oeuryale @kthomps914 @bangaveragewhitewine @lil-quinnie @corrodedcoffincumslut @definitionwanderlust @madaboutjoe @littledemondani @eiightysixbaby @usedtobecooler

[ambriel-angstwitch]

Tim Drake Pride Thoughts

Ok starting of strong with Tim’s unstable identity

Tim’s fascinating because he’s always had someone else’s identity. He was always trying to live up to Jason and Dick and now he has to share it with Damian which creates an instability. He doesn’t know who he is.

Yay! Tim Drake Tech Nerd reference! The system was lagging and Oracle turned to Tim for help. I also love that like a good big sister she’s trying to help him consider his future.

She really went for the throat with that sudden psychoanalysis. Tim really had this problem where he always tries to fix everything, it’s how he became Robin in the first place. He felt like it was his duty to save a Batman on the edge of self destruction. Tim is on the other hand afraid to deal with his own problems like Babs was saying

😂 It is a habit of his. Bruce is collecting children like Pokémon.

Little does Bernard know that Tim is part of a family business and instead of being forced in he forced his way in.

I love how Tim talks in coding terms about himself. It’s a language they can both understand as Bernards a gamer

Respect trying to save people but your Tim right now (a kidnappable rich boy) not Robin.

Tim’s thinking about himself like a machine again. This is a genuinely heartbreaking moment for Tim though. He spends all his time trying to save everyone but then he can’t save his friend or get a break from the constant danger

Ok the comics jump around from here so my posts are going to be going by chronological order rather than page to make sense to the outside viewer

Oh Tim and your inability to understand that it’s ok to ask for help and not fix everything yourself . Also this may be part of where people got the idea that he doesn’t sleep. I personally think that he is a workaholic that forgets to get a substantial amount of sleep but people will find him catnapping in the strangest. He doesn’t go

I hate how unconcerned Bernards parents are. Like I know he isn’t living up to your standards and expectations but at least pretend you care for him as more than an heir. I do wonder why they didn’t like Tim though. I guess he does drop out of highschool but they don’t know that.

Weird hobby Tim but pop off.

Seriously though when saw Dionysus it made me so excited. Most people when making a “cult of Dionysus” they focus on drunkenness and polyamory but I love the chaos angle because this god had a lot of things he did.

This dumbass goes and purposely gets himself tortured because he wants to find his friend. Like yes Tim you are in over your head. I mean you’re going to use this to your advantage your plan will work but it still involves you getting significantly beat up.

Part 2

[goldensunset]

i need to. do more kh x pokémon things

[weaselandfriends]

The Making Of: When I Win the World Ends

(For my previous Making Of post, see The Making Of: Cleveland Quixotic.)

I. 1999

It was the year of the cubicle movie. It was the year of Fight Club, of Office Space, of Being John Malkovich, of Three Kings, of The Matrix, and of American Beauty. It was the year of suburban malaise, of eternal sunshine, of ceaseless normality. A year of United States hegemony; a year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.

Before the millennium turned and the towers fell, there was an initial challenge to this order, a completely inconsequential one made consequential by a newly minted 24/7 news media machine running out of noise to fill dead air now that people were sick to bursting of the Clinton impeachment. This challenge came not through war, revolution, or violence, but through entertainment. Children's entertainment.

And I was a child. Unaware of any cultural context, I knew only one thing: I loved Pokémon. I really, really loved Pokémon.

I owned Red Version, Blue Version, Yellow Version, Pokémon Pinball, Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Snap, Hey You Pikachu, a Pokémon Tetris sort of puzzle game, even the Pokémon TCG game for Gameboy. I had ten to fifteen strategy guides for the games, an encyclopedia of the 151 Pokémon, a choose your own adventure book, an I Spy-style book. I had Pokémon figurines, Pokémon plushies, toy Poké Balls, toy Pokédexes. I had Pokémon stamps and Pokémon stickers and a deck of Pokémon cards. Not trading cards, just a standard 52-card deck with Pokémon pictures on it. Of course I also had the trading cards. A complete set of the first three runs, plus a special Mew card you could get from I dunno Toys R Us or something as part of some promotion. I had a guide for the card game that explained which cards were good or bad even though I didn't even play the card game. I had a Pokémon Tamagotchi and Pokémon pencils and Pokémon erasers and Ash Ketchum's hat and I dressed up as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Of course I watched every episode of the anime, and in notebooks I drew doodles of existing Pokémon and came up with names for new Pokémon. My father had died that year.

My father was a sports fanatic. Traditional sports. He, too, collected. Sports memorabilia, baseball cards, figures of famous stars. When I was an infant, he drove me on a cross country road trip to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I became a part owner of the Green Bay Packers. He had always wanted me to grow up and pursue professional sports. When I was born, the doctor apparently said to start looking for football colleges, a quote he saved in a scrapbook of baby photos. He had played sports himself, in college; he was a baseball catcher, until a hitter accidentally struck him in the head with a full force swing.

Almost everything I personally remember about him involves him dying. He was sick for a long time, and I remember hospitals and hospital beds and strange smells and gauze. And then one day my mother told me he died.

He was a charismatic man, very social and very popular. He had many friends and a lot of family, all of whom had constantly been around our house. Once he was gone, they stopped coming around. Then it was just me and my mother, who was not a fanatic for anything, except maybe her job as an elementary school teacher, which consumed her time as she assiduously prepared lesson plans and graded tests until late at night. When my father died, she got into some argument with his side of the family, the details of which I still don't fully understand, and afterward they no longer spoke. Her own family lived far away, out-of-state, seen only at Christmas. The house became quiet.

And I… played… Pokémon.

II. The Electric Tale of Pikachu

Toshihiro Ono was a mangaka primarily known for shotacon and futanari hentai. His credits such as Innyou Megami and Anal Justice made him a no-brainer pick for the officially licensed Pokémon manga, Electric Tale of Pikachu, as it too would feature a 10-year-old boy as the protagonist.

This manga would be the foundation for my conception of what Pokémon was, narratively. Though I also had the Pokémon Adventures manga that ran concurrently and which has by now long outlasted it, Electric Tale left a significantly deeper imprint on my memory.

In summary, Electric Tale is a retelling of the first two seasons of the anime. Ash Ketchum is the main character, he's accompanied by Misty and later Brock, his rival is Gary, and Team Rocket harangues him.

What sets Electric Tale apart is its tone, which is far more adult than Adventures and the anime. Obviously, part of this comes from the author's primary area of expertise being hentai. Even in the censored English version, there is a sense of sexual playfulness in how every single female character is an older woman who likes to tease Ash about his romantic interests.

But there are other elements that creep in unrelated to sex, due to the perspective of someone only used to speaking to adults who suddenly has to speak to children. Ono doesn't really get the childish fantasy of leaving at 10 being normal in society, so he introduces an element where Ash can only get a one year deferment from school and will have to return unless he hits it big. Team Rocket are former competitive hopefuls who flamed out and then, with no education or work experience to speak of, had no choice but to turn to crime. The Pokémon are depicted more realistically, often eschewing the toyetic mascot elements of their designs.

And the landscapes are often wistful, even apocalyptic in their presentation:

This more sedate, mature, realistic depiction of Pokémon became what I wanted Pokémon to be, what I projected onto an original Red and Blue version that left everything open to interpretation, and what would increasingly frustrate me with the series as it deviated more toward bombastic villain groups with goofy destroy-the-world plots. (Which was what put me off Pokémon Adventures.)

Amid all this, one panel stuck with me in particular. One panel I would think about ever since I first saw it as a child, that would turn around in my head and keep coming back. That panel would eventually—over two decades later—become the basis for When I Win the World Ends, the seed from which an entire story grew:

III. The Unkillable Demon King

But in the interim, the seed remained dormant. 1999 fell away. I grew up. I played later Pokémon games and increasingly lost interest by around Gen 4 and 5. Then I went to college.

That's when I started playing League of Legends.

I was something of a psychopath in college. I operated on a strict schedule and did not deviate. Wake up, read 50 pages of classic literature, write 2,000 words, go to classes, study, and then by about four in the afternoon all my obligations were done and it was League of Legends until midnight.

I wasn't actually interested in the League of Legends esports scene in its infancy. In 2012, I was actually invited to attend its World Championship in Los Angeles and refused. (When I received this invitation, I had just finished reading Homestuck for the first time, and was caught in a month-long haze in which I could do little but bask within what I considered the greatest artistic achievement I'd seen in my life. It was this month that inspired Modern Cannibals.) I only liked playing the game and watching Dunkey videos.

It wasn't until the next year, when a girl I was interested in recommended I watch, that I tuned in to my first professional League of Legends game, at the 2013 World Championship. It was there that I got to watch this new, hyped, upcoming Korean player who had apparently taken the pro scene by storm that season. That player was Faker.

It has seemingly become essential to the narrative of any sport that there is "the man who always wins." American football has Tom Brady, and the moment Brady retired, he was replaced by Patrick Mahomes. Basketball has LeBron James, picking up the mantle from Michael Jordan. It's as if someone being "the best" validates the skill-based promise of the sport, the fundamental top-down fairness of its premise, the idea that the person who wins is the best and deserved it. Faker would become the backbone of League of Legends esports and his ascendance correlated to that of the sport itself, from its humble roots at small-scale tournaments in places like Jönköping, Sweden, to max capacity arenas in the biggest cities in the world.

It's surprising, though, how the legend of Faker had already begun even before he won his first World Championship. League of Legends was designed as a clone of Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a popular mod for Warcraft III that emphasized competitive play. In its infancy, the competitive scene was mostly dominated by players who had migrated from DotA to League. They were older, winning thanks to a fundamental conceptual understanding of the game that was superior to everyone else, and frankly not very good in the aggregate. As League of Legends esports exploded in popularity from 2013 to 2015, these old pros would get filtered out swiftly, with even the biggest and most popular names retiring after only a couple of years in the scene.

Even once the new generation of League-grown talent ascended, though, careers were nasty, brutish, and short. The best players only remained on top for a season, as game patches dramatically changed viable strategies. Internationally the sport was dominated by Koreans, with the Korean regional league sometimes being seen as more difficult to win than the World Championship, where Koreans often breezed through uncompetitive Chinese, European, and North American squads.

This possibly affected the demographics of the professional scene. South Korea has mandatory military service, and leaving the pro scene to join the military was basically the end of a Korean player's career. This meant that it was rare to see a Korean player older than 25. Retiring in your early 20s was and remains common. Korean organizations, which had an infrastructural leg up on other regions due to the popularity of StarCraft 2 esports in the country, became adept at scouting promising players at 15 or 16, building them into top level competitive pros, wringing them dry for a few seasons with brutal training regimens, and spitting them out.

Faker was the exception. Though he had been discovered young by SK Telecom, a major Korean telecommunications company that did esports on the side, and gone through the training regimen, he refused to be spit out. He simply didn't stop. He won in 2013, then with a completely new four-man squad around him won again in 2015 and 2016 before narrowly losing the 2017 finals in a nail biter. Given League of Legends esports had only existed since 2011, he basically accounted for half of the championships up until that point. Nobody else, except for his teammates, had won more than once. And it was like it was known he would be this juggernaut the instant he manifested ex nihilo. Like it was known, even in 2013, that he would always win.

Then, Faker stopped winning.

By 2017, League of Legends esports was a titan. Venture capital firms, seeing the millions of eyeballs, thought that this was the next NBA in its infancy, and decided to get in on the ground floor. Multiple millions of dollars were pumped into the scene as even mediocre players in weak regions like North America pulled seven-digit salaries. In China, where League of Legends had become the national pastime, the nation's richest oligarchs ran teams for fun and vanity, outbidding Korean organizations for top Korean players in pursuit of a trophy that had gone to Korea every year since 2013. Riot, the studio developing the game, pumped tons of money into creating a professional sports product, with skilled announcers, dedicated arenas for regional leagues, live performances by musicians like Imagine Dragons and Lil Nas X, and all the other bells and whistles one might expect from a program watched on ESPN.

In this milieu, it seemed like Faker had finally reached his limit. He was still good, but not the best. Even as an individual, while everyone still considered him the "greatest of all time," he was considered outmatched by newer pros like Chovy and ShowMaker. 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 passed with no championships. In 2022, on a team of mostly rookies, he reached the world finals, but was ultimately beaten. Korea's stranglehold over the sport had been shaken by China, which had finally strung together some championships. People wondered if Faker would retire, although he had managed to avoid mandatory military service by representing Korea in the Olympics-esque Asian Games. He'd dealt with wrist injuries and his level of play dropped year over year. He just didn't seem to be that good anymore, potentially holding back his team of talented young players rather than leading them to victory.

Then, in 2023—

And in 2024—

In the end, never count out Touchdown Tom. 11 years of professional play, 5 world championships.

From this longwinded explanation, you might have realized that after watching that game in 2013, I became a League of Legends esports fanatic, fulfilling the prophecy set before me by my father though perhaps in not the way he would have expected.

And the things I become a fanatic about, I want to write a story about.

IV. Modern Cannibals

There's a deleted scene in Modern Cannibals, as Maximillion is driving Z. and her friends through the Utah desert. He starts to talk about Pokémon.

"I bring it up because my university thesis was about Pokemon in particular how Pokemon has basically trained an entire generation of children to think in a completely different way than preceding generations my generation for instance our fad was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now I don't know how much you know about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but from an educational standpoint we're talking absolute bankrupt complete and utter goose egg but Pokemon now Pokemon you see it's more like there's some substance to it you know that refrain Gotta Catch Em All right?" "..." "Well to most parents it looks like a marketing gimmick you make one hundred fifty-one characters and structure a game around collecting them the merchandising potential is astronomical kids buy one hundred fifty-one trading cards stickers coloring books figurines uh collectable lunchable toys I'm sure you've got some yourself."

He continues:

"But really you look at the game itself before the big toy explosion the game itself the focus is placed less on the collection and more on the catalogue you're given a blank encyclopedia to fill and you fill it by capturing one hundred fifty-one Pokemon but the goal is to create a complete database of each and every one and this is what I argue is the educational core of the Pokemon series." His hands left the wheel to conceive of his idea in the cool air of the car, which remained steady on its ever-forward path. "Our modern era is no longer one of singular isolated knowledge it is one of the catalogue the database which is most clearly personified in the advent of the internet because now all knowledge can be at the fingertips of any one human being all that is needed is someone to go and put the catalogue together and presto whiz bang it's there think about it Z. when you catch a bunch of Pokemon where do you store them?" Z. didn't need to think long to remember the game's mechanics. "In the PC." "Exactly now isn't that odd consider it in real life terms you have real life creatures made assumedly of flesh and bone and yet you store them in a computer how does that make sense you'd expect a farm or a holding pen but no it's the computer and that too prepares the budding portion of the millennial generation to become cognizant of the linkage between the computer the encyclopedia and the database structure of knowledge in a new era." "So," said Z. "So you're saying Pokemon taught kids how to think in the digital age?"

There's also a deleted character in Modern Cannibals. Well, mostly deleted—he still shows up, unnamed, in a couple of pages. He is Cole Coulter, Z.'s older brother, a popular League of Legends streamer. Before I deleted him, his role was to accompany Mrs. Roddlevan and Frederick in an attempt to bring Z. back home. He had POV scenes that gave insight into the weirdness of his cotravelers, but ultimately, I decided he didn't add anything to the story and removed him almost entirely.

Even then, though, I was already considering the future of Cole Coulter as the protagonist of a story about League of Legends esports. Playing under the ID MadKing, he would be a North American professional top laner, once known for his aggressive duelist style but recently forced into playing boring tanks as the esports metagame became more sophisticated and tactics-based.

The story would be simple, something I envisioned as a "sports story" only about esports instead of regular sports. It would start with Cole's team being relegated from the league, only for Cole to get a last chance signing to a new team with two promising Korean imports. One import, the mid laner, would be a charismatic and eccentric player in the mold of Doinb/Ganked By Mom/Huhi, while the other, an AD carry, would be introverted and pissy and elitist, in the mold of Piglet. The team would initially struggle, cultures would clash, then a mid-season replacement to sign a psychopathic Tyler1/Tarzaned style streamer as jungler would revitalize the team, put them on a major run, and get them to the World Championship. Though they would eventually fall after a miracle run, Cole would get a moment to truly shine on the biggest stage when he won a pivotal game by aggressive split pushing rather than tank play.

Thematically, the story would be about two things. First, a counterpoint to the idea of American exceptionalism, featuring a league where Americans are particularly bad compared to Korean or Chinese players. Second, an exploration of what it means to be exceptional at all. Cole would be an all-around mediocre person. Middling at school, at (real) sports, at the various popularity contests of being a teenager. League of Legends, this niche sub-sport, is the one thing he truly excelled at, the one place where he was good, better than 99.9 percent of all players, and yet even within that statistical greatness he wound up, ultimately, in a professional scene where he was once again mediocre, relegated to "tank duty," to facilitating other players to carry.

What does it mean to be the best? How can someone be so, so good, only to reach a level where they were still nothing special? Is there any way to win if you're not "the man who always wins"?

I remembered that panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu. The last people filtered before the final champion. It's certainly no walk in the zoo!

This idea was pretty detailed for a story I never wound up writing, something I mostly blame on the years 2018 and 2019, when a lot of bad things happened to me and in retrospect I consider it a minor miracle I managed to finish Chicago at all. As a human being, I would be decimated for the next three years, and so a lot of stories I might have written in that time never came to fruition.

Meanwhile, League of Legends esports reached a peak, then the venture capital bubble burst as investors realized there was no monetization scheme in place for any interested party except Riot Games. Money hemorrhaged out, Riot shifted resources to Valorant, and a sport that had been overinflated based on projected exponential growth in perpetuity fell back down to earth.

Also, Players came out.

Players was a 2022 mockumentary about a fictional League of Legends team competing in the North American league. Conceptually, it was doing a lot of what I had planned for my story: following a single team on a rags-to-riches run, focusing on the interpersonal drama of the team members, asking questions about greatness and its pursuit. It's a pretty good show if you're familiar with League of Legends esports at all, with a lot of on-the-ground fidelity that gives it an authentic feel, which is exactly what I had been hoping to use my esports fanaticism to accomplish. It completely took the wind out of my sails; it was like my idea had already been done.

So by 2022, the idea of a League of Legends esports story was dead. But there was still a drive to create something with that spirit, that would delve into those themes.

What remained after all these years of sifting the sieve, letting sand slip through, was that one panel from the manga. The number of people pursuing greatness slowly filtering until only one remained. And if I wasn't going to pursue that idea through League of Legends, maybe I could pursue it through another vehicle. Maybe the vehicle through which the idea had originally been exposed to me. Pokémon. It all came back to Pokémon.

V. Everything Evolving Into Crabs

I knew immediately that if I were to write a Pokémon fic, it would be a tournament arc. This was the natural evolution of my esports story idea. Also, if I were to write Pokémon, I wanted it to be a story about utopia, immersed within Pokémon's near-future ideal world, where everything is clean and healthy, where society is neat and ordered.

This idea caused me to remember the novel Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley, which I had read a few years back. A mostly autobiographical bildungsroman written on the precipice of World War II, the novel ends with the young protagonist on a journey to Central America, where he meets an idealistic doctor who believes sport to be a proper substitution for war. He tells the story of two tribes locked in internecine conflict through generations, able to replace that violence with soccer matches.

And wasn't that what the world of Pokémon was, a utopia revolving around neutralizing weapons of war by using them for competitive sport?

This tournament, I envisioned, would not simply be about deciding who was best, but an ideological battle for the future of the Pokémon world. To that end, I imagined a war between an entrenched trainer class, who competed as philosopher-warriors, intense individuals with deep connections to their Pokémon, and an upstart commercialization that sought to replace the ideological underpinnings that made their society so safe and prosperous with economic accumulation. It was from this kernel that the character who would become Aracely Sosa arose: charismatic, appealing, human-empathic, and propped up by a support staff who did all the hard work of teambuilding for her.

I imagined the story having an ensemble cast, focusing on nearly every competitor equally, with the Aracely character not having any especial focus until her improbable rise to the top. I imagined a final round where she faced off against "the man who always wins," and though she would lose to him, she would seem to have won the ideological battle, altering the course of society as major corporations scrambled to employ her formula for success at a much grander scale. The story would end with this realization of the earth-shattering importance behind her run, only for Aracely to sink in disappointment. Because in the end, all she really wanted was to win.

The more I thought about it, though, the less I liked the idea of an ensemble cast. The ensemble cast element of Chicago hadn't gone over very well (though I like it), and I figured it would wind up inflating the length of the story considerably. I was coming to the end of Cleveland Quixotic, after all, and once more wanted to write something smaller, tighter, and denser.

So I oriented my thinking to instead have the story revolve around Aracely and one major rival, to give an interpersonal mirror to the ideological war being waged. Thus, Toril came about as an antithesis to everything I had imagined Aracely to be: gruff, antisocial, independent. Their rivalry would culminate in a semifinals battle, before Aracely went on to fight "the man who always wins" in the finals.

I forget exactly when the gender theme came into the equation, but it evolved as an outgrowth of (once again) my competitive League of Legends expertise, where women are essentially nonexistent despite there seemingly being no biological blocks against them. This dovetailed nicely with Pokémon, a world where women seemingly could be powerful competitors, but where—in the anime at least—none ever are. For instance, look at this chart of every major tournament in the anime:

Every known winner is male. Every known finalist and semifinalist is male. Only a handful of female characters have reached the quarterfinals. What possible in-universe justification could there be for that?

This question was actually far more prominent in early planning and drafting than it wound up being in the final work. Initially, I had Aracely's personal motivation revolve around a drive to be the first female trainer to win; this would increase the ideological conflict between her and Toril, who attempted to ignore that she was female altogether. Over time, this theme would see diminished importance in face of the last piece of the thematic puzzle: cults.

It came from reading Underground by Haruki Murakami, a nonfiction journalistic account of the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks carried out by the cult Aum Shinrikyo under the direction of its leader Shoko Asahara. Japan in the 90s was experiencing its own End of History, one taken literally by those disaffected with modern society's grand narrative. The prophecies of Nostradamus became fashionable among the young, who believed that 1999 would be the final year before the world was destroyed. Murakami interviewed both survivors of the gas attack and members of Aum Shinrikyo, collecting worldviews of people who simply thought they were "different" and who were willing to give everything in their lives to the one place that seemed to accept that difference.

The 1995 attacks were a watershed moment in Japanese culture. In their wake would come pivotal works of Japanese pop media, like the titan of otaku culture, Neon Genesis Evangelion:

(What's scary about Nostradamus' prophecy is that it might not come true. A year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.)

Pokémon, whose first games released in Japan in 1996, also emerged within this post-Aum world where fixation on the minutiae of pop media was becoming a primary pillar of meaning for the youth, and it's hard not to see echoes of cultism in the evil teams that dot the series' landscape. Even Team Rocket, originally more modeled on organized crime than occultism, veers that direction in Gold and Silver, and afterward the organizations and their world-ending plots become increasingly absurd, to the point where it starts to become unclear why anyone would ever follow, say, Lysandre.

As I mentioned earlier, my personal interest in Pokémon was at odds with these clownish, Saturday morning cartoon villain organizations, but Murakami's account of the Aum attacks recontextualized them for me, made them make sense even within the framework of a "realistic" utopian world. The last elements snapped into place, and I knew my main character would be the member of one of these cults. A cult dedicated to, what else? Evolution. A core element of the Pokémon series, a perfect metaphor for the frustrating lack of movement of the End of History 90s. I imagined a cult leader as a surrogate mother figure for Aracely, who would have a strained relationship with both of her own parents, and deciding on that, the idea of making Pokémon's canon evil mother Lusamine the villain was a no-brainer. I imagined a post-SuMo Lusamine, unable to move on from her experience merged with Nihilego, languishing in Kanto after being sent there to consult with Bill, who had his own experience being merged with a Pokémon... It didn't take long to figure out how all these pieces connected.

The full form of the story had taken shape.

VI. Showdown

I knew immediately I would be following Showdown rules for the battles. No alternative even crossed my mind. I had dabbled in Showdown a few times over the years, first in Gen 3 OUs, then later in Gen 7 OUs, and I knew from experience that Pokémon is a monumentally more interesting competitive game when operating at a high level compared to either its depiction in the anime (shounen logic, mid-fight evolutions) or the general playing experience (spam your best move on your overleveled starter). I knew I would use competitive rulesets before I even considered the thematic or worldbuilding aspect I would eventually take in the story itself (i.e., that the specific rulesets prevent battles from becoming bloodsport and enforce order on the world). I simply thought doing battles this way would be far more entertaining.

To prepare, I started playing Gen 9 OUs under the guidance of a few friends who were into the competitive scene. I grinded the ladder for months, eventually getting a good enough grasp on the metagame to reach 1500 Elo on the Showdown ladder, which is not very good but generally higher than someone can reach with dumb luck.

Crafting the tournament format and rulesets used in the story wasn't difficult. I modeled the tournament format on the League of Legends World Championship, with region-based seeds (having been selected due to performance in regional tournaments) competing in four groups before the highest performers advanced to a single elimination bracket. Initially, I envisioned a 32-competitor bracket instead of the 16-competitor bracket that would appear in the final draft, but otherwise the format came quickly and easily.

In terms of the rulesets and available Pokémon, my considerations were made primarily in terms of what would be most entertaining to read. I decided to include Mega Evolutions and not include Z Moves, Dynamax, or Terastallization, because Mega Evolutions are cool and those other gimmicks are not. The bring-9-pick-6 format, while unusual in Showdown rulesets, is similar to the rules in Pokémon Stadium and VGC tournaments, and also adds a level of intrigue to which Pokémon each competitor uses. (It also enabled Red's Zapdos at the climax of the story, which was something I knew I would bring out from very early on.)

With the help of one of my friends who knew competitive Pokémon, I scripted out each battle assiduously before I wrote them. Every battle was tested using Showdown itself, with only a few turns mocked up to account for luck. For instance, in Aracely versus Jinjiao, Slowking is meant to stay asleep for three turns. Rather than rely on luck to ensure Slowking actually slept that long during the test, I could give Slowking a useless move and have him use that instead to simulate being asleep.

The only thing that couldn't be tested in Showdown was the 7 PP Kingambit trick Red uses at the end of the story, because it's impossible to set a Pokémon to have fewer than max PP in Showdown. This led to one of the bigger mistakes of the story, as it turns out that Encore would simply wear off if Kingambit ran out of PP, rather than forcing him to use Struggle like I assumed. Luckily, even if this were the case, it wouldn't change the outcome of the battle, so it's not an error I lose too much sleep over.

Character teams were chosen to thread the needle between a few considerations. The team needed to be competitively viable, reflect the character's personality in some way, and be distinct from other teams for the sake of variety. (Variety is somewhat unrealistic in real top-level competitive Pokémon, where you'll often see many almost identical teams in the top ranks. But that would be boring.) Some lack of optimization was allowed under the conceit that actually training these Pokémon to peak form would take a lot of time in the real world, compared to Showdown were optimization can be determined quickly due to the ability to immediately adjust stats and builds.

I also tried to give some preference for Pokémon that would be more familiar to layman fans, though this was difficult because Gen 8 and 9 have outrageous power creep and many popular early generation Pokémon have been completely phased out. (Using Megas helped with this issue.) It was this consideration that led to Azumarill being Aracely's ace. There was also an innate challenge to imagining what the competitive scene would look like without legendary Pokémon. Zapdos and Landorus-Therian have been inexorable staples of the competitive scene for generations. What happens in a world where they aren't used at all?

In the original 32-person bracket, I imagined Aracely competing against Jinjiao in the first round, then minor characters Adrian da Cunha and Jacq Ray Johnson in the next two rounds, before facing Toril in semifinals. I imagined Adrian da Cunha as a "hometown hero" whose team wasn't great but he was plucky with a lot of grit, and Jacq Ray Johnson as a self-aware heel who liked to use cheesy strategies and gimmicky Pokémon like Smeargle and Ditto. Condensing from 32 to 16 occurred around the same time I had settled on Lusamine as my villain/cult leader, which led to replacing those two with Gladion. I developed full brackets for both the 32-man and 16-man iterations, with character names and regions, just in case I ever needed to mention them.

All that was left to do was write the story.

VII. Unbroken Line of History

I began writing in September 2023 under the tentative title Unbroken Line of History, which I would later change to simply Lines. In the original drafts, I opened the story with a modified version of the panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu detailing how people are filtered over time in their pursuit of being the best, this time starting with all 8 billion people in the world until only one remains. The story then cut to Aracely's perspective in the restroom as she mentally prepared for her final group stage match.

At this point I was more set on Aracely being the clear protagonist of the story, so she had a few facets of her personality designed around that. First, as I mentioned before, there was a feminist angle where she was motivated specifically to be the first female trainer to win the championship. Secondly, I threw in some more generic nervousness/fear of failure. The other major difference is that I did not lead with the cult prophecy of the world ending. I originally envisioned the cult reveal to be a mid-story twist, and only obliquely hinted at it.

The scene still played out with Toril appearing and the two getting off to a bad start. Then, Cely's father tried to talk strategy with her while she ignored him, before the battle transpired in much the same form as it does in the final draft.

I showed this early draft to my friends and most disliked it. My girlfriend at the time told me Cely sounded like an edgy 13-year-old boy, while my neuroscientist friend whose aspirational idol is Bondrewd from Made in Abyss wanted to know more about the oblique hints of a cult, finding everything else boring. Another friend said it was stupid that there were 30 seconds between turns during the battle and that the Pokémon should just go at each other; nobody would actually want to watch a battle that was paced so slowly. (I vehemently disagreed with that take. Basically every popular sport balances between slow-paced moments of strategy and fast-paced moments of action and execution.) Some people I showed it to did enjoy it, though. Gazemaize, the author of Chili and the Chocolate Factory, was especially enamored by the Brittany/Gardevoir reveal and the Bud Light Analyst Desk, and implored me to keep both of those elements at all costs. 7th, one of my friends who helped me with the Showdown stuff, was so into it she drew fan art of all the characters (which I've posted before) and also wrote eight pornographic short stories about them.

I rewrote the same opening scene several times across October and November, though these were minor iterations without significant adjustments. Frustrated with the lack of progress, I decided to take a break from writing to simply think about the story for a few months.

During this time, to fix Aracely's edgy 13-year-old voice, I decided to lean into her being from Pokémon Los Angeles (with her native region, Visia, being a play on "visual" as a reference to Hollywood) and gave her a Valley Girl accent. To prepare for this, I listened to hours and hours of ASMR videos of people speaking like Valley Girls and took notes on their inflection and syntax. It was here where I decided on Aracely's underlining quirk, as a way of capturing the unique style of emphasis Valley Girls used.

This also made me realize I needed to adjust Aracely's personality. Despite the tone of her voice, she was still acting antisocially. She didn't want to talk to her father, she didn't want to talk to Lachlan Nguyen, she didn't even really want to talk to Toril. Toril herself was a lump of coal. My own misanthropy kept leaking into the characters, even when I conceptually didn't want them to have it. I thought back to Cleveland Quixotic, and how what made the Jay and Viviendre romance work was that they actually both liked each other, and figured—even though I didn't have explicitly romantic plans for Aracely and Toril—that I needed to do something similar to make their rivalry truly pop. Rather than avoid people, Aracely would lean into talking to them, even if they were annoying. Although Toril remained frigid, there would be a part of her yearning for emotional contact, a way to coax her out of her shell.

I also thought deeply about the structure of my stories in general, and my inability to come up with good hooks. It was around this time that someone I knew was reading Chicago. They pointed out that the plot of Chicago doesn't really start until Chapter 26; that I was "burying the lede." I considered this. My logic, when writing Chicago, was that the Empire moving to take over Washington would be a twist, something that would shock and excite people and change their perception of the entire story.

But did that make sense, when really the story was "about" that twist? Didn't that just make everything before the twist harder to get into for a reader? Chicago might look radically different if I revealed the Empire's goals immediately, but it would also probably be a more immediately engaging work. I'm a big fan of delayed gratification in storytelling, but had I taken it too far?

This was a major revelation for me, and immediately I understood what I needed to do for my Pokémon story: move up the cult plotline. Place it front and center. Name the whole story after it even. I decided on framing the opening scene from Toril's perspective, depicting Aracely initially more as an alien other, emphasizing the fact that she was in a cult rather than hide it behind foreshadowing. This could also lead to Aracely and Toril having more of a dual protagonist setup, which would make my planned two-half finale (one half where Aracely battled "the man who always wins," one half where Toril got involved in stopping the cult's doomsday plot) work even better.

Confidence resurged. At the end of January 2024, my girlfriend of seven years  and I broke up. A few days later, I started writing the sixth—and ultimately final—draft of When I Win the World Ends.

VIII. When I Win the World Ends

Now it's the part of the Making Of where I actually make the thing I'm supposed to be making, but there's a lot less to say about it. Once I have a plan, the actual writing of the story is the easy part, and most of what I wrote—with a few exceptions—looks similar to the story as it exists now.

There were some oddities. I wrote the first seven chapters (everything up to the end of the Jinjiao battle) and then had to take a two week break to write a short piece for a writing contest I had entered in December as part of an effort to stop overthinking WIW. After this interruption, I returned to WIW writing perhaps a bit more perfunctorily than I usually would, leading to an original version of Chapter 8 (the chapter where MOTHER makes her first real appearance) that was short and abbreviated. Later, in editing, I would rewrite most of this chapter.

A few ideas emerged while writing, like the motif of serendipity/Logos, which I felt tied nicely to the ideas of evolution and history. It was also in this draft that I introduced Cely's friends Haydn and Charlie, as a nod to an earlier work of mine also featuring a fashion-obsessed girl from Los Angeles. (Speaking of nods to earlier works, in the original 32-man bracket, Cole Coulter featured as one of the competitors, but he didn't make the 16-man cut.)

The process went smoothly. I finished the draft at the end of May, a little under four months after I started it. I had envisioned the full story as being about 70,000 words, but the draft ended up closer to 115,000. Underestimating story length is just an essential element of the trade, though.

A few days after finishing the draft I went on a four-day Oklahoma Darkness Retreat where I had access to zero electronics. The goal was to think about my story deeply and how it could be improved in the editing process.

In this time chamber, where I did nothing except complete crossword puzzles and read The Recognitions by William Gaddis, I came to a realization. There was one element the story needed that wasn't already there.

That element was Sabrina. In the original draft, Sabrina was not present during the scene where Aracely meets the Old Man. She was mentioned obliquely a couple of times in conjunction with Aracely's "psychic powers," but it never really built to anything. There was still a scene where Aracely was interrogated due to her relationship with MOTHER, but only by nameless goons, and the scene lacked tension as it was clear Aracely could talk circles around them.

When I returned from Oklahoma, I prepared for my conception of Sabrina as a character by writing an 8,000 word short story from her perspective, which hashed out an entire backstory for her. Then, I started editing the draft.

For me, a lot of editing is just polish. Usually, cutting out needless sentences and fixing clunky ones, as well as emphasizing a few of the more understated themes and motifs. For instance, during editing, I made slight additions to emphasize the thematic connection between Aracely's suicide attempt and the global war that almost destroyed the world, as well as the connection between the moon and cyclical insanity (lunacy, etymologically, being related to the moon). I made the Old Man more of a Walt Disney-esque figure (from my notes: "a dying Disney"), rewriting much of his dialogue to either be direct quotes or to evoke his ideals. I also expanded on several of the scenes where Toril and Aracely interact to make their relationship more complex and nuanced. I gave MOTHER some new dialogue, including her speech in Chapter 18 about loving a child for the potential it promises, while also paradoxically wanting it to remain a child forever.

The largest changes were in the three chapters I almost fully rewrote. The first was Chapter 8, which as I mentioned earlier was overly terse. In the original draft, it depicted MOTHER as more pathetic, more dependent on Aracely. I decided to make her a more threatening figure, and incorporated a few references to the Moloch sacrifice scene from Valle Verde to make her seem more like a false idol. Similarly, I rewrote Chapter 12, which was originally a very short chapter that focused solely on a conversation between MOTHER and Nilufer that ended with the order to kidnap Aracely. In rewriting the chapter to include Fiorella, I gave myself more opportunity to flesh out the respective philosophies of her and MOTHER (including some of the story's most salient discussions about why cults exist), as well as give more of an insight into the inner workings of RISE as an organization. And lastly, I fully rewrote Chapter 19 to include Sabrina.

The last changes I made in editing were to the final chapter. When I finished the final draft of the story, I sent it to several readers, many of whom had looked at the original drafts of the first chapter, as well as julirites, the author of a Fargo fan fiction called London. There was an immediate and minor backlash to the final chapter, which was originally much more pessimistic, from most people who read it. In the original version, Aracely and Toril were not still in communication. (Fiorella was also dying of cancer instead of jockeying to replace the Old Man.) The finale had a much more somber, sedate, tragic note. Juli and 7th disliked this sad ending, while Gazemaize wanted me to cut the final chapter altogether. I felt confident that the final chapter was necessary, though, and revised it to its current version, which was much better liked.

And then... the story was finished, near the end of July. I crunched the numbers and realized that if I posted two chapters to start and then did a twice-weekly posting schedule, I could end the story serendipitously on October 12. So I did.

IX. Names and Special Thanks

In my Making Of post for Cleveland Quixotic, I had a fairly extensive list of where I got all the character and place names from. The list is a lot less extensive here; most names I constructed for the purpose of sounding evocative, rather than taking them from someplace specific. For instance, I chose the name Aracely Sosa because it sounds like whistling with its repeated S sounds, compared to Toril Lund which is a lot harsher with its consonants. You can see a similar rationale behind names like Fiorella Fiorina, Yui Matsui, and even some of the background characters, like Jacq Ray Johnson, Jr., where there is a lot of emphasis on alliteration and rhyme.

There are a couple of exceptions. Jinjiao is the in-game ID of a longtime Chinese League of Legends pro of middling notability. He picked the name (which means "Golden Horn") as a reference to the Golden Horned King, a villain from Journey to the West.

Lutz, Fiorella's cameraman, was named after an extremely minor character from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, who is not playable and only appears in a singular cutscene before being killed. They are so irrelevant that despite naming a character after them, I actually forgot their name, which is Lotz, not Lutz.

Haydn is named after the famous classical composer.

Special thanks to 7th and Elick320 for helping me with the teams and battles. Thanks to Gazemaize and julirites, among others unnamed, for reading and providing feedback. And thank you all for enjoying the story.

[r0-boat]

Alrecchino as your husband part 2 (sfw)

Since y'all loved the last one I made a part 2

Her drip marketing is today so I thought we should celebrate!

Feel free to give me as many Genshin requests as you want I'm feeling a little burnt out of pokémon for the moment without further ado.

You are designated as mother lovingly by the children. With your little apron as you take care of all the house of hearth chores. The children can't do all their tasks by themselves, Arlecchino trusts no one to take care of the children but you. It is only natural they call you mother as their motherly figure

Weather it be you were from the fertility stationed here or someone desperately looking for a job, Don't you think it would be cute if the head of the house slowly started to fall for you because you are so good to her children?

Her empty heart is sick of love at aches when you keep your distance from her, she understands; Arlecchino not have a pleasant reputation, and she can't help but feel solely responsible when she waggles her finger for you to come close only to play with your hair when her mind is being numbed with paperwork. You're not sure if it's true or not when she tells you that she just enjoys her company when you ask why you call her so often to her office... And... Is that a pout on her lips you see when you try to leave her so fast?

She can't help but notice when your eyes are on her when she's in her suit she can't help but tease you getting close to you or watch you flush your when her eyes meet yours.

All her children knows to respect their 'mother'

Just as much to respect 'father' when they see you sad they do everything to see that smile of yours and lighten your day when you have trouble with tasks; they fight tooth and nail to help you. A pat on the head from you or a smile is like 'father''s praises. Arlecchino thinks you're as cute as a kitten when you're angry at her, telling her that You don't need any guards and you can go into the city just fine by yourself or run tasks alone. Arlecchino agrees just to stop your bickering, only to turn around to her most trusted three to keep a watchful eye on you like a child on its first errand.

When she returns from all corners of Tayvat, she never forgets to lavish you with all sorts of gifts. Some of them really pricey; she gives you soaps, hoping for your skin to feel soft and smooth the next time she brushes her fingers against you, and she provides you delicious perfume in hopes she would catch a whiff of it on you the next time she passes you. She probably even gave you an apron and played dumb when you hesitated when asking her about the uniform she gave you.

If it went for the fact she thinks the Fatui rather dangerous, she would bring you to their gatherings and parade you around as if you were a little trinket of hers. But then grab Childe by the throat if he is rude or tries to touch you.

they may look but they may not touch.

You've lived in the house of hearts for a while and can't help but notice that a lot of your clothing that person you've been working for sort of matches with them. It is something that you are too afraid to bring up to The Knaive herself. She knows she can't stay angry at you, so she must be even more strict when you decide to put yourself in danger or disregard her wishes. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to do that, but she would be lying if you said she isn't excited when you do disobey her.

Her touches are gentle, filled with longing, but she knows that giving in is dangerous even though you yourself pose no threat to her. She knows that you are defenseless without her and her children. Maybe she should teach you how to wheel the weapon?

[ventique18]

Malleus, Lilia, Silver, and Sebek went to a supermarket to buy this and that. When they went to the cashier to pay...

Cashier: "Will you pay by card, sirs?"

🐉🦇⚔️🐊: "Card..?"

🐉: "... Card... Invitation card? Are you ridiculing me? Are you mocking that my child of man never did come to my holiday dinner even when I took great care to send them a lovely invitation card?"

⚔️: "Sire, I don't think they mean that... I think... Perhaps... Ah, perhaps you require our identification card to verify that this purchase is legitimate?"

Cashier: "No, that requirement's only for condoms and booze."

🐊: "AH! I UNDERSTAND NOW! You require that newfangled playing card that my trendy peers have been exchanging of late!"

🐊, smug: "It just so happens Deuce so kindly gifted me some! Allow me to pay for this transaction, my lord! IT WILL BE MY PLEASURE."

Cashier: "Sir, these are Pokémon cards."

🦇: "Oh dear, dear. You boys have much to learn. Allow me to teach you yet another lesson."

🦇, taking the cashier's hand: "Here, son. I happen to have a spare one lying around."

Cashier: "Sir, this is a greeting card..."

🦇: "And a wonderful one at that! I must assure you that your grandparents will adore the message within. Next time, do not forget to visit them personally and not just send them a letter; time waits for no one, dear. Not even the longest-living of us. You never know when you'll see them last, so treasure what you have, whenever you can, and love as mightily as you can."

Cashier, tearing up: "Thank... Thank you sir. I'll do that."

🦇, now walking out of the store with his sons: "See, that is how you buy nowadays--"

And the store alarm BEEPED loudly, alerting everyone inside of the four confused and unwitting shoplifters.