#backgammon table

[martinworsterphotography]

Antique Victorian Games Table - Chess & Backgammon (1840)

This exquisite Victorian-style games table features a fold-over top with a chessboard and backgammon layout. Crafted from rosewood and offering intricate detailing, it's a perfect piece for collectors and game enthusiasts alike. Its charming antique appeal is complemented by its functionality.

Order or inquire today! Phone: +1 (877) 650-7261 Email: martin@canonburyantiques.com

For more details, visit: Antique Victorian Games Table - Canonbury Antiques

[galleryofart]

The Backgammon Players

Artist: Theodoor Rombouts (Flemish, 1597–1637)

Date: 1634

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, United States

Description

In this painting, and also in some of his other works, Rombouts has placed himself and his wife rather obviously among the bystanders, a custom which was not unusual in Dutch genre painting, particularly among the Caravaggists. The lavishly dressed soldier bears the artist's likeness.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

The mutterings and occasional “nooo” from my parents playing backgammon is one of my favourite things

Mom: ah, I’ll go three here and five there

Stepdad: NO.

Mom: just roll, old man.

Stepdad: oh good, double six.

Mom: good start! You got this!

Stepdad: SOMEONE is being ballsy tonight.

Mom: me? Little old me? Never.

[meramu-meramu]

Gambling table with intarsia, 1900s. Has different exchangable table tops; chess, backgammon, roulette wheel, etc.

Metropol.se

[chilling-seavey]

I got a request for George, watching him teach your son how to play backgammon while you nurse your newborn daughter

↳ A/N The sweet vision this put in my mind just needed to be written down! I still feel like I didn't write it as nicely as I can picture it but I hope you guys enjoy <3 a little fluff for your Friday night

↳ Pairings: George Russell x Fem!Reader (NO use of y/n)

↳ Word Count: 1.6k

↳ Warnings: None, it's unedited if that needs a warning lol

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, the once vibrant blue sky softened into a gentle shade of periwinkle. The early evening was tranquil, with the rhythmic lapping of waves against the yacht’s hull filling the warm Mediterranean air with a soothing cadence.

You were surprised your son was still going after a full day of playing in the sun. He had spent hours leaping off the yacht into the crystal-clear ocean (only after you and George had spent at least an hour convincing him that no sharks would be involved), zooming around on the jet ski with George at a toddler-friendly speed, and concocting endless games on deck—games that always seemed to involve a lot of running. Despite a brief hour’s nap in the cabin, too excited to miss out on any fun, he was still going strong well past dinner.

With bedtime approaching, and in desperate need of winding him down, George struck a deal: he’d trade another swim in the sea for a fun game on the yacht. Out came the backgammon board—George’s beloved set, worn with years of use—ready to be set up on the deck table. Your son knelt on a chair, eyes wide with anticipation, his tiny hands eagerly reaching for the round pieces as George arranged them, trying his best to keep the game intact before it even began, while explaining the rules to your curious two-and-a-half-year-old.

You smiled fondly at him from your spot on the bench beside George—who was seemingly permanently shirtless on this vacation and in only his swim shorts—with your two week old baby daughter fussing in your arms. Her sweet face was scrunched up in displeasure, hungry and wanting to eat, until you finally got her to latch onto your breast with practiced ease and she quieted right down with a content sigh. You gently brushed your hand over her light downy hair and cradled her comfortably in your arms, supporting her head as she startled to suckle and swallow contentedly. 

From beside you, already a bit into describing the game to your son, George pointed to one of the two dice on the board, asking him, “How many dots is this?”

Your son stared at the two dice on the mahogany board, his little lips pursed in thought. He shifted on his knees on his chair before glancing across at George and mumbling a, “Two?”

“Yes, good boy, this one’s two.” George then moved his finger to point to the second one, “What about this one?”

“Three.”

“Not quite. Try again?”

“Five.”

“That’s it. That’s five.” George folded his arms on the table top, glancing down to the board set up between them, “So you can pick any of your white pieces and move them two spots or five spots to start. Which one do you want to move?”

The little boy analyzed the board for a moment, eyeing the way the white and brown pieces were so meticulously arranged in a pattern. Finally, he pointed to one of his white pieces, his little index finger poking the circle.

“Okay, and how many spots would you like to move that piece? Two or five?”

“Two.” your son said matter-of-factly.

“Two, okay.” George leaned forward again, resting his finger at the tip of the point on which the little boy’s choice piece was resting, “So we’ll count two triangles counter-clockwise to find its new spot.”

Although your toddler hadn’t the foggiest idea what ‘counter-clockwise’ meant, he nodded at the words of his father and followed him trustingly. When George moved his finger to the next point beside the first, the two counted together, “One…”

And then the next one, “Two.”

George moved your son’s chosen piece to that new point. The little boy beamed proudly. 

“Brilliant.” George told him, “Now you still have five spots to move. Which white piece do you want to move five spots?”

Another glance at the board and your son pointed to another random white piece, “That one”

“Okay, count five triangles with me.”

Again, George rested his finger at the tip of the chosen point, moving spot by spot as they counted together to reach five. Except, the point on which they landed, already held a collection of George’s brown chips. He looked across the table at the little boy with a flat, “Oh.”

Wide eyed, your son looked back at him, startled by the sudden shift in George’s demeanor.

George explained, “Daddy has pieces there so you can’t move there.”

“Why?”

“Because if the other person has two or more pieces on that spot, you can’t go there.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the rules.”

The little boy’s face scrunched up in annoyance, eyebrows furrowing over judging blue eyes. 

George licked away his forming smile, instructing him, “Pick another piece to move five spots.”

The toddler pointed to the same piece.

“No, buddy-” George laughed softly again, covering that line of white pieces with his hand, “These are the ones you can’t move.”

As if an avid problem solver at not even three, your son told him like it was the clear solution with a point to the other direction on the board, “Go that way.”

“You can only go this way.” George said, gesturing counter-clockwise for the boy.

“Why?” the toddler huffed.

“Because that’s how the game works.”

Your son pouted and flopped back onto his bum on the chair, crossing his little arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes at his father. George struggled to hold back his fond smile at the adorableness of his little boy no matter how mad and frustrated the toddler tried to appear. 

As George gently coaxed him to continue the game, you turned your attention to the baby nestled in your arms. She suckled contentedly at your breast, her long lashes fluttering against her full cheeks as she gazed up at you, fighting the pull of sleep. One tiny hand rested against your chest, her presence a warm, comforting weight. It was a true blessing, you thought, that both your children were the near spitting image of George from birth, with his big blue eyes and soft blonde hair that you wondered might darken as they grew up, just as his had. 

Your fingers gently traced the contours of her tiny frame, feeling the soft fabric of her frilly bathing suit, down to her chunky little legs, still naturally bent as if she were still trying to uncurl from nine months inside you. With a comforting pat on her bum, you smiled tenderly, listening to the faint sounds of her greedy gulps as she nursed, the swaying of the yacht helping to rock her in your arms. 

Then, from across the table, your son called you with a determined, “Mama.”

You tore your eyes away from the baby in your arms to look over at him, “Yes, sweet boy?”

He pointed an angry finger across the table at his father with a tattling, “Daddy’s mean.”

With a side-eyed glance to amused George beside you, you answered your son as seriously as you could muster, “How is Daddy mean?”

“He plays wrong.” 

George laughed, “Hey, I’m playing correctly. You’re just throwing a fit because I’m not letting you cheat.”

That got him a big pout directed back at him. 

You looked over at George, suggesting softly, “Maybe he’s too young to learn this game.”

George sighed with a fond smile at his pouting son, “Maybe so.”

The little boy stuck out his tongue at him. 

George stuck out his tongue back. 

“Okay, okay, you two,” you chuckled softly, resting a calm hand on George’s bare shoulder before sliding your fingers up into the back of his hair, “let’s pick a different thing to do before bed. Something less emotionally taxing on the both of you.”

Torn away from the game with his son, George’s attention was pulled to you and the baby in your arms. He broke into a grin and leaned in a little closer, reaching a hand out to gently caress her little cheek with the back of his finger as her jaw flexed as she fed. As he doted on your newborn daughter, you turned to your son. 

“What do you want to do now then, my love? Just a storybook and then bed?”

“No bed.” he whined, his pout deepening as he glanced at the baby in your arms, perhaps sensing the shift in attention.

Although George’s attention was on the baby with his finger gently tickling over her tiny knuckles, he spoke to you in a soft singsong voice, “Someone’s overtired I think.”

You continued to compromise with your son, “Bed soon, yes, but not right now.”

George chimed in, glancing towards him even as the baby wrapped her tiny fingers around his one, his eyes twinkling with affection, “We want to get lots of sleep tonight so we can go on more adventures tomorrow, don’t we?”

Your son seemed to ponder that statement for a moment before nodding reluctantly. 

“Okay,” George tenderly pulled his finger from the baby’s grasp and sat back, leaving you with a kiss to your temple before turning his attention back to your son, “come help Daddy pick out a storybook and you can help me read it to baby sister, sound good?”

The little boy broke into a bashful smile over the idea of being helpful with his new baby sibling while he struggled to familiarize himself with sharing his parents and his life with someone else. He held his hands up to George who scooped him up into his arms with a dramatic groan. From his higher vantage point, in the comfort of his father’s embrace, your toddler wrapped his little arms around George’s broad shoulders, hands clutched against his bare skin with a proud smile in your direction.

As they disappeared below deck to pick a storybook from the plethora that had been brought on vacation with you, you took that moment of quiet as the sunset to appreciate your growing family and the love that filled your heart.

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[unsuperingyournatural]

determined to win

Pedro Pascal x Actress!Reader / featuring Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Karl Urban, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Misha Collins

flirting, allusions to...stuff

The lot was humming with the kind of energy that only came after hours of shooting on a show like The Boys—chaotic, irreverent, and a little too caffeinated for everyone’s own good. The crew was flipping setups, shuffling gear, calling out camera specs while makeup artists darted in and out with brushes and blotters. You were parked in your chair just off set, content for now to recharge in costume, your boots still on, gloves folded neatly beside you.

Your suit clung tight, the zipper at your collar loosened just enough to breathe. You’d been shooting most of the day—blood squibs, stunt cues, shouting across a smoldering set piece with Karl and Jensen in full Butcher and Soldier Boy gear. The adrenaline had long since ebbed, leaving behind the comfortable drag of fatigue. Your phone rested in your palm, the screen lighting up every so often as you scrolled in idle loops.

Off to the side, the showdown between Jensen and Karl was reaching gladiatorial levels. Backgammon had never looked so personal. Jensen leaned forward, jaw tight, eyes narrowing with each roll of the dice. Karl lounged like a king with a winning hand, expression calm and casual, that classic New Zealand drawl giving every jab a little extra charm.

“You gonna roll sometime this year, or are you still mapping constellations on the board?” Karl asked, sipping from a can with far too much smugness.

Jensen didn’t look up. “Keep talking, Urban. I’m one roll away from erasing you from the bracket.”

“Mate, you said that three rolls ago.”

Jeffrey Dean Morgan had the best seat in the house—in a director’s chair nearby, Coke in one hand, Sour Patch Kids in the other. Jared stood a few feet off, arms crossed and smiling as he watched the game. Pedro, suited up for his cameo, leaned against a grip stand just outside the cluster, phone in hand, thumbing casually through his messages while keeping one ear tuned to the surrounding chatter, amusement flickering now and then across his face.

Then Misha appeared, striding in with his usual whirlwind energy.

Fresh from his own scene, costume jacket open and hair pushed back, Misha slipped into the conversation with a force of nature grin. He lingered just behind Jensen, soaking in the rhythm of the conversation, then zeroed in on the most animated corner of the group—where Jeff and Jared were chatting.

Your phone buzzed.

Pedro: Send help.

Your lips twitched.

Pedro: He's deep in a story about rescuing a possum with a French accent. I'm barely hanging on.

You bit the inside of your cheek to hold back a laugh and glanced up. Sure enough, Pedro was standing just as before, now with Misha planted squarely at his side, animatedly holding court with Jeff and Jared while directing a steady stream of commentary to all three. Pedro's body was angled politely toward the group, head nodding occasionally, lips curving into the kind of laugh you could instantly recognize as courteous. Not fake. Just... polished. Polite. Reserved. He glanced down at his phone between chuckles, playing it off so smoothly it was almost impressive.

Another buzz.

Pedro: He's doing the possum voice. I think the possum just offered JP a cigarette.

Time for you to step in then and do the opposite of your character: save the day.

You stretched your legs out slowly and rose with care, joints popping quietly beneath the tight weave of your suit. The movement was deliberate, measured. No one gave you a second glance. That was the point.

Just as you were about to veer toward Pedro’s personal sitcom, a familiar voice rang out.

“Hey!”

You glanced over to find Jensen pointing dramatically toward the gaming table. “I need you in range. Two feet. Minimum. You’re my unofficial lucky charm now, and I’m not letting Urban mess with my stats.”

Jensen thought you were some kind of lucky charm of his now. Apparently, he finally beat Jared at some app game they played while on set, and it just happened to be the moment you plopped down into the cast chair next to him. A second victory happened when you appeared in front of him, kicking at his boot with yours, demanding to know why he told your PA to change your pineapple pizza order to something more palatable. Ever since then, if he engaged on any competitive games on set, your presence within a short range was required. You only humored him because it kept him from getting together with Jared and pranking the hell out of you—a deal you absolutely insisted on when you saw the wicked gleam in his green eyes at the word prank.

You raised a brow, deadpan. “Give me a minute. And by the way, I’m charging you for this. Full rate.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “Just don’t let him throw his smug at me unchecked.”

“Love you too, Ackles,” Karl muttered, not looking up from the board.

You turned your steps toward Pedro and the others, your smile reserved but sly. Pedro clocked your approach immediately, though he didn’t move. His laugh timed perfectly with another of Misha’s stories, but his gaze flicked to you like a tether snapping taut.

“Hey, JareBear,” you said with an affectionate nudge to Jared’s arm. “Still letting Misha pull you into a one-man play?”

“I mean, it’s kinda impressive,” Jared said, grinning. “Possum’s got range.”

Jeff snorted, shaking his head. “Only Misha could turn a possum into a full character arc.”

“Excuse you,” Misha replied, deadpan. “That possum had layers. Tragic backstory. Existential dilemma. A deep love of unfiltered Gitanes.”

You nodded once. “While I'm sure it will be a strong Tonys contender, I’m stealing an audience member. Pascal, put your phone down and escort a lady back to the demanding asshat who's yanking on her shackles.”

Jeff lowered his sunglasses to look at you. "A lady?"

You shot him a mock glare. "Put a cork in it, Morgan." He snickered and pushed his glasses back up his nose.

Pedro glanced up, his expression one of mock-surprise. “What do you need me for?”

“Testing a theory,” you said. “Seeing if you’re Karl’s good luck charm. Ackles is convinced I’m his, but I’m trying to disprove it with science.”

Jared laughed. "Oof. Ackles, you hearing this?"

"Loud and clear," Jensen called without missing a beat, not looking up from the board.

Pedro fell into step beside you with an easy nod. "I’m just here to observe the carnage," he said lightly. "Call it moral support—maybe even strategic sabotage."

“That’s the spirit,” you murmured, lips twitching. “Let’s go rig the board.”

Pedro's mouth tilted into a slow, knowing grin. “What can I say? You're a terrible influence.”

You tilted your head in the direction of the gaming table, a silent signal he picked up on instantly. He moved when you did, matching your pace with a casual familiarity, as if he’d been doing it for years without needing to think twice.

"Thanks," he said lowly once you were out of earshot.

“No problem,” you said. “You owe me, though.”

“Anything specific you have in mind?”

His voice dropped into that deep, velvet register, the one that always felt like a palm sliding down your spine. The last time you heard him speak like that was the other night when he—you stopped that thought in its tracks and quietly cleared your throat.

Not the time. Not the place.

“I’ll think of something,” you replied airily.

“I’m sure you will.”

You tried to sneak a gentle nudge to the seat of his pants with your boot as you walked. He dodged it effortlessly, smirking.

“Nice try.”

You had to stop yourself from sticking your tongue out. You remembered what happened the last time you did that.

“About freaking time,” Jensen said as you both approached. “Thought you were gonna make me forfeit.”

“You dragged me off a perfectly good break. This is on you.” You gestured to Pedro. “And I brought your doom with me.”

Pedro dropped into the chair beside Karl, nodding cordially. “Let’s see what you got.”

“Glad to have ya, mate,” Karl said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Jensen narrowed his eyes at you. “You really gonna do me like that?”

You looked him dead in the eye. “Yeah. I’d do you like that. Hell, I’m doing you like that right now.”

He cocked an eyebrow, instantly leaning into the innuendo. “At least buy me dinner first.”

A low snicker came from Karl, who didn’t bother hiding it.

You ignored both of them and sank into the chair between Jensen and Pedro, folding one leg over the other with practiced ease.

Your phone buzzed.

Pedro: "Doing you like that right now"... Huh. I seem to remember you saying something similar the other night on my couch—but you were much bossier.

You stiffened ever so slightly, adjusting your posture rather than reacting outwardly. But your fingers were already moving. You tapped out a reply—letting the words drip slow and deliberate into the silence between you.

You: You didn’t seem to mind... in fact, I think you liked being told exactly what to do. If the way you kept begging for it is any indication.

His phone buzzed, and you saw the subtle shift in his posture as he felt the vibration, glanced down, and brushed his thumb across the screen with studied calm. His throat bobbed with a quick swallow, and he shifted slightly in his seat, fingers tapping once against his leg before stilling—a faint blush creeping just beneath the scruff along his jaw.

Then the bubble appeared—three dots blinking into existence. They vanished. Reappeared. Vanished again.

The quiet little smile pulling at your lips came unbidden, small but satisfied. You knew you’d landed your hit—even without seeing his face. The game might’ve been backgammon, but this? This was checkmate—and you were determined to win.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Rat Bastard - Part 6

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 11200

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Idiots to Lovers, Fear, Spiders

Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

You’d expected some downtime; some boredom. It simply wasn’t possible for these three desperate employees to keep the two of you entertained for every minute of the day.

You had to admit you were both surprised and shocked when you actually saw the giant crate of activities and games; there were tons of board games, even more possibilities with the decks of cards you saw. There were even a whole slew of movies and a small device which you were told was a projector which would show the movie on any blank white wall, of which there were many to pick from. Mr. Chen was unpacking what seemed to be an endless bottomed box and you weren’t the only curious observer lightly touching the things that interested you the most.

You’d been instructed to grab items and make a stack of things you were interested in doing. You’d reached for one of the word games, one of the ones involving strategic spellings of words which you remember playing as a kid with your Grandmother and you placed it in front of you. This was your pick.

“Oh that one is fun, I haven’t seen this in years,” Kyungsoo’s fingertip touched just on the corner of your game and he picked up another classic with a grin, “this one too,” he said under his breath. It was like he was speaking to himself but he seemed to be adding things to your personal pile.

Did he think he was involved in your pile?

Did he take this, like the cooking exercise, as a team activity? The instructions implied that you were to build your own pile but Kyungsoo had just added Uno to the top of the stack he was building with your first choice board game trapped on the bottom.

You reached for the deck of cards because there was always poker and it also was vital for the backgammon game you’d just grabbed. You slowly began to build a smaller, separate pile beside the one he had commandeered, removing your first choice from underneath his and moving it to your own side.

“Ooo,” his eyes widened and he plopped Monopoly down right on top of your second stack, “I'm gonna kick your ass at that one.”

You lifted his game off of your stack and plopped it roughly down on top of his own stack.

“These are my picks, those are yours,” you mumbled a rhetorical, “who even wants to play monopoly?” You remembered the game being long and tedious. He looked at you and laughed once, grabbing another game, this one a music themed game similar to charades but with musical guesses and you’d heard through friends that he actually had a great singing voice. You never thought you’d actually get to hear it. He pointedly ignored your stack separating attempts and plopped this game on top of your stack.

“You're gonna sit all alone in a corner and play Scrabble by yourself? Come on, quit being stupid.” He ignored the small sound you made and grabbed your games, placed them in the same stack as his games and lifted the whole stack and walked away from you to set them on another table. He was already pulling the lid off of one of his games to start playing it and the other three people in the room quickly followed suit and began to pull chairs out of the table he was setting up. Those traitors. Why did his game get to be played first? You’d been standing at your original spot with your arms folded over your chest when he looked up from the money he was counting and separating to speak to you.

“Come and get your ass handed to you like a good little princess.”

You rolled your eyes harder than you’d rolled them before. You rolled them hard enough to really sell your annoyance at his antics. You rolled them desperately and very convincingly. Inside of your chest there was the most annoying little tickle brought on by his choice of words. This nickname of his for you sure had a way of making everything he said sound just a tiny bit suggestive. Or maybe you had just read too many trashy romance novels in your youth. God, you were lonely.

But more than lonely, right now you were bored. You pulled up to your chair for the game. Javier was the last to sit down after bringing over some snacks and some drinks. You were handed a champagne glass with orange juice and the first sip told you it was heavy on the champagne. It wasn’t even noon yet. He was back to his old tricks when you looked up into his eyes and caught the secretive smile.

Kyungsoo was sipping on a Bloody Mary with a celery stick in it and you braced for the first round of the game. You had always figured he was the competitive type. He had to be in his line of work, to have reached the levels of success as he had reached in such a cut-throat industry. And nearly every interaction you’d had with Kyungsoo had told you such. This man simply had to win. The way he wouldn’t back down from his story and lie against you and that level of stubbornness, well, he basically pitted everything he had against you. This translated into something entirely insane when playing a board game against him.

The first round of the game, when someone would usually settle into the groove of things, rolling their dice and moving their pieces, was unlikely to buy the property they landed on in the very first round — Kyungsoo’s first round came after the rest of the players had had a go around. Mr. Chen had purchased his property, Sara had landed in a space that gave her a few bucks, Javier didn’t buy anything and neither had you. You weren’t particularly interested in the cheap ones at the start of the board. Kyungsoo’s turn came around and he landed on one of Mr. Chen’s neighboring properties and immediately purchased it. Then his deals started. He was making a deal with Mr. Chen. Mr. Chen was accepting. He was grinning widely and spending money like there was no tomorrow. What about the future Kyungsoo? What would you do if you simply went broke? He was buying housing for his land. He was putting up buildings and you watched this crazy man go full tilt into this stupid game.

You figured you needed to do something on your next round and you bought whatever you happened to land on. Not really paying too much attention to deals and such, you weren’t a big negotiator.

The game progressed and every single one of Kyungsoo’s rounds felt exhausting. He was doing quick math, making deals with everyone else at the table, but weirdly he never once tried to make any deals with you. He was putting up more property every single time. You were sure he was nearly broke. There was no way this was sustainable. The deals grew more intricate with each round. There were even loans passing around between Mr. Chen and Kyungsoo who seemed to have developed some sort of a partnership in this.

Again and again, you were overlooked by the man who seemed to be setting up some sort of a scheme. He was the owner or partnered with the owner of nearly every single space in this game. It felt unfair. There should be some sort of a law against this kind of thing, it was like a monopoly — oh god, oh god that was the name of this game. He was an expert at it. He had been planning it from the start and he showed you in particular absolutely no mercy. In every single round, you lost money to him.

His fat stacks of bills grew to obscene amounts and he had to cash in some 5s, 10s, 20s for 100s or 500s. He was relentless with you. But only with you. You noticed he had a lot of leniency on the other players at this table. He giggled and gave Sara a discount with a sweet smile on his face during one of her stays at his fancy property, and when you pointed out that he wasn’t allowed to do that he just shrugged and told you he could do what he wanted with his own property while you sat in jail for four whole rounds, unable to roll doubles to get yourself out. You actually began to enjoy being in jail as you sipped on your third mimosa because at least you weren’t putting your precious money into that man’s demanding palm.

It all came to a head when you had just gotten out of jail and landed in one of his places. You did have enough cash to cover rent but just barely and he sat beside you flush with his cash, property, even get out of jail free cards, which he had traded Javier for a free stay at his most expensive resort for.

You looked at him and he looked at you with the smallest lift of a single eyebrow because he knew you were screwed. You had a single property card left that you had been holding onto to keep him from owning every single space of that color. You swore you wouldn’t give it to him but at this rate you might end up homeless with only this to your name. It was a miserable sort of existence. You couldn't afford not to be in jail and you missed the peace and quiet and free meals of those metal bars that protected you from this mad man.

The more you replayed the entirety of this game, It was becoming more and more evident that his entire game plan had been to bankrupt and ruin you. He made no efforts to partner with you, make deals with you and only ever seemed to create situations that would affect you negatively. He was so good at it too you wondered if he’d been training for years on how to be a grade-A asshole to his friends.

“Can I have a discount?”

“You don't deserve a discount.”

“You gave Sara a discount.”

“Sara isn’t a four-time felon. I might have to charge you even more for a security deposit. Who knows what sorts of sordid things you’ll be up to in there. I know your type.”

Sara’s little metal train play piece had been sitting in the jail space and you watched as she carefully moved her piece to the outer edge so it clearly sat inside the ‘just visiting’ space around the incarcerated section.

“Excuse me, I was not convicted of any crimes. I never even had a trial.” You couldn't help the actual offense you took at his words. Your type? What type? The poor, marginalized, under-educated, school to prison pipeline, falsely accused and incarcerated type? This society has been set up to see you fail. The entire system was against you from the start.

“That’s what they all say,” he laughed out loud, “Everyone in jail swears they are innocent.” His outstretched hand moved closer to you and you hmph-ed back in your chair with your arms crossed over your chest.

You were annoyed. You couldn’t help it. He was such a jerk and he was ridiculously against you in this game and in this life. You dropped your voice to a whisper and you leaned in closer to where he sat on his mountain of gold. “Kyungsoo, do you remember when we were cooking breakfast together? Do you remember how well we got along—”

You had his attention. He watched your face with a little lift of his eyebrow, no doubt his mind flying through a multitude of possible things you were about to remind him of — the embraces, the gentle and slow touches between the two of you, the pride in his eyes when you’d done something to please him — he looked down the length of your face as if he was compelled to and when his eyes bounced back up to look into your eyes once more you inhaled to continue speaking, “—when you weren’t allowed to talk?”

He lifted a hand to cover over his mouth and he snorted out a quick and silent laugh. It burst free from him and no amount of steely resolve could have kept that laugh inside of him. His eyes rolled closed with it and then back open and he lifted a hand, palm up and opened and closed his fingers twice. You hadn’t expected any other outcome. Not after basically telling the jerk that your favorite part about him was when he wasn’t speaking.

“You’re mean,” you said with a grumble and a severe pout of your lips, feeling actually upset deep down inside of you at how badly he had been picking on you during this entire game. The others at the table just giggled. “He’s crazy,” you heard Javier and Mr. Chen say to each other. His greedy fingers were leafing through your bills as he grabbed enough money to cover your rent, leaving a few small bills left behind.

By the next round you were bankrupt and out of the game.

You were only his first victim. It wasn’t long before partnerships were quickly abandoned in the name of record-breaking profits and long-time friendships were severed by filthy greed.

You just shook your head each time it happened, adding a loud “I told you not to trust him. Didn’t I warn you? He’s evil!” which was quickly countered with his overly defensive and judgmental rebuttal.

“This is how you play the game, Princess. Don't cry just because you’re bad at it. Think of it this way, you survived for six whole rounds and you even bought and sold property, which is much more than some incredibly stupid people do in their entire lifetimes.”

The group was imploding around you. A heated discussion about loyalty and friendship was being held over the sounds of crinkling bills and plastic clanking as properties were sold off to pay the man who was evil enough to become an actual billionaire if only this game had printed enough fake money to make that happen.

He won the game by crushing everyone else around him. You swore then and there that if you ever had the chance to see this man again, which was unlikely once you left this emergency shelter, if by some twisted nightmare of fate you ever had the misfortune of spending any amount of time with him and you were presented with the invitation to play this game again with him, you would throw yourself off the roof, you would hurl yourself into the sea, you would rather literally watch professional golfing marathons on tv. Never again. Not this game, not with this man.

Everyone needed a break after the game was over. You retreated to your space for a small while, laying down under your comfy down blanket and quickly deciding that you were simply too sick of sleeping to be in here. It was late morning and you’d had a few drinks by now and after leaving your room you wandered through the hallways, finding a space where one too many spiderwebs touched your skin that you just had to turn around and head back toward the kitchen.

It was mostly peaceful and empty here except for one person who stood at the stove. Kyungsoo was doing something in the kitchen and instantly, like a magic potion had been cast you felt all of the hard feelings about that game fade with the possibility that he might be cooking something tasty.

You slinked up by his side and he turned to the sounds of you coming, quickly spinning around and stepping to his ‘interior’ side to block your view of the pot he had on the stove. You didn’t smell anything delicious in the air and his hands were out the moment you arrived, grabbing you by the arms and holding you at a clear distance.

“What are you doing? Go back to your bed.” Your suspicions were raised. He was hiding something delicious. He was about to have ramen, maybe even two packs from the communal goods that Roxy and Jun had left behind and the filthy cheater was about to eat them both all by himself. You didn't see any piles of ingredients anywhere on the countertop

“What are you making?” You were direct with your words. You pushed your shoulders forward, trying to free yourself from his hold. He held on tighter. Behind you on the stove you could hear the bubbling of the water starting to boil. He would have to tend to his secret dish soon to keep from overcooking it. From the few times you’d cooked with him he was a stickler for cooking times and temperatures and doneness levels. He was insane about it.

“No, no, just go away,” you were being shoved backward with the two steps he took foward. His words didn't sound too serious. Whatever it was that he was hiding from you was fair game. You heard the soft grunt as he struggled and you tried to peer your head around his shoulder. He countered by tilting his own head to block you again.

“What are you making? Let me see. You’re sharing with me, I caught you so half is mine.” You were already giggling when you lifted both of your hands like claws and quickly began to stab him with your fingertips right on his ribs. “That makes no sense. Are you a squatter?” He said through a gasp and he yelped and let out some quick giggles with the tickling.

His hands moved from your shoulders to your hands. He was grabbing them and you felt spun in place, suddenly looking at the door with one of his strong arms wrapped around your chest. Your two hands were trapped behind your back and he held on tightly to both of them with his other hand, in an instant he had you trapped and you were facing away from the bubbling pot. Your hands were bound between your two bodies but you could totally still get him from here. You reached again, lower this time, feeling the lower part of his abdomen. You could hear his giggling from beside your head and you swear to God you felt a euphoric sensation pulsing through your entire body to hear it. You felt like you weren’t quite in your right mind, not with the alcohol, not with the desperation for a win against him. You were pressed right up against his body again and why the hell was he so strong? Why did every single touch of his hands feel like it would consume you from within?

“Stop, stop,” he was begging but still refusing to let you go. If he wanted you to stop, wouldn't he have let you go first, his strong hand still held both of yours tightly behind your back and you moved your hand lower, feeling the very real and sudden danger of reaching for a part of him you should never, ever touch. You felt the waistband of his denim shorts, the leather of the belt he wore there and his shirt shifted and you felt the warmth of the bare skin of his belly that surged with each of the heavy breaths he took against your neck. The rough but steady exhales seemed to change when you touched him. Something was changing and you slowed your hand, still pressed up against his skin, your fingertips lightly touching the leather of that belt. His hand that held onto yours moved too and you felt the soft tips of his fingers move just over your hand there. You felt the trembling and staggered touch of his hand. Why was he trembling? Why was his touch more gentle than the previous rough gripping?

“I’ll stop if you stop,” you exhaled into the space in front of you, “besides, I already caught you. There’s no use delaying this.” Curiously, you had both stopped laughing but his arms were still around you, although the tightness of his grip he held you with had let up. You could escape quite easily if you wanted to. You could leave his embrace and you should. You really ought to put a healthy amount of space between the two of you, if you knew how an enemy should be treated, if you knew what was good for you, you would.

You took the smallest step forward, thankful for the drop in temperature that brought just a little bit of sense back into your brain. You took another step forward and his hand that had been holding your hand still gripped along your palm as you moved. You weren't quite sure why you did not feel compelled to let his hand go, you held on to him with the same amount of pressure as he held you and you turned to take one look behind him at the stovetop with the pot that sat bubbling and dancing behind his back.

You saw something green, something green and white standing up inside of that boiling pot of water. Something plastic.

Something hilarious. The crazy man was boiling his toothbrush. You saw it and you covered your mouth to keep the snort from escaping. It didn’t help. You snorted in laughter and you could feel the shift in his body as he sagged his shoulders in defeat.

Kyungsoo was frozen. He made no attempts to stop you from looking just as he hadn’t made any moves to let go of your hand, and when you looked up into his face he was standing with his free hand covering his closed eyes. He was pink.

You were openly laughing and you shook his hand that you still held as you did it, “did you seriously boil your toothbrush, Doh Kyungsoo?”

“Shut up,” he whispered through clenched teeth, “this is why I didn’t want you to see.”

You lifted a hand to lay over his pink cheek and you were almost laughing too hard to get any real words out, “d-did you want to get r-rid of my foot germs, Kyungsoo?”

“Shut up,” you felt the smallest push against your hand away from his face, then another push against your shoulder and he was quickly spinning, letting go of your hand as he did it, as if he hadn’t also been the one to hold onto you for much longer than necessary even long after you’d both swallowed down whatever might been happening with your hands behind your back a few seconds earlier.

“God, you’re so mean to me. I can’t believe you did that. I asked everybody and nobody has any extras. You know the worst part? I can't even tell if you’re telling the truth about it. Did she really use my toothbrush to clean her foot? Did she really scrub between her toes or is she just fucking with me again. You make me feel crazy. All I want to do is brush my teeth…but feet…toes,” he was whining now, full on whining half mixed with giggles because even he knew how insane he sounded. He was using the handle of the toothbrush to stir it into the boiling water. You could feel the spasms of laughter build up again in your belly. You had to hold onto yourself to keep from doubling over.

“Oh so I’m guessing you’re not one of those guys with a foot fetish then,” You joked as you busied yourself now with gathering things so you could make your own damn ramen.

“Sorry to disappoint you but I do not. Even so, a foot fetish is not an ‘ancient bacteria from the dirty floor of an 18th century, spider infested, bunker in my mouth’ fetish. What if you single handedly brought back cholera?”

“I don't think cholera is gone. I think it still lurks.” You still couldn't help the giggles even if you absolutely did not like the idea of your sleeping space being spider infested. You hadn’t quite worked up the courage to inspect all of the dark spaces around your bed for fear of what you might find.

“Great. That’s great news. How long do I need to boil this to kill cholera?” His face was exasperated now, half laughter mixed with a hopelessness that was absolutely adorable on him.

You found yourself staring at him. You came to when he’d long stopped giggling and his eyes bounced a few times over your face, his eyebrows lifting up with the tiniest bounce of his cheekbones, lips lifted in the corners slowly flattening out with the tiniest flinch of his face. It was the winding down of his laughter and he licked his lips, leaving them behind wet.

He cleared his throat. You closed your eyes, unable to keep them completely closed, your eyelids fluttered, fighting you to open back up and look at him for longer, and the breath you inhaled didn’t seem to help with any of this.

You needed something to do. You’d gathered some packs of ramen and the camping stove and fuel from the communal table and you plopped it all down on the countertop beside his boiling pot o’ toothbrush.

“Make me ramen,” you said with a little lift in your voice and tilt of your head. Not quite a request, not quite a command, more of a sweet suggestion. “Think they’d let us eat outside on the patio? I think the wind has died down a lot. It’s just raining now”

He’d finally reached some imaginary bacteria killing length of boiling time and he was tapping the toothbrush on the side of the pan to remove the excess water.

“You’re not going to try and commit suicide again are you?”

You shook your head back and forth, placing your hand over your heart, “I won't even go close to the edge, I promise.”

“Your promises mean nothing.” He deadpanned, but he was reaching into the fridge for some eggs, reaching into the shelves for the cans of spam he’d put there and stacking it all up on top of the the stove as he made his way toward the patio door.

“Bring the water bottle there,” he pointed to the countertop and you grabbed the big bottle and brought it along with the pan for him to cook in, and some chopsticks and spoons for both of you. For the first time since this trip started you cautiously began to feel a little bit happy to be here with him. He would make you delicious ramen and maybe you’d get to steal some more glances at his pretty face without getting caught.

He’d already been out on the patio to drop off the supplies by the time you came to the door with your arms full, he held the door for you. He seemed to be going back inside for something and you heard him call back toward you, “Hey! My batteries. You never gave them to me. I’ll bring them with the radio.”

So much had happened since then that you had just forgotten about them. You simply nodded as a response and told him they were in your luggage by the bed; wondering when in the hell you began to feel so comfortable with this man and you felt no qualms about sending him rooting through your luggage to find the batteries himself. You knew he’d have to get through many items such as the underwear you’d brought, the bikini he had already seen you in, the personal items such as your perfume, makeup, and your deodorant. All of those things were right there for him to witness. Little human things that had no business being embarrassing but were nonetheless.

A sudden panic built when you remembered a particular pack of items that you had brought along to this retreat that you’d all but given up on getting the chance to use here, the box of condoms you’d stuffed into your bag at the last minute. They would have been within touching distance of your big pack of batteries. There was no way he wouldn’t see them.

He took a while to return. You used that time to build up a thoroughly deep-set sense of embarrassment for what sordid conclusions you were sure he would have jumped to about you. Perhaps he’d find you to be some easy or cheap floozy. You were an adult. You were allowed to partake in and enjoy sex. You were healthy and alive and you had regular doctors appointments and you took your sexual health seriously. Why did it feel so weird though? That he might know this about you when he saw them; that he might have an opinion on the quantity of condoms in the box, a generous 20 pack, not because — not because you intended on having sex 20 times in a single week but, but because — Well … well, what if? The packs they had at the store came in 3, 10, or 20 and what if you had met the love of your life here and what if you just had to close up shop after 10? What if time number 11 was going to be the best time? You were thoroughly overthinking this. You were an expert at this, overthinking things and making yourself feel embarrassed for no reason especially when it came to Doh Kyungsoo. It was practically your default setting with him.

The door opened and you jumped in surprise; halfway through the scenario you’d imagined in which you hadn’t brought the brand new pack of 20 condoms and instead had just tossed in the already open box of 5 with one missing because you were curious about just how stretchy they actually were and you opened it to blow it up into a balloon. It was actually very stretchy and you might have just kept on blowing if you hadn’t been gagging from how awful the spermicidal liquid that filled it tasted when it got on your lips. Imagine if he found the open box with one missing already! Who had you used that one condom on at this stage in the game?! What would he think then?! You felt dizzy.

He was pushing through the doorway with a six pack of beers he’d swiped from Javier’s stash and he had his radio in one hand and in his other he gripped the batteries he’d found in your luggage right beside the big box of your stupid condoms.

He sat down on the bench beside you and you watched as he opened the little flap on the back of his radio and inserted each battery carefully, bringing it to life and switching between staticky radio stations until something clear sounded through with easy to listen to pop music playing. When he moved down to sit on the floor where the stove was set up, you quietly moved down to sit beside him.

You watched him work, feeling the very real remnants of the embarrassment you’d tricked yourself into feeling earlier still lingering in the warmth of your cheeks. He was setting up the stove and filling the pan with water, he was opening the packets of ramen and setting the flame to the right height below the pan.

You felt the need to do something too so you reached for the bags of snacks you’d brought, opening the bag and laying it flat, then reaching for the beers, pulling two off the plastic ring and opening them. You met his eyes briefly as he grabbed the beer you offered and after he took a sip of it he set it down and stared down at the pan full of water, just waiting for it to boil. He was quiet for a while until he inhaled to speak to you. You knew he had inhaled because you’d been staring at his face when he did it, when his pink lips parted and he pulled the breath in through his mouth and those lips stayed open enough for some words to come out.

“You alright?”

It was a small and quick question. He lifted his beer and tilted his head for the drink, a small stream of the liquid pooled inside his mouth and he dropped the can as he closed his mouth and swallowed it.

“Yeah,” you whispered just barely loud enough to be heard over the rain, “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged, half of a shrug really. Barely even a shrug. “You’ve gone quiet,” he said and after the words his lips stayed open and you could see the tip of his tongue touching along the edge of his teeth for a moment. His eyebrows ticked above his eyes. “You’ve gone pink, too.”

You lifted your beer and took a big drink of it, holding the can up to lay over your cheeks. You could feel the heat in your face and the cold can helped just a little bit.

Not that he deserved it, but you felt weirdly compelled to fess up. You knew you were acting weird.

“I feel a little,” you started, turning your face away from him to continue, “weird…about something.”

“Weird like what? What about?” You hadn’t felt quite this disarmed around him before. It felt dangerous to let yourself speak so easily with him.

“Weird cause you hate me?” His next question came out very quietly and you pulled your eyes away from the raindrops steadily falling over to look at his face.

You opened your mouth to speak, finding the denial ready and heavy on your tongue. It was stuck there though and you closed your mouth back up and lifted the beer to take a long drink instead. The best you could do was the small head shake. You inhaled a breath and found he’d looked up from his boiling water to watch your face for your response.

Did he really want to ruin this nice moment to get into all of that right now?

“The water is boiling,” you said, meeting his eyes that still watched you without moving for two more swallows from this beer can you’d held onto for dear life.

He seemed to let it go. He was adding noodles and cracking eggs all fancy and one-handed, adding sliced spam and green onions on top. He was lightly prodding it all with the tips of his chopsticks and handing you the lid to use to catch the dripping noodles when they were done cooking.

You both grabbed noodles to eat at the same time and after he’d slurped up a particularly hot and noisy bite he sighed heavily while looking out toward the rain storm.

“Ramen really is the perfect food,” he remarked with his cheeks full of noodles.

Your nose was running a little from the steam and the spiciness of the broth but you held a ball of chewy and delicious noodles in your cheek and nodded your head earnestly. They were delicious and followed with the beer was even better than anything any 5 star chef could possibly whip up in the fanciest of kitchens.

It was when your mouth was filled with another bite some time later that he inhaled again, satisfied with his belly full of noodles, he turned to you and opened his mouth. His eyes narrowed at you before he said it.

“Twenty feels like a lot, though,” he said it so abruptly and you choked on the soup you were swallowing and started to cough, which he ignored, “logistically, I mean. This was originally a 5-day retreat.”

His eyes were still narrowed in your direction and you lifted a handful of the chips you’d opened up and threw several right at his face. His lips pulled into a teasing smile and he lifted a hand and swatted a few of the chips away. Two of them hit him in the face. His lips were pulled into a grin. You were still coughing and trying to keep your laughing from making you choke any more.

“No, no, listen,” he was laughing a little bit through the teasing, “that’s five times every single day, including day one. That means on day one, you have to have sex five times. Is it five different guys, or maybe two times for one guy, three times for another one? Or — god, is it one guy, five times in one day? Isn’t that too much pressure?”

You couldn’t breathe. You were laughing that painful laugh that takes every ounce of your oxygen away from you and never gave you a moment to pause for an inhale. You might just die right here, teased to death because Kyungsoo found your condoms.

“You just met them! I mean, I know that you’re obviously a beautiful woman. I will admit that,” his hand was lifted to his chest as he spoke, “and it’s much easier for a woman, especially one like you, to get laid; but five times? bam-bam-bam-bam-bam,” his hands were up and he was hitting one off the other one, a visual representation of the insane amount of sex you were having in this hypothetical scenario he was describing and you were trying your absolute best to breathe through your laughter. You felt tears running down your face from it.

He wouldn’t quit, “Sex. Straight away. No names, no facts about them, no rest because there’s no time. Right from day one, just … fucking. And then you have to keep up that momentum. Every single day, five times. It’s insane! How would you have time for anything else? Do you eat? Sleep? Shower?”

You’d moved at that point in his speech. You had leapt toward him. You needed to end this once and for all. This was what you feared might happen. You were laughing too much at his ridiculous analysis of the logistics of you bringing twenty condoms with you to be able to speak at all, you simply moved closer to where he sat on the other side of this pot of noodles and you reached up for him with both of your hands. You needed to stop him. One of your hands landed over his open mouth and you covered it tightly, the other one you wrapped around his shoulders trying to give yourself some leverage to stop him from talking about it.

He lifted a hand and pulled yours down from his lips, managing to eke out another giggle and a few more words, “t-twenty c-condoms,” he managed to get out and you struggled to pull your hand free so you could cover his mouth again. He was shaking with his laughter and you squeezed as tightly as you could, finding yourself practically sitting in his lap in the efforts to silence him. If he died from this he deserved it.

“Shut up, shut up, oh my god, shut up,” you cried through the horrified giggles, squeezing him tighter to try and end everything embarrassing that was happening right now. You hardly even felt the other hand of his that wrapped around your waist pulling you closer to him to keep you from falling into the hot noodles and burning yourself. It made your thighs part up high on his lap, right near his waist. The shorts you wore were so short you could feel the scratchiness of his jean shorts against your bare inner thighs. You could feel the warmth of him between your legs and you tried not to imagine how very tightly you were actually pressed up against his body, the warmth between your legs embracing the warmth of him. His grip around you was tight and this was probably only to keep you safe — the liability that you were, afterall.

You couldn’t have been the only one. There was just no way a single adult would come to something like this and not come prepared. When you managed to stop laughing enough to talk, you asked him.

“How many did you bring? And don’t lie to me and say you didn’t bring any.”

You released his mouth just so he could answer you and you watched his lips from up close as he licked them and opened his mouth to speak. You caught motion from his free hand and he held up his five fingers and his mouth silently spoke out the number.

“Five?” You flinched on top of him and his hand tightened around your waist, immediately pulling you back into him when you sagged away. You were slowly becoming more aware of how very close you were to him right now. The smallest shift of your hips and you would easily be straddling his waist. There was a growing humidity that built between the two of you where you connected with him here.

“Five,” he said with a slip of his eyes down on your lips, “a completely normal and reasonable pack of five.”

He bit down on his lips after the confession and you felt the muscles in his thighs below your ass shift, he wiggled just a little bit and with the wiggle you felt the slight change in how you sat on him. With that wiggle you could feel just a little more of his lap that you sat on and you could make out a definite flush in his cheeks, his ears, and the back of his neck. His lips in particular looked pinker when he bit down on them again and you struggled to pull your eyes up from them. You shouldn’t stare so long at his mouth. It brought up memories of the way he felt when he kissed you.

You could hardly make sense of his number though. You pulled your face back and shook your head in disbelief. You didn’t buy it.

“Just five?” You argued, “but — but what if you met the love of your life here and you’re both crazy about each other and wanted to just lock yourselves in a room for the whole week?”

He was giggling. You could feel it in his abdomen next to your inner thigh. Below your legs he felt firm and tense and his hand shifted as he adjusted his grip on you. His fingertips slipped beneath the fabric of your shirt and he felt even warmer than your burning skin felt that he now touched. His eyes were down on your lips again.

You couldn’t do this. You had to do something to stop this. This had crossed some sort of a line already.

“Well, maybe she’d be that one psychopath that brought twenty condoms with her.”

His words came out so quickly and they hit you like an electric shock.

The reality of this was back. It was an uncomfortable and dangerous feeling. It was splashing you in the face with cool water and you could feel the wrongness in it. This funny joke had gone too far. You saw it in his own severe reaction to what he had just said to you. He’d meant it as a joke, ultimately it had just been a funny joke.

After he spoke it, his lips flattened and the pinkness in his cheeks grew. His eyes which had been so playful suddenly dropped and he cleared his throat at the same time as you allowed gravity to take your balance and shift it away from him. His hand left your waist immediately and you scooted back and away from him, retreating to the other side of the noodles, off of his lap and out of his arms, where it was in your best interest to stay for good.

You had a renewed interest in your beer can. The brand was something local that you’d never had before and you read the back label from top to bottom without skipping a single word and without digesting a single word either. You could make out his movement from your peripheral vision and you heard the click and hiss of another beer can being opened, followed instantly by a second. It pulled your attention up from your own empty can and Kyungsoo was leaning forward with the beer in his hand for you to take, his flighty eyes not quite meeting yours except for the briefest of touches.

Without him perceiving you so closely you could feel yourself relaxing a little bit from the earlier humiliation and laughing fit turned inappropriate and stifling closeness that nearly suffocated you both with the unexplainable thickness of the air that had built up between the two of you.

Halfway through this beer Kyungsoo inhaled deeply, opened his mouth and asked you a silly question.

“Zombie invasion or Vampires?” he asked and you swallowed what was inside your mouth and looked into his face. He was looking down at his beer can absentmindedly while he clicked the tab with his thumb. It took you only a few seconds of thought and you shrugged, “Vampires, I guess.”

He nodded his head once and shrugged his face, “they’re only a problem at night,” he said in agreement. It was the same thought that you had about them. Zombies seemed like an all the time problem. Vampires would be solved with a curfew.

”Watching sports or playing sports?” You asked suddenly, figuring that this game involved taking turns. His eyes were lifted up into the air above his head and he pursed his lips, “playing sports, I guess.”

“Same.” You were nodding in agreement, finding sports on TV too boring to handle you much more enjoyed playing them even if you were never really great at any one sport in particular.

“Singing or Dancing?” It was his turn to ask.

You really enjoyed singing when you were alone, but you weren’t the kind of person to be able to do it in front of anyone. Still, if you had to pick one, you’d pick singing. You answered as such and his head ticked to the side with a cute eyebrow lift and a smile.

“Singing,” he said in agreement with you and you nodded your head, hoping he wouldn’t expect you to actually be any good at it. This was about enjoyment, not talent.

“Win the lottery or find your soulmate?” This one had him thinking. He had been such a crazy person while playing Monopoly you figured he would pick the money but after a few minutes of thought he shrugged and took a sip of his beer giving a soft “soulmate,” as his answer.

“Ohhhh, I didn’t expect that from you.” You teased and you swallowed more of your beer emptying the can completely as he watched your face for a few moments, probably expecting you to answer this one. You only nodded your head as a response. He lifted his eyebrows in question and you nodded again, confirming without words that you had the same response as he did. It was kind of spooky how many answers you both shared. Even weirder still that he understood what you were saying without you having to actually speak with him. It was something you’d noticed during some of the cooking challenges, the odd unspoken communication that just came easy with him.

“Right or left?” He asked very suddenly with a wide smile and you lifted up your right hand, shouting “exterior!” proudly and instantly. His eyes widened and gave you a round of applause before he asked another question, “East or west?” This one didn’t work. You lifted your hand and scratched at your lip, avoiding his eyes and pointing a finger in some direction that you’d just picked at random.

“That’s South.” He shook his head and furrowed his brows, “boooo,” he jeered at you and you shrugged in a hopeless sort of way with a giggle. “It moves around,” you whined and he shook his head slowly at you. “It absolutely does not. You move, it stays where it is.”

The sound of the patio door opening startled you both and you turned to see Sara sheepishly peeking her head out through the opening.

“Oh, here you are. I thought I heard laughing,” she said in her sweet voice, “we’re just starting a movie marathon, do you both want to join?”

It sounded fun actually. You’d wondered how much longer you two could play this or that before running out of ideas and you were nodding your head enthusiastically, pushing yourself up to your feet before Kyungsoo even had a chance to register the question.

“Oh, uhh — alright,” he said softly as if he’s only just now realized that he had been spending all of this time with you alone, the enemy — out of what, pure love for ramen? Need for fresh air and a distraction from the tedium? There was a movie marathon happening now, that was real entertainment. Not just a crazy girl who he could make fun of for packing way too many condoms for a 5-day trip, who doesn’t know directions, and who does awful things to him like call him mean names, attack his ribs because that’s where he’s the most ticklish, tries to suffocate him any chance she gets, and does terrible awful things to his toothbrush.

You were already cleaning up the space and gathering trash and used utensils to bring inside. Kyungsoo was only now standing up and picking up the last few beer cans and the remains of the delicious ramen he had made for you.

Inside of the kitchen the others had brought over some spare mattresses and pillows and laid them all out on the floor — they had turned out the lights and they were projecting a movie on the big blank wall.

It was something you hadn’t ever seen before, something grand and epic with a large sweeping universe, action, adventure and romance all in one. It honestly felt perfect for a movie marathon.

You could smell the microwave popcorn and you already had a cold beer waiting for you on one of the floor mattresses. You had a pile of pillows at your back and someone, god bless them, had gone into your room and brought your lovely winner’s blanket.

You eyed the rest of the group as they settled down in spots around the space, specifically leaving the space right beside you open for Kyungsoo. You noticed a cold beer next to his side as well. Normally you’d have gone out of your way to find another spot to sit. Or even drag a big heavy mattress over to use instead of having to share the same one with him. But now the movie was starting and there was really not enough time for all of that. You scooted closest to the edge of this mattress and out of your peripheral vision you saw him come up to the other side of this mattress and he sunk down into it, grabbing the beer and sitting a lot further away from the edge than you had done.

He wasn’t going out of his way to put as much space between the two of you as you had been. The lights were out and the movie began playing and soon this sitting at the very edge of this thing was becoming a bit too uncomfortable so you scooted yourself just a little bit closer to where he sat.

When you scooted though, you could suddenly feel the warmth of his thigh next to yours and as you adjusted you leaned against some of the pillows propped up behind your back, finding a bit more support when you leaned just slightly against his arm. You’d pulled your blanket up over your legs and pretended not to notice when his hand pulled the blanket over his legs too.

The movies were long and involved. Occasionally your mind would drift too far from the plot and the small whispered questions like, “wait, who is that guy again?” Would be met with whispered responses, “that’s the admiral’s son,” and your follow up realizations like, “ohh my god that’s why he’s being hunted,” got a white little hum as a response from him.

While you tried your best not to interrupt his movie watching experience you felt strangely comfortable asking him every single question that popped into your head and based on his calm responses you didn’t think he even minded it all that much.

The movie gave you whiplash though. It was quick with the surprises and it had reached a point when you’d already jumped four times from the dramatic twists and turns and you could feel some very real danger for the main hero when he found himself down in a dark pit, seemingly at the end of his luck. You could feel a creepy crawling sensation slipping up your back when you first saw them; it was spiders. Spiders. You felt a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach and you felt your breath feel sticky in your heavy lungs. There were so many. You were gasping. You were desperate for air but your lungs wouldn’t cooperate. Hundreds. Thousands of enormous, hairy spiders with thousands of legs and fangs; the sounds of their skittering feet and chomping jaws — the rooms filled with their webs, and human sized bodies trapped in those webs, wrapped up and wriggling and screaming. You felt your hands shaking and you had to close your eyes. You couldn't breathe. You couldn’t stop it. You were going to die right here without oxygen. You couldn’t stop it. You could feel their legs crawling all over your skin and you could feel their fangs sinking down into your skin. Ripping out chunks of your flesh. Burrowing under your skin. You had to dip your head down under the blanket and you were trembling all over and you couldn’t breathe.

“Hey,” you heard his low voice whisper out into your ear over the sound of the screaming, “hey, hey. Shh… you’re okay.” He was talking to you. You felt his arms rubbing over your back, you felt his arms wrap around your shoulders and he was rubbing you up and down in long slow pressured passes over your skin, shushing into your ear and willing you to calm down with the warmth of his cheek pressed up against your cheek.

“Shhh…They’re not real.”

“They can’t hurt you.”

“You are safe here.”

“You’re okay, honey, you’re alright.”

“Breathe in slowly,” he mentored the deep and slow breaths he urged you to take. You felt the slow rise of his chest as he did it. You gasped and your lungs stuttered as you tried to copy him.

“And out, slowly.” You felt the slow exhale he let out. He was so close, his breath warmed your face.

It took a long while. Your breathing was the first to begin to settle.

You’d lifted your face from where you’d been hiding against his chest and you found that you had been crying. It took you a few deep breaths to get your breathing to actually start to settle down and his words began to really sink in. You’d had some sort of a panic attack at the thought of all of those spiders and you must have been so stressed out lately being here with all of those bugs around you constantly, you’d simply lost your touch with reality for a moment.

“A-Are they gone yet?” You had it under control. You understood what had happened and you simply lost your mind for a short while but he brought you back. It was just panic. It happened occasionally and on those rare times when it took you over so completely, it took you hours to finally calm down. But here, here with him; he had been so quick to understand what was happening and he had been so steady and strong with his words and his distracting comfort. You felt taken aback and stunned.

It took him a few moments to lift his head out of the blanket and when he came back to you he gave you the smallest squeeze on your hand that he was holding and you knew it was over.

“They are gone,” he leaned his forehead against yours under this blanket and whispered the answer to your question.

“T-Thank you,” you whispered and you wiped your face with the back of your hand. You felt the small hum from his chest as a response and you held your breath when you felt the soft pads of his thumbs wiping the wetness from your cheeks. You felt like a mess. What a ridiculous human being you were. Unable to handle a little bit of fake spiders in a fake movie, you felt like an idiot. The shame from this was next to flood through your body and you whispered out a quiet word to him, “sorry.”

You felt his head shaking back and forth and he had already pulled both of your heads out from under the blanket that was quickly growing stuffy from the heat from both of your bodies.

“Don’t be. You’re fine.” He said it in such a matter of fact way, it felt so very true and finite. Don’t be sorry. You are fine. Then he squeezed down harder on your hand which he still held down somewhere under this blanket.

He wasn't letting you go. Was this just you being a liability again? Was he trying to keep you from weeping and screaming and causing a scene? You felt so caught off guard and nervous with him holding your hand like this that you felt too scared to move.

This fucking movie though, the whiplash continued because in front of you now, unfolded a sensual romantic scene. With you and Kyungsoo sharing this blanket with you on the same mattress and with your hand held tightly within his own, his fingers intertwined now within yours and the heavy weight of his bare knee resting atop of your bare thigh. They were kissing now. He had just walked in on her in the shower and he had shoved her roughly against the marble wall of the fancy hotel room and his hands moved to cup her bare breasts. The camera zoomed in on her nipples and his hands roughly gripped her ass. You stared ahead with your teeth biting down hard on your own lips when you felt the loosening of Kyungsoo’s hand as he straightened his posture and cleared his throat, and unwound your fingers from his fingers, your hand from his hand, he unceremoniously dropped you entirely and pulled his own hands together securely onto his own lap.

You felt oddly slighted but the scene had been too close to your first kiss with him for either of you to withstand.

The pair on the screen were fucking on a bed now. Seeing the quick progression of the love scene made you slightly thankful that he had let go of your hand when he did, even if you did feel a strange twinge in your throat for having been dropped like a hot potato by the man, his timing was spot on.

The second movie had finished. This was a trilogy and you’d all been watching this for hours now. You felt the need to get up and move your body some as a few of the others had done throughout the film.

You’d managed to untangle yourself from the blanket. Kyungsoo didn’t move when you left. He had taken on a more relaxed posture on the blankets and only the very slight reflection of the screen on his eyes gave you any indication that he was awake. But now when you looked at him, you no longer saw the reflection. His eyes seemed to be closed. You’d woken him up so early this morning; already it felt like ages ago.

In the back of this big room you caught sigh of Sara who had been pacing with an odd posture. You noticed she hadn’t laid down much on the mattresses during the films and she had opted for sitting up in a chair. She’d mentioned with a smile that if she got all the way down there she might not be able to get back up. Still, she was no longer seated but just doing slow and careful walking exercises here in the far back wall.

She caught your motion to join her and her shoulders straightened out as she greeted you with a smile. You noticed her hand fell down from where she had been touching her belly. Her smile was so bright that you figured she had just been absentmindedly touching her baby rather than feeling any sorts of discomfort.

“Are you here to join me in my walks?” She reached for you and linked elbows with you the moment you were within touching distance and you giggled beside this sweet woman and fell into step beside her.

You both took several slow and steady steps in a big lazy circle around the large open space. After a few moments of walking she squeezed a hand around your forearm and giggled into your ear beside you. “Has he kissed you yet?”

Always straight and to the point. You looked into her face with wide eyes and you could feel the heat filling your cheeks with the answer basically broadcasted with your reaction and her smiled widened further with the quiet little yelp of excitement that erupted from her chest.

“But he didn’t mean it,” you said in a whisper. She was still smiling and she nodded her head up and down, “Sara, he was just drunk.” She was giggling with her hand covering her mouth to keep her volume down.

“Oh psshh…” she waved a dismissive hand. “They never mean it,” she whispered, “until they do,” she added with a slow rub over her belly and a wild giggle and you gasped scandalously and tapped her arm to get her to cut that out. Your wordless denials had absolutely no effect on her. She had long ago left reality and now resided deep in la-la land.

“I am so serious,” she whispered with her head dipped down beside your face, “you don’t see the way he looks at you — no, the way he stares at you. If I didn’t know for the fact that he was terribly, hopelessly,” she inhaled and leaned into the dramatics with a suggestive whispered groan, “desperately in love with you, I’d think he was trying to set you on fire with his eyes.”

She lifted her head and touched the tip of her index finger to her chin, “actually I think it might be that too. He wants you to burn for him the way he burns for you. Gahhhhhh—” she was squealing again. You had to shush her to remind her to keep her voice down. Strangely she quit squealing quite abruptly and her hand was touching over her belly again with the smallest gasp.

This couldn’t have been a coincidence, you’d seen her touching her belly many times at this point with a sort of pensive look in her eyes.

“Sara, are you okay? What’s happening?”

Her mouth was shaped into an o and she exhaled slowly through her mouth.

“Just, normal aches and pains involved with growing a person inside of your body. It’ll pass,” she was assuring you of this but you couldn’t help but notice the light sheen of sweat that covered her forehead.

“Come sit down,” you pulled lightly on her arm, urging her to relax now but she pulled you back.

“The walking helps,” she said with her eyebrows furrowed together and her slow and steady exhale leaving her chest in a purposeful rhythm.

You felt a surge of worry with the realization that you had been watching her walking in slow and steady circles for the better part of three hours now. The walking helps, helps with what? Was she in labor?

“How long are the pauses in between?”

“It was — hours but they’re getting closer. It’s probably nothing,” her smile was back. She’d straightened out her shoulders and shrugged lightly, as if having a baby right now in the wake of a strong hurricane while not in a hospital was no big deal at all.

“We have to tell someone,” you said, moving through the large space of this industrial kitchen until you reached the space where the movie was playing. You found a sleeping Javier and a groggy Mr. Chen who noticed your movement. You kneeled down and whispered into his ear. He caught the important words, namely ‘Sara’ and ‘baby,’ and he was standing up instantly, tapping Javier roughly on the arm who woke up with a start.

“Javier, get up. Your wife is in labor. I have to call her sister. Oh my god, I’m going to be an uncle.”

Wife? Javier and Sara are married to each other? Uncle? Were all of these people part of the same family? The words came at shock to you and their quick movement woke Kyungsoo who sat up and rubbed his eyes.

The movie was turned off. There was a flurry of activity and movement and Mr. Chen and Javier were arguing with an impossibly stubborn pregnant woman who was so clearly in labor that she had to pause every ten minutes for breathing exercises before she would continue with her denials.

“I just don’t want to miss them,” she whined with a deep frown on her face and she motioned toward where you and Kyungsoo stood, “they got so close, it almost happened. And you’re telling me I can’t just cross my legs and go later? I think I can hold it.”

Sara was crying. She was irrationally invested in You and Kyungsoo’s story and she was in pain.

You assured her that there was nothing important here that she was going to miss and she needed to go with Mr. Chen and Javier now. She needed to go meet her new baby. They were headed to the hospital. Mr. Chen assured us that he was an expert at navigating the treacherous weather worn and flooded roads of this island and he would deliver her there safely. He even promised to return tomorrow as soon as he was able to and Kyungsoo got everyone’s phone number so they could send updates.

The big heavy door to the front of the building closed shut tight with a heavy bang and you found yourself standing in absolute silence opposite an equally quiet Kyungsoo. For the first time since you’d met him you were really completely and undeniably alone with the man who — against every single desperate and gasping breath and scream as evidence of your stubborn denial — alone with the man who you were in love with.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

[aruanimess]

all this talk about hobbies got me thinking... what if Reiner tries to get Armin into chess post-Rumbling in an ill-advised attempt to recreate what he had with Bertolt?

I bet it doesn't work either, and not just because nothing can bring a dead person back. Maybe Armin isn't into it, or, well, he is but not as much (that's the real pickle). He'll play with Reiner to bond with his girlfriend's friend/co-Warrior/proxy-brother, but he's more into checkers himself (or even something with an element of luck like backgammon). So he'll indulge Reiner, but his heart isn't into it.

Reiner is not stupid, he can tell. He feels a little condescended to, but he doesn't want to stop either, doesn't want to cut off even this flimsy, mostly self-deluded connection to Bertolt he feels when he plays with Armin. Especially, the thrill he gets when Annie walks in, takes one look at the chessboard and walks back out, just like she was doing when he and Bert were playing in the barracks, and before that in the camps (with the cracked, faded set they had rescued from the trash, with half the pieces replaced by leaves and nuts and pebbles), and before that in Marley. It makes him feel alive again, even if it's for a moment.

The worst bit, the absolute nightmare of a moment, comes when he shares a story with Armin. He's in the middle of explaining some elaborate strategy to him and he starts relating a tale of one of his and Bertolt's games. He tells Armin of how Bertolt tricked him into overcommitting and then turned the tables on him, taking him completely by surprise and winning the game in one fell swoop, and Armin laughs, then smiles and then says: "Oh, I think I remember that."

They don't play again after that.

A few days later, Jean walks into his room, carrying a chessboard underarm.

"I can't believe you asked Armin to play with you, when I'm clearly the superior choice," he says as he sits down.

They set the board.

[squidsinashirt]

The rules of backgammon, as it happened, were easier to remember than Gordon had recalled.

It had been years since his grandfather had sat on the dock with him as a young boy, the red and black pieces each smooth under his small fingers. The Kansas summer sun warm, two fishing lines set alongside them, packed sandwiches since abandoned in favour of competition and the older man’s cheery whistle.

Maybe that was why Gordon had chosen a bright yellow sweater for the occasion. A pair of jeans and low sneakers rounding off what was a more casual outfit than when he usually sat in a Thunderbird. He wasn’t here as International Rescue today though - his foot caught the heavy rucksack on the floor next to him as if in reminder.

The same wooden board safely tucked at the top of his bag, rattling softly with each movement of the ship.

Why was he here?

He’d held out the olive branch - that meant it was the right thing to do. That instinctive offer, that gut squid sense impulse, meant it was the right thing to do, even if last minute nerves were beginning to creep.

You don’t need to do this, Gordon.

I think I do though, Pen. For me, as much as for him.

Please just be careful.

He’d known what that comm had meant. Because while there was little that could feasibly happen surrounded by GDF and in their facility, that didn’t mean the ripples of their meeting wouldn’t find other shores. Didn’t mean it couldn’t feed, instead of subdue, the twisted shadows that gave chase in the depths of his nightmares. Ending predictably, each night they occurred, with Gordon trembling, terrified, until one hand or another found him and brought him back to the now-

Now, where the other side of that day sat in a prison cell, alone. Separated from his only family. Trying to do better. Repenting and repaying his debt.

If Fu- no, Clarence could do that, then Gordon could sit across a table from him and repeat what he had said in the message. Apologise for what he’d attributed, in sheer arrogance, to a man who couldn’t defend himself.

Forgive a man who was, by all accounts, scarred by the very same day he was, and he had meant what he had said - neither of them deserved those momentos.

Maybe facing the very real face of his nightmares would do nothing for stopping their torment for him- but maybe Clarence deserved that chance too.

What was that Jeff Tracy favourite saying? Sometimes the right thing isn’t the easiest thing?Face your fear, and it lifts it’s mask?

Old man had definitely borrowed that from somewhere.

Gordon had kept the meeting a secret from everyone else until it could no longer be - Penny once he’d needed to ask the favour with Casey, John once his brother had too many questions about his comms - and then somebody needed to give him a ride to the meeting.

Hence the dark head of hair in the pilot’s seat ahead of him, who had been less than happy with Gordon’s initial lack of reasonable explanation, but had agreed on the singular condition that it was him in the cockpit. It was an agreement seemingly based on the elder’s ability to trust his little brother’s judgment - or at least, he hoped so.

So far, Gordon had managed to avoid any questions by choosing a pensive silence, genuinely in thought for the start of the flight. Now though, the silence outside of the engine hum was oppressive. The fact that his brother was going at barely half speed said he felt so too.

“Thanks for bringing me, Scott… creeps me out, all this GDF secrecy. I don’t trust them with the things we do know about, never mind all this black ops style justice, y’know?”

[ooc: @scramjettracy]

[illmoure]

ace-point game - aizen/gin

got excited to do this drabble for today's prompt "tell it your way" @bleachsmutfest

"Getting that piece of information out of you took decades" and what did that moment finally look like?

aizen & gin, 500 words, sfw

It was unlike Aizen to lose. Exceedingly rare, though overall not impossible, and Gin couldn’t help the juvenile glee that flared up inside him as he watched Aizen realize that Gin now held the upper hand. It’s why Gin enjoyed playing backgammon; employ all the strategy you like, there was still an element of chance, and there was little Aizen could do once Gin rolled double fours and started bearing off.

They played this game often, in the evenings as they waited for the final end-of-day reports to come in from their officers. This, or shoji, playing with the same tiles their former captain had left behind. Sitting on cushions at the low table in the officer’s lounge, mugs of tea and a small dish of candied ginger beside them, the sliding doors open to the garden while they advanced their pieces in comfortable silence.

“Your go,” Gin said, settling back with his dice cup in his hand. The black pair of dice he wielded gave a satisfying rattle in the container and Gin closed his eyes to appreciate it, seemingly assured in his victory. He heard Aizen’s white dice clatter in their cup and land on the felted board and he glanced down to see the result.

“Ah. Lucky break,” he mused, watching Aizen move his checkers along the points. After the third fortuitous roll in a row, two of which were doubles, Gin dared to accuse him of cheating.

“You insult my pride, Gin,” Aizen said, sounding affronted. The look in his eyes said otherwise.

“You ain’t ever been that lucky before.”

Aizen gave him an unguarded smile and touched the hilt of his sword where it sat on the floor beside him. Gin’s jaw dropped exaggeratedly as the dice revealed their true roll: a measly two and a five, which would advance only one more checker into his home board.

“Aizen-taichou,” he teased, “how could you?”

“I want you to know this is the first time I’ve ever taken advantage of my technique in this way,” he said haughtily. Gin’s grin nearly split his cheeks.

“And I saw through it immediately,” he smirked. “Guess your perfect hypnosis ain’t so perfect after all, hmm?”

“Kyoka Suigetsu’s complete hypnosis is perfect,” Aizen declared, and Gin could hear the defensive edge in his voice, rooted in pride. “But I will admit, in its execution… there is one drawback. Which must be expected with such inescapable power.”

“Naturally,” Gin drawled. Enough time and practice had left him able to perfectly mimic an unconcerned air, his voice light and uninterested despite the sudden tension now gripping his spine. This could be it.

“If anyone should touch the blade before the technique is activated, they will be immune to its effects."

“Huh.” Gin’s heart was racing with triumph but his demeanor was as cool as ever, smooth like snake skin as he leaned over the board and grinned, conspiratorial. “Well that’s lucky, then. Cuz ain’t nobody getting that close to you but me.”

(it was not a big dramatic moment. gin could not actively or obviously pry into aizen's strengths and weaknesses. it had to come naturally. he had to harmlessly engage aizen, present him with an opportunity to share on his own terms. they had to be close, and casual, and for once not thinking ahead, to what sort of consequences this sort of intimacy could bring)

[chrystalwynd]

Where Everybody Knows Your Name- Part 1

Words: 2400

mc mf md tentacles

                I turned off the main street and started walking down the alley.

                I was in downtown Chrystal Heights, but this alley could have been anywhere. Different colored neon lights blinked above doorways and on signs jutting above the narrow alley, advertising various businesses and services. The types of businesses and services one uses a neon lit doorway in an otherwise dark alley to enter.

                I found the doorway I was looking for easily enough. I passed through the door and walked into The Electric Raven.

Inside was somewhat better lit, but only slightly. Track lighting made some areas fairly bright, but there were a host of darkened corners and nooks where one could sit relatively unobserved. If one wished, of course. Tables of different sizes were placed haphazardly, with no particular order to them. Old couches sat here and there, along with the occasional loveseat. Quotes, graphics and artistic images covered the walls. In one corner was a small slightly raised deck with a single dim spotlight shining on a microphone stand with a stool next to it.

                I paused for a moment. The Electric Raven was more environment than bar. It was smoky heat and neon mystery. Where the quiet and dangerous shared drinks with the casually intense. Where the lost and malevolent played darts with the virtuous and forbidden. A door between the known and unknown. A fun place to drink, but only if you knew the score.

                I glanced around. It was a typical night at The Electric Raven, if such a thing existed. A group of Hell’s Choir bikers were gathered around a table, singing show-tunes in Latin. A 19th-century British safari hunter played backgammon with a dwarf wearing a ballerina outfit. An eight-foot tall man wearing a loincloth and covered with tattoos debated Nietzsche with an unspeakably beautiful succubus, her pointed tail punctuating her assertions. A female ninja, barely visible in the smoky shadows, shared laughs and hair tips with a bearded transvestite. A live marionette twirled about the dance floor, her unseen strings manipulated by unseen hands, as she danced to the music from a mime’s air-guitar performance.

                Everyone was welcome at The Electric Raven and questions weren’t asked.

                So it was a quiet night. I strolled by the bar and nodded to the bartender. “Evening, Craig.”

                Craig was polishing an already-clean glass. He nodded back. “Elliot. ‘Ow’s tricks, mate?”

                I tossed a pretzel to the gremlin next to the cash register. His name was Dexter. Then I gave Craig a non-committal thumbs up and headed toward my favorite corner.

                The mime left the stage, replaced by an intense-looking man who didn’t blink enough. The man stepped up to the microphone and paused. Then he started speaking:

                “The power to change;

                the strength to not change.

                They are the Originals.

                The battle between Good and Evil continues;

                light and dark conflict.

                The teachers teach, but who watches the watchers?

                They are the Originals.”

                The man turned and exited the stage without waiting for the smattering of applause his poem had generated. The low buzz of conversation resumed.

I continued making my way toward my table. As I got there, however, I was stopped.

                She was dressed in tight clothing, her lush curves packaged perfectly, with all the right parts on display. From her blue-dyed hair to her manicured bare red toes, she was pure heat. She gave me a smile that offered all kinds of promises.

                “Hi,” she said, her fingers playing with my shirt. “My name is Kiki.”

                “Hi, Kiki,” I said, feeling the heat racing to my already thickening cock. “What can I do for you?”

                “I just wanted to say hi,” she said, pressing closer to me, letting me smell her delightful perfume. “Maybe we could get to know each other a little, you know?”

                I nodded, offering a foolish smile. “That sounds great.”

                “Oh, yes,” she said, her bare belly close to mine. “Maybe we could even have some fun.”

                I smiled. She was good. My dick was ready to burst out of my pants. But she was too inexperienced to close the deal this time. Particularly against someone like me.

                “That’s a wonderful idea,” I said. “Fun is good. So let’s have some fun.”

                And then I turned her power against her.

                Kiki’s eyes widened and her cheeks suddenly flushed. Her lips parted slightly, then closed. Her nipples were hard, thick erasers pressing out against the stretchy tightness of her top. She placed her palms on my chest, then slowly dropped to her knees in front of me.

                Her face was inches from my bulging zipper. I smiled as the heat-bunny struggled internally between rational thought and overwhelming physical need.

                Physical need won out, as I knew it would. Red nails found my zipper, pulled it down, allowing my rigid cock to spring free, nearly slapping Kiki in the face. Unable to help herself, she slid her warm, wet mouth over my cock.

                I smiled, enjoying the wave of pleasure generated by Kiki’s firmly-wrapped lips stroking over my dick. No doubt the patrons of [i]The Electric Raven[/i] were enjoying the show and Kiki was dying of embarrassment, but Kiki couldn’t have stopped working my cock any more than she could have grown a second head. All she could do was see it through to the end.

                This being Chrystal Heights, people are occasionally born with some random abilities. These abilities can take different forms. Sometimes that form is the ability to amplify someone else’s arousal to extreme levels. In males, it’s often found in Alphas and will usually result in any number of swelled bellies in their wakes. In females, it’s pretty much an amplification of a female’s natural ability.

                Of course, some women try to use it as Kiki did. Give a man a rock-hard dick, promise him pure bliss and get him in private. The man’s so revved up by the time the woman actually touches him, he absolutely explodes and then passes out from the amplified intensity. The woman then helps herself to the contents of his wallet and makes her way home. It works on women as well, but men tend to be easier and far more predictable marks. These women are usually referred to as heat-bunnies and are typically found in alleys or bars like The Electric Raven.

                It’s an easy way to make quick money and it’s not even illegal. Just another social peril to be aware of in Chrystal Heights. But as Kiki was learning, it was only fun until you run into somebody who can turn it around on you.

                Blue hair bobbing, Kiki’s mouth continued stroking over my shaft. She wasn’t bad, just inexperienced. To be fair, of course, it was unlikely she ever had to go this far with any of her marks. With her ability to raise a man’s arousal to maximum levels, a stroke or two with her hand would be enough to leave her mark snoring. It was even possible she was giving her first blowjob ever.

                By using her power on me, she had given me the ability to use it on her. Being a power mirror, with the ability to reflect one’s power back at them, made it easy. And now I decided to turn her arousal all the way to maximum as I filled her mouth with my semen.

                She moaned around my cock, making me explode harder and longer. Her throat worked as she helplessly swallowed my seed, my throbbing dick not giving her a moment to catch her breath. Her orgasms would likely have been shrill had my cock not been in her mouth.

                After what had to be endless moments for Kiki, my ejaculation finally slowed, then stopped. Whimpering, Kiki swallowed the last of my thick semen and finally slid her mouth off my cock. Still on her knees, she looked up at me with wide eyes, a hand on her full belly, breathing through her mouth.

                Everyone in the immediate area applauded her efforts. Cheeks flaming, the heat-bunny leaped to her feet and fled.

                I chuckled and sat down. Kiki had put me in a better mood.

                “That was disgusting,” said a voice. “She should have beat your ass.”

                I chuckled and said, “Hello, Tempest.”

                Tempest was a five-and-a-half foot tall bundle of anger and bad intentions. She was dressed head-to-toe in black leather, denim and spikes, complete with black boots. Her arms were covered with sharp-lined tattoos and beaded bracelets that contained any number of hexes and protection spells, complementing the daggers strapped to her waist. Even her haircut was angry. What little hair she had, anyway, as her head was shaved almost completely smooth except for a two-inch wide strip of hair running from her forehead to the back of her head. All-in-all, she projected quite the intimidating picture.

                She was also the waitress.

                “Fuck you, Elliot,” she said. “I’m still not talking to you. What the hell do you want?”

                I grinned. “You’re not still mad about that poker game, are you?”

                Tempest glared at me. “You got me wasted on fucking Stoneberry Wine!”

                I gave her an innocent look. “I thought you liked wine.”

                “You know damn well Stoneberry Wine isn’t actually wine, dickhead! It’s fucking radioactive moonshine made to taste like wine! I couldn’t fucking walk for two days!”

                “It actually made you likeable, Tempest,” I said. “Almost…adorable, you know? Especially afterward, when we-“

                Tempest drew a dagger and pressed the point against my throat in the same movement. “Shut the fuck up, dickhead! Nobody knows about that, all right? Nobody! And it fucking stays that way or I stick this dagger right up your-“

                Craig’s voice suddenly said, “Tempest!”

                Tempest glared at Craig for a moment, then exhaled and sheathed her dagger. “Fine. What do you want?”

                It seemed imprudent to make any more references to anything non-drink related. “Let me have a shot of Diamond Cutter.”

                Tempest nodded, then turned and stalked away. I admired the way her hips moved, but I knew enough to keep my observations to myself.

*****

                A few minutes later, I was enjoying my drink in relative quiet. I entertained myself by listening to three men discuss their upcoming trip to San Francisco on their search for some artifact lost or hidden there in the ‘40s. Not that that was unusual. Chrystal Heights was a common stop for those looking to buy or sell objects of power.

                Then the lights dimmed and smoke began swirling around an unoccupied table in the middle of the floor. Still swirling, the smoke thickened, then thinned out and misted away. The lights regained their earlier intensity. Such as it was.

                Left in the remnants of the smoke were two figures sitting at the table. Both were robed and hooded, one in black, the other in red. Between them sat what appeared to be an ancient chess board. The various pieces were intricately carved and spread about the board, as if in mid-game.

                The figure in the black robes glanced around. No face could be seen in the darkness under the hood. The figure in black then nodded and a voice sounded from inside the hood. “Well chosen, old friend.”

                The red-robed figure gave a nod of acknowledgement. “Thank you,” he said. His voice, like the other, was low, but vibrant with power and knowledge, and it carried to all corners of The Electric Raven. “We are agreed then?”

                The black-robed figure said, “Agreed.”

                As the sound of the black-robed figure’s voice faded, a single red square appeared on the floor next to their table. The square expanded, growing larger, and then and other squares appeared, expanding from the original square. As the squares expanded, any chairs or tables in the way were simply moved by whatever unseen force was creating the checkered floor.

                Soon a ten-foot by ten-foot chess board occupied the space next to the table, the squares alternating red and black. Both robed figures nodded their satisfaction.

                “The battlefield is set,” said the figure in red. “Your move, old friend.”

                At any other establishment, this would be considered extraordinary. But here at [i]The Electric Raven[/i], it was merely unusual.

                The black-robed figure was silent for a moment. Then he moved a piece on the board and said, “Black knight attacks red rook.”

                A swirl of smoke appeared on the black figure’s side of the chessboard. Then the smoke cleared, revealing a cute cheerleader with a sweet smile and evil eyes. There was a horse-head on the front of her sweater and the words “Go Knights!” embroidered on the back.

                I glanced around. I recognized the cheerleader as one of a pair that had been discussing Emily Dickenson over shots of Jagermeister with a pair of nuns.

                There was another swirl of smoke on the opposite side of the board. When the smoke cleared, a young woman stood in a paint-smeared smock, an easel standing in front of her.

                “An art mage,” murmured the black-robed figure. “An interesting move, old friend.”

                “I find your choice to be just as fascinating,” said the red-robed figure. “Shall we begin?”

                “Indeed.”

                And then the battle began.

                The cheerleader leaped forward and launched into a complicated series of backflips and summersaults. She seemed to be moving in all directions at once. Then she suddenly shot forward directly toward the art mage.

                The young woman had not been idle, however. Her paintbrush had been flying around the canvas at an incredible speed. The art mage suddenly stopped painting and reached out to touch the canvas. She made a single motion across the canvas just as the cheerleader’s attack arrived.

                The cheerleader leaped forward, the blade of her foot extended. It struck a trampoline that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. The force of her attack caused her to rebound high in the air. She landed on the ground with a loud thud.

                “She very nearly landed out of bounds,” said red robes.

                “Nearly is not the same as did,” said black robes.

                The art mage began working again on the now-blank canvas and the trampoline immediately faded away. The cheerleader struggled back to her feet. Then the art mage swiped across the canvas again.

                Immediately a battery of missiles appeared on either side of the art mage. One-by-one, they began launching, directed at the cheerleader.

[CONCLUDED IN PART 2]

[strictlyfavorites]

Chess Grandmaster Anna Muzychuk refuses to play in Saudi Arabia and says: "In a few days, I will lose two world titles, back to back." Because I decided not to go to Saudi Arabia. I refuse to play by special rules, to wear abaya, to be accompanied by a man so I can leave the hotel, so I don't feel like a second class person. "I will follow my principles and not compete in the World Fast Chess and Blitz Championship where in just 5 days I could have won more money than dozens of other tournaments combined." This is all very nasty but the sad part is no one seems to care. Bitter feelings but can't go back. " —Anna Muzychuk

Jacob Lawrence, Pool Parlor, 1942.

Paul Newman Robert Redford Ping Pong in Mexico While Filming Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

CASINO ROYALE | Poker Game – Daniel Craig, Mads Mikkelsen | James Bond

CLARK GABLE and CLAUDETTE COLBERT play backgammon during a break in the fliming of It Happened One Night 1934

Men's Singles Table Tennis Final 🏓 | Paris Champions

Strip Poker Full by Jeremy Worst

tina-turner-backgammon-magazine-1979

Bob Dylan playing chess in Paris, 1964.

Bob Dylan - Hurricane (Live on PBS, 1975) [RARE ORIGINAL AUDIO]

bruce lee ping pong2

Hugh-Hefner-and-Alice-Cooper-Backgammon 1970s

ALICE COOPER - School's Out (1972 UK TV Top Of The Pops Performance) ~ HIGH QUALITY HQ ~

[wei-smiler]

Efforts to complete Shiro's setting 👍🏻

Shiro carries the scent of rotten oranges with her, and this scent changes based on her emotional fluctuations, becoming stronger as her emotions intensify. When she's on the hunt, her scent often becomes a fatal weakness that exposes her location because she easily gets excited when nearing prey. You can gauge your distance from her based on this. However, sometimes she can use her scent to disturb her opponent's psyche, hiding in airtight places waiting for her prey to discover her. When the prey finally finds her, the scent of rotten oranges overwhelms the senses, making it hard to keep one's eyes open.

However, she's very sensitive about the fact that she emits a scent, so it's best not to pinch your nose or fan the air in her presence, as this can easily anger her.

Shiro is not an invincible war god; she can be suppressed by the blood of maidens. Any contact with blood causes a burning sensation for her. Dripping blood into her third eye can momentarily blind her.

Furthermore, it's reiterated that Shiro has the ability to assimilate desperate individuals into the Devour Khan (This is her Khan's name):

(During the 60 years of her rampage in Japan, a village chief, in order to resist her invasion, injured dozens of girls against their will, smearing their blood outside the village wall. Although they resisted Shiro's attack, the chief, who had lost the support of the villagers, was driven into the deep mountains by the enraged villagers and soon fell into despair. He was quickly assimilated by Shiro, who was lurking there, and joined the Devour Khan)

During times when Shiro is not so obsessed with dark forces, she likes to use her identity as a witch to fortune-tell her luck, often going to formal shrines to draw lots. If she doesn't get the result she wants, she'll discard the drawn lot and continue until she gets a satisfactory result. She also uses her "fortunes" to gamble, including but not limited to: card games, backgammon, pai gow, horse racing, and mahjong. Among them, mahjong is her favorite, but she's quite temperamental and either resorts to cheating or ends up overturning the table by the end. So whenever she persuades the generals to play mahjong with her, they usually respond indifferently 👍🏻

[saxandviolins77]

what r your constructions fav board games

Oooooh, interesting question. I've pondered this myself for quite some time.

Board games on Cybertron:

Board games are very rare, being reserved for those who can commission someone to make it for them, naturally, they are a pastime only possible to be enjoyed by elites.

Board games on Cybertron are also very rudimentary (when compared to Earth ones). They stem from leftover Quintessonian culture or other alien cultures. Some of the board games that exist would be: Something similar to Earth chess, something similar to checkers, Backgammon, and Go.

Scrapper, being a rich boy, really enjoyed himself some board games. His favorite being chess, which he made sure to carry a set in his subspace in case of extreme boredom (which he faces constantly) and company.

And with that, he managed to teach all the Constructicons chess (some against their will lmao), though Hook was the only one who regularly "challenged" him to a game of chess (politely asking to play with him.)

Other games the Constructicons liked to play together that are not board games: Poker, Blackjack, and Dominoes (ooh, give them a pint and they can play all night.)

On Earth:

Note that the last category is before they became gestalt.

After they became gestalt they kinda stopped, because it's much harder to play strategy-based games when the barriers between your thoughts are out in the open at all times for your teammates to see.

Well, coming to Earth I guess they took a liking to luck-based games such as Monopoly (the fact that it isn't PURELY luck-based makes it more appealing to them).

(Hook and Scrapper still enjoy playing Backgammon, to disastrous results.)

Other non-board games they enjoy: Jenga (duh!), Poker dice, and I do think they'd play a mad foosball if they had Cybertronian-sized tables.

[chilling-seavey]

George teaching your daughter how to play backgammon and saying she learned better than her brother

LOVE IT. For those who haven't read the blurb this is referring to, you can read it here

George stared down dumbly at the backgammon board sitting on the small patio table in front of him. Eyes wide in disbelief, he tried to wrap his mind around what he was looking at. The meticulously placed red chips still lined up in his home board...the white chips all piled outside of the set and on the table top.

Ever the learner and momentarily confused by his sudden silence, his four-year-old daughter blinked up at him from the other side of the table in the back garden, "Now what?"

"Now...nothing," George stammered out, "You...won."

"Oh," she grinned and looked down at the board too, "Yippee! That was easy."

Just then, you brought them some lemonade, setting the glasses down on the table, "How's it going?"

"I won, Mommy!" your daughter announced proudly.

Your eyebrows raised, "You won?"

You glanced at George who looked absolutely beside himself in confusion.

Sensing your unspoken questions, he explained dully, "I was teaching her for the first little bit and then...she just got the hang of it."

Your daughter shifted on the patio chair to rest on her knees and lean over the board again, already starting to put the pieces back in their starting positions, "Can we play again, Daddy? I like winning."

You snorted and set a hand on George's shoulder, "Oh, she sounds like you."

George, who also liked winning, bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted to be was a sore loser in front of his four-year-old. Instead, he reached out to pinch your hip in silent retaliation for your sass and you yelped quietly and swatted his arm.

George then leaned forward to help the little girl set up the board again, explaining as he did so, "You know, jellybean, your brother didn't learn as quickly as you have. You've given me a real challenge here."

"Really?" she glanced at him in surprise, like backgammon was the easiest thing known to mankind.

You spoke up with a matter-of-fact, "Even I have never beaten Daddy so you must be very talented."

Her little mouth dropped open and she looked back at her father for confirmation. A proud little smirk at your statement of the truth came to his lips and he nodded.

"Wow, I'm better than Daddy and Mommy!" she squealed.

"Hey, now," George defended lightly, "I've had this board for enough time to make up five of your lifetimes. Don't think your one stroke of beginner's luck means you're reigning champion."

His just-as-competitive daughter narrowed her eyes at him as if challenging him right then and there. He stared back just as firmly into the eyes that were carbon copies of his own, steepling his fingers as he waited for her to make the first roll.

As she lunged forward to grab the dice, you swatted his arm to get his attention and leaned down to remind him lightly against his ear, "She's four. Don't be too competitive with her."

With an almost maniacal laugh, pleased with her roll, the little girl announced loudly, "Ha ha! Sucker!"

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