#Tips For Cat Spraying Eye-Opening Tips

[theamberparadise]

JEFFREY WOODS THIRSTS

Includes three NSFW drabbles. read at your own risk.

TWs; mentions of mass murder, bloodplay, p3r10d s3x, reader using a kn1f3 handle to m45turb4t3, m4k1ng 0ut with an injured tongue, little mentions of nipple play, use of b1tch, s1ut, wh0r3, etc., heavy degradation, reader l1ck1ng blood off of Jeff's knife

A/N; uh oh uh oh uh oh uh oh

(Personal headcannon of mine that Jeff laughs/giggles mostly instead of moaning in bed) (hes fucked up ik)

After a crummy but successful mission, Jeff comes back to his room inside the mansion, only to find you on his bed, legs spread open, fucking yourself with the handle of his knife. He doesn't take it lightly.

It was an act of desperation.

He was away for so long-- too long.

So technically, this was his fault.

His fault that you snuck inside his room, looked for the closest object to being phallic, and chose his knife.

(The handle, of course. You weren't going to shove a literal blade inside you!)

You sat on the bed legs ready and spread wide open while your fingers gripped Jeff's used blood-soaked hoodie you stole from his laundry basket up to your nose.

Your panties were long forgotten and discarded on the floor, whereas your shirt is lifted up above your breasts. Your nipples were stiff and sensitive, given that your nubs were rubbing against the red-splotched hoodie while you began tribbing your clit onto the tip of the knife's handle.

Soon enough you were pulling the handle in and out of you vigorously, and you can only do so much as to bite Jeff's hoodie to muffle your moans while your free hand squeezed and tugged at your nipples.

Your legs were shaking, shaking, shaking. And every sudden jerk had your g-spot fluttering against the grip.

You were drooling all over yourself at this point. Every drop of your slick since you started made a big puddle of wet onto Jeff's bed. Small spurts spray from your cunt here and there, but you hold it in just like Jeff would make you every time you two would meet.

It wasnt long until the sounds of stomping and arguing that seemed to be aimed at Toby made you excited.

He was angry. And this was good.

You knew Jeff didn't have much to take his frustrations out on in this cursed mansion, so you offered a little gateway for his anger, and that lead to a three month fuck-buddy relationship.

You didn't mind, of course, it's going so well lately. Free dick whenever you wanted, and there's nobody to stop yo--

"You puttin' on a show for me, sweet'eart?" a gravelly voice that you know all too well rasped out.

You eyes shot open to see Jeff himself-- leaning on the door on his side, his head tilted while he closed the door behind him with his heel.

"What, cat's got your tongue?" he mocked, breathing in your fucked-out form.

He leaned in, seemingly to get a better look at you. "That my hoodie, babe?" Licking his lips, walking closer to snag the fabric from your teeth. He looked at you up and down, moaning at the sight of his knife handle being shoved inside the prettiest pussy he had ever seen.

Your hand was still holding the part where the blade meets the handle.

Your slick was everywhere. On your thighs, your fingers, even a part of the blade. You can feel Jeff's eyes burn into you as he started rubbing your clit while the knife was still inside your cunt.

"Fuuuck, baby girl," he groaned out, palming his own crotch. "Y'know, little twitch down there almost fucked up the whole shit-show," you whine at the contact, his rough finger pads circling your aching nub.

"And I've got a lot of... package... to sort through." as soon as you heard those words, you begin to pull out the knife, before earning a slap to your face.

"Uh, uh, uh. Since you decided to be an impatient little bitch today, you're gonna finish what you started." he removes his thumb from your clit and you whine. "But--" And before you could protest, he suddenly chokes you and angles your face to his. It terrified you, how his icy blue eyes bore into your very soul, and the sound of his wound ripping little by little as he smiled big and wide. Yet, more of your slick seeps through your cunt.

"Dirty sluts like you need to be taught patience and respect," he grips your throat tighter, leaning in closer-- so close that you can almost see his every intention.

"You will ride this fucking knife while you watch me jack off, until you squirt all over this damn floor three fucking times until you're damn near limp, before I fuck you into oblivion again and again," His grip tightened even more around your throat, you swear you could see stars.

Your cunt is a mess by now. Every deep echo of his voice is responded to by a flutter of your pussy, sucking in the knife handle that you were trying to remove further and further inside you.

Jeff slaps you again, and you moan. "Nod your head. Nod your pretty little head, pretty thing, show me you understand." he giggles maniacally under his breath, eyes crazing into yours.

With a half-assed effort, you bop your head up and down, whispering quiet little yes's from your front teeth.

"Good girl," He cooed in an awfully sick manner. He unbuckled his belt and pulled down his shorts while you gasp and cough at the sudden intake of air. Jeff stepped back a couple paces before starting to pump his cock in front of you. "Go on then, sweetheart," he chuckles once again. "Get to work."

You were a little too desperate during your period, and Jeff happens to be looking for a little distraction.

He had only gotten back from a stroll to ease his bloodlust when he heard you whining and begging to yourself from the kitchen inside of a little privacy hut both of you shared outside the mansion.

Jeff had only approached the open door with a few steps before he could see you bent over the sink-- seemingly filled to the brim with dishes from last night and soap suds. Your shorts and panties were both down to your ankles, drops of blood continuing to stain the fabrics.

Jeff grinned. You were giving him a show. He could see that your middle and ring fingers were ramming in and out of you repeatedly, making those blissful squelching sounds from both blood and cum.

Your cunt was covered in them, fluttering and spasming around your digits as if it was an invite for him.

And before you knew it, he shoved his cock inside you without warning, and you screamed out of pure ecstasy.

You had been craving for sweet release since yesterday, and you were so grateful that Jeff was so very kind enough to give it to you.

"Good morning, pretty girl," he giggles. "You waitin' out on me?" a few tears escaped your eyes while you nodded frantically.

"Poor baby-- all desperate and covered in all this delicious blood, no wonder you're crying," the smell was like heaven to Jeff, and the fact that it was your own blood that's being spilled, he's on cloud nine.

It only took one or two begging grinds from you before he started pounding mercilessly into your bloody cunt, causing you to writhe and scream with every thrust. Your heart thumps with every laugh he makes, eyes rolling into the back of your head while his tip abused your womb.

"Bleed for me, shitty fucking slut. Shit, you're fucking gorgeous like this."

After committing a family massacre, Jeff thinks it's sexy watching you get sprayed in innocent people's blood, and it's even sexier when you lick it off of his knife.

It was gnarly. All of it.

Poor family didn't have to die, if only they kept their fucking mouths shut.

The sight was rather horrifying to see. Well, for a normal person anyway. This was just another Tuesday for you.

But that couldn't explain how you got to the point where you and your partner were basically eating each other's faces out.

It all started with a cheeky compliment from him after you complained about being drenched in blood. Then a compliment from you, then from him again, until you both got a little too close and were all over each other.

Hands were everywhere. And soon enough, you were naked under him, the couch squeaking under both of your weights.

Jeff was shirtless too, only his pants were still on him and even that was unbuttoned. His cock was rock hard and he was too horny to even move to a real bed.

His teeth bit and prodded at your nipples, pulling them just right, making you grind your bare cunt against his thigh for some contact.

Both of you were absolutely drenched in blood. The red liquid was enough to seep through your clothes and stain your bodies.

Your tits, stomach, and thighs were covered in red. So is Jeff, his faint abs were glistening in blood, dripping down, down, down until his happy trail.

You were so turned on it was ridiculous.

The top of your head was against the arm rests of the couch, Jeff's knife was looming over you while his forearm dug into the same arm rest.

It wasnt until a drop of blood from his knife trickled down your forehead that you notice this.

Jeff felt your jerk and looked up, seeing his blood drenched blade making a mess on your face.

"Shit, sorry--" he grumbled a half-assed apology and tried to take the knife back and place it on the coffee table before you catch his wrist, pulling it closer once again to your face.

"Wait," You breathed. A mischievous smile slowly crept up on your lips. "Let me clean that up for you, baby," You opened your mouth with the most tempting pop! from your glossy lips, before lolling your tongue out fully, stretching it out to the bloody blade before running it from base to tip.

Jeff shivered. Then moaned.

You kept going, giving his knife little kitten licks while giving him the most precious puppy eyes, your eyebrows curling in planned lust.

Jeffrey quickly reached down and started to vigorously jerk his cock off, precum already dripping onto your pussy like icing. The sound of his wet dick was enough to make you whine like a dog.

Your tongue traveled to the edges of the sharp side of the blade, being careful enough to not split your tongue into two, but firm enough to get it clean.

His breaking point was when you gently pulled his gripped hands even closer to you, your tongue pressing onto the tip of the knife, making you moan like a whore when you feel the sharp point lightly scrape your tongue, drawing out a thin line of blood.

Jeff was drooling on you. And his hands worked harder and harder until he threw his head back, cock bursting with cum at the sight.

Without warning he threw the knife across the room, making clangs before colliding his lips onto yours, teeth clashing at the contact. You can feel his tongue enveloping yours, savoring the taste of your blood.

When you were out of air, you separated, leaving only a long, nasty string of spit connecting you two.

"That was fucking hot," Jeff moaned in your ear like he was in heat. "You're fucking hot."

You grinned, flashes of blood still staining your teeth. "Oh yeah?" you chided. "Come prove it to me then, motherfucker."

He's ready to pounce on you. "Right back at ya, bitch," And with that, he smashes his lips onto yours once again, and it doesn't take a full hour until the house you two broke in were filled with screams that aren't only in pain.

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 2]

Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 4.6k

Summary: Fish are friends (?). You are not food.

[PART 1] [PART 1.5] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

The Siren wasn’t leaving.

Which a part of you had been expecting. Because surely if there had been a snowball’s chance in Hell of him making it out into the open ocean alive before you’d cut through the ropes, he would have taken it and left you stranded without a second thought. And his odds weren’t that much better now—his fins were still a mangled mess and the wounds all along his scales and dainty featherings were still raw and oozing. It only made sense that he’d take at least a few days to try and recover.

But… But still.

Did he have to make it so obvious that he was sticking around?

The glint of the light off his tail was a constant distraction—always bright and eye-catching even at the cloudiest points of the day. Always flashing just out of the corner of your eye as a perpetual reminder that there was something in the water that would very happily gobble you up if you bothered making a swim for safety.

He’d also taken to sunning himself. Like some kind of overgrown mer-cat. Stretched out languidly on a flat rock with the tips of his violet fins hanging over the edge—just enough for the gauzy edges to play along the surf and avoid drying out entirely. His pale hair splayed out in a halo around him as he snoozed softly in the heat of the afternoon.

Which! No fair! This wasn’t a vacation! This was a stranding! An SOS! A Rose Queen Procedural Rule Four-Hundred-and-Four! And him taking up the whole of the cove to, I don’t know, tan, felt like another intentional slap in the face. The sun rose over the bay, which meant this stretch of shore was facing East. Which was the direction your vessel had been coming from. Which meant that this was the place on the little islet where you needed to be. Subsection Three of Procedural Four-O’-Four. ‘In the case of Crew Overboard, we will always travel the same route as planned. In order to give the Strandee a chance to map out a reconnection point.’ Riddle always had been so smart about these kinds of things.

‘It’s just until he’s better,’ you reassured yourself for the umpteenth time that morning. ‘Then he’ll leave and I can get rescued or die here alone and in peace.’

A fin flicked up from the shallows to spray you with saltwater splatters and you spluttered indignantly when it ran down into your eyes. You glared at the Siren’s retreating back, musing bitterly about how you’d never thought it was possible for someone to make the tuck of their shoulders look smug.

‘Alone and in peace,’ you repeated hopefully. And it sounded like such far off dream.

.

.

On the second day post-rope-removal, the Siren waved you down with a sharp flick of his wrist.

You approached the waterline hesitantly, still mostly waiting for him to turn on you and make toothpicks out of your bones. But instead of murdering you and getting crafty with your corpse, he just pointed to some scribbles in the sand. You squinted at the loop-de-loops suspiciously. It almost looked like an illustration of dancing bubbles—the lot of them curling and popping along the ground in a line like a limerick. 

“Uhm, very nice,” you tried, and the fins flattened pissilly all along the side of his head.

He jabbed his claw towards the mess again. Then firmly at your eyes (hopefully not as a threat that he’d be happy to take them right out of your head if you continued to be obtuse). And then back again. He made a point to move the tip of his sharp nail from one swirl to the next in a little hop-hop-hop. It reminded you a bit deliriously of Riddle trying to teach some of the more socially bereft members of the crew their letters, and—

“You want me to read that?” you gaped, staring at the elegant curls of nonsense in the sand.

The Siren crossed his arms across his lean chest with a scoff that puffed past his lips hard enough to fluff out some of the paler, purple-tipped, hair hanging by his chin. He rolled his eyes at you and muttered something thin and spicy under his breath that you just knew had to be some sort of insult.

“I can read!” you defended, because it felt like it needed defending.

He leveled you with an entirely unimpressed ‘Oh, I’m sure you can’ sneer and you dropped to your knees, incensed. You dug your fingers into the sand and started sculpting out your own very cheery message into the muck.

When you were done, you waved a hand towards your proclamation and watched his brows pull together at the center into a teeny, pinched sort of expression. He let himself roll forward with the seafoam to lay more fully on the shore, and stared down at the mess you’d made like it was some strange code. Even reaching out to poke softly at the straight edge of a ‘T’ with one of his knife-sharp talons.

After a long moment of contemplation, he looked back up at you with an arched brow that was so unintentionally poised and not full of spite that it almost took your breath away. Who knew how pretty an already stunning face could become when it wasn’t twisted up in absolute vitriol? You shook away that absolutely damning thought in horror. That’s exactly what he’d want you to think. Siren, and all. Using his hotness to lure people onto his dinner table. Not you, baby. Because you were smart. And so gross from being stranded under island sunshine for a week that surely you’d taste like some absolutely rancid jerky at this point.

“Oh no,” you droned, and immediately that subtle curiosity of his ticked right back into irritation. “Two creatures from entirely different species and ecosystems have somehow managed to develop unique alphabets. What a completely unpredictable complication.”

The Siren puffed up like an angry lionfish and turned with a snarl to dive back into the shallows—making sure to whip his tail in your face and slam into the water with a huge splash as he went. The salt spray pelted down like rain and you snickered as it sloughed off your cheeks in rivulets, content to sit merrily in the wet sand beside your hastily scribbled: ‘Mermen Are Vicious Bitches. Hit Me if You Agree :)’

.

.

The next morning, there were more fish on the shoreline. Though these ones looked a bit less like they’d been dragged up by their souls and left to writhe in the wake of Siren-Screaming-Agony and more just like the unfortunate victims of a pair of too sharp claws.

You frowned down at a brown, sad-looking flounder that had clearly found itself at the very wrong end of a certain merman still swanning about in the bay not fifty feet away. It was mostly intact, and pleasantly plump for a flat, pancake-looking blob of muck. Your stomach gurgled and the thought of a nice, coal-charred, fillet really seemed quite nice. You chanced another peek at your resident Asshole, debating if it was worth swiping his snack. Another ominous rumble from your abdomen and you reached down to steal your prize and scuttle off deeper inland like a troll returning to its layer.

It didn’t take very long to get a small fire going, and within the hour you’d been fed and were more than ready for a cozy, full-bellied nap in the soft sand.

By the time you began to make your way back to the cove, the sun was high in the sky and you were already dreading sitting beneath its weighted rays for another afternoon. So you slowed your pace to a near snail crawl, dragging your feet as you went.

The little octopus from earlier was still swaying contentedly around the tide pool you’d shoved it into. It probably needed to be carried back out to the bay at some point so that it could swim back into the depths of the ocean, but the poor thing was just so small and round. Surely it’d get devoured by the first sharp-toothed thing that caught sight of it. Especially with your merman apparently being out for the blood of whatever other scaly things were swimming about in his temporary home. So for now you slipped it some small bits of leftover fish instead. You sat, crouched at the pool’s edge, and watched raptly as it grabbed the shredded bits of pale meat with its chubby tentacles to shove towards an eager beak.

“You’re the only friend I have left in the whole world,” you told the octopus miserably, wiping the greasy remnants of your lunch off your chin with a sigh.

The traitor hurriedly moved to snatch up the treat you’d offered it and hide itself away between some rocky crevices. You sighed louder. Rejected. What a time to be alive. 

.

.

The next morning, the Siren was singing again.

That familiar prickle danced its way up your arms, leaving pinpricks of goosebumps in its wake. Some pirates told tales of storms leaving their mark in such a way—that seasoned sailors could feel the tickle of thunder against their skin long before they could spot dark clouds on the horizon. You’d have to amend that little legend whenever you found your way back to The Rose Queen. Siren Sense was a lot cooler, anyways. Any idiot with arthritis could tell you when rain was due.

But either way, Mister Merman was back to idly circling the bay and calling into the distance. At least it wasn’t as miserable as it had been the other day—more of a leisurely pacing than the frantic, near-feral caterwauling that had soured your gut so terribly.

There was another fat fish on the shore. A bright, red snapper so brilliantly crimson that it was almost impossible to make out the garish wounds in its side. Almost. And even if it hadn’t been, the drooping, rust colored, rivulets dug into the sand would have been enough of a clue.

Why the Siren was bothering to leave his clawed-up kills at your feet like some overgrown cat dragging in mice, you had no idea. Maybe he was poisoning them, and subsequently you. Maybe he was bored and it was some sort of fishy enrichment. Maybe he just didn’t want to bother leaving dead things around to contaminate his favorite sunning spots, and tossing his leftovers in your vicinity was as close to a reliable dumpster as he could find on a remote island. Who’s to say.

Either way, you dutifully ignored the magical tingles racing up your shoulders and brought the newest fish back to your makeshift firepit. You grilled the snapper in silence, debating. Then you fed your octopus friend and returned to the beach, cooked fillets in tow.

You waited in awkward silence for a few moments, fish burning your palms, before raising your fingers to your lips and whistling loud enough to make your teeth ache. The mystical static faded from the air and you watched in pleasant (?) surprise as the Siren made his way back to where you’d set up camp. He rolled in with the tide, cresting on a gentle bit of surf and coming to rest neatly in the shallows—fins splayed out beneath him like a lord lying amidst his many silken robes. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at you with an arched brow and slanted frown.

You awkwardly extended a hand—roasted snapper still resting in your open palm and burning the absolute fuck out of your fingers.

“Uhm,” you said, feeling a bit too much like the local idiot trying to feed one of the rabid, wandering, strays around town. “Food?”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes at you.

“Do you want food?” you tried.

The other brow joined the first, nearly rising all the way into his hairline. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of surprise.

“It’s better cooked?” you coaxed in the face of his outright constipated scowl. Be fed and full, you thought hopefully. Maybe then you won’t fucking look at me like I’m a boxed lunch.

He jabbed a sharpened, black talon in your direction, and then pointedly again angled up towards your mouth. Then back to the fish still roasting your poor cuticles straight off your fingers.

You blinked, a bit thrown.

“What? It’s supposed to be for me?”

He nodded, throwing in another one of those bombastically snarky eyerolls for good measure. ‘Obviously,’ that sneer said.

“Well,” you huffed, plopping down to sit cross-legged in the sand and offering up one of the fillets. “There’s plenty for both of us.” When he stared at you like you were attempting to serve him up a choice pile of literal dog shit, you wiggled your hand and entreated, “Please just take it before my skin melts off.”

The Siren huffed and reached out, plucking up the fish with the tips of his claws. He observed your meager meal as one might a particularly unappealing cockroach, and after a long moment, his nose scrunched (cute, you thought absently before immediately suffocating every wayward braincell that would dare call your murderous shore-neighbor anything of the sort) and he leaned forward to nip at a crisped, pink corner with the barest edge of one canine.

When your culinary creation didn’t immediately strike him dead on the spot, he took another, equally dainty bite. And then another. The tight pucker of his mouth eased as he chewed, and you watched as the harsh cut of his purple irises warmed with that same intrigue as they had when you’d first scribbled your foreign letters into the sand.

He readjusted his grip on the fish between his claws to get a better angle and took a proper bite, chewing thoughtfully. Before you knew it, you were watching him nip at the pads of his fingers, his gaze going a bit round and shocked when he realized that he’d devoured the entirety of it.

“See?” you hummed, tucking into your own portion with gusto. “Not all things humans come up with are terrible.” He harumphed and turned to glare back out over the bay, slouching into the surf with an expression that was most certainly not a pout. “But maybe you’d know that if you bothered to do anything other than murder and devour us on sight,” you chirped.

To which you were immediately doused with an armful of water for your troubles. The Siren glowered petulantly from where he’d just wave-bombed you, and then dove back into the deeper waters of the sandbar. He immediately started up his stupid singing all over again—pointedly keeping his chin high above the surface and splashing brine into your face anytime he looped close enough to shore.

“I don’t know why I bother,” you huffed, and ate your sopping snapper in grumpy silence.

.

.

There was a ship wrecked off the coast.

Nothing overly cool, and definitely only a small chunk of what had probably at one point been a rather impressive vessel. But it was something. The first change in pace you’d had in days and oozing with possibilities.

The only problem was that the great, rotting, hull of the thing was dug up into a jagged skerry about a hundred yards off the shore—wedged into the pointed rocks with no chance of any wave or breeze sending it adrift. You could swim perfectly well. I mean, living your life on a ship surrounded by tumultuous, depthless, ocean would have been a hugely stupid career move otherwise. The issue, naturally, was the thing currently making its home in these waters. Sharks and barracudas, blablabla. They were just animals, no matter how many teeth they had. The Siren had a grudge. And just as many teeth.

Right now, said spiky pain in your ass was lounging in the shallows like the froth was an elegant daybed made just for him—shredded fins swaying in the soft tides and his hair floating about him that same, white-gold halo that made him look far too peaceful for anyone’s good sense. He wasn’t singing today, which was great for the local wildlife population but terrible for your Siren Sense. Once you waded into the waves, you’d have no real way to keep track of him. Hope, maybe, that he didn’t think fucking with you was worth messing up whatever tan-line he had going on. But nothing concrete that you’d be willing to bet the safety of your limbs on.

You wiggled your toes in the sand and stared longingly out at the stupid, wrecked ship that was so stupidly close. If you swam your fastest you could probably make it there in under two minutes—less than that, even. But that was still more than enough time for the Siren to rake those dark claws of his across your throat and drag you down into the depths to drown.

Riddle’s angry, red face swam through your thoughts, and you could practically see him shoving that beloved law tome of his under your nose for the umpteenth time.

‘Rule 32, never make dangerous bets that you’re certain you won’t win, particularly if you are betting against a Blue Nosed Beetle.’

‘Rule 15, do not needlessly sacrifice your life in the name of curiosity, excluding—of course—if you hail from Cheshire or are a Cat.’

‘It’s only a dumb shipwreck,’ you thought miserably, if rationally. ‘It’s probably not even that cool.’

Your captain would be so proud.

.

.

The next morning you were rolling up the cuffs on your pants and wading into the cool shallows, silently lighting a candle in your heart for your beloved, steam-faced leader and promising that you would at the very least cover the costs of your own funeral so as not to inconvenience him further.

The waves lapped against your ankles and the waters themselves were shockingly clear and blue. You could practically see each grain of sand beneath your heels—make out each pointy rock and the little, red crabs that scuttled away from your tromping like civilians fleeing from the shadow of a leviathan. The Siren was back to singing today. Perhaps his poor, overworked throat simply needed a break every now and again. But either way, your Merman Magic Missive was working in full force. The hairs on your arms stood at full attention and you liked to imagine you could see them twitching in circles to follow his long, looping arcs through the bay.  

You made it up to your knees and waited, eyes scanning the open water and nose twitching like maybe you could smell the fucker. There was nothing but a familiar prickle along your shoulders and that deep sense of ‘tug tug tug’ with no answer, so you took a deep breath and pushed further, the water sloshing up to your hips, your chest, and finally you were floating—paddling slow and cautious towards the wreckage.

It really was insanely close. Even moving at your most cautious, sneakiest crawl, you’d made it nearly three-quarters of the way there within perhaps five minutes. And no signs of a vengeful, hungry Siren circling the waters beneath you either. More rules that perhaps that you’d have to tell Riddle might need some amending  once you finally made it back home to your crew. ‘Dangerous bets,’ who? ‘Needless sacrifice,’ what? You might as well have outsmarted the whole ocean.

As you moved closer, you could make out a strange coat of arms on the side of the hull that you didn’t recognize. Twining, silver songbirds soaring against the sparkly backdrop of an otherwise plain faced crest, which honestly looked far too delicate to be heading the broken remains of what was no doubt at one point an absolute monster of a vessel. You reached out to brush your fingers against the shining plaque and then you were underwater.

You fought the immediate impulse to gasp in surprise, because expediting the process of your inevitable drowning just seemed stupid even by your standards. There was a clawed hand wrapped around your calf yanking you down, and you squinted through a stream of panicked bubbles to see your terrible, horrible, completely thankless co-strandee snarling up at you with sharp teeth and a sharper flail of his delicate gills. Thankfully the water wasn’t all that deep, so by the time you’d been dragged to the bottom you were maybe only ten feet under. But still. It was the goddamn principle! And besides, you’d heard about enough drunks drowning in puddles to know that this was more than enough Liquid Death to put you in an early grave.

The Siren looped around you in tight circles, and you could feel the brush of his tattered fins against your skin like the ghostly fingers of a reaper trailing down your spine. You’d known he was big—giant, even. Long, and impressive, and built to rule the very depths he’d dragged you into. Large enough to wrestle with sharks and capsize lifeboats. Big enough, no doubt, to eat you whole and still be hungry enough for seconds.

The salt stung your eyes and you blinked hard to keep his vibrant, amethyst tail in focus. Would he strike from the back, where you couldn’t see? Or would he go right for your throat—a direct, full frontal, ‘fuck you, human’ if there ever was one. And honestly, what were you expecting? That a good deed and a few pieces of cooked fish would sway him from devouring you whole? Maybe the island sun had fried whatever remained of your rattled brain.  

He stopped in front of you and hissed—a stream of tight, tiny, bubbles jetting past his canines. You glared in petulant confusion, absolutely refusing to give your would-be murderer whatever reaction he was hoping for. His brow pinched into a tight, angry, v and he snarled again. You snarled back, and with that, the last breath in your lungs swooped out of you in a tight squeak. You choked, and struggled, and kicked at the claws holding you down. The Siren reared back, eyes widening in something that looked insultingly like genuine surprise, and you used his moment of hesitation to propel yourself off the sandbar and back to the choppy surface.

You gasped in a hasty breath, expecting to immediately be dragged back under. But when you weren’t pulled back down to your watery grave, you took in another and another. Gasping, and hacking, and spitting up seafoam. The Siren’s head crested the surface beside you and you flailed away, nearly pushing yourself under all over again. You paddled frantically, trying to keep your nose above the tide, and then suddenly there was something under you. You squawked and kicked it on instinct. The Siren snapped his pointy teeth in your face and you realized with a start that oh. That was him, wasn’t it? The long, winding, scaled muscles of his tail curled beneath your toes in what almost seemed like an attempt to keep you upright.

He stared at you with those unnervingly bright eyes of his—blonde hair curling softly at the edges where it plastered elegantly along his finned ears, and those too-long lashes dripping with small, sparkly, drops of salt water.

“What the hell is this bullshit?” you choked, coughing up more bubbly froth. “You don’t get to look so—so put together after trying to murder me!”  

The Siren huffed out something that the delusional, still half-drowned, part of you wanted to classify as a laugh. And then he organized that bemused expression back into its usual, haughty, iciness and began to carefully make his way back towards the shore—towing you along like a poor, little, lost buoy with nowhere else to go.

You let him drag you up into the sand and only flopped around a little. He flicked his tail at you and your dramatics and you turned on him with a fierce, waterlogged scowl—a bit more confident now that he didn’t have the home field advantage.

“What was that for! I just wanted to look at the ship! I wasn’t even doing anything to you!” you wailed. “I haven’t done anything to you at all! Ever! Why do you keep—" you collapsed back into the sand with a miserable whine that rattled all the teeth in your head, and ground the heels of your palms into your eyes until you saw stars.

After a long moment of nothing, you felt a gentle tap at your shoulder.

You looked back up with a start to see Mister Merman looking nearly sheepish.Or as much of an equivalent that his aloof mask of a face was capable of pulling off. The clawed finger resting at your collarbone dropped to the sand by your hip, and he carefully began to draw more of those squiggles. No, scratch that. Not the dancing, popping, ones from the other day. These actually looked sort of like the silver songbirds from that shipwreck. More jagged, certainly. But similar enough that you felt something a bit too coldly cautious to be confusion seep through your guts.

Once he was finished, he looked up and met your gaze—sharp, pointed. And then he reached back out and smeared the birds into nothing and shook his head, firm. His red lips moved slowly, exaggerated, again and again. And you could make out the vague shape of words you’d had shouted at you a hundred times over.

‘Not safe.’

That same, shivery, nervous feeling bit at your limbs.

“…okay,” you said after a moment. And then leaned forward to dig your own fingers into the sand, dutifully ignoring how your elbows knocked against his own.

‘Not safe,’ you wrote, and watched his eyes trace each letter like a treasure map.

There was another tap at your shoulder. And then he pointed to the words in the muck, then to himself.

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, yes. You’re not safe either.”

He sighed dramatically enough to ruffle the ends of your still soaked hair. And then pointed to the words again, tapping at the ‘N’ with the curved tip of a claw.

“Nnnn?” you mouthed, confused.

He moved to the ‘o’ next and it clicked.

“You want me to teach you how to read my letters?” you asked, flabbergasted. Another sigh, like you’d dropped the weight of all the world on his pale shoulders. Or perhaps that your idiocy was enough to put that hearty mass to shame. You decided that you were still feeling a bit too much like you’d only just barely escaped a brush with death, dismemberment, and dinner plans to push your luck with sassing him back too harshly, and just blinked owlishly in dazed surprise. “But why?”

His purple eyes trailed in the direction of the shipwreck and something cutting and poisonous clouded his expression. He pointed to the words again.

‘Not safe.’

“Alright,” you said, looking out over the water with a strange sort of sinking feeling in your gut. You leaned forward and began to draw the alphabet at your feet. His tail twitched by your fingers and you ignored the soft brush of his still-healing fins. “This one’s an ‘A’, like in ‘Asshole’—"

Whomp went the tail as he cracked it across your knuckles like a school matron with a ruler. And you couldn’t help the startled burst of genuine, tinkling laughter that bubbled past your lips for the first time since you’d been dragged overboard.

.

.

[TAG LIST - CLOSED]

@marvelous-maxi, @ilikefanfics4, @jackalope08, @crocwork-clockodile, @cosmicobubisi, @buttplugs-stuff, @pomefleur, @decemebercircus, @ailynyan, @genzombie, @meliade-ot, @sunlightocean, @theofficialantitherapist, @hermiona18, @sailorenthusiast, @fantasy-dating-sim-trash, @thefiasco-onyourblock, @insideous-beez, @its-clockwork-princess

@novaloptr, @imlost-sendhelp, @matcha-berry @preciosayorgullosa @whoretaglia, @kookygirlwholikescookiesandcoke, @nanauedorian, @trixeraptops, @voxnipop, @starkling25, @thedum1, @horcrux-alchemist, @sleepykitty21, @apathicace, @instantregret101, @nekanecorvus, @looney-mori, @re-ducing, @my2phetaliaheadcanons, @naughtybodypillow, @rendy-a, @carmen-404, @candy284, @thealiennamedterry, @their-name-is-fake, @huetolog, @glacticrose, @seraphinariddle, @rabioa, @sn00zl4x, @dreasimping, @jeidoreech, @ai-dev, @galaxyshine24-7, @fatally-incorrect, @juulranch, @camrastuff, @nocteetdie, @stargaryengirl, @warmsmilesandhugs, @01paige01

[tightjeansjavi]

The Rite of Movement | part three

“not an illusion”

A/N: this honestly might be the hottest thing that my sexy little brain has ever cracked up 🥵 a big ole fat smooch and thank you to @itsokbbygrl for letting me scream at her about these two, helping me develop my ideas, betaing, & this beautiful moodboard!!!💗

~word count: 5.2k~

Summary: it’s been one month since your first time filming with your new pornstar partner, Joel Miller.

Pairing | pornstar!joel x pornstar!female reader

Warnings: smut, fluff, light angst,dubious consent (light) due to consumption of drugs, consent is addressed, but due to the circumstances, it is implied, unestablished relationship, two idiots in love, (they just don’t know it yet) mention of the porn industry, unprotected piv, role playing, real intimacy, confession of feelings, oral (male receiving) semi public sex, high sex, creampie, cock warming, cumshots, praise kink (massive) pet names, conversations about controversial topics, mentions of eating, reader has no physical descriptions such as skin color or body type, no use of (y/n) reader is in her 30’s Joel is in his 40’s (unspecified), NSFW, +18 minors dni!

series masterlist

It has been exactly one month since you filmed your first video with Joel Miller. One that he chose to keep for yours and his own viewing pleasure, and not to be shared with the rest of the world's prying eyes. A solo shot turned into sensual, passionate, deep fucking. A mind altering experience that neither you or Joel had begun to even grasp what it meant.

He learned that you were better immersed in the mood when the scene started off with just yourself in the view. The anticipation of him joining the scene was palpable, desirable, and there was an obvious shift whenever his presence was detected.

The part of your normal-routined day that you looked forward to the most, above all, was getting to fuck Joel Miller.

The scene you were filming for today was set in Joel’s upstairs bathroom where you would be playing with yourself in the shower while waiting for your businessman husband to return home from a late shift in the office. You were most excited to see Joel all decked out in a proper businessman suit, while he was rather looking forward to seeing you all sudsed up with his body wash while he pumped you full of his come.

It was easy to forget the various cameras set up in the bathroom space when it was just you and Joel–the thick drag of his cock inside of you, stretching, pressing you open, his perfectly styled hair becoming undone and loose as the spray of the showerhead dampened the gel in his curls.

The scene ended with your right thigh hooked around his hip, his face buried against the crook of your neck while you used the cool shower wall for support against your back as he fucked up into you, kissing your cervix over and over again from this angle.

He pressed a sweet kiss to the tip of your nose as he slowly slipped out of your cunt, and his eyes flitted downwards to see his and your come slowly seeping out of your fucked out hole. He called you his baby love. Calling you baby just wasn’t enough for him, he had to combine the two together.

He gently washed between your thighs while you washed his hair, getting the remaining bits of gel residue out from between his salt and pepper streaked curls. He purred in mimicry of his own cat when your nails began to massage his scalp in a circular motion, and he looped his strong arms around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest, and pressed sweet kisses against every bit of skin that was exposed to him.

And the cameras? Well, they were still rolling.

He left you to get dressed in privacy while he gathered up his discarded suit and disappeared through the connecting door to his bedroom.

He moved with a methodical care, catching his boyish grin in his mirror when he tugged a pair of sweats over his damp thighs and hips. He made his way downstairs, saying hello to Artemis, his black cat who was curled up in a little ball on her larger than life bed.

He grabbed two glasses, filling them with fresh water, guzzling down his own before making his way into his garage that was built off the side of the kitchen.

Joel Miller’s garage held history. It was where he filmed his first video for Miller-Co after leaving Brazzers and Los Angeles for good, taking a gamble on himself and a better future. The couch was right where he left it, dust leaving a fine coating over its worn leather, the memories faded with time, but never forgotten.

He grabbed his jar of weed, a rolling tray and papers, bidding the couch a silent farewell and headed back inside, flicking the light off on his way in.

He listened to the familiar sound of your footsteps padding down the staircase from where he was sitting on the cozy family room couch, Artemis now winding herself between his calves, meowing softly as he poured out a dabble of weed onto the metal tray.

He looked over his shoulder, eyes meeting yours just as Artemis trotted over to you, affectionately rubbing herself all over your bare legs.

“Hey, you.” He grinned softly, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Headed out so soon?” He teased, voice rasping as you crouched down to give Artemis the attention that she was seeking.

“Not unless you don’t want me to stay longer?” You teased back, eyes dancing with mischief and rare adoration that only seemed to make an appearance around him. You scratched gently behind Artemis’s ears, before ultimately deciding to carefully scoop her up into your arms and carry her over to the couch.

“Always want you to stay, baby love.” There wasn’t a lick of hesitation in his tone as he patted the spot next to him for you to join. “And I reckon Artemis does, too.”

You felt the heat rise to your cheeks from his words as you bashfully buried your face into Artemis’s soft black fur and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Yeah? You think so, Joel?”

He closed up the jar of weed, twisting the cap on and set it down along the coffee table before facing you fully. “I know so, baby.” He winked suggestively as hunched over the coffee table, his bare stomach rolls on full display and you felt the temptation to reach across and caress them.

He begins to carefully break up the little nuggets of weed granules between his thick fingers with a calculated precision that came like second nature. He hums under his breath, a familiar tune to your ears as he looks over at you once more. “So there’s uh—no pressure, of course. But I was gonna roll a joint n’then go sit out on the porch swing out front if you’d like to accompany me?”

“Mr. Miller,” you begin to tease, “is there truly nothing that you can't do?”

He blushes, cheeks transforming into a deep, saturated, rosy color as he clears his throat. “What did I tell ya about callin’ me Mr. Miller?” He scolds playfully, shaking his head and picks up one of the thin rolling papers.

“That it makes you feel old, but dude, you’re gorgeous. Have you ever heard of the term, Zaddy?” You scoot closer to him, your knee bumping his as Artemis proceeds to curl up in your lap, purring softly while you stroke her fur.

“Don’t believe I have, baby love. Somethin’ the kids are sayin’ nowadays?”

“Hey, Alexa?” You ask, the little smart device in the corner coming to life, “what is the definition of the term Zaddy?”

“A Zaddy is a sexually attractive man, especially an older one who is fashionable or charismatic.” Alexa’s voice chimed.

Joel’s blush intensified and he turned his face into his bare shoulder, coughing bashfully with a strained chuckle. “So, what you’re tellin’ me is that you think I’m a Zaddy? Mighty fine compliment comin’ from such a pretty girl.” He peeks over at you, brown eyes soft, eyebrows dancing playfully.

“Joel, baby, you are the literal definition of a Zaddy.” You giggle sweetly, leaning down to press another kiss to Artemis’s head. She’s fallen asleep in your lap, little nose twitching as she dreams. “But to answer your question, I’d love to smoke a joint with you out on the porch swing.”

Oh

“S’date then?” He drawls, eyes casting to the side out of fear of being too forward.

You smile warmly in his direction, heart skipping a beat, thump, thump, thump, at the prospect of this being a date, and getting to spend more time with him. “It’s a date, Miller.”

He preens at your response, lips tugging upwards to form a small grin as he returns to preparing the joint laid out in front of him.

You couldn’t help but watch the way he effortlessly licked the paper, packing the weed granules in and making sure they were nice and snug and tight.

He tucks the freshly rolled joint behind his ear, grabbing a lighter and a blanket off the side of the couch. “She’s out cold, baby love. Y’can leave her on the couch, okay?” He gestures to Artemis snoozing in your lap.

“Okay,” you whisper softly and gently maneuver her balled up fluffy form to the corner of the couch where it’s nice and warm still from where Joel was sitting.

He smiles, offering you his hand and helps you up, tucking his arm around your waist, lips brushing the side of your head and nudging you silently towards the front door. He smells incredible, like eucalyptus, rosemary, and a hint of fresh peppermint. You already want to bury your face into that broad neck of his, inhale his scent, lick and mouth at his pulse point while he stirs beneath your thighs.

“S’beautful evenin’, ain’t it, baby love?” He comments softly, padding over to the porch swing nestled at the back of the porch. The moon is shining, casting your faces in a soft glow. The wood creaks beneath his steps, crickets chirp, an owl hoots his nighttime tune. The Texan air is balmy, humidity clinging to your bare skin, but it’s not an unbearable temperature.

He sinks down along the bench swing, patting the spot beside him and you're quick to join him, adhering yourself to his side like glue. He drapes the light weight blanket across yours and his lap and lets his arm rest alongside the back of the bench, fingertips skating across your bare shoulders, forefinger looping under the strap of your thin tank top. He leans his weight back against the pillows, chains squeaking from the subtle movement.

“It’s a beautiful evening indeed, Joel. Summer nights have always been my favorite.”

He nods, reaching for the joint tucked behind his ear and grasps it between his fingers. He places the unlit end between the pout of his lips, reaching for his lighter in his sweatpants pocket, and lights the joint with ease.

For a moment you find yourself transfixed by the simple action, and the way the spark of orange from the lighter bathes his handsome face in warm light, before it’s casted in darkness once more.

He inhales, lungs expanding, stomach swelling slightly with the motion. The tip of the joint burns a bright orange as he holds the smoke in his mouth for a few seconds and then exhales upwards towards the clear night sky.

You’ve only just now taken notice of the color of the rolling paper; light pink. You feel the hint of a smile lift the corners of your mouth.

He relaxes further against the pillows and takes another deep inhale before removing the joint from between his lips. His arm moves in a languid motion, across the way to where you’re curled up against him.

He places the joint between your lips, eyes adjusting to the low light as he watches you inhale the smoke into your lungs.

“S’my favorite as well, baby love.” He finally replies.

You continue to lazily pass the joint back and forth a few more times, mind beginning to go hazy as your eyelids drooped and that warm, tingly feeling blanketed you like a hug.

“Hey, Joel?” You asked through the comfortable silence, and the nighttime tunes.

“Hmm?” He hummed in response, lolling his head to the side so he could look over at you.

“Do you think,” you giggled softly, trying to gather your weed induced thoughts, “do you think that if vibrators existed back then, you know, like, way back, that women would innately never need a man, thus making women rulers of the world?”

He pursed his lips together, rolling your question over in his mind before he answered, tone raspy, deep, and warm, “Baby love, if vibrators existed back then, women would 1000% rule the world. And I betcha we would have an all female government if that were to be the case. Women jus’—get it, y’know?”

As if this man couldn’t get anymore attractive.

“Well then I think you and I should figure out how to invent time travel just so we can hand deliver them vibrators, and a supply of batteries.” You said animatedly, using your hands to talk and get your point across.

Cute.

“Joel,” you continued, “just think of how many wars we could stop, how many lives could be saved, the earth would be this beautiful, safe place. Women would no longer live in fear for their safety! We could all just exist in harmony. But, if women rule the world, I’d want a man like you ruling by my side.”

“I agree with you, wholeheartedly, I do. I think that if there were more women in power, the world we live in would be a different one. Essentially, we could be like the Barbie movie.” The reference makes you snort a little laugh. “Women and men working together to make the world a better place. Think we gotta push all these old farts outta office, get some fresh, young, faces in there in order for some real change to occur. S’essentially why I strive to make porn for women. It ain’t gonna cause a drastic shift or nothin’, but I believe it makes this society we live in a bit less of a shitty place.” He adds thoughtfully.

“Yes! Like the Barbie movie. God, Greta and Margot and Ryan really knew what they were doing, huh? I’d kiss them all if I could.” You giggled. “Joel, it just takes one person to cause a shift in the chain. You’re teaching both your actors and viewers why consent and intimacy are important and that we should be freely allowed to enjoy our bodies. To you it might seem like it’s small in scale compared to the scope of the whole world, but to people like myself and others, it means so much.” You gush earnestly and his eyes feel glassy, irritated probably from the weed but also the weight of the conversation.

“Y’know I often think it’s so easy for people to not be assholes. I’m so tired of excuses bein’ made for people to be racist, homophobic, transphobic...all of that. To see men encourage other men with ‘locker room’ talk and objectifyin’ women. Tired of people callin’ women and anyone for that matter, a slut just because someone enjoys havin’ sex.” He breathes out, feeling himself getting worked up at the realization that the world is made up of so many judgmental pricks that he’ll never ever understand. You pass the joint back to him and he takes a deep pull, exhaling up into the thick summer air overhead.

“Joel,” you say softly, reeling him in from slipping off the treacherous deep end. He turns to look at you then and you cup his cheek in your palm, stroking his cheekbone softly, watching the movement of your thumb as it brushes over the fine lines near his eyes.“You were literally written by a woman, and if the world had more men like you in it, it would be a different place.”

You want to memorize this moment, cement it in your history. You move your eyes to his and find him already returning your gaze, something soft, warm and gooey found in the dark chocolate. The moment feels heavy, but not oppressive, and you wait for him to make the move you feel fizzling just below the surface. You’d wait a long time for him, you think, and the thought doesn’t scare you. No, it feels right, good. There’s no room for worry here, he’ll take care of you, just give him time.

He takes in your appearance, the softness in your eyes, the tender firmness to your words, and then he feels it: that invisible string tying him to you, and you to him. He doesn’t want the moment to end, for it to pass and be stored in his memory bank to flip through later. No, he wants to live it now in the present. And so he does, leaning in to close the gap, tilting his head to the side, aquiline nose brushing your skin, heartstrings winding together.

You can taste the weed on his breath as it fans your face, you can feel the moment flow, like a crystalline stream, or a warm breeze, and the moment his lips brush yours, slotting, melding together like molten iron, you feel it there, too.

And from that moment, he felt his heart forever welded to yours.

He inhales a shaky lungful of air, surging forward into the kiss and letting himself get lost in the raw emotions behind it.

“I think—” he pauses, murmuring against your locked lips, “I really like you, want you to be more than just my on-screen partner.” He confesses.

Your heart lurches out of your chest at his confession, and your already dizzying mind sways even more. Your lips slowly detach, a thin string of saliva connects you before dissipating into the balmy air.

“You’re just saying that because you’re stoned, Joel.” You whisper through the thick of it.

He shakes his head, brows furrowed in concentration, “No, I ain’t jus’ sayin’ it cause I’m high, baby love.” He clears his throat, nose twitching as he sniffs, “Been meanin’ to tell you for awhile—since I first met you, really.”

“You—you mean that, Joel? You aren’t just fucking with me, right?” So it wasn’t just me who was feeling it? You think.

“Course I mean it, baby. S’the truth. S’comin’ straight from my heart. You don’t gotta feel the same—I understand…” he trails off, determined to not let his assumption that you’re rejecting him hit him where it hurts.

You press your pointer finger against the pout of his lips, silencing his rambling and self deprecating words, “Joel, I feel the same way. I like you, and I want to be more than just your on-screen partner, too.”

No, baby, this is not an illusion. I’ve really got my heart out on my sleeve.

His lips feel wet and warm against the underside of your fingertip. He kisses it sweetly, breathing out a sigh of relief at your mutual feelings.

“So, wanna get burgers and milkshakes with me sometime?” He suggests, lips curving up against your finger in a boyish grin.

You smile, leaning forward and brush your nose against his, inhaling the scent of weed and him before giggling, “Yes, Joel. I’d love to get burgers and milkshakes with you sometime.”

He blushes, and the heat begins to rise to your cheeks in tandem.

“Well, baby love, ain’t no time like the present.” He chuckles warmly and you slowly slide your finger down from his lips, replacing it with a sweet kiss.

I promise I’ll take you out somewhere real nice for our official first date. Okay, baby love? He mumbles against your lips, kissing you back.

“I know you will, Joel.”

-

DoorDash is a godsend when the munchies hit, and you and Joel decide on ordering Shake Shack to satiate that craving. The order is confirmed and the eta for arrival reads: will be ready in thirty-five minutes.

The joint is passed a few more times, still burning strong, and thank fuck for that. Joel Miller sure knew how to roll the tightest joints.

There’s chemistry sizzling between your two bodies as your hands begin to roam freely across his skin, tracing across the various freckles and moles on his chest and shoulders. He shifts from your featherlight touch, cock beginning to stir to life.

“Can I fuck you, Joel?” You whisper as your hand drifts southwards, tracing along the hemline of his gray sweats.

He nods, Adam’s apple bobbing, holding the joint between his lips and watches with hooded eyes as you maneuver your soft cotton shorts to the side, revealing your bare cunt to his admiring gaze.

“S’yours, baby love. Take it.” he rasps, shifting his hips in an upward motion so you can easily pull his hardening cock free.

You clench at his words, feeling your cunt grow puffy and swollen with desire, dripping a droplet of arousal between your thighs as you gently throw your leg over his lap, straddling him in the process and pulling his cock free.

His hands move to caress you, grasping the blanket and situating it so that you’re both partially covered. He takes another long, languid drag as your palm wraps around the base of his cock and slowly ease yourself around him, sinking down till he's fully buried inside of you.

“Take it.” He requests once more. His hands roam from your hips up to the skin below your breasts as you slowly roll your hips forward into his.

His cock fully hardens inside of you, blood flowing southward causing him to swell. He feels the syrupy drag of your sweet cunt around him with each roll of your hips. He tilts his head back, jaw going slack as the joint dips down from between his lips.

“Put that out so I can kiss you, Joel.” You whisper, bringing your arms upwards to loop around his neck and to pull yourself closer to him. Your covered nipples brush against his bare chest, hardening into stiff peaks. He removes one hand from your hip, taking a final drag from the joint before he plucks it between his lips and reaches for the nearby ashtray blindly.

It may have fallen to the floor, but his mind is too intoxicated with you to care: he can deal with that later.

He holds the smoke in his mouth, letting his hand drift back down and splay across your lower back, pressing you further into him. He tilts his head upwards, finding your lips in a chaste kiss as he shotguns the smoke into your mouth.

A strangled moan is shared as you swallow the smoke down into your lungs.

“Good girl.” He praises and curves his hands around your covered ass, slipping his fingers underneath the soft fabric so he can feel your skin. He presses you forward, feeling you begin to slowly grind on his cock. “This close enough for you, baby love?”

Your breath hitches in your throat at the sudden closeness, the stretch of his cock grinding inside of you. Perspiration begins to bead at the back of your neck as your cunt flutters around him. You press your forehead against his, lips falling open, skin on fire from his touch and the steady drug coursing through your veins. “Mhm.” You whimper, “First time we're not acting, Joel.”

His hands guide you, molding you against his body as he tilts his chin upwards to catch your lips once more. “S’never been actin’ for me, not with you.” He whispers just for only you to hear.

“Oh fuck.” You softly cry out, feeling tears begin to flood the corner of your eyes and leak down the side of your cheeks.

“Every time, baby. Couldn’t help myself. every sound, every touch, every time I came, it was all you, all yours.” He continues.

He catches the glassy look in your eyes, the tear stained cheeks and he ceases your movements immediately. His caress is soft, comforting as his big palms hold your face, brushing away fresh tears. “Hey, look at me, baby. Look at me. It’s okay. I’m here. I got you.”

“Fuck—I’m so sorry, Joel. I don’t know why I —” you stumble over your words, not reaching his eyes in the midst of your emotions.

“Baby,” he tries again, “look at me.” His voice isn’t commanding, and neither are his words but the way he delivers them grounds you back to your senses and you meet his gaze finally.

“That’s it. There you go. Good girl, good fucking girl. Keep lookin’ at me with those pretty eyes, okay? Keep doin’ that.”

You card your fingers through the back of his hair, wrapping ringlets of his soft curls between them, yanking on his scalp gently as you begin to roll your hips forward once more. “I’m—okay, Joel. I’m okay.” You reassure him.

“Know you are, baby love. I know.” He hushes you softly before bringing one of his hands up to his face, spitting quietly onto his palm and drags his hand downwards between your connected bodies. He holds his spit-slicked fingers near your clit so you have something to ride into. He gives you full control while still being present to give you whatever you need.

“You gonna come for me, pretty baby? S’okay. Jus’ you, me, and the moon.” His freehand never leaves your face and stays cupped around your jaw, holding you close with his thumb continuously brushing against your cheekbone.

Your needy clit bumps and brushes against his fingers, stimulating your nerves as your cunt flutters around him. You both hear the sticky squelch, the lewd slapping of sweat stained skin. It’s just enough to send you tipping over the edge, and Joel is right there to catch you.

You stay seated on him as you both recoup from your shared orgasm. His voice sounds fuzzy, staticky in your ears as he wraps his arms around you, hugging you, shielding you almost. His lips mouth at the base of your neck as your hand stays locked in his hair.

Neither of you move a muscle until Joel hears an approaching car inching up the street, headlights flooding through the darkness. He whispers against your skin as he eases you off of him, tucking the blanket around your lower half as he slips his now softened cock back into his sweats.

Once he’s up from the bench, he cards a hand through his curls momentarily. “Munchies are here, baby love.” He tucks the corner of the blanket around you, wanting you to feel comforted before he pulls out his wallet.

The DoorDash driver rolls into the driveway just as Joel licks his thumb and flips through the stack of cash. He feels pussy drunk, and still a bit high as he approaches the driver.

There’s the lingering stench of sex and weed wafting in the air as Joel greets the driver, handing him a couple hundreds in exchange for the bag of food.

The driver looks confused as he looks down at the stack of hundreds in his palm before looking back up at Joel who simply nods and gives the man a gentle clap on the shoulder.

“Have a wonderful night, man. Drive safe, okay?” Joel’s words are genuine, sincere.

The man looks up and grins, “Definitely not gonna be as nice as y'alls. Thanks man!" He tips his imaginary hat in Joel’s direction and turns on his heel to walk back to his vehicle.

Joel gives the man a friendly wave before he heads back to the porch. The smell of the burgers is positively mouth watering as he approaches you. “C’mon, baby love. Let’s eat.”

You grin up at him from your slouched position on the bench, limbs feeling pliant and jello-like and you beckon him to meet you in the middle, “Joel, how much did you give him?”

He smiles, bending down to give you a quick kiss, “Enough to make sure that he has a good night.”

Your heart swells.

-

The burgers, fries, and shakes are wolfed down from the comfort of Joel’s couch. Artemis is awake and even sees her chance to steal a fry.

It’s domestic bliss as you and Joel sit side by side, knees touching and bellies full. He departs from the couch to throw out yours and his garbage, and when he returns, he notices you fidgeting, thighs pressed together and he raises a brow, crossing his big forearms against his chest.

“Whatcha fidgetin’ so much for, baby love?” He asks and you look over at him, lower lip taken between your teeth.

“I want to suck your cock, Joel.”

He raises his brows, cocks his head to the side in an endearing manner as he looks over at you. “What have I done to deserve a blowjob from ya, huh?” He teases, feeling a flush begin to creep up his neck.

“Because you’re a good man, Joel. Please, let me take care of you after you did such a good job of taking care of me.”

It’s not long before he finds himself on the couch, thighs spread with you sitting prettily on your knees between them. His cock lays soft against his thigh, still coated in a light layer of yours and his releases.

He’s still not quite sure what he’s done to deserve the feeling of your wet, warm mouth and tongue enveloping the velvet underside of his cock, dragging your tongue across one of the prominent veins all the way up to the mushroom head.

He tilts his head back, the soft curve of his nose catching in the faint light, the muscles in his neck straining as his mouth parts open, lips still bruised from kissing you. He lets out hot, wet breaths, a rumble of a moan as his hand drifts down to cup your face gently in his big warm palm.

“Baby love, why—fuck. What did I do to deserve this? Your sweet fuckin’ mouth.” He takes a shuddered inhale, stroking his thumb against the side of your neck, just below your ear.

You release him from your mouth with a soft pop, dragging your lips and tongue down the side of him and back up again, “You’re such a good fucking man.” You drag your lips lower, sucking one of his heavy balls into your mouth, massaging them with your tongue before pulling off, “Gave that man so much money…” you give his other ball the same amount of attention as his thighs begin to quiver, “probably paid multiple bills,” you continue, “just because you're kind, Joel.”

He’s seeing stars behind his eyes when you take him into your mouth once more, fitting what you could while deepthroating him. He listened to your little choked gags as you worked your hand around whatever you couldn’t fit into your throat. He lurched forward when he felt his balls clench like a fist. He choked out your name as you released him once more, “You’re such a good fucking man.” You preen, and take him down once more.

Holy fucking shit—ring, ring, I need a ring right fucking now, he thinks.

His impending orgasm is edged when he can no longer feel the warmth of your mouth around him and his eyes snap open.

“I want you to come on my face, Joel. Please. I want you to mark me, make me yours. You're such a giver, Joel. Can you give me this? Please baby, can I have it?" You're steadily pumping your palm around his cock just to keep him stimulated enough.

He grunts out a yes, unable to form a complete sentence because he’s off in another world.

His fist replaces your own as he paints your face in hot ropes of his cum, watching the blissed out look as your eyes flutter shut, and a dopey smile etches across your face.

He’s out of breath, and fully spent when you peek an eye open, dragging your finger through a trail of his spend on your cheek and bringing that finger into your mouth, winding your tongue around it and licking it clean.

“Take a picture, Miller. It’ll last longer.” You wink.

banners made by the lovely @saradika 💗

please follow @tightjeansjaviupdates for fic updates and notifications!

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Little Sister - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Here comes a new challenger...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

The Black Cat, equidistant between the Rumbler's Den and the Nymph, was a stewpot of blue lightningfire.

Jinx's hair just about stood on end; her first entrance past the doors and a peculiar sense of homecoming—or maybe its inverse?—zigzagged down her spine.

The place was a constellation of doppelgangers. Jinxettes and Jinxos, baptized-blue and crooked-fanged, all massed in under one roof. Nameless and legion: they cherished only one thing.

A heartful of chaos, and an eye on the horizon.

The music was pure champagne: spilling over in a foam of techno and crystal-cool vocals. Bassline like a sonic boom. Bodies swaying in sync. The conversation crosscutting through the cacophony was less small-talk than shout-out-loud. Words didn't travel at these decibels; the syllables got lost en route from lips to earlobe.

It was just noise. Mouths moving faster than the speed of light, punctuated by solar flares of laughter.

"...lovesdakiddelicious..."

"...gotanycigs..."

"...ILOVEUPPERS!."

And at the heart of the delirium:

Jinx.

No longer the lost girl longing to fly away, but a queen come home.

She cadged a fizzing bottle of Powerade off a crowded table—bubble-spicy and flame-blue. The swigs scalded, but in a good way, like chugging liquified marshmallows straight off the campfire. Most of the crowd were already three sheets to Shurima. Others were glowy-eyed, touchy-feely: aphrodisiacal strains of Shimmer infusing their veins.

One of them, a trippingly tall Vastayan made even taller by a coif of bright-azure braids, slunk within shouting distance.

"Your hair's soooooooo rad!"

"Thanks!"

"Wish my fur got that sheen..." With a flourish of nails like mirror shards, the Vastayan carded a hand through her tuft. Pink roots peeped through the blue. "...what dye d'ya use?"

"No dye. Just lotsa gunpowder!"

"Hah. That's a hoot."

The Vastayan, mistaking veracity for wisecrack, chortled. Jinx got a packet of wasabi crisps for her trouble; plus a little plastic square of fairydust. White with pink dots, promising a jolt of euphoria so potent it'd shame a thunderclap. Jinx palmed both, though she quickly doled out the latter to the next rando who crossed her path.

She couldn't stand nose candy; set her sinuses afire and makes her sweat bullets.

Last thing Jinx needed was for her firepower to get soggy.

At an indoor shooting-range set up in honor of Zaun's Blue Baddie, Jinx flexed her trigger-finger. The dummies, spray-painted with ultraviolet death's heads, were designed to spring backwards once hit. As Jinx squeezed shot after shot, they became her puppets: each one potted one-two-three in precise sequence, before pinwheeling into splinters.

Her marksmanship won hoots, cheers, and finally applause.

"WOOOH YEAH!"

"ALLLRIGHT, GIRLFRIEND!"

"GOT AN EYE ON YA!"

Jinx met each whoop with a fey curtsy; each toast with an extra shot; each whistle with a flying kiss. When the real crackshots, muscling their way into range, challenged her to a rematch, Jinx called for a whole fucking keg as tribute. Then proceeded to trounce each punter with a quickdraw that'd give the great Zilean himself a double-dose of vertigo.

"You," groused a man twice her age with biceps like meat melons and a gold-tipped canine tooth, "ain't human."

In reply, Jinx flipped him two birdies. He just laughed, clapping her on the shoulder.

"Eh, no hard feelings. Better a pro beatin' me than some rookie sludge-punk. Buy a round for ya?"

"Got my eye on somebody else!"

"An' is he worth waitin' on?"

"You bet my... well, Jinx's... bottom bullet!"

A hearty guffaw, and the meathead slapped her ass en route to the bar. Jinx riposted by snatching the air-gun from another player's holster and zipping off a smart ping that sent him diving for cover, while his friends at the bar erupted into laughter.

Jinx's own smile, tucked between her teeth, split wide open.

They weren't strangers, this lot. They were her own.

In the surreal glow of a back-alley gumball machine spewing rock candy, cherry cordial and gobstoppers, Jinx fed coin after coin, treating herself to the sugar-boost and deep drags of the smoky night air.

The leftovers, she divvied up among a passel of sumpsnipes loitering nearby. Her sweets vanished in seconds, crushed between sharp young jaws. As Jinx taught them how to string lollipops into a garland for a hat, she spied Billy swooping overhead, wingtips cutting black crescents over the smokestacks.

One bell to go, Jinx thought.

The sumpsnipes, cheering, scuttled off. Their little leader waved farewell before scaling a drainpipe to follow his posse up the rooftops, where refrains of Get Jinxed floated in ebbing waves. None of them had a clue their anthem's namesake was the one who'd stuffed their pockets seconds prior with loot.

And it didn't matter.

What counted was the glint in their eyes— the knowledge that tonight was theirs to keep.

A good run was shaping up. Jinx, idling back against the gritty brick wall, let the bloom of light sweat and heat radiate off her skin. She was reaching the sweet horizon of buzzdom: where inhibitions loosened and nerves jived. She needed it; nervousness had a way of curling her toes in their boots.

Soon, she thought.

From the shadowed corner, a voice drawled, "I don’t know if I should get the camera or the cuffs."

Jinx pivoted.

The speaker was a girl, roughly her own age, lounging sideways across a few crates. Her posture, languid, nearly liquid, made Jinx feel as though she'd been poured out of some abstractly sensual honeypot. Like the rest of tonight's jet-blue set, her hair and brows were tinted cobalt: tribute to the Lady of the Hour. She had a pierced lip, a hoop dangling from her right nostril, and lots of tinkly bangles around each wrist. The standard-fare Zaunite duds—tight black baby-T, patched denim hot pants, patent leather thigh-highs—completed the ensemble.

Yet something about her eyes sent a tiny chill skittering up Jinx's spine.

"Cuffs, huh?" Jinx cocked a hip, popping the last gobstopper into her mouth. "Sorry, toots. Never pegged myself for bondage gear. Pun oh-so-intended."

"No?" Those too-old eyes gave Jinx a slow once-over. "Too bad. It'd look good on you."

"Or better off me."

The tart rejoinder earned a sly smile. It was hard to look away from the girl's eyes, though Jinx couldn’t tell what it was about them that set her sonar pinging. Maybe it was the color. Dark sclera, golden irises. Her trivializing face-paint—two hearts inked under each peeper—didn't undercut their intensity.

A predator's eyes.

Jinx stared. She'd never met this broad before. Yet there was a queer familiarity, like déjà vu in reverse.

She'd felt it once before. For another broad, whose eyes were also gold, and yet not really golden at all—they just seemed to attract and reflect all the bright rays flitting through the airwaves.

Except Mel Medarda had never made Jinx's hackles rise.

This girl? A split-second under her scrutiny, and the urge to shoot was building, insuppressible.

Jinx's instinct, failsafe, whispered:

Aim straight for the skull.

Jinx kept her exterior frothy as foam. "You from around these parts? You look new."

"Far from." Another sly-lipped smile. "Maybe our paths haven't crossed because we move in different circles."

"Circles, huh? We talkin' crops? Or circuits?"

"Whichever you fancy."

"I fancy a straight answer," snapped Jinx. "And a lot less mysterio schlock."

"And I'd love to give you less of one, and more of the other." The girl unseated herself from the crates, doing a slinking side-to-side towards Jinx. "But I doubt your father would approve."

"My father?"

"The Eye." Those golden eyes danced, slitwise. "Right now, he has you running in circles. Doesn't want you coming near my particular circuit."

Jinx said nothing. The girl came forward, with steps so small, so measured, that each boot-tip barely stirred a sound. Yet her proximity was overwhelming. The not-right feeling in Jinx's spine escalated from funny to downright wrong.

Whoever this stranger was, she was a big leaguer; and not in the way of chem-royalty or cartel matriarchs: steeped in swagger and studded in bling.

This was a different breed: sharper, sleeker, deadlier.

"I think," Jinx said, dropping her smile, "that I don't much care for circus clowns clowning me for kicks."

"That's why I'm here. To get the air nice and clear between us. Because soon, you'll set your sights on horizons beyond your father's reach. And spread your wings wider than even I can gamble on."

"The only wings are the ones riding your batty ass ragged," Jinx said, flatly. "And what d'ya mean 'soon.' What's 'soon'? Couple days from now? Couple decades?"

The golden eyes shone again, full of cruel knowledge. "Oh, it's already happened."

"Yep. Batty as the belfry."

"And you're late, little sister." That sidling sway stopped just shy of intimacy. "At least... in this thread of time."

The chill in Jinx's bones spiked. It was offset by a jolt of adrenaline tracing her spine, down to the coldness of the pistol tucked into the belt at her lower-back, its shape hidden in sheaves of fabric. The pistol she carried everywhere. The pistol that went warm now. Empty chamber; live bullets. She hadn't fired it in a while.

She had no qualms firing it tonight.

"I ain't your damn sister." Puffpuff materialized in her palm; the safety disengaged with a lethally soft click. "Back up a smidge, sweetcheeks, and drop the riddle-me-this routine. Got somewhere I gotta be, so make it snappy: who're you and what're you after?"

Those odd eyes zeroed in on the pistol; the languid bearing shifted. No shock, but a secret respect. Just enough to turn that predatory prowl benign, dial down the tension from ten to five. She even added a tiny twist of smile, meant to beguile.

Jinx stood her ground.

"They know me by many names, Little Sister," the girl murmured. "Same as you. But you may call me the Wishing Star. A deal-maker. One who grants desires and paves paths."

"Neat-o manifesto," Jinx said, "for a cathouse. Zaun's got plenty, hon. Market's a mite oversaturated."

The smile twisted: amusement turned inward. "Your father would know a thing or two about that, too. Though, as a rule, it's not the sort of talk a man passes down to his daughter's ear. Or past her lips. At least not lips this pretty..."

Cool as ice, Jinx jammed the muzzle against the girl's throat. She fell still. Jinx could practically see the flutterbeats at the jugular.

"Since you've been payin' such close attention to my lips, dollface..." Jinx drawled, "take the extra trouble to read 'em in full. Keep up this charade, and it's one big boom, and a short hard splat. Our ginnels are no strangers to gunfire."

"True." The smile held. "Zaun is a city steeped in blood. Since time immemorial. Or is it time forward? I lose track sometimes."

"Yeah, well. Your time's up. Either spit out what you gotta say, or scram. Fast."

The muzzle dug deeper into flesh. Still those eyes held Jinx fast. The girl didn't flinch; didn't even blink.

"Who do you seek tonight, Little Sister?" she whispered. "And who, left to Fate's design, will you choose?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." The gun held steady. "On second thought? Who gives a rat's ass what you'd like. I've had enough of this yakkety-yak. Get to stepping, Scotch Brite. Otherwise I'll be blowing more'n birthday candles when the fireworks go off."

The girl's smile, at last, flattened. But she didn't seem afraid. More resigned.

"As you wish, Spiderweaver." The girl stepped back; the threat abated. "Our kind do nothing by halves, do they? Including keeping promises."

"Name's not Spiderweaver, and you're just about thiiiiiiiiis far—" Jinx held the forefinger and thumb of her free hand a millimeter apart, "from gettin' your brains spattered across the walls."

"It doesn't matter what I name you. What matters is that I warned you."

"Warned me of what, exactly? Besides the time-honored adage, 'Don't stick your gun in crazies'?"

"Time." Again the smile came. Just enough to send a prickle along Jinx's skin. "It is the favorite string of Fate. And it is winding itself around you, Spiderweaver. A web of webs. I advise you to watch your step. Lest the threads come tangled."

"Ugh!"

Disgust trumped Jinx's disquiet. Even the deja vu pancaked into the same sense of anti-climax as when Jinx, reeling from one too many cocktail-induced all-nighters, woke up in Viktor's workshop in the middle of a particularly steamy daydream about Ekko, only to find her guts skewered by nausea and her body propelled against its will straight into the nearest wastebin.

This whole exchange felt exactly like that. Deceptively promising on the surface; just crap underneath.

Jinx aimed: point-blank.

"See. This is the kind of tripe that comes with hanging with cultists too long. Loopy hokum, bogus prophecy and general lack of brain cells. I should know. Vik's cult of creepos get this way every Tuesday!" Her eyes slitted; blisteringly bright. "Now listen up, crazypants. One, don't ever call me that stupid name again. Two, stop pretending that fate, destiny and all that crap means anything between Jack and Squat in the grand scheme of my spare time. Three? If I catch you anywhere between my crosshairs again, your noggin gets blown to fine pink confetti. Ya get me?"

"I do." There was the barest tenor of disappointment in the girl's tone. It humanized her. Made her easier to dismiss. "I understand. Be well, Little Spider."

"Get bent, Space Cadet."

The shadows swallowed the strange girl's receding silhouette. Jinx's unease lingered.

She pushed past it. Hootenannies this hopped-up attracted all sorts: some cracked in the head, others just plain cracked. This gal had both sides of the coin covered, no question.

Jinx wondered if she was here alone, or on the clock for someone bigger. A messenger, maybe. Some shadowy threat looming behind the scenes.

Better keep on high alert tonight. If that meeting was a prelude, then trouble was sure to follow. Good thing trouble and Jinx's trigger-finger were intimately acquainted. In a city where chaos was currency, staying ahead of the game was a nonnegotiable.

And Jinx, pockets heavy with heat, kept her reflexes primed.

Distantly, the Old Hungry tolled eight o' clock. Jinx let each resonant gong dispel her funk. Tonight was not a night for carnage, however tempting the targets.

She had a different hunt in mind.

Over the rooftops, Billy spun dizzying circles. His dark wings folded sharp and sleek: he issued a single eye-splitting caw, then swooped away.

Coast Clear, he signaled.

Proceed to next stage of Operation Name-Day-Dicking-Down.

Jinx's lips curled into a smile.

[nekomanager]

.—♡ 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐒 {KOZUME KENMA}

your surprise for KENMA's birthday surprised the both of you even more

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒 ⋮ f!reader, overstimulation, blowjob, slight exhibitionism, nekomimi, creampie

It's already late at night. This must be the perfect time for you to give Kenma your official gift. Quietly, you walked out of your walk-in closet, planning to surprise him.

Your boyfriend, who turned 28 today, was busy playing the game you bought for him. His birthday stream just finished and he's now playing while in a call with his teammates from high school, though they might be done with it already.

“Kenma?”

Hearing you, he gave a quick glance then returned his attention back to his game, until it dawned to him…what you were wearing.

He instantly looked at you, gasping and staring at the puffy cat ears on top of your head, the collar around your neck and the thin fabric of your pink string bikini; your top bearing a cat-shaped hole in the middle showing your cleavage and he guessed that your panties had the necessary tail. Just for him. He thirstily swiped his tongue across his lips.

You shyly crawled towards him and he gulped, just lost at the sight of his little kitten all willing to service him, taking the floor like the good girl that you are. His eyes travelled down to your collar, and a grunt escaped him when he saw what’s engraved in the metal plate, Kenma’s.

All of this. All of you. Is his.

Kenma dropped his console and removed his headphones.

You placed your hands on both his knees, parting them further so you could place yourself in between. His breathing got heavy and you cupped his cock, now turning stiff on your touch. “Y/N,” he closed his eyes and blew out a pained exhale.

Your fingers fiddled on the zipper and button of his pants, opening it with eyes full of wonder. He sprang right onto your face and you just stared at his growing erection. You licked your lips at how pretty his dick looked for you. Too pretty. You slowly glided your tongue along his length, taking your time in feeling his warmth and softness. Getting to the the tip, you circled your lips around, taking him in but not reaching half his shaft before you removed your mouth.

“K-Kitten, please…” he whined, face all reddened, “be my good girl.” Seeing how needy he was of you, you finally devoured him completely.

The tip of his cock reaching the back of your throat as you bobbed up and down him, your hand wrapped around as well, pumping him with the right grip. You felt the ache in between your legs as he kept huffing and moaning repetitively. Your ass wiggling as you sucked him, making him rock in your mouth harder.

“Mhmn…” you mewled.

He cupped the back of your head, fingers all tangled up around the strands of your hair as he pushed and pulled in and out of your mouth. Tears now brimming at the corners of your eyes, while your saliva almost spilled out of your lips as you were filled by him. His girth fitted your mouth perfectly, numbing at the sensation.

Kenma groaned, feeling that he’s coming close. He pulled your face away and his cum sprayed all over your face and your innocent pink kitten lingerie.

Both of you just stared at each other still catching your breaths. Breathing heavily, he took you in. Your lips now bearing the same color as your cheeks while you panted, breathless.

His eyes just pinned you when he spread his legs and tapped his thigh. You gulped and heeded like a good kitten, taking over his lap. He aligned the tip of his shaft along your dripping entrance and you sank all through his entire length. Your head swung back at how deep he hit you.

Your body was shivering at how good he felt, and he wasted no time bouncing you on his lap. You gripped your wrist around his neck so you won't fall with how wildly he was thrusting in you. Your hearing was filled with his soft huffs and moaning which made your walls clench around his cock tighter.

"Augh- Y/N!" He said as he moved at the edged of the seat. His hand hands gripped your ass firmly, moving your body to meet his deep and forceful strokes.

"Aaaah...aahh...I'm close! K-Kenma! Kenma!" You whined, finally orgasming.

However, Kenma wasn't done yet and he's not gonna let go of your cute kitty pussy until he shot his birthday cum inside of you. He placed your body on the floor and began slamming down his cock so rapidly that your knuckles are turning white and so was your vision.

You just came...You just came! Another one...another one! Your toes curled, cumming around him again. Your mouth hung open and drool slipped down to your chin.

He hugged you tight, placing a hand below your head as he gave two strong pumps before filling your pussy.

“Holy shit! Did you and Y/N just did what we thought you were doing?”

Your heads both sharply turned to the headphones beside him. Kuroo?

“H-How long have you been there?” Kenma took his headphones and asked, panicking.

“Damn! Just enough." Tora commented.

Lev added, "We're supposed to greet you, but we're the ones surprised!"

"Why didn't y'all put down the call?!"

And Yaku..."We thought it’s just a game thing until now."

"No, you put the call down next time,” Kuroo reprimanded Kenma then chuckled. "Wow. What a happy birthday. We'll leave you two alone. That's enough show for us today," continued by his best friend who ended the call.

Kenma froze, his face even redder. It's his entire team. However, he couldn’t do anything about it anymore, and his head was still light with pleasure

Running a hand through his hair, he returned his focus back to you. You were almost passed out, breathing through your parted lips. You looked so adorable that he wanted to squish you more in his arms. He sighed and smiled. At least, he got you as his special present for the rest of the night.

Happy Birthday to me.

⏝︶︶⏝︶ ୨୧ ︶⏝︶︶⏝

© nekorei 2023 - All rights reserved. No work shall be reproduced, reposted, modified, translated in any form or by any means.

[flurrys-creativity]

February Filth Fest ~ Day 4: Shower Sex

Pairing: Choi San (Ateez) x GN!Reader; Genre: marriage au, fluff, smut, pwp; Rating: nsfw, 18+, MDNI; Warnings: oral (male receiving), nudity; Wordcount: 697

Summary: After a long day of work you surprise your husband in the shower.

Masterlist

When you opened the door to your home, you heard your husband singing in the distance. A smile played over your lips as you walked further into your home. The closer you got to San, the more details you were able to hear - like the tapping of his foot in the puddle of water accumulating on the ground of the shower.

You opened the door after you heard him turn on the water again. The steam from the hot water filled the whole bathroom, fogging up the mirror as well.

As San continued showering, you silently stripped out of your clothes. You moved closer to the shower and opened the misty glass door. 

San jumped slightly, feeling the cold rush of wind from the door, followed by your hands snaking around his waist. “You’re home.”

You hummed softly. “That I am.” You leaned your head against his broad shoulders, sighing deeply. All the stress that built up during the day simply washed away with his warmth and the water running down your skin now too. 

San turned in your hold, gently enveloping you in a hug and pulling you further under the stream of hot water - even if it meant he barely got any water for himself. 

You let your hands run over his skin, from his sculpted abs over his chest and up to his shoulders. “I missed you”, you purred, pulling him back under the water and looking up at his face.

The water poured right over his head, leaving him standing there with an amused grin and looking like a drenched cat. His eyes scrunched up as he scoffed with mirth. San leaned down, chasing your lips for an intimate kiss. “I missed you too”, he whispered against your lips, wrapping his arms even tighter around your torso and pulling you flush against his chest.

You felt his hardening dick against your body, letting your own desire spike. A smirk played over your lips and your hands moved on their own accord, wandering down his toned muscles and to his length. “You really must have missed me”, you giggled as you began stroking him.

San moaned softly. He had closed his eyes and simply nodded. 

“Can I show you how much I missed you?”

“Yes, please.” His voice was barely a whisper anymore and if you hadn’t been so close to him, you would have missed it.

You kissed him one more time, giggling as another moan fell from his lips. Ever so slowly you crouched down, getting on your knees. You tilted your head, blinking heavily as the spray of water prevented you from opening your eyes properly.

San immediately leaned forward so his broad shoulders shielded you from the water.

A grin spread over your lips and you mouthed a silent thank you, adding a peck to the tip of his cock. You made sure San was clean of any soap residue, brushing over his length one more time. You licked along the prominent vein underneath his shaft, noticing how a shiver of pleasure crawled all over San’s body.

San’s hand slammed against the wall the second your lips wrapped around the tip of his dick, sucking softly on it. He cursed silently followed by another moan. His other hand moved to the top of your head. 

You knew San still let you be in charge, still let you decide how deep you wanted to take him and how fast you wanted to go. It merely was a reassurance from his side.

You took more of him in, relishing in the loud moan escaping San’s mouth. You bobbed your head at a steady pace. He felt perfect on your tongue, the weight pressing it down just the way you liked it.

Soon enough San came into your mouth, the ropes of his cum shooting down your throat. You swallowed his load and licked over your lips as you got up on your feet again. 

San breathed heavily, a satisfied grin spreading over his face. “I love it when you miss me”, he chuckled and leaned down to kiss you again. “After we finish this shower, I want to show you in return.”

Day 3 | Day 5

© all rights reserved

Taglist: @xavi-in-kpopland @songsoomin

[violetsiren90]

WIP Wednesday

Pairing: best friend's younger brother!Changbin x f!Reader

Genre: drabble; established (secret) relationship; smut and fluff w/ a smidge of angst

Summary: Three months after you show up on your best friend's doorstep to find her brother instead, Changbin thinks it's time to let Nari know that things have changed.

Content warnings (for snippet only): 18+ (minors, DNI); showering together; allusions to sex; nudity; kissing and embracing; teasing (non sexual); mentions of reader's hair being washed; some minor anxiety and worries; fluff 🥰

Word Count: TBD.

“I have a confession to make,” his voice comes from over your shoulder and the patter of water against the shower floor.

You hum in response, eyes closed as his fingers lather shampoo against your scalp, filling the humid air with the scent of lemongrass and lavender. His other arm is wrapped around your waist, pulling you close so that your bare back leans flush with his chest.

“…I told Chris.”

Your eyes open, droplets clinging to your lashes like dew.

“About us?”

His hand skims up your side and moves to cup your forehand and tilt it back as you feel the warm spray of the showerhead through your tresses. When the suds are gone he turns you around, hands on your hips. He looks like the cat who caught the canary as he nods and smirks, and you can’t help but smile yourself, even as you attempt to harness an expression of disapproval.

“How’d that happen?”

“He basically called me out on it. Said only one thing could make me so stupidly happy.”

“Mind-blowing sex?” you murmur, pressing your slick skin to his.

“You,” he corrects, his eyes glimmering as he leans down to press wet lips to yours. When he pulls away, you consider for a moment.

“You mean…he knew you liked me? Before?”

“You think my best buddy wouldn’t?”

A pang of guilt twists in your stomach at the remark. Your best friend is still very much in the dark about…well, everything where you and her brother were concerned. You chew your bottom lip as he helps you out of the shower. Absently reaching for the towel he holds out, you blink into focus as your hand clutches at air when it’s drawn back out of your reach.

“What…hey, why are you…?” you glance at Changbin, who is now holding the towel over his head, a victorious look on his features as his eyes rove your form.

“I like you naked. Five more minutes!” He whines with a chuckle as you swat his bulging pectoral and snatch the towel cradling his hips to wrap around your own damp body.

“You’re ridiculous,” you grumble with a smirk, but you adore it - how taken his is with every part of you. How he always wants to touch you, hold you, be close to you in any way he can. And how he never shies away from saying just exactly how you make him feel.

Though, you’ve noticed a shift in that particular respect over the last few weeks.

You watch him rumple the towel over his hair.

Sometimes he holds something back. You can always see it, lingering behind his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. You can feel it on the tips of his fingers and at the end of each sweet kiss. But it’s grown with time, and you feel the weight of it each time his eyes rest on you when he thinks you’re not aware.

You suppose it’s only natural that there should still be some mystery between you. Even after all the years you’ve known him, these were uncharted waters, and ones you’d strayed into more than a little clandestinely.

Keeping your relationship secret has had its benefits. It’s given you time to grow without the judgements and perceptions of others playing a part in your gentle discovery of one another. It’s also taken the pressure off of things - not having to answer questions from anyone you haven’t even had the chance to ask yourselves. And it was fucking sexy, to be honest, all the sneaking around. Inconvenient at times to be sure, but still deliciously indulgent to the rebel in you both.

But as you watch him open the mirrored cabinet to grab the toothbrush he keeps in your bathroom your heart skips a beat and you wonder if it’s time the jig is up.

You settle behind him, slipping your arms around his middle and resting the side of your head against his broad back.

“What did Chris have to say? About me and you?” you ask softly.

Changbin spits into the sink.

“He was stoked for us.”

You smile.

“He did ask if Nari knew.”

You sigh.

“I think she should by now,” he says, turning to speak over his shoulder. “I think it’s time.”

You hum into his skin.

“The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be. A few months of privacy is alright, we’re still in the clear.”

He’s right. You know he is. You press your damp forehead into his back and sigh again.

“It’ll be fine,” he says around his toothbrush.

“She’s gonna freak,” you groan.

“She’ll get over it.”

You sincerely fucking hope so. The faucet squeaks shut and he turns, wrapping you in his big arms, to press a minty kiss to your lips.

“Stop fretting, beautiful,” his dark eyes sparkle down at you, “We’re gonna be okay. Nari too.”

Your heart melts as it settles when his mouth seeks yours again. Yeah. You could face all the troubles of the world, in fact, if you were allowed to keep holding him like this.

~To be continued~

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

To the Other Side

Spontaneous fic I decided to write because I want to witness Fellow and Rollo interact (outside of fan art) 💕 I took a lot of inspiration from The Other Side and The Greatest Show from the same musical, and this fan comic and this fan art.

There’s just something so fun about Fellow’s happy, playful vibes mingling with Rollo being deadly serious and hateful 😂

***SPOILER WARNING: Glorious Masquerade and Stage in Playful Land!!!***

Imagine this…

The nearby town was the only reprieve Rollo had from Night Raven College. Magic was school-sanctioned (in theory), but the rule did little to curb the spells fired off in spontaneous spats between classes, pranks, resolving minor inconveniences, and—this made his lip curl the most—for fun. He turned the other cheek in the presence of instructors, chided classmates when catching them in the act, and vented his anger in private.

Soon, he told himself. Soon, this loathsome school exchange program would be over, and Night Raven College put behind him. But one man can only take so much sin before his patience threatened to give, irritation spilling over his carefully constructed walls.

Out here, a bus ride away from campus, he was free from those vile villains, however fleeting it was. The air cleaner, his mind clearer, as he breathed in the salt-kissed, balmy air. Waves lapping against the pier, the town’s comfortable hum as time rolled by, a soothing song.

He looked out at the waters, blue tipped with the white of sunshine dappling a painting. It was alive, yet at peace with the world. Knew its place.

Rollo's eyes drift shut, and he allowed the sea to envelop him. Quiet, calming, completely—

“Oya? Oya oya oyaaaaa?"

An exaggerated drawl invaded his ears. It was an unfamiliar man’s voice, slick with overly honeyed friendliness.

“You there, sir!” he called out. “Might I have a moment of your time?”

Ignore him, Rollo coached himself. He is not referring to you. There are many people in the town he could be accosting.

The crack of a clap on his shoulder suggested otherwise.

Rollo’s tranquility splintered and shattered, like glass dropped. His eyes snapped open again, alert and irritated.

A man had emerged on his left, and a small boy on his right. They stood too close for comfort, and seemed to be leering at him. From up, from down, encasing him in a web of excited stares.

The man had ginger hair in a widow's peak, the rest swept aside to make way for sharp eyes. His suit was fine at a glance, olive vest and neat cravat, violet coat with golden details and tassels cinched over it—but upon closer inspection, there was a hole in the pinkie finger of his long white gloves, and a miscellaneous diamond patchwork of patterns running down his trousers.

Something about him screamed “showman". Perhaps it was the jaunty half cape that hung off his left shoulder or the knee-high spats over shoes that clicked loudly, calling attention to him, with each step. Maybe it was the sparkle-studded top hat upon his head, nestled between two twitching ears, or the cheery flicker of his bushy tail, or the cane in hand, topped with a golden fox. (... Rollo suspected it was his boldness, the sheer audacity to insert himself where he wasn’t needed.)

The boy with the showman was a cat beastman, shorter and disposition shyer. His hair was a red-brown rat's nest even clamped under a smaller, brightly colored top hat, his fur just as unkempt. The only thing that seemed to fit on his slight frame is a lilac shirt and a small bow tie. His mustard yellow jacket looked as though it has had its body sheared in half, then the fabric stuck back onto the oversized sleeves, the pants attached to his overalls saggy and patched up with the wrong patterns. Even his boots were wrong—untied—and socks mismatched.

He blinked at Rollo through eyes that sloped downward, his expression lax. His mouth was steady beneath a spray of dark freckles. The boy held onto a comedically large hammer, hands still trapped in his enormous sleeves as he gripped its handle.

Suspicious, Rollo concluded. They are highly suspicious individuals.

“… May I help you?” he asked, not out of kindness but as a courtesy.

“Ohoh!!” The man grinned broadly. “That composed stride! That stern, solitary gaze! Those extravagant robes! So sensible, so conventional. There’s no doubt in my mind! You, my good man, must hail from THE Noble Bell College!”

Rollo’s mouth was quickly forming a frown. A fan of flattery he was not. "What of it?”

The stranger chuckled, the coy hand on Rollo's shoulder not budging. The warmth of it made his skin crawl in spite of the layers of fabric separating them. "You've come a long way from the Shaftlands then! Tell me, how do you find Sage's Island? Is it everything you’ve dreamed it to be—or, dare I say, more?”

“I was beginning to enjoy it, right up until you and your companion happened upon me,” Rollo grumbled, jerking his shoulder away from the stranger’s touch. “I do not have many opportunities to steal away into town.”

“You have my humblest of apologies!” The man bowed deeply. It took a few seconds of lag, but the boy clumsily followed suit. “Gidel and I, we’re the curious sort, you see! We come across many wary souls on our own travels, and we want to get to know them. Isn’t that right, Giddie?”

Gidel nodded eagerly.

The fox beastman stuck out a hand, taking Rollo’s before he was given the chance to reciprocate or decline. He shook firmly, with enough strength to rattle around Rollo’s bones. “Fellow Honest’s the name! And you, my esteemed gentleman?”

“Rollo Flamme.” His reply was curt, intended to cut the conversation short with its bluntness. He tried to sidestep the man, but failed as Fellow slid to block him.

“Rollo—may I call you that? Great, greeat!!” he gushed, again not pausing for a “no” to potentially slip in. “From just a glance, I can tell you’re an upstanding, diligent student. You’ve been hitting the books so hard, you’ve barely gotten in a wink of sleep!”

Rollo’s mouth pinched. It was not an uncommon comment for him to hear, but he wasn’t the least bit delighted to have it spun as a compliment either.

“You poor, poor boy! You must be a nervous wreck!” Fellow sighed, sympathetically stroking the back of one of Rollo’s hands with his own. The student shuddered and pulled away with a slight glare. Rather than taking note of the displeasure, Fellow brightened, snapping his fingers. “That’s it! You are a nervous wreck!! We must diagnose this case at once.”

To Rollo’s bewilderment, Fellow produced a pair of spectacles from his breast pocket and slipped them onto his face. Gidel whipped out a notebook and a pencil from his overalls, poised to take notes.

“Let’s have a look at you!”

Fellow circled the dazed Rollo, poking and prodding at the boy’s lean frame with the butt of his cane. It bit into his ribs, his cheek, his thighs, as Fellow rattled off nonsensical phrases, Gidel reverently scrawling them down. Rollo swatted at the fox as if dispelling a pesky bug—but Fellow was too fast, too slippery, to land a clean hit on.

He at last stepped back, snatching up the notes from Gidel. (Rollo caught a brief glimpse of the writing—it was nothing close to what could pass as language.)

Fellow raked a hand through his hair as he seriously took in the report of scribbles. With each passing second, his features increasingly crinkled with concern. "Oh me, oh my, oh dear!! Alas, it's just as I suspected!"

"... What?"

The glasses and the notepad were promptly discarded. Props made meaningless now that their purpose was fulfilled.

Fellow snaked an arm around Rollo. Firmer this time, not something to be shaken off. "You, my boy, are allergic! To this drudgery! This cage, these walls!" He wildly gestured with his cane to their surroundings. "This life you're trapped in! You're stressed, depressed, mad, sad, miserable, all of the above!"

Each adjective thrown out drew Rollo's brows closer and closer together until there was no hiding his grimace. “I do not appreciate the unwarranted judgments being made of my character.”

"You see! My hunch was right!" Fellow flicked at a corner of Rollo's frown. It deepened. "There's only one cure for what you have: a vacation! And luckily for you, I have exactly what you need right here…!”

Reaching into his sleeve, Fellow retrieved a single ticket, sandwiched between two lithe fingers. The sepia image of an amusement park wreathed in flags was frames in crimson, blue, and gold. Admit One, trumpeted the ticket, to Playful Land.

“It just so happens that I, Fellow-sama, am the manager to the fabled amusement park of wonder, hopes, and dreams... Playful Land! Have you heard of it? It's a magical place with a plethora of rides, games, song and dance! Why, there's even a big stage where any member of the audience can be a rising star! The food, all free and ample!! You can gorge yourself on fun!! Doesn't that sound like a swell dream?"

Rollo deadpanned. "If by 'dream', you mean dreadful. To encourage casting aside one's inhibitions to indulge in all manner of vices... Your establishment is no paradise. It is a den of depravity, hell masquerading as heaven.”

"Eh?"

The strong hostility seemed to throw Fellow for a loop, gave him pause. He fumbled for a moment before finding his words again.

"My, my! Your allergies are worse than I thought...! Every kid needs to kick back one in a while, and you most of all! Since we're such good friends now, I would be more than happy to gift this prized ticket, good only for tomorrow, to you free of charge!" He winked, giving a theatrical twirl of his cane. Stars and sparkles exuded out from it. A small charm, a harmless trick. "No need to thank me!"

Rollo's eyes flashed, instant recognition setting him on edge. Similar items infested the City of Flowers every Topsy Turvy Day—enchanted handkerchiefs, tambourines infused with meager magic.

Disgust roiled through him.

"We have no such friendship," Rollo snippily corrected him. Is this man delusional? "Furthermore, tomorrow is a school day. It wouldn't do to miss it in favor of gallivanting."

“Now, now, I insist!!” Fellow pressed. “Please accept this ticket and take a load off, enjoy yourself. Live a little, laugh a little! The last thing I would want is for you to miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity!! Skipping a single day of school wouldn't be too harmful for a star-studded scholar like yourself."

His gaze flicked to Gidel. The two shared a keen glint, a subtle signal, then broke out into a show, a flurry of tap dancing along the pier.

"Trade in your typical for somethin' magical!” Fellow cried with the tip of his top hat. “Where it’s covered in all the colored lights!! Where the runaways are runnin’ the night!”

Gidel fished out a party popper from under his own headwear. When he tugged on its string, crackles filled the air, the popper letting loose a shower of glittering particles. Fellow belted out a hearty laugh, swinging his cane to catch confetti.

"Come on to the theater!!” he urged—mostly likely reciting some park motto, Rollo ventured. “In Playful Land... Life is Fun!!"

Fellow struck a pose with his arms thrust out, punctuating the performance. Gidel was less dexterous, and settled for an awkward approximation of the same pose.

Expectant for applause.

“… Charming display,” Rollo remarked dryly. He picked out a limp streamer from his hair. With a huff, he blew the remaining confetti off of him. “However, only a blithering fool would accept such a dubious offer. Is that what you take me for, Mr. Honest? A blithering fool?”

Fellow recoiled, his ears flattening, and his bravado faltering. Gidel glanced at the older man, soulful eyes full of worry.

"You must have fantasized about a day off before! Don't you want to get away and forget about your work and worries? Don’t you crave freedom?”

"No."

"What of the desire to chase thrills? To see and to experience what few others have before, or to relive a childhood you've perhaps never had? Don't you want to cut loose? Go crazy? Party all day?"

"Never."

"How about stardom? Play a different role? Have you a longing to stand upon a grand stage, hundreds of thousands of adoring fans applauding your passionate performances?"

"Not once."

His patience wore thin like a braided rope down to its final connecting threads. Rollo tapped a finger against his folded arms. "Are you finished? I tire of my precious time being wasted. If you will kindly excuse me."

He turned back toward the town. Rollo was a few steps along a shop-lined street when, suddenly, the odd duo reappeared. They skidded to a panting stop before Rollo, walling off his path. Well, more Fellow than Gidel.

A look of annoyance ripped across the fox’s face. “HOLD ON!! What kind of person plays hard to get and then walks away from a conversation like that?! Would it kill you to stop and just listen to me, you bra…”

Fellow petered off midsentence and backpedaled, smoothing out his spite into a smile. "...aaave soul! I've yet to meet someone as assertive and as self-assured as you are.” He reached out and brushed off an invisible fleck of dust from Rollo’s robes. Simpering. “You're a man that knows exactly what he wants!”

Rollo bristled. He hadn't missed the sudden shift in his chummy behavior. All the more reason to suspect them. They’re very clearly up to something.

"Yes, yes, I can see it now!" Fellow continued, stroking his chin in contemplation. "What you seek is not amusement! You’re longing—no, aching—for something far greater, more ambitious!"

He leaned into Rollo's ear, cupping a hand to it. Gidel came from the other side, staring up curiously. Fellow’s voice dropping to a sultry whisper. "Power, perhaps? The magical kind, even.”

Rollo visibly stiffened.

“Oh, have I got your attention?” The curve of Fellow’s mouth cocked, going crooked. A triumphant smirk. “You’re interested, I know it! Buried in those bones of yours, there's an ache, a thirst, for knowledge that you can't ignore!"

The fox wiggled a finger, his words rapt with wonder. “Playful Land is the product of maaany wise and talented mages! If you pay us a visit, you might be able to learn a thing or two from observing how we run the show. It's a valuable learning opportunity for a student of an arcane academy! How about it, kid? This surely is a deal you wouldn't want to pass up!!"

There was no indication of any feeling in Rollo's face. His eyes had glazed over, as though haunted, a veil shrouding his vision. He stared at Fellow as though he were a distant phantom.

Spin, spin. Fellow's cane did a little dance of its own. "Think of it: the fire, the freedom, the flood of magic. Blinding and outshining anything that you could know!"

Fire.

Rollo blinked. The veil lifted, and the man was rudely roused from an awake slumber. Neutrality replaced with a kindling emotion, sparse embers that did not yet know they would converge into flames. "... What did you say?"

"Everything you could ever want. Everything you could ever need," Fellow tapped the waiting ticket, "is here right in front of you. This is where dreams are made, where the impossible comes true: Playful Land. This is where you want to be—"

The fire flared, bile rising from his throat. Beneath his skin, blood came to a rapid boil. Hot, screeching, an intense fever pitch. The heat like a knife slashing through strings.

Hands lashed out, fervently seizing Fellow's arms. Rollo clutched onto him, a desperate parishioner to a priest preaching at the pulpit. But there was no such blind devotion in his expression, only something wild, untamable, twisted.

“What did you say?!” Rollo hissed, low and dangerous. Threatening.

Gidel jumped and skittered behind Fellow, hiding himself from view. The fox's hand found its way to Gidel's back to support the trembling boy.

"You've been mouthing off for quite some time, and I've been far more patient than you deserve." Rollo cut to the mustard yellow sleeve clinging to Fellow's leg. "You have a child with you. Refrain from spouting such ridiculous vulgarities in front of them.”

“Wh-What…!!”

“Is this the game you play?” Rollo’s grip tightened. Voice hoarse, a pained shudder threading through it. “Tempting children with the promise of whimsy and fun, encouraging them to be intoxicated by magic...!"

While you stand by, doing nothing.

An untimely demise by magic, a fate he knew all too well.

Consumed alive in a hellish inferno. Only a curtain of smoke and ash remaining. Slipping through his grasp when he was standing right there.

Brother...

Hot tears stung his eyes—but they dissipated near instantaneously, staved off by his burning fury. Anger and upset rapidly overtaking him.

Not again. He would not stand for it to happen, would not surrender. This, he swore, with a resolute breath, and cried out with all of his seething soul.

"Hmph! I thought you witless before, but it seems you are not a clown," Rollo spat. "You are the entire circus."

Fellow gave a light, cumbrous chuckle—but his eyes narrowed. Gone was his cheer, his merrymaking. What remained was serious, astute. "... Hey now, that's a scary face you're making. Is this really how you want to spend your days? Let's lighten up a little."

A bitter scoff sounded.

“Continue this farce, and I will not stop at raking you across the coals," Rollo warned darkly. Fire licked his fingertips, close to bursting free. "I will show you just how scary I can be. The righteous flames of judgment are cleansing. They will purge all sin, reducing the wicked to mere specks of ash."

He released Fellow with a slight shove. The older man fell back a few steps, finding his balance again when Gidel pushed him upright with a silent grunt.

“If you understand, then I will be on my way. Good day to you.”

With the path cleared, Rollo stormed right by them. Robes billowing in a passing sea breeze and austere face to the town, he almost looked the part of a hero emerging triumphant from battle.

Back to his everyday life, the same side as always.

Fellow gaped after the boy’s retreating figure. At the prey slipping away from every carefully placed trap he and Gidel had laid out for him.

"Well, I never...!!" he groused. A fresh, foul mood ripe like a rain cloud over his head, Fellow discarded his smile for a sneer. "HIIIIIIE~ What was up with that arrogant brat?!”

Gidel shrugged, his comedically large sleeves flopping as he threw his hands up.

"Damn it!!" The curse was out before Fellow could cut it off. "Next time I see that guy, I'll teach him a lesson for looking down on us!"

He angrily kicked at a soda can on the ground—abandoned by a wayward townsperson. With a CRUNCH, the can launched into a nearby lamp post, ricocheting off its base and bouncing back. The can connected with Fellow's kneecap. He yelped and seized his injury, trying to contain the pain.

Eyes blown open in alarm, Gidel rushed to him. The boy was waved off, Fellow's whimpers eventually dying down.

"My sulking worried you? … You're seriously too good for this cruddy world, Gidel," Fellow muttered, shaking his head. He ruffled the cat beastman’s mane of hair, the roughness of it grazing the unguarded pinkie poking out from his one damaged glove. "Never change, got that?“

Gidel bobbed up and down in agreement.

“Good.” Fellow drew himself up and adjusted his jacket. “Tch. Kids these days sure are spoiled rotten. You promise them the world and they still blow you off."

His thoughts settled on the boy from before. The remarks they had traded, the resistance the target had put up.

I thought a bit of magic would help loosen the kid up—but Life is Fun didn’t work on him, Fellow mused. I cast it so many times too. Between my magic and charisma, they usually cave so easily.

Yet Rollo had regarded him like a man possessed, had regarded him with such hatred. The mad, tormented look in his face. An iron barrier against the fluttery, champagne laced lull of his spell.

"... Must be somethin' wrong with him," Fellow concluded. All kinds of fucked up in the head and in the heart. "Yup, that's gotta be it! This Fellow-sama's way too cool to be outdone by any old student.”

Again, Gidel nodded enthusiastically.

“It’s alright, there’s bound to be flops! We’ll have to pick out our next mark much more cautiously.” Fellow shaded his eyes and squinted. “Let’s see…"

Gidel trailed after his gaze. Combing through a crowd for easy pickings was child’s play for Fellow, but the young boy struggled to hone in on the monotony of minute details. Little nervous tics and hesitations, chinks in armor to exploit. They were present, but Gidel’s eyes were like a broken camera. Zooming in, then out, blurring, never able to fully focus.

His attention strayed, slowly meandering back back to the piers. The sea was a simple thing compared to the town—natural, unrestrained. So easy to understand.

“Maybe that one… no, no, that would never work,” Fellow mumbles to himself. “They’re in too large of a group to comfortably break through. The girl over there? Tsk, the parents are hovering, can’t risk that…”

His eyes ran along the bustling town and along the docks. Like fingers along book spines or piano keys, a quick, light caress. Effortless.

Then he came to a full stop.

Did a double take.

And stared.

Hard.

There, lazily parked by the piers, was a small gang of boys, each dressed in the same smart black blazer and trousers, vests and armbands an assortment of colors. Tucked into their breast pockets were fountain pens topped off with magestones. Their style, those emblems, famous.

Fellow smacked Gidel’s back, snapping the boy to attention.

“Look alive, Giddie! You see that?” He pointed with his cane. “Those uniforms are…!”

His face lit up with understanding. Mouth ajar, eyes wide, brows raised.

“We’re in luck today!” Fellow snickered. He tugged on Gidel’s sleeve, yanking the youth to him. “Hurry, let’s get in front of them! We’ll cut them off, pretend as though we’ve bumped into them by accident. Then, we pounce…!!”

Gidel lifted his hammer—a cheer.

The duo scampered down the street, hearts drumming in their chests and adrenaline pumping. In that moment, they brimmed with all the hope and the excitement that Rollo had failed to exhibit. They were children racing to a dream destination, fools wishing upon stars.

Elsewhere in the town, someone sneezed.

Rollo pressed his handkerchief to his nose, retreating further into his robes. “… The weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. What an ominous omen.”

[mncxbe]

OKAY SO, IVE ONLY RECENTLY FOUND THIS ACC AND OMFG I LOVE IT SM, UR WRITING >>>>

okeyokey, so, i love cats, i saw the spicy cat hcs/scenarios and i thought VGAHIVAGYCFTUACTUYVGUAVGYU I LOVE IT, and uhm, so i so kindly ask u for more cat ability hcs/scenarios with Jouno and Tecchou, but this time more fluffy ones (omg imagine them finding out their s/o likes head pats and then purring VFGYCDRTCDRTCD), i would marry u frfr

anon we're married now duh🙄🩷 this was so fun to write hope u like it♡

2:59☆

𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒐, 𝑻𝒆𝒄𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒙 𝒇𝒆𝒎!𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: fluff♡

°☆○

𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒐

he doesn't care much about your ability tbh but he does find your personality adorable.

Jouno doesn't admit it easily but he likes how playful you are. devoted yet independent, just like a cat

you avoid shifting to your cat form at home because cat hair bothers him😭 if you leave hair on the couch he's gonna make you clean it with a lint roller

he absolutely loves it when you lay your head in his lap; he takes this opportunity to run his fingers through your hair and caress you gently. you often fall asleep like that so he has to carry you to bed♡

ironically calls you kitten💀

now hear me out now. he has a spray bottle and when you get on his nerves by being too clingy he sprays you

besides that he loves how quiet and collected you are. most people are clumsy, loud and unbearably annoying but not you. due to your ability you're naturally more quiet. except when he cuddles you...

It was one of those early December evenings when you and Jouno were tucked under a blanket on the couch, watching a generic, sappy Christmas movie.

"God how can someone come up with such a shitty script..." sighed your boyfriend, turning his head towards you.

The slow, steady rhythm of your heartbeat signaled him that you were fast asleep and he let out another sigh; this time softer, more sympathetic. He quickly turned off the TV and picked you up with ease, earning a sleepy groan from you- before tip-toeing to your shared bedroom.

Once you were both underneath the crisp covers Jouno finally allowed himself to enjoy a few minutes of silence. It's been a hard day at work; meeting, tiresome interrogations and if this wasn't enough he'd been paired up with Tecchou for a mission. He did his best to push all the dark thoughts in the back of his mind and closed his eyes, focusing instead of the sweet sounds you made as you tossed around in bed, sighing softly, breathing slowly; 1,2,3 inhale... 1, 2,3 exhale.

Soon enough, sleep crept up and he drifted closer to you. One of his arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest as he relished the welcoming warmth of your body. His chin came to rest on your head, fingers gently kneading your plush thighs.

Jouno was close to falling asleep when a sudden noise alerted his senses- a soft rumble, coming from you. He felt the light vibrations of your ribcage against his chest.

"You've got to be kidding me" he sighed, a tinge of amusement laced in his voice.

You lazily opened your eyes at the sound of his voice. "What babe?"

"You're purring again. And I can't fall asleep"

"'m sorry dear. You know I can't control it" you mumbled as you turned to face him. Snaking your arms around his waist you placed a chaste, apologetic kiss to his jaw and closed your eyes again, drifting back into your slumber.

Your boyfriend only hummed in response and sighed, fully relaxing in your embrace. Slowly but surely, the sound of your purrs lulled him to sleep.

𝑻𝒆𝒄𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒖

he absolutely loves your ability. I get the feeling that he's a cat person?? so he adores you, quite literally, in all shapes and forms

Tecchou cuddles you a lot. in bed, on the couch, during breakfast when you sit on his lap; he just loves you

his heart literally melts when he hears you purring while you cuddle

sometimes you surprise him at work, sitting in front of the Hunting Dogs hq in your cat form- a little calico cat with a fluffy tail and emerald green eyes- and waiting for him to return from a mission so you can go out and have lunch together♡

baby boy is so soft when he sees you napping; and you do sleep a lot in your free time due to your ability. often when he comes home you're curled up under your blanket on the couch. he just sits down next to you and peppers your face with sweet kisses

still, due to your ability you're a picky eater, so you refuse to eat most of his strange food combos

"Come on Y/N. Just try it I promise it's good" pleaded your boyfriend in a sad voice, looking at you from across the counter with big, sorrowful eyes.

You shook your head in response, eyeing the mixture of soy sauce and chocolate pudding before you.

"Nuh uh. I ain't touching that". You crossed your arms over your chest, slightly tilting your chin upwards to make your point. Your mind was made.

"But angel I made it for you" sighed Tecchou, visibly disappointed. "Just a taste baby please"

You eventually gave in, rolling your eyes as you grabbed a spoonful of the questionable mixture and stuffed your mouth, instantly regretting it. The pudding tasted salty and had a mushy texture resembling sand on the beach. Still, noticing Tecchou's hopeful expression you did your best to swallow, feigning a smile.

"Wow it's actually pretty good" you said weakly, earning a sigh from your partner.

"You don't have to lie to me, angel. I can tell you don't like it". His amber gaze lowered, shoulders slumping in defeat and you huffed, leaning closer to grab his hand from across the countertop.

"Look baby. I appreciate you trying out new recipes for me. It's really sweet, but they aren't that appealing to me"

Tecchou looked up at you, thumb brushing against yours as he nodded.

"Aight, I got it" A smile finally tugged at the corners of his lips and you leaned in to kiss him, earning a satisfied hum. When you pulled away he was beaming again, eyes sparkling with adoration.

"Say..." you began again, pressing one of your palms against his chest "You've got any more of that chocolate pudding left. The untempered one I mean."

Tecchou chuckled slowly and pointed at the fridge. "There's plenty left"

"How about we share it then?"

You grabbed the pudding from the fridge and a clean spoon before returning to your boyfriend. Prying the crisp aluminium foil off the pudding you scooped a spoonful and fed it to Tecchou, who smiled down at you.

"Well I can't deny it. It definitely tastes better than what I made"

You purr lightly in response, raising to your tippy toes to kiss the sweet taste of chocolate off his lips.

"See, I told you so"

[shiorihyugawrites]

The Legendary Black Cat

Selena de la Rosa, known across Marley as the Legendary Black Cat, is the world's deadliest assassin—a master of agility, precision, and deception. When Marley turns against her, she is shipped to Paradis as a living weapon, chained and drugged, with her survival all but assured to be short-lived. But Selena is no ordinary prisoner.

Bound by no one, loyal to none, Selena plots her next move, determined to seize her freedom by any means necessary. Yet, her plans are complicated by the Scouts who captured her, particularly Captain Levi Ackerman—the so-called Humanity's Strongest Soldier. Selena is intrigued by his strength and reputation, but her pride refuses to acknowledge him as her equal.

Caught between Levi’s unrelenting gaze, Selena plays a dangerous game of manipulation. She’s biding her time, but when the moment comes, will her calculated escape bring her freedom—or will her path collide violently with Levi’s unwavering resolve?

The Black Cat has always landed on her feet, but for the first time, she might meet her match. (Levi x OC)

Chapter Forty Two

A/N: OST for this chapter is “SymphonicSuite[AoT]Part1-3rd:BARRIchestra”

The reinforced door of the Marleyan stronghold’s meeting room exploded inward under Levi’s final kick, the metal screeching as it crumpled, revealing a nightmare beyond. Selena surged through the breach beside him, her poison-green eyes blazing through her black mask, her blades flashing in the dim light of the underground chamber.

The air was thick with the acrid scent of gunpowder and the metallic tang of blood, the alarm’s wail a relentless pulse that drowned out all but the pounding of their hearts. They’d expected resistance, but the sight before them was a gut-punch: a hoard of Marleyan soldiers—at least a hundred, armed to the teeth, their rifles and blades glinting, their eyes hard with anticipation. It was a trap, and Selena’s stomach dropped as the realization hit.

“Mierda,” (Shit) she hissed under her breath, her gaze sweeping the room. The war table at the center held steaming mugs and scattered reports, proof a meeting had been in progress, but the top brass—General Calvi and his officers—were gone. A secret passage, hidden somewhere in the shadows, had allowed their escape while these soldiers swarmed in, likely through a concealed entrance triggered by the alarm’s chaos upstairs. The commotion—the gunshot, Jean’s injury, the blaring sirens—had tipped them off, and now Selena and Levi were staring down a small army.

Levi’s gray eyes narrowed, his blades poised, his voice a low growl through his mask. “They were waiting for us. Bastards.” The odds were grim, but hesitation wasn’t in their blood. Without a word, they attacked, their movements a lethal symphony, Selena’s assassin’s grace meshing with Levi’s brutal precision.

The Marleyans opened fire, bullets tearing through the air, but Selena and Levi were already moving, their ODM gear humming as they launched into the fray. Selena’s 100 Cuts of Pain erupted, her body springing from a crouch, her blades a blur as she carved through the nearest five soldiers, blood spraying in crimson arcs. Ten seconds, a hundred cuts, and the men collapsed, shredded beyond recognition. Levi mirrored her, his blades slicing throats and severing spines, his body a whirlwind of death, his ODM cables latching onto a chair to swing him over a hail of bullets. He seized a Marleyan, using the man’s body as a shield, bullets thudding into flesh as he advanced, his blades never stopping.

“Keep up, stray cat,” Levi called, his voice sharp but laced with a grim camaraderie, his eyes flicking to her as he deflected a bayonet with a chair, splintering it before driving his blade into the attacker’s chest. Blood soaked his uniform, splattering his mask, but he moved like a machine, his focus absolute.

Selena’s laugh was fierce, her body spinning into the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, her toes pointed as she twisted her body violently, her blades shredding three soldiers who lunged at her, their screams cut short. “Got your back, Capitán,” she shot back, her curls bouncing beneath her hood, her uniform drenched in crimson. She grabbed a fallen rifle, using its stock to block a sword strike, then drove her knife into the soldier’s throat, blood gushing over her hands. “They’re no match for us!”

But the soldiers kept coming, flooding through the entrance like a tide, their numbers overwhelming. Rifles fired, blades clashed, and the room became a slaughterhouse, the floor slick with blood and bodies. Selena and Levi fought as one, their trust implicit, their movements a dance of death. She ducked a bullet, her ODM cable latching onto a pillar to swing her behind a soldier, her blade slicing his hamstrings before finishing him. Levi used a table as cover, flipping it to block a volley, then vaulted over, his blades carving through two more, their blood painting the walls.

“There are too many of them!” Levi growled, his voice strained as he parried a bayonet, his ODM gear firing to pull him out of a crossfire. “We can’t stay here, Selena. They’ll bury us in numbers.” His mind raced, calculating a path to clear for her retreat, but he knew she’d never leave him. Her resolve was a fire he couldn’t extinguish, and deep down, he didn’t want to—she was his partner, his love, and they’d face this hell together.

Selena’s eyes blazed, her blades dripping, her chest heaving as she scanned the room. The secret passage—wherever it was—held their targets, Calvi included. She’d spent years as Marley’s assassin, toppling governments for them, and now she’d burn it all down to end him. “We’re not retreating,” she shouted, her voice fierce, her knife embedding in a soldier’s eye as she spun to face Levi. “The brass went through that passage. We force our way through, now, or we lose them forever!”

Levi’s jaw clenched, his blades flashing as he cut down another soldier, his voice sharp. “It’s a death trap, Selena! We don’t know what’s on the other side!” Bullets whizzed past, one grazing his shoulder, blood seeping through his uniform, but he didn’t flinch, his eyes locked on her, fear for her life cutting deeper than any wound.

Selena’s gaze was unyielding, her voice a raw command. “It’s now or never, Levi! I’m going, with or without you—but I’d rather it be with you!” Her words were a challenge, a plea, her love for him a fire that burned through the chaos. She spun, her techniques shredding another soldier, her body a blur of lethal grace, her resolve unshaken.

Levi gritted his teeth, his heart pounding, his love for her overriding his caution. “Damn it,” he growled, his blades flashing as he cleared a path to her side, his decision made. “Don’t make me regret this.” His voice was rough, but his eyes softened for a fleeting moment, a silent vow to protect her, no matter the cost.

They stood back-to-back, their breaths syncing, their bodies aligning as they prepared their deadliest move: the coupled Waltz of the Flowers. Selena had taught Levi this technique, a dance of trust and lethality, their bodies moving as one, each covering the other’s blind spots. “Ready?” Selena asked, her voice steady despite the blood dripping from a cut on her arm, her blades poised.

“Always,” Levi replied, his voice a low growl, his ODM gear humming as they launched into motion. The dance began, their bodies spinning in perfect harmony, their blades a whirlwind of death. Selena’s cuts were precise, her movements fluid, her ODM cables latching onto walls to pull her through the crowd, her blades slicing throats and severing limbs. Levi matched her, his strength and speed unmatched, his cables anchoring him as he carved through soldiers, their bullets deflected by the sheer velocity of their dance.

The Marleyans faltered, their shouts of “Monsters!” echoing as they watched the duo move, their speed and coordination defying human limits. In the enclosed space, grenades and automatic rifles were useless—bullets ricocheted off steel walls, risking friendly fire, forcing the soldiers to rely on blades and pistols. Selena and Levi exploited this, their waltz an impenetrable defense, their offense relentless. A bullet grazed Selena’s thigh, blood seeping through her uniform, but she didn’t falter, her blades shredding a soldier who got too close. Levi took a cut to his forearm, his growl muffled by his mask, but he spun, his blade decapitating his attacker, blood spraying across his chest.

“Push through!” Selena shouted, her voice raw, her ODM gear firing to swing her toward the passage’s suspected entrance—a concealed panel behind the war table, barely visible in the chaos. Levi followed as bodies piled at their feet. The soldiers’ numbers were endless, but their fear was growing, their ranks breaking under the onslaught of two warriors who fought like titans in human form.

They reached the panel, Selena’s blade prying it open, revealing a narrow tunnel lit by flickering torches. “Here!” she called, her voice urgent, her body bruised and bleeding but her resolve unbroken. They dove inside, their offense continuing as soldiers pursued, their shouts echoing in the confined space. The tunnel was tight, limiting their ODM gear, but their blades and trust kept them alive, each cut a testament to their bond.

Selena’s heart sparked with hope—they were close, Calvi’s escape route within reach. But the ground beneath them shuddered, a trapdoor springing open with a deafening clang, the floor giving way. “Levi!” Selena screamed, her voice lost in the chaos as they fell, along with a dozen Marleyans, into a vast, dome-shaped chamber below. The walls and floor were steel, smooth and unyielding, offering no purchase for ODM gear. The trapdoor slammed shut above, sealing them in, the sound a death knell.

Levi reacted instantly, his arms wrapping around Selena, pulling her to his chest as they plummeted. He twisted mid-air, ensuring he’d take the impact, his body bracing for pain. They hit the floor hard, Levi’s back slamming into the steel, a sharp grunt escaping him as his ankle twisted, pain shooting through his leg. The Marleyans weren’t so lucky—screams filled the air as bones snapped, necks broke, bodies crumpling in heaps, some dead, others writhing in agony.

Selena scrambled to her knees, her hands on Levi’s chest, her eyes wide with panic. “Levi, are you okay?!” she demanded, her voice trembling, her fingers checking his pulse, his limbs, her heart racing. Blood seeped from her thigh, her arm, but her focus was on him, her love a fierce anchor.

Levi grimaced, his ankle throbbing, his back bruised, but he waved her off, his voice strained. “I’m fine. Just… hurts like a bitch.” He pushed himself up, his blades dull, his ODM gas nearly depleted, his mask splattered with blood. He scanned the chamber—a massive, empty dome, its steel surfaces gleaming, no exits visible. “They lured us here,” he growled, his eyes narrowing. “Like fucking prey.”

Selena rose, her own blades chipped, her gas low, her body aching but her resolve unbroken. She clutched Levi’s arm, her eyes scanning the room, the surviving Marleyans staggering to their feet, their weapons raised. “A trap,” she muttered, her voice bitter, her mind racing. “Calvi knew we’d come. He planned this.” Her heart sank, the spark of hope flickering, but her hatred for Calvi burned brighter, fueling her fight.

Then suddenly, a deafening roar shook the chamber, the ground trembling as a flash of lightning erupted, the air crackling with energy. Selena’s blood ran cold, her arms tightening around Levi as the Beast Titan materialized, its towering, furred form dominating the dome, its eyes glinting with malice. Eight pure titans followed, their grotesque forms lumbering into position, their roars echoing off the steel walls, the sound a death sentence.

“Zeke,” Levi hissed, his voice laced with venom, his blades raised despite the odds, his ankle screaming with every shift. Selena’s heart pounded, her eyes darting to the titans, her mind calculating, but a new sound cut through—a voice, cold and mocking, booming from an intercom hidden in the walls.

“Well, well, Selena De La Rosa,” General Calvi’s voice sneered, dripping with cruel amusement. “The Legendary Black Cat, predictable as ever. Did you really think you could waltz into Liberio and take me down? I know you, girl—better than you know yourself. I molded you, trained you, made you the killer you are. And I knew you’d try this pathetic ambush with your little scout gang. You walked right into my trap.”

Selena’s blood boiled, her grip on Levi tightening, her voice a raw shout. “You’re a coward, Calvi! Hiding behind titans and traps? Face me yourself, you bastard!” Her hatred was a fire, her blades trembling in her hands, her resolve to kill him unshaken despite the odds.

Calvi’s laugh was chilling, echoing through the dome. “Oh, Selena, you still have that fire I love so much. But this is the end of your story. You and your precious Captain will die here. Marley will crush Paradis, and your rebellion will be nothing but a footnote.” 

Selena’s heart pounded, her ODM gear was useless in this space and, its gas nearly depleted. Her blades were chipped and dull, their edges barely able to slice through flesh.

 Levi forced himself to his feet, his twisted ankle a fire of pain that made his jaw clench, his gray eyes blazing through his blood-splattered mask. His own gear was spent, his blades dull, blood seeping from a gash on his forearm, but his resolve was a steel core, his love for Selena a force that defied his injuries. 

Selena’s chest tightened, guilt clawing at her like a living thing. She’d pushed them into this, her obsession with killing Calvi blinding her to Levi’s warnings. They’d been so close and now, her stubborn refusal to retreat had led them here, to this steel cage, facing titans and soldiers with no way out.

 “Levi,” she whispered, her voice cracking, her hands trembling as they gripped his shoulders, her green eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry. I thought we could end this… I thought we could kill him. Now we’re…” Her voice broke, the weight of their potential deaths crushing her, her heart aching at the thought of losing him.

Levi’s hand clamped onto her wrist, his grip firm despite the pain radiating from his ankle, his eyes locking onto hers with a fierce intensity that cut through her guilt. “Stop it, Selena,” he growled, his voice rough but steady, his mask hiding the strain in his expression. “You didn’t force me here. I chose this—with you. We’re not dead yet, so don’t start giving up on me.” His words were a lifeline, his love a fire that burned through the despair, his determination to protect her a vow etched in his bloodied form. He shifted, wincing as his ankle protested, but his blades rose, dull but ready, his body coiled for a fight he knew might be their last.

The intercom crackled, Calvi’s voice returning, colder and more venomous, his laughter a blade in the silence. “Captain Levi,” he sneered, his words dripping with mockery, echoing off the steel walls like a curse. “The great Ackerman, Humanity’s Strongest, reduced to a limping puppy, clinging to my wildcat for support. I’ve heard the stories—stronger than a titan, they said. What a disappointment you are, hobbling like this.” His tone shifted, a cruel amusement lacing his words. “Though I must tip my hat to you. Taming the Black Cat? That’s a miracle I never managed. My fiery little killer, broken by Marley, yet I heard you’ve got her purring like a kitten. How’d you do it, hmm?”

Selena’s blood boiled, her grip on Levi tightening, her voice a raw shout. “You don’t know shit about us!” she spat, her green eyes blazing, her hatred for the man who’d molded her into a killer a fire that consumed her. “You’re a coward, hiding behind titans and traps! Come face me, you bastard, and I’ll show you what I’ve learned!” Her words were a challenge, her body trembling with rage, her dulled blades itching to find his throat.

Levi’s lips curled into a snarl, his voice a venomous roar that echoed through the dome. “You think hiding behind speakers makes you a man? Running your shitty mouth from a safe little hole? If you’ve got guts, come down here and say it to my face, you spineless bitch!” His words were a blade, cutting through Calvi’s bravado, his hand tightening on his blade, his ankle screaming but his defiance unyielding. 

Calvi’s laughter faltered, a flicker of embarrassment in his tone, his pride stung by Levi’s words. “Insult me all you want, Ackerman,” he snapped, his voice sharp, brittle. “It changes nothing. Surrender now, or you and Selena die. The Beast Titan will crush you, my soldiers will finish the scraps, and Paradis will burn for your arrogance. Choose.” The intercom’s threat hung heavy, the titans’ growls intensifying, the soldiers’ rifles clicking as they took aim.

Levi’s eyes narrowed, his mind racing, his outburst was strategic. He’d kept Calvi talking to trace the source of his voice, his sharp senses honing in on a faint echo from above. His gaze darted to the ceiling, 30 meters high, a smooth expanse of steel broken only by a small, flat speaker embedded near the center, its surface barely visible in the dim light. That was it—a vent or passage hid behind it, the only way out of this death trap. His heart clenched, the mission fading to insignificance. All that mattered was Selena’s survival, even if it meant sacrificing himself. He’d lost too much, but losing her would break him beyond repair.

He flicked his eyes to the ceiling, a subtle signal, his voice a low murmur, barely audible over the titans’ snarls. “Selena, up there,” he said, his hand brushing hers to keep it discreet, his gray eyes intense. “The speaker. There’s a vent behind it. That’s our way out.”

Selena followed his gaze, her green eyes catching the speaker’s faint glint, her mind racing as she grasped his plan. A vent meant escape, a chance to live, but the distance was daunting. “Levi, our ODM gear won’t reach,” she whispered, her voice tight, her hand gripping his arm, blood seeping from her thigh wound. “It’s 30 meters up. Our cables max at 20. We’d need a platform at least 10 meters high, and this dome’s empty.”

Levi’s gaze shifted past her, his voice steady despite the pain lancing through his ankle. “Not empty,” he said, his eyes locking on the Beast Titan, its 17-meter frame a grotesque opportunity, its furred bulk a mountain they could climb. “Zeke’s our ladder. You scale him, use him to reach the ceiling.”

Selena’s breath caught, her heart pounding as she turned to see Zeke, his eyes glaring, his smaller titans—none taller than 10 meters—snarling around him. The plan was madness, a suicide mission, but it was their only shot. “Levi, that’s insane,” she said, her voice urgent, her eyes searching his, tears threatening to spill. “I can’t fight Zeke and carry you. Your ankle—you can’t climb!”

“Forget me,” Levi cut in, his voice fierce, his hand clamping onto her shoulder, his eyes burning with a selfless resolve that broke her heart. “I’ll stay, hold off the soldiers and titans. You get to that vent, Selena. One of us has to make it.” His words were a command, his love a sacrifice, his willingness to die for her a weight that crushed her.

“No!” Selena snapped, her voice raw, her green eyes blazing, tears streaming down her cheeks, soaking her mask. “I’m not leaving you, Levi! Over my dead body!” Her hand clutched his, her nails digging into his skin, her guilt and love a storm that refused to let her abandon him. “We fight together, or we die together. That’s our deal, damn it!” Her sobs were muffled, her body trembling, her dulled blades raised despite the odds.

Zeke’s laugh rumbled, his titan form towering, his voice a deep, mocking growl that shook the floor. “Done with your lovers’ quarrel?” he taunted, his massive hand flexing, his titans stepping closer, their teeth bared. “No plan saves you now. Calvi wants your corpses, and I’ll deliver.” His eyes glinted, his confidence a blade, but a flicker of unease crossed his face as he watched the blood-soaked duo, their defiance unbroken.

Calvi’s voice returned, sharp and impatient. “Enough stalling!” he barked, his tone final. “Zeke, kill them. Now!” The intercom clicked off, the silence shattered by the soldiers’ shouts, their rifles firing, bullets ricocheting off the steel walls. The titans roared, their massive feet shaking the ground, the attack a tidal wave of death.

Selena and Levi moved as one, their dulled blades flashing, their bodies coiling despite their injuries. The Marleyans charged, their bullets a deadly hail, but Levi dove forward, his ankle screaming, his blades carving through a soldier’s chest, blood spraying as he seized the man’s automatic rifle. “Selena, cover me!” he shouted, his voice a whip, his ODM gear firing as a weapoon to swing him into another soldier, his blade slicing the man’s throat, blood gushing over his hands.

Selena’s 100 Cuts of Pain erupted once more, her body springing at a soldier, her dulled blades still lethal as she shredded him, blood soaking her uniform, her curls bouncing with each strike. Her body rolling to dodge a bullet, her knife embedding in another soldier’s neck. 

They fought like demons, their trust a seamless bond, their movements a dance honed by love and survival. Selena’s thigh burned, her arm ached, but her green eyes blazed, her heart pounding for Levi, her resolve to save him a fire that refused to die.

Levi’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, the stolen rifle raised, his voice a growl. “Please work,” he muttered, aiming at the speaker. He fired, the rapid bursts deafening, bullets tearing into the steel until the panel buckled, the speaker crashing down, smashing into the nape of a pure titan below, killing it instantly. A gaping hole yawned in the ceiling, large enough for escape, the vent beyond a faint promise of freedom, its edges jagged with twisted metal.

Calvi’s silence was a testament to his shock, his camera feed likely showing his disbelief. How had Ackerman pinpointed the speaker, turned it into their salvation? Zeke’s roar was furious, his massive hand tearing into one of his own titans, ripping its leg free to hurl at Levi and Selena, the limb a deadly missile. Selena dodged, her body rolling across the blood-slick floor, the leg crashing into the steel, cracking it, the impact shaking her bones. “Levi, move!” she shouted, her voice raw.

Levi spotted a pile of gear near a dead Marleyan—six grenades, their pins glinting in the dim light. He pocketed them, his mind racing, his eyes on Selena as she fought, her body a blur of lethal grace. She launched at a titan, her techniques slicing its fingers as it grabbed her, her body twisting to avoid its grasp, her dulled blades scraping its hide. She hooked her ODM gear onto its shoulder, propelling her up, her blade cutting its nape, the titan collapsing in a cloud of steam. Using its falling body, she launched at another, her gas dwindling, her momentum carrying her, her blade finding another nape, blood and steam filling the air.

Levi fought with equal ferocity, his ankle a blaze of pain, but his blades cut the Achilles tendons of two titans, toppling them with a thunderous crash before he sliced their napes, their bodies dissolving in steam. “Keep going, Selena!” he shouted, his voice strained, his stolen rifle firing at a soldier, the man’s chest exploding in a spray of crimson. If the titans were gone, Zeke’s ammunition would be limited, giving Selena a shot at the ceiling. His heart pounded, his eyes never leaving her, his love a desperate prayer that she’d make it.

Zeke’s eyes widened, his titan form trembling as Selena neared, her relentless advance a nightmare. “You… abominations!” he roared, his voice shaking, his fear palpable as the blood-soaked woman, her green eyes furious, climbed his arm, her dulled blades flashing, her curls bouncing with each move. He clawed at her, his massive hands swiping, but she clung to his fur, moving to his back.

Selena’s heart raced, her eyes on the hole above, so close yet impossibly far. Her gas was a whisper, barely enough to reach the ceiling, and Zeke’s thrashing made her climb a battle, his fur slipping under her bloodied hands. She glanced at Levi, fighting below, his ankle hobbling him, his blades flashing as he cut down another titan, his rifle empty but his will unbroken. “Levi!” she shouted, her voice breaking, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t do this without you!”

Levi’s eyes met hers, his heart clenching, his voice a desperate shout. “You can, Selena! Go, now!” He fired his ODM gear, its last burst propelling him onto Zeke’s shoulder, his blade slicing at the titan’s hand, forcing it back, blood and fur flying. “Move!” They were directly below the hole, Zeke’s movements aligning them perfectly, the vent a jagged promise of salvation.

Selena hesitated, her sobs choking her, her green eyes locked on Levi, her love for him a chain that refused to break. “I can’t leave you!” she screamed, her voice raw, her tears falling, landing on his bloodied face, her heart tearing at the thought of losing him. Below, the dome’s entrance burst open, Marleyan reinforcements pouring in, their rifles raised, their shouts a death knell. The odds were impossible, their escape a fading dream, the titans closing in, Zeke’s roars deafening.

Levi’s eyes softened, his voice raw, his love for her a selfless act that broke his heart. “I love you, Selena,” he said, his tone steady despite the chaos, his gentle smile a rare gift, accepting his fate to save her. “Go, now!” His shout was desperate, his eyes pleading.

Selena’s sobs turned to a scream, her voice shattering. “No, Levi!” She refused once more, her heart a storm, her resolve to save him a fire that burned through her exhaustion. This couldn’t be their story’s end—she wouldn’t let it be. Her eyes blazed, her body coiling, her love for him a force that defied the titans, the soldiers, Calvi’s trap.

Levi’s frustration peaked, his teeth gritted, his decision made. He grabbed her, his strength surging despite his injuries, his arms lifting her with a desperate heave. “Move, damn it!” he roared, throwing her upward, her body soaring toward the hole, forcing her to act.

Selena screamed his name, time slowing as she flew, her tears streaming, her ODM gear firing instinctively, its hook latching onto the ceiling’s jagged edge, the metal groaning under her weight. But she refused to let him go. With a cry, she fired her other hook, the cable piercing Levi’s forearm, blood spurting as he grunted in pain, his eyes widening in shock. “Selena, what the hell—” he started, his voice breaking, but she twisted her body, her muscles screaming, her scream raw as she pulled, hauling him upward with every ounce of strength, sending him flying into the hole.

The effort drained her, her gas gone, her hook slipping from the ceiling, her body trembling with exhaustion, her thigh and arm wounds bleeding freely. Levi landed in the vent, blood pouring from his arm, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You stubborn fucking woman!” he shouted, pulling the hook free, his gaze dropping to her, hanging by a thread, her strength spent..

As her hook slipped, Selena’s eyes met his, her voice a broken whisper. “Levi…” But Zeke’s hand closed around her, his roar triumphant, his grip crushing her ribs, pulling her back down, his furred fingers a vice that stole her breath. She kicked, her dulled blades useless, her wire slipping from Levi’s grasp, her body trapped, her heart screaming for Levi.

Levi’s heart stopped, his mind a blur of panic and resolve. He grabbed the six grenades, his hands steady despite the blood dripping from his arm, his fingers pulling their pins one by one, the metal clinking in the chaos. “Eat this, you damn furball,” he growled, hurling them down, the grenades arcing into Zeke’s open mouth, disappearing down his throat, their fuses ticking like a countdown to salvation.

Zeke’s eyes widened, his roar cut short as the grenades detonated, a cataclysmic explosion erupting inside him, his body disintegrating in a blaze of fire, steam, and gore, the shockwave vaporizing the Marleyan reinforcements below, their screams swallowed by the blast. The dome trembled, steel walls groaning, dust and debris raining down, the ceiling shaking as if it would collapse, burying them in its ruin.

Levi held fast, his bloodied hands hauling Selena’s wire, his muscles burning, his ankle screaming as he pulled her free of Zeke’s collapsing grip, her body limp but alive. She flew into his arms, their bodies rolling into the vent, Levi shielding her with his frame, his arms wrapped around her, his blood mixing with hers as they hit the steel floor. The explosion’s aftershocks roared, the dome shaking, the vent’s walls vibrating, threatening to cave in, but Levi held her tightly, her sobs muffled against his chest, his heart pounding with the miracle of her survival.

Selena clung to him, her body trembling, her green eyes wide with shock, her voice a broken sob. “Levi…” she whispered, her hands clutching his torn uniform, her tears soaking his skin, their love a defiance of Calvi’s trap, their survival a testament to their bond. The world shook around them, but they were still alive, together, their fight far from over, the vent a fragile sanctuary in a collapsing world.

~

Masterlist | Patreon

Join my Taglist

Note: I am four chapters ahead on patreon :)

Tags: @Thirstyb-ches @spaghetticarbs @demonslayeranimex @levkuna @jinsfavoritedoll @escapingjune @mwezieclipze

[ghoulodont]

With the Bathwater

Rain offers to take a weight off Dewdrop's shoulders. Part of the Blur Turns to Haze series, but can be read on its own.

Relationship: Raindrop Characters: Dewdrop, Rain Tags: Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Fluff, eepy dew Words: 1808

Read below or on AO3

It’s still early in the evening, but Dewdrop’s energy seems to be flagging. He’s lying on his side on his bed, curled in on himself loosely. He’s blinking slowly like a contented cat, letting his eyes stay closed a fraction of a second longer each time.

Rain, sitting on the bed next to him, is frozen, held in place by a desire not to disturb the present calm. They’re trapped together in an ambiguous place between sleep and wakefulness. Realistically, Dew would be more comfortable under the covers, but Rain is caught in the paradox of avoiding the short uphill climb that would lead to the easy descent of restful sleep.

So he gives Dew a few more minutes before prompting him, “You going to call it a night?”

Dew shakes his head, or makes some semblance of the gesture, the best he can with his head pressed against the mattress. He rolls onto his back and, laboriously, sits himself up. “I was going to take a shower.” He leans back, propping himself up with one arm extended behind him. “I need to wash my hair. I feel gross.”

“You’re not gross.”

“I just meant… I feel gross.” He drags his hand through his hair. It gathers together between his fingers, stiffer than it usually is, more substantial. Then he holds his empty hand in front of him, palm up, like he’s displaying something. There’s nothing there, just the suggestion of a sensation.

“Oh.”

Dew sighs. He makes no move to get up, to head for the bathroom.

“Do you want…”

Dew tips his head to one side.

“Do you want me to help?”

His eyebrows raise, a barely perceptible twitch. “You mean…?”

“To do it for you? Only if you want.”

He pauses, silent for a moment that feels like forever, before he speaks again. “I’d like that.”

Rain stands, released from the lingering air of meticulous stillness. Dew stands too; he sways slightly in place before he starts walking to the bathroom. Rain follows.

In the bathroom, Rain turns on the shower. He spins the handle until it’s set almost as hot as it will go — Dew’s preference. Standing at the edge of his peripheral vision, Dew pulls his shirt over his head.

They’ve showered together before, but they’ve never really done this before — taking their clothes off in the bathroom for the sole purpose of showering with each other, as the main event. Dew’s shirt drops from his fingers and crumples to the floor.

Rain pulls his own shirt off, steps out of his pants. He feels the water with his hand. It’s hot. He knew it would be; steam is starting to fill the room.

They step into the shower, Dew first and Rain after him. Dew stands facing the wall, directly under the water, his head tipped forward so that it runs off his forehead in a flat sheet that splatters noisily against the floor. Then he takes a small step back, moving out of the spray, and flips his sopping wet hair out of his face with one hand. Behind him, Rain is barely getting wet at all, which is fine. It’s not why he’s here.

Dew picks up the shampoo bottle. Almost immediately, it slips from his grasp; he drops it on the shower floor, the hollow plastic clattering a cacophonous thunder on the tile. His shoulders first rise towards his ears in response to the jarring sound, then sink in a forceful, frustrated sigh, inaudible over the sound of running water.

“Let me,” Rain offers — or reminds, really. This was the idea in the first place. He picks up the shampoo from where it’s come to rest after skittering across the slippery surface, somewhere near his right foot. He uncaps the bottle and pours some of its contents into his open palm. Dew, still facing away, fidgets in place, bending one knee slightly, shifting his weight.

Rain brings his hands to Dew’s wet hair, slowly, like he’s trying not to startle a skittish animal, and presses the shampoo into it with gentle strokes of his hands. He works it into a lather with his fingertips, rubbing small circles into Dew’s scalp.

Dew is so pliable, tilting his head in accordance with the gentle pressure applied to it. Rain rubs behind his ears, at the base of his horns, along the junction where his skull meets his neck. A hefty blob of shampoo foam drops to the floor with a quiet plop.

“They increased my dose,” Dew says, breaking the relative silence between them. “Last night. Feels like starting over.” He’s offering a handful of vague, disjoint half-statements, expending the minimum energy required to get his point across, leaving Rain to fill in the gaps.

“Like the first day? I saw you, it looked like you were sleepwalking.”

“I feel like I’m sleepwalking.”

Rain hums. He drops his hands to Dew’s shoulders and guides him to turn around so his back is to the water. Dew’s eyes are closed. With gentle fingers against his scalp again, Rain tips his head back into the stream.

He rakes his fingers through Dew’s hair, plowing furrows in the dense foam, creating channels into which the water rushes and whisks it away. He strokes Dew’s hair back with his hands, squeezing the water from it over and over, until all the shampoo rinsed out. He picks up the bottle of body wash. Dew opens his eyes just a sliver, peeking out past damp lashes.

Rain snaps open the flimsy plastic flip-top lid of the body wash. Once again, Dew is remarkably pliable, allowing Rain to lather soap all over him, providing easy access to all his limbs, shuffling around as needed. He braces a hand against the tiled wall for balance.

Rain guides him back under the water falling from the shower head. It quickly rinses off the majority of the soap suds, driving rivers through a landscape of rolling hills formed by a thin coating of white foam. Bubbles gather at the drain in a heap, holding on to the last moments of their life before they succumb to the flow of water.

He brushes his hands over Dew’s skin, slippery with a residual coating of soap. He pushes the running water across his shoulders, neck, arms, down his back, over his legs. The slipperiness washes away, dissipates until only the feeling of wet skin remains. Even so, he continues, pushing clean water away to be replaced by more clean water, again and again.

“Rain.” Dew’s voice is quiet, mixing in with the sound of water droplets hitting the shower floor.

Rain’s hands pause, frozen in place on Dew’s body, held against either side of his ribcage.

“This is nice, but can we go lie down now?”

“Of course.” Rain drops his hands away.

Before Rain can lean forward and turn off the shower, Dew turns around. He places his hands on Rain’s sides, just above his hip bones, an echo of the position they paused in just moments ago.

The water is hitting the back of Dew’s head now, like earlier, but this time he’s looking up, looking at Rain. A rivulet of water runs down the side of his face. The image evokes some dramatic romance movie scene, a climactic moment where the love interests are caught in a torrential downpour.

Rain feels his lips pull into a smile, an involuntary expression betraying his thoughts. He’s not sure he could put a word to this emotion. There’s a fondness at the forefront, a familiar, deep sea of warmth he feels whenever he looks at Dew. The salt breeze of it carries the vague, ambiguously masculine scent of his body wash, some wood smell. Cedar, maybe.

The sea is deeper than before, more vast, impossibly so, its waters all-encompassing. Its shimmering surface ripples with so many more feelings, thoughts, ideas, a kaleidoscopic interface with the ambient air. Comfort. Worry. Humor in the inadvertent romance movie parallel. Appreciation for the trust Dew is putting in him right now.

“Thank you,” Dew says.

Rain pushes a stray lock of wet hair away from Dew’s face. “Of course.”

He turns off the shower, the steady thrum of water quickly diminishing to a slow, rhythmic drip. Dew steps out and wraps himself with a towel, draping it around his shoulders like a blanket. He shuffles out of the bathroom.

Rain hastily dries himself off and puts his clothes back on, retrieving them from where he discarded them on the tile floor. When he returns to the main room of Dew’s dorm, he finds Dew curled up on the bed again, still wrapped in the towel.

Rain picks out some clothes from the dresser — boxers and an old t-shirt. Dew lets the towel fall against the covers as he sits up. Rain slips the neck of the shirt over his head. It’s large on him, the worn fabric draping loosely against his torso. Dew puts his underwear on himself. Rain uses the fallen towel to blot Dew’s still soaking wet hair dry.

When he’s satisfied with the state of Dew’s hair, Rain removes the towel. Dew flops back onto the bed and lies there for a moment, perfectly still save for the rise and fall of his chest, but then he drags himself up and heads back into the bathroom. Rain busies himself tidying up — hanging the used towels to dry, gathering Dew’s clothes from their pile on the floor and putting them with his dirty laundry.

In the bathroom, Dew brushes his teeth, leaning heavily against the sink. When he’s done, he pads back into the other room, flops onto his bed, and crawls under the covers.

He nestles his head into the pillow, then looks up at Rain. “Stay?”

“Oh, um, it’s— it’s kind of early…”

Dew stares at him like his mental gears have jammed trying to process that statement. His tired eyes look like they can’t perceive a world in which any of its inhabitants wouldn’t want to go to sleep right now.

Rain kicks himself for saying something like that. Of course he can stay. “Until you fall asleep.”

Dew snorts. “It’ll be, like, two seconds.” He pulls the edge of the duvet to his chin.

Rain lies down next to him, on top of the covers to maximize his chances of sneaking away later without waking him up. There’s not much of a point, really; if Dew is feeling the way he did a few days ago, like he said earlier, he’ll be dead to the world soon. Still, he arranges himself carefully, thoughtfully, rolling over so he’s face to face with Dew.

Dew’s eyes are closed, his breathing even. Is he already asleep?

“Goodnight,” Rain whispers, so quiet it’s barely more than a breath.

“Goodnight,” Dew whispers back, eyes still closed.

[sungbeam]

BIRD HUNT — four

nonidol!choi line x f!reader

gotham city is a gutter running rampant with the ill, corrupt, and the insane. at times, justice and vengeance must be served by one's own hand... no matter the lengths one must go to do so.

▷ genre, au, etc. bat family au, dc comics inspired, dark, vigilantes au, slow burn, ceo/billionaire au, cat woman!reader, murder mystery au, action, suspense, angst, slow burn-ish?, love square??; choi line inspired by dick grayson (csb), jason todd (cyj), and tim drake (cbg), including bruce wayne for choi minho and damian wayne for nishimura riki, inspired by 2022's The Batman

▷ chapter warnings. swearing, mentions of death and murder, mentions of weaponry, depictions of violence, mentions of corruption, a funeral

▷ word count. 4.5k // taglist: open

« prev · m.list · next »

FILE_04 : death brings us together

gotham city.

[eight days since your mother was murdered.]

"Looking for this?"

Soobin's eyes took in the woman before him. You were dressed in all black, form-fitting clothing. Over the upper half of your face and head, you wore a black beanie with eye holes cut out and a cat ear silhouette on top. There was a thigh holster wrapped around your right thigh, and your hand was primed with a can of pepper spray. He had to give you props—simple, but effective. All the while, Beomgyu was still trying to hack out the chemicals from his mouth.

"That's why you wear full face coverings," Yeonjun coughed.

Beomgyu growled. "Shut up."

Soobin held up the thick folder in his hand, eyebrow lifted in your direction while pretending his brothers weren't making a fool of themselves as per usual. "So? Why're you snooping around here?"

"Did you shoot our Mr. Yang in the head?" Yeonjun chuckled, cocking his head to the side. "Bad, bad kitty."

Soobin caught the flash of panic in your eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came. You felt familiar to him—your stature, the way you carried yourself. He couldn’t label why those aspects were familiar to him yet.

"Give me the file and I'll be on my way," you said. "No harm, no foul."

"All foul!" Beomgyu cleared his throat from behind you. He clutched at his throat, his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a dog. "You are so lucky I still have some morals left. That was rude!"

You rolled your eyes and cast a cursory glance over your shoulder. "Maybe you should carry pepper spray on you, too."

"I like her," Yeonjun said, completely unnecessarily.

Soobin shot him a look that said as much, and Yeonjun shrugged his shoulders as if he was helpless to his own running mouth. "Who are you?" He asked you.

"You first," you fired back.

"Ladies first," was Yeonjun's drawled reply.

Soobin massaged the space between his brows. "Okay, look. We really don't have the time to chit chat all night. So why don't we crack this file open right here—"

In the distance—no, that was right here. Right at this building. Car wheels squealed and engines roared, and Soobin looked to Yeonjun who had his body tipped out of the window and peered down at the street below. His hand reached for one of the pistols in his side holster with a groan. "You've gotta be shitting me."

"What? Who is it?"

Yeonjun grumbled an obscenity under his breath as he assessed the situation below on the street. "The Penguin."

Soobin shook his head. "Fuck this."

"Exactly."

"Ah, Bat Boys!" Trilled the obnoxious mockery of the Penguin's voice. Oswald Cobbletpot, better known by his moniker, the Penguin, was a well known mobster in Gotham, widely recognized as the owner of the Iceberg Lounge and in kahoots with some of the most dangerous and most powerful villains in Gotham. And one of the most annoying pests the vigilantes had ever had the displeasure of dealing with. What the hell was he doing here? "Are you finished chasing tail up there?"

"Chasin' tail—?" Both Yeonjun and Soobin's heads whipped around, but the space where you and Beomgyu had been was now empty. Instead, the office door out into the hallway had been busted open. There was only one way the two of you could have disappeared off to.

The two eldest brothers cursed their younger brother out. "Fuck this," they both groaned.

Beomgyu had just left them both high and dry to deal with the Penguin on their own while he could chase your tail… as if he had a chance of catching it in the first place.

Your heartbeat thundered loudly in your ears as you pressed your body up against the wall of the rafters. There was something so satisfying about hearing the Red Robin's noises of frustrations as he failed to find you in the labyrinth of wood scaffolding in the abandoned building. It was the old construction site of a skyscraper, but the project had been abandoned years ago, the project paused, and no one ever returned to finish it or buy it out. Wasted resources for them, but you had spent so much of your adolescence in this self-proclaimed jungle gym, discovering all of its kinks.

And when the Red Robin finally gave up on finding you on the fifth floor, you slipped out of your hiding place, back onto the shadowy streets. You skipped the well-lit places, quickly making your way across what felt like half the city, back to the Iceberg Lounge.

Part of you was grateful that the Penguin had shown up when he did, but the other half… you didn't know, really. Was it just a coincidence or had your father sent the Penguin out as a precaution? Was it worry or a lack of trust?

There was no real way to find out, you decided, as you were granted entry into the lounge. Because it was the ungodly hours of the morning, the nightclub was in full swing, and you squeezed your way past sweaty, crowded bodies. You had removed your mask while walking up to the door and tucked it into the back of your waistband. By the time you had made it to the elevator, your heart rate had slowed to a more regular speed—and then you remembered that you only had half of what your father had asked for.

He can suck it up, you thought to yourself, the elevator doors sliding open to reveal the entryway to your father’s penthouse suite, classical music floating in the air like an expensive perfume. There was a part of you, however, that worried there was actually something important tucked away in those files. Would you be led to your mother’s killer without it?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Your father was seated in one of the armchairs with a book propped open in his lap. One leg was crossed over the other, and a glass of amber colored liquid sat on the coffee table next to the chair. He glanced up from his literature, eyes flickering up and down your form. “Where is the file?”

Something about that irked you. You dug the burner out of your thigh holster and tossed it to him. He caught it with one hand. “Back with the vigilantes.”

“Vigilantes?” His eyebrow arched.

You collapsed into the armchair across from him. Your bones and joints were already groaning and aching. Maybe you could just curl up here for the night… getting back across town to your apartment was just far too much effort—shit. You had to feed the cats though. “Yeah,” you said, your head resting against your fist, “how come you didn’t tell me Nightwing, Red Hood, and Red Robin were interested in Yang’s death? A warning would have been nice.”

Your father busied himself with the burner phone in his hands, eyebrows bunching up. “I sent the Penguin,” he quipped, his tone dismissive.

“I could have gotten killed. Or worse, found out.”

“But you didn’t.”

You scoffed. “Of course you would say that—”

His eyes sliced up from the phone screen to you, and you hated the part of you that wanted to shrink under his gaze. You supposed there was a reason why he was called the Capo, and why he had the power he did. It was one of the many reasons your mother never wanted you to have anything to do with him after those initial couple of years. “Your mother’s killer can do much worse to you.”

Your jaw snapped shut.

There was a satisfaction that rolled off him, and it made you shift uncomfortably.

You cleared your throat. “By the way.”

“Hm?”

“The funeral—” When he said nothing in reply, you continued, “I wanted to invite one more person.”

He nodded to you. “Of course, my dear. Who else would you like to invite?”

You exhaled. “Choi Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu had been awake for the entirety of the night. His body sat slumped in the desk chair behind the Bat Cave monitors, head buzzing and turning and working. With the assistance of about three cups of coffee, he had managed to distract himself enough from the fact that he had found you breaking and entering into a murdered man’s office tonight. Well, he supposed it was no longer “tonight," but “last night." Alfred had long since gone to bed after Beomgyu’s repeated insistence that he could take care of himself.

(Truthfully, Alfred never believed any of the Chois when they claimed they could “take care of themselves," but he had grown tired of arguing. He would watch after them and take care of them to the best of his own abilities. He never liked fighting with the Chois, even Minho, the boys’ father. The lot of them were more alike than any of them would like to admit. Alfred noticed much about the Choi family.)

Besides the fact that he had just physically brawled you last night, Beomgyu had been actively engaging his brain by finding out any and everything about you. The last time he’d seen you was the night of his sixteenth birthday, when the day afterwards, he was to move back into the Choi Estate. He never told you, and he never reached out to you again. He suspected you hated him for that—leaving without any explanation. He had grown so fond of you, and when you had said so blankly yesterday that you had been grieving your mother’s death…

A wave of grief and guilt washed over him once again, and he found himself reaching for his cup of coffee.

As he set the mug back down onto the desk, the sound of the elevator carriage and his damned brothers’ voices erupted into the quiet. Quiet gone too soon, he thought to himself as he massaged his temples.

“—evil! You are evil, I tell you! I was having such a good dream—”

Soobin audibly rolled his eyes (Beomgyu had learned that yes, this was, in fact, possible). “For the love of all things holy, shut the fuck up.”

When Beomgyu looked over, he sputtered out a laugh as he watched Soobin practically drag Yeonjun over to the desk by his ear. It was clear that Yeonjun had been forced out of bed from the strands of his dark hair sticking up everywhere and the disgruntled wrinkle in his forehead. Soobin looked slightly better, but only slightly. There was that telltale Choi family set of eye bags beneath his eyes, but his hair was slightly damp as if he had actually gotten up and showered.

Beomgyu subtly sniffed himself. He usually showered after coming home from patrol, but his lack of sleep was making him think he forgot to.

Soobin dumped Yeonjun right next to the desk, and the eldest crumpled to the floor like a sack of potatoes. “Hey! I could have hit my head against the corner, you dickwad!”

Soobin rolled his eyes again, coming by to lean over the arm of the desk chair and smack the manila folder from last night onto the desk, right in front of Beomgyu. He even startled slightly at the sound—coffee definitely didn’t do that for him.

Yeonjun muttered a string of obscenities and complaints under his breath as he crawled to his feet, only to perch himself on the table itself to peer at the unopened file folder. “Are we gonna open that thing or is it gonna keep bein’ a—”

“I think Ln Yn’s the cat woman.”

Soobin and Yeonjun turned to their younger brother, eyes suddenly awake. Beomgyu reached for his cup of coffee and took another sip before confirming, “That cat woman from last night? I’m pretty sure that was Ln Yn.”

“Ln Yn…” Soobin’s voice was barely audible, his eyes glazing over as he pondered that revelation.

Yeonjun waved his hands out in front of him. “Waiwaiwait—you think Catwoman is who? Who the fuck’s Ln Yn?”

Beomgyu leaned forward and pulled up a particular window on the main monitor. He had been doing some digging on you… not that that was creepy or anything (he was fully aware how creepy it sounded, but he swore to God he was just trying to catch up on what you had been up to lately). Your profile appeared before them, a small portrait in the top right hand corner. Notably, he had found this in the Choi Enterprises database.

Apparently, you had applied for a position at the company about a year ago. And upon further digging, Beomgyu had discovered that you had been one of many rejected applicants, but you had somehow fallen into the hands of Lee Sungjae. Someone must have recommended you, but he was working on finding that particular tidbit out, as well as who in the world decided to deny you that position—

Yeonjun squinted at the screen, then a lazy grin appeared on his face. Beomgyu did not like that smile on his brother so early in the morning. “Oh, hey! That’s the girl from the bank!”

Now, Yeonjun was at the center of his brothers’ attention.

He elaborated, flinging a hand at the monitor with your soft-smiling portrait. “I was telling you guys about this girl in the Gotham Bank vault the other week—that one badass chick—well, that’s her. She might also know that I’m the Red Hood—”

That woke Beomgyu up faster than any shot of espresso could. Soobin smacked his palm against his forehead. “Fucking christ, hyung.”

“Relax, it was only ‘cause I let her,” Yeonjun protested, then crossed his arms over his chest.

Soobin opened his mouth, most likely to rip Yeonjun a new one for such an arrogantly stupid mistake when a voice cut him off.

“Master Beomgyu.”

All three heads whirled as Alfred made his way from the elevator carriage and toward them. He seemed to be as put-together as always, hair combed back neatly and dress shirt crisp. Beomgyu had always admired Alfred’s ability to stay so sharp. He definitely couldn’t relate. The object in Alfred’s hand, however, was the point of interest for this morning. It looked like an envelope—wait, it was definitely an envelope. It looked expensive, too. Like that type of shit that the company would use for banquet or gala invites. Stupid 110-pound cardstock or something.

The envelope was placed in Beomgyu’s hands, and he examined the outside very carefully. He wasn’t the biggest fan of social functions, but sometimes they were a necessary evil… the thought died in his head and on his tongue when he read the return address on the back. Ln Yn.

His heart leapt, unmistakably. Why? He didn’t have a clue why.

But he was tearing into the flap a second later while everyone around him waited for a report. The Bat Cave had gone quiet as Beomgyu wrestled the expensive accompanying card out of its confines. Where had you gotten the energy to make invitation cards like this? Why were you inviting people to the funeral in such a fancy, unnecessary form? And why, in Hell’s name, were you inviting him?

Dear God, there was something inside him that awakened when his sleep-deprived eyes roamed over the words, however flowery, inviting him to attend the service of your mother’s memorial. You hadn’t forgotten him after all. And maybe this was a sign that you didn’t hate him.

“—Bro, who’s got him smiling like that?” The spell was broken.

Beomgyu cut Yeonjun a look, and the eldest simply replied with a wolfish smile. Beomgyu said, rereading the contents of the invitation for what felt like the thousandth time, “Yn invited me to her mother’s funeral.”

Soobin placed a hand on the back of the chair and leaned over Beomgyu to take a peek at the words. Beomgyu had this odd feeling that this was not what your handwriting looked like. It was far too… detached. Like a computer-made font kind of script. Not like the scrawl he remembered you had those couple of years ago.

“Well,” Soobin breathed out, “if Yn really is the Catwoman, as you said Gyu… then you need to go to that funeral to confront her.”

Beomgyu snapped the invitation closed and slid it back into the envelope sleeve. “I’m going there to honor her mother. Giving my condolences comes first and foremost.” His eyes shuttered. Fuck, he was praying to a god he didn’t believe in that he was mistaken—but he’d recognized your voice, your posture. That was you under that cat mask. “No matter if she’s the Catwoman.”

“Of course,” Soobin agreed, letting up off the back of the chair. “You’re right.”

“What the hell am I missing here?” Yeonjun piped up. His face was contorted in utter confusion. “Why is Yn even inviting you to the funeral, Gyu?”

“I believe Miss Yn is Master Beomgyu’s… friend from so long ago when he lived in the apartment,” Alfred answered, coughing slightly as he side-eyed Beomgyu with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

As Alfred made his exit from the underground headquarters, Yeonjun laughed. Beomgyu despised the way his eyebrows wagged suggestively at him. “Ooh, so Yn-ie was the Romeo to your Juliet, hm—”

“Don’t call her Yn-ie, old man,” Beomgyu fired back.

Yeonjun bristled at the bite, much to Soobin’s utter delight. “Whatever.” If there was one sure-fire way to get Yeonjun to shut up, it was by over-exaggerating his age. There were far too many times that he hated being the eldest Choi brother.

A smile danced on Soobin’s lips. “Okay, then that’s settled. Beomgyu’s going to the funeral and we’re pretty certain that Ln Yn is the Catwoman.”

Yeonjun reached down to the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out that half-eaten bag of potato chips. “Now can we open up the file?”

Soobin nodded his agreement, and reached over Beomgyu’s shoulder to grab the file from the desk. Beomgyu and Yeonjun sat quietly while Soobin propped the file onto his forearm so he could open it up like a massive book. He flipped the cover open, and his head tilted to the side. He blinked—flipped to the next thing.

His skin paled.

His brothers questioned him.

Soobin’s lips parted slightly. “Holy shit… this is an exposé on the Capo.” No one had seen who the Capo was, but everyone felt his existence. He had his dirty fingers in every crevice of Gotham, almost every crevice, at least. It was one of the main reasons why he was still out and about, ruling the city like a kingdom. Despite the fact that very few people knew his true identity, the Capo was on everyone's hit list.

Yeonjun pushed, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Soobin replied, “that there might be enough evidence in my fucking hands to put away the Capo for life.”

Once upon a time, you loved your father.

That had been several years back, when your little teeth were still falling out, and you just barely reached your mother’s stomach. It was when your father had only been the accountant to the Iceberg Lounge, counting up bills and counting out expenses and the like. It was a dull job, but your father had been good at it. Maybe even the best at it.

Your mother loved him, too. She loved that he never asked for more, that he always smiled when she brought you into the office for a surprise visit, that he cared so deeply about you. There was this sparkle in his eyes when he looked upon you, your mother had once told you when she had stopped bringing you to the Lounge to see him. She explained in simple terms that he had changed.

For better or for worse—you just knew if your mother couldn’t stand to see him as he was then, that you wouldn’t be able to stomach it either.

You remembered how he hadn’t even fought to see you again. So you never did. You grew up just fine under your mother’s wing; struggles were constant and persistent, but you and your mother were even more persistent. No matter what befell the two of you, it would be just that—the two of you.

Sometimes you wondered what you might have turned out to be like if your father had fought to see you, to have an influence in your life. Maybe you would have ended up like him: empty, cold, alone.

The buttons on your dress jacket were large, but stubborn. The jacket was pretty with bell sleeves and a flared hem—definitely one of the garments that you had purchased after coming under Lee Sungjae’s employ. You didn’t have a lot, not now and not then, but after landing that secretary job with the Lees… you had only your secret benefactor to thank for recommending you. Lee Sungjae had never told you who it was, but his eyes had been teasing whenever he said that, and you could only guess that it hadn’t been your father.

Lee Sungjae had been a good man, but even good men wanted to succeed.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t wholly blame him for wanting that either.

A fluffy entity snaked its way around your heels and the cuffs of your slacks, the white fur now clinging to the hems. You lacked the energy to even admonish Kiyo for doing such a thing; you had literally just rolled away all the fur with a lint roller five minutes ago. You bent down with a sigh and picked up the mewling ball of fur into your arms so that your entire upper half was now fluffed.

“Time for the funeral, huh, Kiyo?” You murmured to her softly as you made your way out of your bedroom, and down the narrow stairs to the first floor. The rest of the cats were huddled around the food and water bowls. Many of them were unhappy that they couldn’t accompany you to the memorial service, and you had to admit that you wished they could be there, too. They had known your mother far longer than anyone else who had been invited to the service today. Plus, you figured you were way more comfortable speaking and interacting with cats than real people anyway.

You set Kiyo down and she trotted over to the nearest hoard of cuddling cats, and you looked on with a bittersweet smile. You always had this growing family of seven or so strays, but you yourself weren't a cat. You envied how close they had all gotten sometimes, and it baffled you how you were jealous of your own beloved cats. They weren't just pets, after all, but family.

You checked the time on your phone. It was time to go. So you picked up your purse from the bottom stair, slipped into your flats, and headed out the door for the funeral.

You had been careful with the list of people to invite, really. All of them had to be someone you knew, too, which wasn't too difficult since your mother always introduced you to people she was comfortable and close with.

The service had been brief, but as you watched your mother's casket be lowered into the ground, you realized that you would never see her again after this, except in images and dreams and memories. The longer you stared at the casket, the more you determined you hated how polished and expensive it was. You hated that your father had been the one to pay for it instead of you. Hated that he even had a hand in this, like he did everything.

The distinct feeling of eyes on the back of your head had you turning back to meet them. You almost started in surprise at the person you saw at the back, lingering on the edge of the crowd. You felt hands taking yours, hands clasping your shoulder, words in your ear, kisses to your cheek, sorries in the air—and then you were standing in front of Choi Beomgyu, who had come in a pressed, all-black suit and a bouquet of calla lilies. His eyes were rimmed red and silver, similar to your own, you imagined.

"I didn't know if you were gonna come," you confessed, crossing your arms over your chest. You realized that he had grown up—not just grown taller or handsome, but up. He wasn't the kid in the apartment next door who called you weirdo anymore.

Beomgyu's lips twitched into some sort of smile, but then a tear slipped down his cheek as a genuine one broke out onto his face. It was one of the most beautiful things you had ever seen. "Yn, I'd be stupid not to come. I'd be stupid not to pay my respects." He cleared his throat and shoved the bouquet into your hands, like they caught fire. "Here. These are for her."

"I'm surprised you remembered," you mused, walking over to place the bouquet among many others atop the dirt pile where they had buried the casket. Beomgyu walked beside you as you did.

"I'm surprised you remembered… me," his voice became quiet at the end. His eyes hadn't left you for a second, as if he had taken these few minutes to soak in the years he had missed. "Yn, I'm so sorry—"

You nodded, letting the words fall from his lips. He deserved to grieve, too.

"You're probably sick of hearing that, huh?" He said with a small chuckle. His cheeks glistened with tears, and he reached up to swipe them away. "I wish I was there."

That was when you shook your head. "No, you really did not want to be there." No one should have ever had to see something like that. God, that image of your mother on the floor in a pool of her own blood would be ingrained into your memory as thoroughly as the blood had sunken into the floorboards.

There was a flicker of confusion, before it disappeared. "I mean, I wish I was there—with you—and with your mother. That I never disappeared like that."

Your heart stuttered in your chest, and a different ache appeared. "Beomgyu, let's not talk about that. You're not sorry."

"I am—"

"How about if you buy me ice cream, I'll consider believing you." You just wanted the aching to stop. He had been a friend—a close one. You never had a lot of those, and you didn't exactly want your first reunion to be filled with this many sorries and regrets.

There was that familiar twinkle in his eyes. He licked his lips, smile peeking out like the sun through an overcast sky. "Sure. I owe you for all the hot chocolate anyway."

You grinned. "That's the spirit." It was as convincing as you could make it.

You could walk away from your mother's grave then. You thought you'd be stuck there for a few more hours after everyone had gone, but something told you that Beomgyu's appearance was important, and there was something else he had left to say to you.

« prev · m.list · next »

permanent taglist: @flwoie @vatterie @seomisaho @hqrana @ja4hyvn @outrologist @meosjinnn @hyunjaespresent-deobi @stayarmytinyzenmoa-l @gyulfriend @polarisjisung @jaehunnyy @shakalakaboomboo @soonyoungblr @loveliestfelix @zhaixiaowen @justanotherkpopstanlol @w3bqrl @kangfication @fluorescentloves @haechansbbg @super-btstrash-posts @http-gyu @mvvnsseul @mars101 @rikizm @empire-x @luumiinaa

series taglist: @winterchimez @mosviqu @boba-beom @strawbrinkofdeath @baek-at-it-again95 @todosmash @loveforred @rocarecs @megseungmin

[twilights-800-cats]

<< Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || From the Beginning || Patreon >>

Chapter 2

The forest flew by in a blur of grays, browns, and greens as Mistyfoot and Mousefur bolted after Spiderpaw. The leggy apprentice's stride was shockingly long, and Mistyfoot found herself once again falling back on advice she had been given on the chosen cat's journey - to control her breathing and extend her legs. Despite how things were between them today, she appreciated learning such a useful tip from Crowflight on their journey.

They barreled through thickets of bracken and bramble, ignoring the drag of sticks and prick of thorns. Mousefur eventually lagged behind, panting raggedly, but there was too much urgency in the air to slow down for her. Spiderpaw's trail of fear-scent was powerful, and as they drew closer to whatever she had found, the coppery stench of blood quickly overtook that sour smell.

What had Spiderpaw encountered, Mistyfoot wondered, worry mounting on her shoulders - was it some trouble with WindClan? The border wasn’t far, and WindClan had set up ambushes on ThunderClan territory before...

Mistyfoot's ears pricked. She could hear a thin wailing coming from just ahead, behind a clump of brown, brittle ferns. The three of them burst through, shattering the delicate stems. As they came to a halt, spraying dust and dirt with their paws, Mistyfoot's eyes went wide - though thorns and plant matter were stuck in her coat, she barely felt them once she took in what lay before her.

They were in a small glade, near enough to the Divide for Mistyfoot to hear the sound of its waters but far enough to be out of sight of the border. The ground here was oddly clear of undergrowth but for a cover of old leaves, and there in the middle of them, thrashing in the mud, was a kitten.

He couldn't have been more than four moons, by Mistyfoot's estimate, with soft, cream-colored fur that darkened around his face and paws, though the mud he had ground up did its best to obscure him. He seemed to be caught by his tail, which was stuck firm in the leaves, and his whole back end was plastered with blood.

Surrounding him were two more kittens, a tom and a she-kit. The tom was white, with patches of pale gray, while the she-kit was gray, with patches of dull cream. They didn't seem to notice the newcomers, staring with rapt attention at their struggling brother with horrified expressions.

Finally, pacing around the whole scene with her tail lashing, was a lovely, long-furred queen, very obviously the kitten's mother by the faint sweetness of her milk-scent. Her fur was pale cream, her face and legs darker like her son, and her eyes were a gorgeous blue that shimmered with worry.

“Great StarClan, what happened here?!” Mousefur gasped, her breathing rough.

The queen stopped pacing and looked up, startled by the newcomers. The fur along her spine lifted, and she opened her jaws - but her eye caught on Spiderpaw, and whatever she was going to say, she swallowed. She mewed instead, her voice high-pitched and desperate, “This is all you brought?!”

Spiderpaw, panting, insisted, “It's okay! This is my mentor, Mousefur, and Mistyfoot, our deputy - there are no two smarter cats in ThunderClan!”

The queen looked momentarily baffled, staring at Mistyfoot and Mousefur as if they were birds, not cats.

Swallowing, Mistyfoot stepped forward and repeated Mousefur's question: “What happened?”

“We... We were chased over the river by some mean cats on the moors,” the queen explained, gathering herself, “We'd stopped to take a break here after going over that horrible tree-bridge when suddenly, my dear little Berry got his tail caught in something!”

Berry, the kitten, thrashed some more, crying out in pain, his little sides heaving with effort. Mistyfoot's spine tingled at the sound. Her mouth felt dry. WindClan chased them off? How could they be so cruel? More important though was the young cat’s desperate need for aid.

“Spiderpaw, go fetch Shadepool, quick!” Mistyfoot ordered. The black she-cat nodded and shot off, crashing through the undergrowth without question. Mistyfoot turned her head back to the queen and asked, “What's your name?”

“My name?” squeaked the she-cat. “Why does that matter right now?”

“Please,” Mistyfoot insisted. Mousefur crept forward, placing her paws carefully on the ground until she reached the kitten and began to sniff.

The queen looked petulant, glaring at Mousefur as she edged closer to Berry, but eventually, she relented and answered, “Daisy. I'm called Daisy.”

“Daisy,” Mistyfoot repeated. She must be a loner. “Daisy, I sent Spiderpaw to fetch one of our medicine cats, but in the meantime, we're going to try and free your son. I need you and your other kits to stay calm. Okay?”

Daisy's fur fluffed, but she nodded and swept her plumy tail around her other two kittens, drawing them close to her and away from Berry. “Please help him,” she pleaded, trembling. Her eyes shimmered, and she winced whenever Berry made a sound. It seemed like she was listening, for now.

“What're we looking at, Mousefur?” Mistyfoot asked, padding close to her friend.

“No idea,” Mousefur admitted. “Whatever has the kit's tail has gone deep beneath his fur.”

Mistyfoot drew close, sniffing. She smelled Berry's kit-scent and blood, overwhelmingly, but beneath it all was something alien but familiar: “Twoleg,” she muttered.

“Twoleg?” Daisy repeated, confused. “You mean the Nofurs?”

Nofur? Mistyfoot considered the word - it must've been another term for a Twoleg. She'd heard Purdy, the old loner who had helped them through a Twolegplace, call them Upwalkers. Everyone must have a different one.

“Yes,” Mistyfoot explained. “I think a Twoleg did this.” Why, though?

Daisy's ears pricked. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh no, oh no, oh no...”

“Do you know what this is?” Mousefur asked. She lifted her muzzle to look at Daisy with cold eyes, her nose smeared with a little mud and blood from Berry’s thrashing.

Daisy nodded, her fur fluffed up in alarm. “The Nofurs who took care of the barn I lived in talked a lot about how the Nofur who lived in the cabin in the pines laid these traps for foxes every few seasons,” she whispered. “It upset them because sometimes their dogs or chickens would get caught, and not all made it out of them alive. I thought we had left in time to avoid this...!” She shivered. “Oh, the sounds those things make when they're caught! It's horrible...”

While the queen trembled, Mistyfoot considered her words. She's a loner from the barn on WindClan territory, then, she thought. She recalled hearing that there were kittens in the barn - why had she left such a safe, prey-rich place?

Not the time, she decided. Berry needs us to get him out of this.

“Look at this, Misty,” Mousefur hissed.

The dusky she-cat gestured with a paw, and Mistyfoot hunkered down to get a better look. While she had been talking to Daisy, Mousefur had cleared away some of the mud and leaves around Berry's tail, which was ominously still.

What lay hidden there boggled Mistyfoot's mind for a moment - it was difficult at the best of times to figure out what a Twoleg object was, but this one was more bizarre than many of the things she had seen. The closest she could compare it to was a large, shiny butterfly with two strands of long, thin fence-web that clung to the back of its wings. That fence-web had captured Berry's tail, and the butterfly's wings were folded up almost in victory.

He must've sat on it without knowing and made it snap, Mistyfoot guessed grimly. Staring at this - what had Daisy called them? A trap? - she could imagine how easy it would be for them to snap shut around a fox's thin leg, shattering bone and muscle. She could also imagine what they might do to an unsuspecting cat, which made her queasy.

“How do we get it open, do you think?” Mousefur wondered. She glanced up at Mistyfoot, her pale eyes worried. “You've got way more experience with Twoleg nonsense than me.”

Mistyfoot grimaced. “Give me a moment,” she mewed. From the way Berry had stopped thrashing and mewling, she knew she didn't have long - he had lost so much blood, and shock could give way to unconsciousness. The poor mite just lay there now, trembling, his eyes unfocused.

She tried to imagine how this thing might work, and it seemed simple enough - step on it, and those wings would snap up and trap whatever they had caught. So, perhaps, pushing the wings down would release it - but with what? A cat's weight was probably not enough to accomplish that, or any animal might get out. There had to be another way, an easier way, for Twolegs to deal with this.

Mistyfoot peered down at the trap again and, paws trembling, reached out to feel for something, anything that might help her. She heard Mousefur hiss a warning, but Mistyfoot was pretty sure that since the trap had already caught something, it couldn't do it again.

There has to be a reason its base is so hidden...

Her claw caught on something. Mistyfoot's ears pricked. Belly deep in the muddy earth, she practically had her nose right in the trap's base as she tried to peer at what she had found - a small hole in the tiny little metal square hidden beneath the dirt and leaves. She could see something shiny and silver in there, like the wings that had caught Berry’s tail.

“Mousefur, get a stick,” Mistyfoot ordered. “One that's long and very thin.”

Mousefur obeyed and, a moment later, returned with exactly what Mistyfoot was looking for - a long, thin stick. Mistyfoot repositioned herself, lining up the thinnest end of the stick with the opening she had found. Carefully, she began to push the stick into the snare until she felt resistance.

Mistyfoot prayed to StarClan that she had found something, otherwise this looked ridiculous, and worse, it might hurt Berry more. Planting her paws at the end of the stick closest to the snare, she pressed with all her weight. She heard Daisy hiss with worry.

There was a soft click, and, gloriously, the wings of the butterfly flapped down, and the fence-webs parted.

Daisy let out a yowl of delight, and sensing his freedom, Berry shot off, barreling right into his mother's paws and bowling over his siblings in a trembling heap. The queen captured her son in her paws and began to cover him with licks, purring as loud as a thunderstorm.

Trembling, Mistyfoot stepped off of the stick. The moment the pressure was released, the butterfly snare snapped shut again, but this time, it had caught nothing but the bloody fur it had torn from Berry's flanks and tail. Mistyfoot felt so relieved that she thought she might be sick again.

Before anything more could be said, Spiderpaw and Shadepool emerged from the undergrowth. Spiderpaw looked exhausted from running so far so fast, and Shadepool was winded, carrying a bundle of herbs in her mouth. She observed the scene with a calm gaze.

“You figured it out!” Spiderpaw gasped, looking at the trap. “What did you do?”

“That can come later, youngster,” Mousefur rasped. She drew a shaky paw over her ear. “For now, we need to get this poor mite back to camp.”

Daisy looked up from her son. “C-Camp?” she repeated, eyes darting between all the cats present. She curled her tail tighter around her kittens.

“Yes,” Mistyfoot meowed. She looked at Daisy and willed her to understand. “We live not far from here - you'll be safe with us while your son recovers.”

Daisy looked uncertain, and Mistyfoot didn't blame her - though they had helped, they were still strangers she knew nothing about. Mistyfoot knew from experience that Clan ways were strange to outsiders.

“Please come,” Spiderpaw begged. Her tail twitched back and forth. “Where else is there for you to go?”

Daisy's expression softened into sorrow. Mistyfoot saw her gaze down at her kittens, and she licked each one between their ears, lingering on Berry most of all. She was clearly weighing her options, and Mistyfoot wondered if she regretted leaving her barn.

“Okay,” she decided, finally. “We'll come with you.”

Shadepool set down her bundle of herbs. “Before we go, let me just stop the bleeding...”

———————————————————

It was sunhigh by the time they returned to the camp, Mistyfoot leading the way through the thorn tunnel. Mousefur and Spiderpaw followed behind, each one carrying one of Daisy's exhausted gray kittens by their scruffs, and after them were Daisy and Shadepool - the queen had insisted upon carrying Berry on her back while Shadepool monitored him closely as he had finally passed out from the shock.

Nightfrost, washing beside the warrior's den, was the first to notice them. Leg still high in the air, he looked up and mewed, “Whoa!”

Soon enough, most of ThunderClan was crowding around Mistyfoot and the newcomers, the scent of strangers and blood drawing them out from the corners of camp. Daisy hissed, nervous, backing up towards the thorn tunnel as if to leave, her eyes wide to their whites at the sight of so many strangers.

“Who’s this?” Whitewing mewed, head tilted curiously.

“Smells like the moors,” grunted Snowstep, signing with his paws. “Are they WindClan?”

“They’re not any WindClan cat I know,” remarked Rainwhisker, signing back. “Loners?”

Mistyfoot thrust herself forward and meowed, “Everyone, give us space!”

The warriors obeyed, backing up, but gossip began to fly through the air like a cloud of flies. Rainwhisker and Ashfur bent their heads together, and Dustpelt had Cinderpelt's ear. Snowstep’s tail was lashing. Mistyfoot fought to keep herself from bristling - couldn't they at least wait until Daisy was out of sight?

“Let's head to the medicine cat's cave,” Shadepool insisted quickly. She wrapped her tail gently around Daisy's shoulders. “It's quiet back there, and like I was saying, Brackenfur and I can take a look at each of you...”

Mistyfoot thanked StarClan for Shadepool, and as they made their way to the back of the camp, she flicked her tail to beckon Nightfrost close. The small black tom looked so curious, and Mistyfoot knew that he was just dying to know what had happened and who these new faces were, but he was thankfully keeping his jaws shut.

“Is Tinystar's patrol back yet?” she asked.

Nightfrost shook his head. Mistyfoot felt worry bloom in her gut - what if WindClan had accosted her leader like they had Daisy and her kittens? “What about ShadowClan?” she wondered, hoping for better news.

“Quiet,” Nightfrost remarked.

His tone was uncertain. Mistyfoot pressed, “Quiet good, or quiet bad?”

“I'm not sure, honestly,” he admitted. His pale eyes wavered. “Their border seemed fine along the stream, but as soon as it broke into the woods near the greenleaf Twolegplace, it seemed faint, like they haven't bothered to keep that side of it up as often.”

Mistyfoot's ears pricked, her pelt prickling. “The whole way?”

Nightfrost nodded. “From there and beyond,” he elaborated. he shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea why - ShadowClan has always been really assertive about their borders.”

It is odd... Ever since she was a kit, ShadowClan had kept their borders strong no matter what troubles they faced. Showing any sort of weakness was something that they had always staunchly refused to do.

“Anything strange about their scent?” Mistyfoot asked. “Sickness or fear?”

“It was hard to tell,” Nightfrost admitted, shrugging. “We didn't run into a patrol; it's not like we could ask...”

Mistyfoot nodded in understanding. Great - problems on both borders now! she complained inwardly. With ShadowClan, she couldn't imagine that it was nothing. I can ask Stoneheart about it at the next Gathering. Her brother surely wouldn't keep something serious from her.

“So, what's going on with these new cats? Are they staying?” Nightfrost wondered, gesturing with his tail towards the back of the camp. Mousefur and Spiderpaw were emerging from the cave, Spiderpaw seeming to have found her energy again as she bounced around her mentor.

Mistyfoot mewed, “I don't know yet. We found them by the Divide; the queen said that WindClan had run them off. One of the kits was stuck in something she called a fox trap.”

“A what?” Nightfrost repeated, eyes wide.

Mistyfoot waved her tail. “I'm sure I'll be explaining it soon enough,” she sighed. She didn't look forward to that, but if those things were all over their territory, she needed every capable cat to deal with them. “I don't really know anything else. The queen's name is Daisy, and she said she was from the barn up by the Arrival.”

“Whoa,” Nightfrost breathed. “That's a long way!”

“It is,” Mistyfoot agreed, nodding along. “I'm wondering why she bothered leaving, and with her kittens no less...”

The thorn tunnel shifted, and Mistyfoot lifted her muzzle. Tinystar strode into camp, followed by the rest of his patrol. Mistyfoot's gaze searched each one of them, looking for any sign of injury - blessedly, they seemed to be just fine. Graystripe, Cloudtail, and Swiftfoot parted ways with Tinystar as the small black tom approached. Both Mistyfoot and Nightfrost dipped their noses in greeting, and Mousefur sidled close, ears angled to listen.

“WindClan's border is quiet,” Tinystar reported. “It was freshly marked on their end; we must have been just behind their dawn patrol. No signs of any trespassing, either - we checked all the spots they used before the battle.”

“Good,” Mistyfoot sighed. The WindClan dawn patrol must have been the group that had run off Daisy - the timing lined up. Mistyfoot wondered who was on that patrol. However far he might've fallen when he became WindClan’s deputy, she had to hope that Crowflight wouldn't have run off a mother and her kits.

Tinystar looked equally pleased, unaware of Mistyfoot's thoughts. “Let's hope it stays that way,” he mewed. “At least for now.” He glanced around, his tail-tip flicking in thought as his nose twitched. The fur along his spine lifted. “Did something happen while I was gone? I smell strangers and blood...”

Nightfrost flicked his tail. “Well...” he looked to Mistyfoot.

Quickly, Mistyfoot and Mousefur explained again about Daisy. Between them, the story was streamlined and over quickly. “She's with Brackenfur and Shadepool now,” Mistyfoot finished.

Tinystar sighed, relieved. “We must’ve just missed her,” he breathed. His gaze darkened. “If we had run into one another, we could’ve avoided this mess. I’m glad they’re all okay.” Tinystar looked troubled, briefly. “I'll go and speak with her now, then. I've no problem with her staying until her son has healed - you can go ahead and tell the Clan as much.” He glanced about. “I'm sure they're curious.”

They definitely were. The scent of Daisy and her kits, both injured and not, had drawn out each and every cat, even pulling Sorreltail out from the nursery, and heads were bent in speculative gossip. Mistyfoot groaned inwardly and hoped she wouldn't have to repeat herself too much.

Pushing that aside, Mistyfoot dipped her head. “Of course, Tinystar,” she meowed.

“And you can tell them that Spiderpaw's warrior ceremony will be tonight,” Tinystar went on, looking at Mousefur. “She might not have finished her assessment, but her quick thinking helped save a kitten's life!” He purred, “A true warrior never ignores the sound of a kit in pain.”

Mistyfoot's heart warmed. Good news, at least! Mousefur twitched her whiskers. “I shall!” she promised.

Tinystar stretched his forelegs, curling his tail over his back. “Well, off I go, then,” he said. “Get something to eat and then some rest, Mistyfoot. You, too, Mousefur. You've both done well.”

Mistyfoot watched Tinystar pad away towards the back of the camp, the warmth in her heart spreading to her toes. He thinks I did well! The idea was electrifying - it seemed to be further proof of what Mousefur had been saying, that Tinystar had chosen her for deputy because she was worthy.

As Mousefur padded away with a dip of her head, Nightfrost brushed against Mistyfoot's side. “Go and get settled,” he mewed quietly. “I'll bring you something to eat, and I’ll be sure to explain things to anyone who asks.”

[deathclaw-for-cutie]

WIP Wednesday

This flashback was originally a chapter within "Cat in a Hot Tin Suit" but I took it out during the rewrite because it didn't make any sense for it to be there. I do still very much like parts of it, though, so I'm working it into its own little piece.

"The Aftermath Before the End" - Late August, 2077. It's a few days after the murder of Nick Valentine's fiancée Jennifer Lands, and Cat O'Reilly and her husband Nathan are worried about him...

(Cat is helping a very drunk Nick, who has been drinking and smoking himself into oblivion for three days, to take a shower)

She stood quietly for a moment, studying him with a worried frown. She reached up to gently cup his cheek, and the reddish three-day growth of his beard was rough against her palm.

He was only a few inches taller than she was, and his height made him look a bit stockier than he actually was. Hair, darker than on his head, covered his chest and stomach. She resolutely kept her eyes above waist-level. This was absolutely not the time to be checking out his equipment, as intrigued as she normally was by the thought.

Nathan had teased her relentlessly about her crushes on Nick and Jennifer both. He’d often joked about inviting them over for drinks and seeing what happened. This was definitely not the way she had pictured getting Nick out of his pants for the first time. She sighed and pulled back the shower curtain.

“In you go, love,” she said, turning him to face the shower. He stepped over the lip and stood under the spray, blinking owlishly against the water. His face remained blank. She pulled the curtain shut and wiped at her eyes, then started gathering up his clothes.

“Catherine.”

She pulled his belt free of the loops on his trousers. “I’m here, Nicky,” she assured him, as she dropped his clothes into the hamper and shut the lid.

“I...I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m right here, love. I’m not going anywhere.”

She heard him sigh. “No, I...” A hitched breath.

“You want some company in there?” she asked.

“Please.” Another hitched breath.

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” she said quietly. “Just a second.”

She undressed quickly, glad that she was wearing a simple blouse and slacks today. She stepped out of her shoes and stripped down to her cami and underwear. She thought for a moment, then pulled those off, as well. She opened the curtain and stepped in behind Nick. As soon as she did, she realized she’d forgotten to pull the bobby pins out of her hair. The humidity was going to turn her chignon into a snarled mess. Oh, well.

He was still standing under the water, with his back to her. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against the back of his neck where it met his shoulders, and her hips against his backside. Slowly, his hands came up to cover hers. They stood that way for a few minutes, neither one of them speaking. Eventually, Nick sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, his stubble rasping against his palms. He hung his head and made no other movement.

She reached for the shampoo bottle and gently turned him around to face her. She began humming as she squirted some shampoo into her hand, then she put the bottle back. She rubbed her hands together and started working her fingers through the greasy mess of his hair. She started to sing softly.

“Chances are, ‘cause I wear a silly grin...

The moment you come into view,

Chances are, you think that I’m in love with you...”

She tilted his head this way and that, rinsing the suds out of his hair. He blinked, and his eyes found hers. His face remained expressionless, but the fact that he was finally holding eye contact was a good sign. She hoped.

“Just because, my composure sorta slips...

The moment that your lips meet mine,

Chances are, you think my heart’s your Valentine...”

She smiled and tickled the small dimple in this chin with the tip of her finger as she sang the line. She continued to hum as she rinsed the last of the shampoo from his hair.

Her humming trailed off as he reached a hand up to cup her face and ran his thumb along her lower lip. He leaned his face slowly down toward hers. He hesitated, then closed the last breath of distance between her mouth and his. She sighed and slid her hands up his chest and around to the back of his neck.

It was soft—a gentle, tentative dance of lips and tongues. His lips lingered on hers for a moment more, then he pulled his head back slightly. He sighed and leaned to rest his forehead against hers.

“I’ve wanted to do that for months,” he said softly, his eyes closed. “We thought...we thought we were being so damn smart, for waiting, didn’t we. It was supposed to be the right thing to do, with you and I working on this goddamn case together. Even though we all wanted it.” His shoulders slumped. “And now she...and now she’s gone.”

He opened his eyes, and tears rolled down his cheeks. “He took her from me, Catherine. What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to just...just keep going?”

[marrowfrog00]

Less Perfect [s.h.]

summary: Fem reader has it out with her imperfect, adulterous cad of a man Steve Harrington - but there is always more than meets the eye, no?

cw: 18+ mdni; implied/allusions to smut but no actual smut takes place, discussions of cheating, angst, toxic partner dynamics, arguing, name-calling, mentions of shitty parents, trauma, role-play, aftercare, anxiety, jealousy, hurt/comfort, use of perjorative "skank", use of petnames (sarcastic & sincere), home-grown therapy, kinda, very dialogue heavy, kitchen sink drama, fluff disguised as angst, really it's so fuckin' soft, lmk if I missed anything

wc: 2.7k

A/N: I honestly don't know what this is, my brain just burped her out and she's weird as shit. Please be nice, she's just a baby (and I'm just a three-legged orange cat with an internet connection). Reiterating that this is very dialogue heavy so if that's not your thing, carry on your merry way.

The metal tips of your stilettos clacked against the lacquered floors of the hallway as you speed walked, passing expensive wall-to-wall oil paintings and accent tables topped with vases full of immaculate flowers.

Alabaster sprays of hydrangeas (white, always white, so as not to clash with the surroundings) and dahlias mocked you from crystal vases as you stomped angrily toward the main bedroom, Steve hot on your tail.

"Don't walk away from me, pumpkin," he spat from behind you.

You guffawed as you stormed into the bedroom, making to slam the heavy mahogany door in his face. Steve was quick, though. An ex-athlete, afterall. He stopped the door with his hand and sneered, yes, sneered at you.

"Piss off, darling," you barked, turning your back to him.

You clopped heavily to the vanity and removed your earrings, chucking them carelessly onto the table. You opened the drawer and pawed through the contents looking for makeup wipes, plonking down onto the plush upholstered stool.

Steve glared at you and you could swear you heard his teeth grinding from where you sat. Commit, commit. Where the hell were those fucking wipes?

"You're goddamn unbelievable, you know that?"

"Me?" you shot back , voice laced with disbelief.

Steve cocked his hip and put his hand there. "Yeah, you. Ya see anyone else in this room?" he asked, gesturing around the swank sleeping quarters. Impeccable color story, not a speck of dust to be found in the place.

You stood from the stool, slowly, like a big cat ready to strike down her prey. Your gaze was mean and piercing as you stalked forward on high-heeled feet. You watched Steve take half a step back, mentally high-fiving yourself. This was good, this was forward motion.

Your voice dripped with rancorous sarcasm when you replied, "Well, gee, I dunno, darling. You could have been speaking to whichever one of your office skanks has your dick mesmerized this week."

Steve dropped his hand to his side, straightening his spine.

You pursed your lips and rolled your eyes to the ceiling, pretending to conjure a name. "Dana? Diane? Kimberly? Kathy?"

"Come off it," Steve gritted out, fists balling at his sides. His eyes, those gorgeous, unreal russet eyes that had captured your heart once upon a time narrowed on you. "You can act like a crazy bitch in public or in my fucking house. Pick one."

You couldn't help but laugh at him, shaking your head incredulously.

"You're not even going to deny it this time?" you asked, crossing your arms. "You used to give me the false courtesy of sparing my feelings, but I guess I've run out of favors from you."

You watched Steve's shoulders locked up as his face twitched ever so slightly. His eyes glazed over a little, like he'd gone somewhere else. Shit. Reset.

You swallowed harshly and busied yourself, smoothing the front of your dress as you kept one eye on his face, waiting.

Steve shook his head quickly like he was shaking off his very thoughts as he swaggered closer to you, invading your space and looking down his nose. Down at your face. Your pretty, soft face.

He remembered the first time he ever got a look at you up close, your eyes looked sparkly and he'd had the insane urge to bite your cheek. Right now, your eyes were dull with uncertainty and your biteable cheeks were slack under your frown.

He felt his heart kick up as he choked out his next words. "You wanna talk about favors, huh?" He cleared his throat, willing his voice to come out thicker, with more bravado. "Let's talk about how you like to act like everything you do for me is a favor. How every fuck, every blow job, every time you stoop so low as to look my way anymore is a favor as far as your concerned."

Adrenaline started washing over your body as you fought to stay in the moment. You could see the regret in his eyes and you wondered if you were careening toward scorched earth territory. You futzed with your shaking hands, unable to decide what to do with them before you crammed them under your armpits to still them.

You glanced at Steve's chest, clocking his quickened breathing. You could see how upset he was, feeling the intensity radiating off him where he stood just inches away. It was time to change course, to shock him out of the frenzy he was working himself into.

You glanced at the enormous four poster bed, festooned with a silky cream duvet and rich red throw pillows when an idea struck you. You looked back up at him, pinned under his expectant gaze. He was grinding his teeth.

"Did you fuck them in our bed?"

Steve was taken aback. He glanced between you and that stupid, giant bed - a varitable chasm, a luxurious, oversized token of a failed union. He was struck dumb, scarcely comprehending the question.

"Huh?"

To say you had gone off-script would be an understatement. Not that there was a script as such, but the story beats tended to be locked in everytime.

You took a deep breath and squared your shoulders, a renewed sense of purpose taking you over. "Your office skanks. The ones you've been generously donating your dick to. Did you fuck them in our bed?" you asked again, enunciating your words.

Steve blinked at you with wide eyes. "The hell kinda question is that, pumpkin?"

You softened your gaze on him and grazed his perfect jaw with your finger before stalking over to the bed. Steve watched as you gripped one of the bed posts and placed a hand on your hip. You looked like a showroom model, drawing his attention to where you stood.

Steve felt the gnawing in his stomach that had been building subside a little as he took you in. You looked so classy, so pretty, so sexy in that satin dress, in those black stockings. Your hair, which had been styled to perfection for tonight had gone a little flat, a tiny bit of mascara flaking under one eye.

He liked you best like this. The veneer of flawlessness cracked just enough to let him in. A little less perfect.

Your gaze was still soft and open and he gestured for you to continue. Satisfied, you lifted your chin and flexed your jaw.

"Did you fuck them in our bed, darling? I deserve to know."

You sat primly on the tufted bench at the foot of the bed, legs crossed, hands planted on either side of you.

Steve gulped, feeling the ice returning to his veins but he knew he needed to press on. This was the sweet spot. He ignored the noodly feeling in his legs, strutting over to where you sat and plopped down next to you.

He looked in your eyes. "Yes."

"All of them?" you asked softly.

Steve couldn't stop the tears building as he forced himself to keep looking at you, a spectral sense of shame that he had never picked up but that he nevertheless carried searing his neck and cheeks.

"Just Dana. Er, Diane? A-and, Kimberly," he stuttered.

You couldn't help yourself then, giving his pinky finger a little tickle with your own and you felt your own tears building. Seeing him cry always got to you a little, but you were getting better about it. You kept your face steely as you quickly wiped them away and you sniffed.

"Did they let you fuck them in the ass?"

"Everytime."

"And that's why you did it? To get back at me because I wouldn't let you have my ass?"

"Partly," he whispered back, thickly.

You blinked back more tears and cleared your throat. "What's the other part?"

Steve flinched as he propped his elbows on his knees, fixing his eyes on the ground. He gripped his hair meanly between his fingers. His voice was thick and strained with emotion, but the words flowed easily then.

"The other part is that I'm a shallow, hollow, status-obsessed creep that cares more about pretty, shiny new things...and more about my empty family legacy than I do about my family."

You kept your hands in your lap even though you ached to reach out and touch him, to pull him back to you. Instead, you sniffled softly so as not to disturb the man beside you as he continued.

"Even when I'm home, I'm somewhere else. I should have stayed alone since that's clearly what I wanted all along. Spendy liquor and cheap lays."

You pressed your nails into your palm, worried about how still he was, still itching to touch him. You didn't. You listened to his voice become thinner, straining through stifled sobs.

"But instead I found you and snatched you away from whatever life you could have had instead. I married you and broke you and put your pieces in a little box. And you just took it and I think part of me hates you for that. And I punish you for it. I punish everyone for it."

He sobbed then, shoulders slumping. You bit your lip and tapped your foot, jonesing to touch him.

Steve scrubbed his tears away and violently inhaled the snot back into his sinuses. He watched the pointy toe of your heel tap tap tap on the ground.

The dam had broken again after how many times of this and he was wrung out. Done. There was a finality to this, he felt. Like this might have pushed him over that finish line that he'd been seeking for so long.

"Fuck..babe..fu-pomegranate," he whimpered.

"Pomegranate?" you repeated back in a tiny voice.

"Pomegranate."

You stood abruptly and walked between his spread thighs. His eyes were pinched shut as he tried to call back the tears that left angry, red rivulets down his cheeks.

You gently raked your fingers through his hair, straightening it gently, lovingly. "Can you look at me, baby?"

He sniffled again and shook his head abruptly. "In a minute. S'too much right now. But hold me, please, honey?"

You pulled him into you, cradling his head to your chest and stroking his back while he clung to your waist. After a moment you pressed your mouth to the crown of his head.

"Let's breathe now."

"M'okay," he said in a little voice, clearly not wanting to loosen his grip on you.

"No, love. Remember? We said," you chastised gently. "It's important. Just a few."

You led him through a handful of deep breaths, never ceasing your loving hold on him, peppering your counting with praise for him.

Slowly, Steve stood and hooked his arms around yours pinning them to your sides. You pushed your hands into back pockets of his slacks as he finally looked at you. You propped your chin on his chest and gazed back, a soft smile making it's way on both your faces.

"Hi," he whispered down at you.

"Hi," you returned. "We good?"

In spite of how exhausted he was, he wore a grin of what almost looked like elation as he nodded at you. The life had returned to his eyes, red though they were.

"Thank you, honey," he breathed gratefully as he rocked you.

You kissed his chest. "You don't need to thank me."

He tilted your chin up to meet your eyes again. "No, I really, really do. I feel kind of greedy sometimes. Asking you for this."

You cocked your head at him and shook your head lightly, willing him to understand how serious you were when you told him, "It's for us, love. I'd rather do this with you then have you carry all this with you for years and then-"

You didn't care to finish that thought. You didn't like to think about what you'd once worried would happen. That you and this man, the love of your life, would have to sit on a festering boil of his pain until it exploded one day, tossing you so far away from one another that you would never make it back into each other's arms.

Maybe from the outside these little exercises would have appeared weird or fucked up. But when Steve had confided his fears in Robin and she suggested role-play after watching an episode of Donahue, he thought screw it. He'd rather try that than do nothing and watch you slip away from him. Plus he knew that you wouldn't make him feel bad for asking. And wouldn't you know it, you heartily agreed.

You adored him for his sincerity, for being so vulnerable in asking you. You'd started out very mild, very slow. Sitting through tense dinner scenarios at first. Then graduating to little arguments in the car. Always structured, always negotiated beforehand.

When Steve's parents asked him to housesit while they jetted off again, he brought this idea to you. The pièce de résistance. Acting out a big blowout, an opera of hurt feelings inside the very walls where all his worst fears had spawned.

And it appeared now that your joint commitment (and the risk you'd taken going off-script and escalating the storyline) had paid off. The relief was palpable for you both.

Steve glanced around the room and made a noise of disgust. "Let's get out of here, honey."

You took his hand and you two started strolling leisurely toward the exit. You swung your linked hands, Steve passively taking in the features and layout of the house one more time for posterity.

You were both beyond ready to return to the little two-bedroom apartment you both shared with Robin on the other side of town. Sometimes it was drafty, it was always a little cramped, it was entirely furnished with second-hand stuff, mismatched tchotchkes and relics from three mismatched childhoods. There was a yellow stain in the shape of Rhode Island over the fridge. Oh, and the shower faucet handle was broken off, so you had to use a wrench to turn it on. You two couldn't wait to get back there.

"How mad do you think Moth is gonna be that we've been gone for three days?" you asked, pressing your nose into Steve's bicep as he locked the front door to Harrington Penitentiary. He glanced down at the key in his hand and chucked it carelessly into a flower bed.

Steve snickered at your question, grasping your hand again as you walked to the car. He opened the passenger door for you, lovingly protecting your head with one hand as you ducked into your seat.

"I think we should prepare for the possibility that he's officially Robin's cat now and we've been demoted to godparent status."

You grinned and giggled through closed lips, your cheeks full and glowing with the force of it. Steve couldn't help himself. He ducked down and delighted in the shriek you let out when he gave your cheek a little love bite before tucking your legs in and shutting your door for you.

When he was in the driver's seat, he paused, key at the ignition. You rolled your head against the headrest to look at him.

"Know what I wanna do when we get home?" he mused, looking up to meet your eye.

Your eyes sparkled at him, a placid smile on your pretty mouth, which he returned. "Hm?"

"I wanna get you out of that dress and eat you out. Those shoes stay on for that part," he said, eyes flicking to your feet. He reached over and caressed your face with his thumb as you softened into his touch. "Then I wanna hold you real close and make love." He brushed some flaky mascara away from your eye. "After that I'll put you in that goofy, giant shirt you love sleeping in..."

You rolled your eyes but smiled. "It's not goofy," you muttered in faux-offense.

Steve grinned wryly. "It's got a picture of a cactus with sunglasses and a cowboy hat and I'm pretty sure you completely disappeared inside of it one night." You giggled again.

Steve's face smile softened. "And then we'll go to sleep. And, in like a year, I wanna ask you to marry me - properly, I mean- and I want you to say yes."

Your eyes didn't leave his as you grabbed his hand and pressed sweet kisses into each of his knuckles.

"Yes, baby. Yes to all of it."

"Good."

"Good."

You swapped rounds of deep kisses and whispered I love you's before Steve drove you home.

[flickycore]

Time for some Stories I've been making in my Spooky season

(💬Incorrect Quotes💬)

Hallow Crane, dressed as New Nightmare! Freddy Krueger: Happy Halloween! C'mon Meredith

Meredith Miranda, dressed as a zombified bridesmaid: Wait! We didn't get our treat.

Hallow: So…?

Meredith: So now, we must TRICK! [Meredith's face shows one glowing red eye and Hallow raises his bladed glove as they are about to kill someone]

Charlie is going through her sister's wardrobe, to find a costume out for her. She slides through a costume of a spider. "Hmm… no, too weird and she don't like those." She then slides through a zombified nurse, making her get creeped out "Eesh Too creepy for her." Then to a ladybug costume "Aw, cute... but it kind of ruins the vibes." Charlie slides a few till letting out a gasp "Aha, found it!"

"You found one for me?"

Her older sister nods her head, she shows Tango a costume of the Sanrio character Kuromi "Indeed I do sister! I seen you liked those stickers of that lil guy and the one with the pink rabbit ears."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Tango clapped her paws. Charlie then puts Tango into her Kuromi costume. Until a Southern voice calls her out. "Howdy there Charlie!"

"Just a sec cousin—HEY... YOU GUYS LOOK AMAZING!" The orange cat turns around and sees her cousins; Cole and Sally dressed in their own costumes with a look of amazement. "Thanks cus'."

Tango asked the two "Who are you guys dressed as?"

"Arthur Morgan from that popular cowboy game I liked." Cole tipped his cowboy hat, right as his sister Sally came by with a bottle of wine in her hand "Pasadena O'Possum!"

"Isn't she that one racer we met at that racing park?" Tango had a realisation to Sally's costume being a resemblance to one of their friends

(cw: fire, mentions of screaming, fear toxin)

Away from a hazard of people screaming and flames roaring across the streets. Scarecrow stares down at his youngest companions Oliver and Misty Miranda(who one is dressed as a zombified scientist and the other as a zombified patient). The twins' buckets are filled with loads of candy "Thanks for having these people give us the treats Scare Crane." Misty smiled to him. Her brother Oliver asked him "Did you plan a trick on them to make the people give us the treats?"

"Oh... I did, my subjects... we gave them quite the scare you see." Scarecrow admires on going to back on how much of his fear toxin he placed on a load of people.

Then going to a flashback of Scarecrow knocking on the door. "Yes...? I told them we don't have any—" The man then fell down, coughing when Scarecrow sprayed his face with his fear gas. The whole scenario keeps carrying on and on, and on—Infecting loads of people with his toxins, having them scream in paranoia, while he stands by the door, smirking at their endless screaming. "Go, my children... take what you want from them, and burn the rest...!" He replied to the twins, as he lets them roam around the place, he lets them take any candy from not their bowls... but any candy they like. The twins then destroy many of their property, then pour flammable liquids on the floor and lit their entire houses into flames.

For now... Scarecrow and the Miranda Twins all sit by on the rooftop, while watching the flames and the screams surrounding the entire town.

"You look absolutely cute in this Professor Crane!"

Jonathan was now dressed in a blood red coloured Christmas outfit with pumpkin designs all over it "Yes… indeed cute Mrs Quinzel." Harleen's mind was filling with excitement and joy around the holidays "Just wait till i can show this to lil Hallow your new festive outfit—"

Jonathan then placed a finger on Harleen's lips to hush her. "You don't want to go with that my dear. Hallow despises the holiday season and that leads him to well…"

Hallow is in his room, having a mental breakdown of Halloween season being over. Ray Nygma opens his door slightly "Hey Hallow… You know that Halloween is… over—"

"I KNOW, DAMMIT RAY! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M HAVING AN EMOTIONAL MOMENT TO MYSELF!!!" Hallow is currently upset with rage, his red eyes glow brightly out of his anger. Ray, feeling intimidated by this immediately shuts the door to leave him alone

"Mered... Wh-why...?"

Hallow sees his trusted friend Meredith decorating all of his Halloween stuff into the festive theme, from then placing them onto his room.

Meredith sighed to him. "I know your upset about it, but ever since I kept the old Halloween stuff you threw out during your… recent anger… I had to do a makeover for your fear den..."

He looks around his newly Halloween festive room... his face now in awe. Hallow turns over to Meredith, gets closer till wrapping his arms on her "THANK YOU!"

(dividers owned by @kodaswrld)