#could be possibly triggering so heed my warnings

[verdantwyrm]

Managed to get a clip of Curly's screaming when you cut his leg off, because I wanted to. Warning for.. screaming, of course. I wanted to see If I could try and pinpoint his voice a bit, since Wrongorgan said in a Q.A That he was going to be british, and that you could probably still hear some of it. I wanted to study this, and I'm going to be studying every little thing about this game from now on it seems.

Its very hard to hear a lot of the noise Curly makes due to his condition or the game purposefully submerging it in other noises.Anyways, you can faintly hear him sobbing, and the more I listened to it the more i think about how difficult it would have been for him to make any noise at all, and yet all he could do was cry and scream, there were no words, only guttural noises. I'm going to think about this for a long time.

[mari-positas]

someone to be thankful for

DBF! Joel Miller x Female Reader

summary: It’s Thanksgiving—when dinner with your nightmare of a family goes south, you find comfort in the person you least expect it from: your father’s best friend, Joel Miller.

warnings/tags: 18+ only, MINORS DNI. (AU, NO OUTBREAK) non canon, DBF! Joel, AGE GAP (reader is in her 20’s, i do not specify her age, but she’s a recent college grad so do with that what you will, not everyone graduates at the same specific age ya know? Joel is in his mid-ish 50’s). Reader’s a teacher, she is visiting her suburban childhood home from a big city. Reader’s parents are religious and practice traditional-ish gender norms (i.e father is head of the household kinda thing) reader’s family celebrates Thanksgiving (sorry) several mentions of food and alcohol, reader’s parents suck, she has two brothers who come with names, a lot of her relatives come with names, watch out for Aunt Ines she’s a bitch. (TW) body/weight shaming (twice) PLEASE BE MINDFUL if this could be triggering. mentions of and implications of childhood abuse (not graphic) reader’s dad gets in her face, implied infidelity (reader’s dad), implied toxic marriage (reader’s parents). soft, caring, protective Joel. Joel’s recently divorced, mention of Sarah, mentions of the ex-wife. SMUT. oral sex (female receiving) p in v sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it) reader states she’s on baby blockers (birth control), creampie, DADDY KINK (bc reader clearly has a few daddy issues), LOTS of pet names (darlin’, baby, pretty girl, sweetheart, honey), size kink (ish?), cockwarming. think i got it all?

PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS. if this isn’t your thing, that is fine but just keep on scrolling.

MOODBOARD FOR AESTHETIC PURPOSES ONLY, READER HAS NO PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION.

word count: 11.5k

a/n: yeah…idk. this was very delayed because it turned into a whole thing. if anyone actually reads all 11k of this, i will bake you muffins.

You take a deep breath and look in the mirror.

Skirt pressed, not a wrinkle in sight.

Hair brushed, not a single strand out of place.

Makeup done, not a blemish to be seen.

And somehow, someone will still find something.

Something to point out.

Something to comment on.

Something to criticize.

If not your appearance, it’ll be something else.

Because someone always had something to say.

“Should you be eating all of that?”

“Another year gone and still no boyfriend?”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

“When I was in my twenties, I had two children.”

Boundaries didn’t exist on Thanksgiving.

Actually, for your family, boundaries didn’t exist at all—somehow, they are still scratching their heads and wondering why you’d decided to up and leave the minute your high school principal handed over that diploma, your ticket to freedom.

“Sweetie!” Your mother’s shrill voice calls from the kitchen downstairs. “I need a hand! Our guests are going to start arriving soon and there is still plenty left for us to do before they get here!”

You groan outwardly.

There’s still plenty left to do?

How’s that even fucking possible?

You’ve been cooking and baking since sunrise.

“Don’t you think it’s too early?” you’d grumbled at five o’ clock in the morning when your mother had pulled you out of bed, declaring it was time for the big dinner preparations to begin—even though it’d be several hours before your family came over and gathered around the table to break bread. She had pulled the turkey out of the freezer a few days ago, a massive, thirty-pound whole bird that looked big enough to feed a small village. In addition, she had picked up a ham and a brisket. “Mom, why’s there so much food?” Rubbing the sleep from your eyes with the sleeve of your robe, you’d started making your way over to the Nespresso only to realize that the coffee machine was hidden behind paper bags full of groceries. “Are we cooking for all of Texas or something?”

“Very funny,” she had glared at you. “Of course we aren’t.” She started unwrapping the turkey. “We’re simply making sure we have enough food and that we have different options for everyone to enjoy, so knock it off with the wisecracks and get to peeling those carrots for me for the stuffing. There is not a single minute to waste today, you hear me, missy? We’re hosting a dozen people, so everything must be absolutely perfect. I won’t accept anything less than perfection today, do you understand me?”

Thirteen hours later, she’s still driving you insane.

You’re only home visiting until the end of the week and then it’s back to the Midwest. You can survive her for three more days, right?

You hear her calling your name and exhale a small, frustrated sigh. “I’m coming, mom!” you call back. It’s difficult to mask the annoyance in your tone of voice, but somehow you manage it. “One minute!”

Smoothing down your pleated plaid skirt, you take one last look in the mirror to make sure everything is in order—there is a loose thread on the sleeve of your brown, knitted sweater and you carefully snip it off with a pair of scissors before sliding your feet into the comfiest pair of ankle boots you’d packed and head downstairs, nose leading the way as you follow the warm, delicious scent of the made from scratch biscuits and rolls baking in the oven.

You find your mother standing at the center island counter garnishing a charcuterie board with sweet gherkins and sprigs of fresh herbs. She’s donning a festive apron embroidered with fall leaves over her designer dress, and her hair’s still up in rollers. “Finally, there you are,” she huffs out loudly the second she hears you walk into the kitchen. Down the hallway, your father and two younger brothers are shouting at some football game on the flat screen television in the living room—men don’t lift a single finger on this day, at least not in this household. “I need you to start setting the table for me. I have place cards in that bag over there. Make sure your dad’s at the head of the table. Oh and don’t forget to bring out the children’s table for all your little cousins—” She glances up, letting out a small gasp when she sees you. “What in the world are you wearing?”

Frowning, you look down at yourself. “Clothes?”

Her ruby red lips purse together in a tight thin line.

“Honey, that skirt is too short. It’s inappropriate.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes at her. “It’s like an inch above the knee, how is that inappropriate? It’s not like it’s a miniskirt, mom.” As she eyes your skirt with disapproval, you decide you’re not in the mood to argue and say, “Okay, fine. I’ll go upstairs and change into something else then—”

“No, no, forget it,” she shakes her head. “We don’t have the time for that.” Your mother whirls around, picking up the bag of place holders—she’d special ordered little turkeys carved out of wood. She also takes a marker and a notepad, shoving everything into your hands. “Here. I wrote down all the names of everyone who’s coming for dinner. The children get place holders too but make sure the little ones are sitting beside someone older to help them. Oh! Did I already mention putting your dad at the head of the—”

Tuning her out, your eyes scan down the guest list and if there’s one thing to be thankful for today it’s the fact that your mother’s given you the power to seat everybody wherever you want. Halfway down the list, you see the names of several relatives that you don’t want anywhere near you at the table. An Aunt Miriam who smells like the inside of a casino; a cousin Jennifer who refuses to acknowledge her forty-eight month old is actually four years old; an uncle Richard who always has one too many beers and winds up spewing antigovernment conspiracy theories, ranting until he’s passed out somewhere, such as on the floor of the guest bathroom.

You get to the bottom of the list and can’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. “Joel Miller?”

She nods, returning to her board.

“You remember Mr. Miller, don’t you, sweetie? He and your father went to college together—he’s one of his oldest and dearest friends. Don’t tell me you forgot about him? You’ve met him plenty of ti—”

“Yeah, I remember who Joel is, mom,” you mutter, cutting her off. “Didn’t he and the family move out to Arizona like, four years ago? To Phoenix, right?” You’d been away for college then. Taking a second glance at the list, you notice she had forgotten the names of Joel’s wife and daughter. Surely, it’d just been a mistake on her part, though. “I had no idea they were in town visiting. Dad didn’t mention it to me at all.”

“They’re not.” She lowers her voice, as if someone else is standing in the room listening. “Joel moved back to Austin, he’s been back for a few days now. He and Connie, they um—” Pausing for a moment, she reaches up and clasps the cross hanging from her neck before whispering, “They got divorced.”

Taken aback, your mouth parts slightly. “What?”

“I know. Joel and Connie were the last people that I ever thought would get divorced. Such a shame,” your mother remarks, shaking her head. “I ran into Mrs. Adler at the super market and she was telling me all about it. Thinks they could have saved their marriage if only those two—”

“Would get right with Jesus,” you finish, biting the tiny smirk tugging at the corners of your lips. “She says that about everything, mom.”

“Well, she isn’t wrong! The sacrament of marriage is a lifelong bond that shouldn’t be broken. It’s not right.” Dropping her hand away from her necklace, she crosses her arms over chest. “Anyway, Connie stayed in Phoenix. Sarah’s spending Thanksgiving with her. Your father didn’t want Joel spending the holiday alone and invited him over for dinner. That means I need you to be on your very best behavior tonight. I don’t want you embarrassing your father in front of his closest friend. Is that understood?”

You can’t help but scoff a little. “I’m not a child.”

She narrows her eyes at you and scoffs right back, planting her hands on her hips.

“No, you’re a smart aleck. Need I remind you what happened last Thanksgiving with Aunt Ines?”

Of course she didn’t have to remind you about last year’s fiasco with her insufferable bitch of a sister.

“That’s an awfully big piece of pumpkin pie,” she’d remarked loudly, eliciting snickers from everybody sitting at the table. “Don’t forget, dear—a moment on the lips, forever on the hips. And you have quite a few forevers on your hips already, darling.”

You had smiled sweetly at her, your fingers itching to fling your mother’s fine china at her. “I wouldn’t really worry about my pie, Aunt Ines,” you had said as soon as you realized that nobody, not even your parents, would be coming to your defense. “Much less when your husband’s stepping out and eating someone else’s pie when he’s away on all those so called business trips. Worry about that instead.”

That comment hadn’t gone over all too well. Three months later, Aunt Ines and Uncle Louis started to see a marriage counselor. Whoops.

“Well?”

“She deserved that,” you say, shrugging lightly.

“She’s family.”

“She’s a jerk.”

“You crossed a line.”

“She crossed it first.”

Before your mother can respond, the sound of the doorbell ringing echoes throughout the house.

“Jesus, we don’t have time for this!” Your mother’s eyes widen when she tries running a hand through her hair and realizes she still has her rollers in. “Oh no, people are arriving and I’m still not ready!” She makes a beeline for the hallway. “Get the door and greet our guests, I’ll be down in five minutes!”

She disappears upstairs into her bedroom and you hear the doorbell ring again. Your father shouts for someone to go answer it, someone other than him or your brothers because it is the end of the fourth quarter and they just can’t possibly miss that.

You make your way through the foyer and open up the front door expecting it to be one of your family members, but it’s not.

Your throat instantly goes dry at the sight of him.

He’s broader than you remeber, so much broader.

The fabric of his sage green dress shirt is nice and snug on his frame—stretched taut over the planes of his chest and his wide shoulders. He’s holding a box of store bought something or other but you’re much too preoccupied with the way the sleeves of his shirt are hugging his biceps to notice what it is although you assume it’s some kind of dessert. He looks far more delicious than whatever sweet treat could be in that white box he’s got in his hands.

After a minute, you realize you’ve been gawking at him and the heat rushes to your cheeks. “Hello Mr. Miller,” you greet him politely. “It’s very nice to see you again. Please, come on in.”

He smiles, his brown eyes warm and sweet behind his square, black-rimmed glasses. “You remember me,” he states and the syrupy richness of his voice sends a pleasant tingle up your spine. Stepping off to the side, you allow him inside—as he steps past you over the threshold, the tantalizing scent of his cologne almost brings you to your knees. Notes of a citrus accord like tart grapefruit, fresh bergamot mixed with the woodiness of vetiver and musk; it’s intoxicating, something you could easily get drunk off of if you’re not careful. “I’m surprised. S’been a real long time since you last saw me.”

“It hasn’t been all that long,” you reply, closing the door behind you. You speak to him in the steadiest voice you can muster, with nonchalance—as if you aren’t one missed heartbeat away from feeling like a silly little schoolgirl with her first crush. “Has it?”

He thinks about it. “‘Bout four and a half years.”

“That’s really not that long.”

“S’not,” Joel admits with a chuckle. “But with how much I’ve aged in that short amount of time, I just wasn’t sure if you’d recognize me, y’know? I look a lot different than I used to.” He pauses and laughs, shaking his head. “I must look like an old geezer to you now, don’t I?”

Grays lightly pepper his thick dark brown curls, his beard and his mustache. He’s got crows feet when he smiles, he has worry lines and creases between his eyebrows—he does look a lot older, but he’s so goddamn handsome, wrinkles, fine lines, and all.

You toss him a playful eye roll, prompting a grin. “I don’t think you look like an old geezer, Mr. Miller.”

“Well, you’re sure as hell makin’ me feel like an old geezer by callin’ me that, darlin’ girl.” He gives you a little wink and you’re not quite sure if it’s that, or if it was the way he’d used a pet name that knocks all the wind out of your lungs. “Please, just call me Joel.”

You nod and shyly agree to it. “Okay, then. Joel.”

“S’much better.” His grin widens and a prominent, deep dimple appears on the left side of his cheek.

There’s a silence that follows, but it’s not awkward or weird. It’s comfortable—being in his presence is comfortable. His sweet disposition makes you feel so calm, so at ease.

Joel’s always been a nice man of course, although your interactions with him had been limited—kind, quick hello’s in passing on Sundays whenever he’d come over to watch football with your dad, maybe a polite how are you here and there if you bumped into him at gatherings like a backyard barbecue or birthday party. But you’re older now, no longer the child who greeted her father’s best friend because it was bad manners if she didn’t. You don’t want to throw him that kind, quick hello or that polite how are you and then scurry off the way you used to as a little kid. You actually want to talk to Joel Miller.

But you suddenly remember he’s not here for you.

He’s here for your father.

Joel!” Your mother screeches, five-inch high heels clacking loudly as she descends the staircase. She had ditched the apron and hair rollers—and put on one too many layers of her heaviest perfume. With a delighted squeal, she rushes up to Joel and pulls him into a bone crushing hug, almost causing him to drop the box he’s still holding. “Oh, it is so good to see you! It’s been far too long!”

You force back a small, amused snort.

As if she hadn’t been judging the man for a failed marriage just minutes ago in the kitchen.

It’s performative, too over the top to be sincere.

“S’good to see you too.” He steps back and laughs as he adjusts his glasses with one of his hands. He holds out the box to her with the other. “Picked up a pecan pie on the way over here. I would’a tried to make it myself, but the kitchen’s still all packed up in boxes.” He pauses, laughing again. “Then again, I ain’t really much of a baker. Store bought was for the best I reckon,” he admits, sheepishly. When he shrugs his shoulders, his shirt strains a bit over his frame and even your mother can’t help but stare a little.

Lightly clearing her throat, she takes the box from him and reminds him, “Didn’t I tell you that all you had to bring tonight was a nice, healthy appetite?”

Joel lightly pats his stomach. “Brought that too. In fact, I didn’t eat a thing all day long. I’m absolutely starvin’ right now. Could eat a whole horse.”

“Good! Dinner’s going to be served soon. William’s in the living room with the boys, watching football game after football game. Come with me, I’m sure you’re eager to see him.” Your mother spins on her heel and hands you the dessert. “Sweetie, will you be a gem and go put this in the kitchen for me?” It isn’t a request, it’s an order masked as a request—it’s the kindest she’s been to you all day. She takes Joel’s arm and leads him down the hallway, calling out over her shoulder, “And please set the table!”

You do set the table, and when you do, you decide to sit yourself right next to Joel Miller.

Your mother lightly clinks her knife against the rim of her wine glass and clears her throat. “Everyone! It’s time to join hands and say grace before we dig into our meal,” she announces, her voice breaking through the loud, buzzing chatter at the table. She waits until there’s complete silence and then takes her seat, the chair adjacent to your father’s. You’re on his opposite side and Joel’s right beside you. “I think you should do the honor, William. You are the man of the house, after all.”

Nodding, your father begins the prayer.

“Heavenly Father, bless this food we are about—”

You’re not listening. You’re distracted by the jolt of electricity that zips through your entire body when you put your hand in Joel’s. His hand dwarfs yours and it’s rough and calloused, but somehow it’s the most gentle, soothing touch. Heat prickles at your face and neck when you feel him sweep his thumb across the back of your hand—you open your eyes and glance over at him, wondering if that had just been an accident. You’re convinced it was, until he does it again, running his finger over each knuckle one at a time. Slowly, like he’s savoring the touch.

Biting your lip, you give his hand a gentle squeeze.

His head is bowed and his eyes are still closed, but a faint smile tugs lightly at the corner of his mouth and he firmly squeezes your hand back. There’s an unmistakable desire that’s already burning deep in your lower belly, a flame you can’t extinguish even when the angel on your shoulder reminds you that not only is Joel Miller twice your fucking age, he is also your father’s best friend. His best friend.

“…through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” your relatives chime together in unison.

You force out the declaration. “Amen.”

“Amen,” Joel murmurs, opening his eyes. He turns to you and his gaze flits to your hand in his and for a moment, it almost seems like he doesn’t want to let it go. It feels like Joel doesn’t want to let it go—and he doesn’t. He doesn’t let it go until the sound of your father’s loud, booming voice announcing it is time for him to carve the bird startles the two of you apart. Clearing his throat lightly, Joel turns his attention forward and reaches for his cabernet. He gulps down half his glass in one easy swallow.

Dinner’s fairly uneventful.

You eat in complete silence, as does Joel.

Part of you wonders if it’s because you’re sitting in between him and your father, the only person that he’s most comfortable conversing with. Assuming this is the case, you’re just about to ask him if he’d like to trade places when he turns to you and says, “Your dad told me you went to school in Chicago.”

He’s just being friendly, you remind yourself when your heart starts to flutter wildly at the notion that he wants to talk to you. He’s friendly. That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything.

“Yeah. I did.” You pick up your glass of wine, taking a sip hoping it’ll ease the nerves. “I graduated over the summer and took a teaching job out there.”

“You became a teacher?”

“Yeah. I teach kindergarten.” You smile proudly.

“Can you believe that, Joel?” Your father lets out a scoff and shakes his head. “I spent thousands and thousands of dollars to send her to school. All that money and for what? For her to learn how to teach little ankle biters how to color inside the lines?” He rolls his eyes and gestures to your two brothers on the opposite side of the table. “Now my boys, they are smart. Chose good careers to pursue. Brandon starts applying to medical school in the spring. Oh and Matthew? He got early acceptance to Yale. He plans on studying law.” He shifts his attention over to you once more and shrugs. “Not too sure where I went wrong with this one.”

You stare at him in complete and utter disbelief.

“Dad.”

Chortling, he waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, come on, honey. I’m just kidding around. You know that I don’t mean it.” He then reaches out, pinching your cheek roughly. “Don’t be so sensitive,” he tells you before turning his attention back to his plate.

But he does mean it.

His comments hurt, and you hate that they hurt.

Joel nudges your arm with his. “Y’know somethin’, it takes someone real special to become a teacher, ‘specially to kids that age,” he states in a matter of fact tone. “Someone who’s real sweet and patient, someone real smart too. Someone just like you.”

Warmth radiates through your entire body. It’s not just his words, but it’s the sincerity behind them.

You shoot him a small, grateful smile.

The two of you wind up talking to one another.

Joel’s moving his contracting business, bringing it back to Austin from Phoenix to run it with Tommy, his younger brother who you vaguely remembered meeting a time or two in the past. He mentions his daughter here and there, but doesn’t bring Connie up once—perhaps it’s too painful for him? It’s hard to tell. He seems to be in good spirits and truth be told, it doesn’t appear he’s mourning his marriage; but it’s difficult to believe he’s not missing her, the woman he’d spent three decades of his life with. It shouldn’t even matter to you whether he’s missing his ex-wife or not, if there are residual feelings still lingering around. But it does matter and you don’t know why. Or maybe you do know why, but you’re too ashamed to admit it.

“Do you like Chicago?” Joel questions, curiously.

Shrugging, you respond, “Yeah. It’s a cool city.”

“You plan on stayin’ out there permanently?”

“I���m not too sure,” you admit. “It’s too expensive. I don’t want to live with a roommate forever. Unless teachers start getting paid more, I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to afford to live alone in Chicago.”

Joel seems hesitant about his next query. “Do you ever think ‘bout comin’ back to Austin at all?”

Suddenly, you’re not too sure about that either.

You’ve been itching to go back and get as far from Austin, Texas as possible, but now, it means being far from Joel Miller. There’s a deep, sinking feeling inside of your chest at the thought.

Realizing he’s still waiting for a response, you have no choice but to tell him the truth. “I don’t think I’ll ever come back here, to be honest. Not to stay.”

“Oh. I see.” He sounds disappointed. “Are you—do you plan on visitin’ home again for Christmas?”

“I do. I’ll be here for Christmas and New Year’s.”

He’s being friendly. He’s being friendly. He’s—

“It’d be real nice to see you again then.” Flushing a deep shade of red, subtle regret flashes across his features, as if he’d said it without thinking. Picking up his glass, he drains the rest of his wine and you can swear he’s nervous. About what he’d just said, and about whether or not your parents, who are in such close proximity, had overheard him. Because what business did he have in telling their daughter it would be nice to see her again?

They’re both much too preoccupied. Your father is attempting to be slick checking his text messages underneath the table and you can tell by the smirk on his face that it’s one of his secretaries. He’s got a penchant for perky blondes in tight pencil skirts. Your mother is well aware of this. She is also aware he’s on his phone, but she turns a blind eye just as she always does and distracts herself by being the perfect hostess.

Feeling foolishly courageous, you turn back to him and nod, heart pounding against your sternum. “It would. It’d be very nice, actually.”

Relieved, he nods and murmurs quietly, “We’ll talk ‘bout it later, then. That okay, darlin’?”

Not wanting to seem too eager, you nod again and turn away from him, teeth sinking into your lip in a futile attempt to hide the giddiness in your smile—but the soft chuckle Joel elicits under his breath is a clear indication that it’s useless.

He knows how he’s making you feel. He likes it.

Your mother returns from the kitchen carrying two baskets of fresh crescent rolls, one for each end of the table. She sets one of them down right in front of you and you reach out to take one when a voice, one that sounds as awful as nails scraping down a chalkboard, remarks loudly, “Should you be eating so much bread, dear?” Ines, who’s sitting a couple chairs down, next to your grandmother, looks over at you and raises an eyebrow. There’s a smug little smile on her face, almost as if she were daring you to run your mouth like you’d done last year.

For as much as it pains you, you make your choice and decide not to take the bait. You pull your hand out of the basket of rolls and pick up your glass of wine instead, chugging it down like it’s water.

Frowning, Joel picks up the basket and takes a roll that you assume is for himself, but it’s not. Putting it on your plate, he shoots her a frigid glare. “Don’t you listen to her.” He says it loud enough for her to hear him. “You just enjoy yourself, alright?”

Your aunt bats her eyes, innocently. “Well, I’m just saying. If my skirt was that tight on me, I would be thinking twice about what goes into my mouth.”

Hushed laughter sweeps across the entire table.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” You slam your empty glass down so hard onto the table that the entire dining room goes completely silent. The little ones at the children’s table stare with big and wide eyes, mouths full of food hung open because a grown up had just used a naughty word.

Your mother says your name warningly. “Don’t you start,” she hisses, shaking her head. “Be quiet.”

Angrily, you round on her. “Seriously? You’re going to let her say that to me? You don’t care that she’s making comments about my weight?” You almost laugh. Of course doesn’t care, she has never cared and she never will. “I’m your daughter! Would it kill you to defend me for once in your fucking life?”

“Shut your mouth!” Your father stands up, shoving a threatening finger into your face, so close the tip of it almost touches the tip of your nose. He hasn’t put his hands on you since you were nine, but he’s as drunk as he is angry, and you find yourself back in the shoes of the little girl who would curl up into a ball in the corner of her room as she begged and pleaded for him not to hurt her. “You hear me?”

Joel stands and walks around your chair. Placing a hand on your father’s chest, he mutters, “Hey now let’s take a step back from her, alright?” He guides him back down into his chair. “Ain’t gotta be in her face like that, Will.”

“I’m sick and tired of her ruining everything—can’t get through one dinner without her screwing it up! Always has to run that fucking mouth of hers! She still acts like a goddamn fucking child—”

You can’t bear to sit there and hear another insult.

Fighting back the hot tears that are threatening to spill over, you quickly stand up and rush out of the dining room. You make a beeline for the front door and step outside onto the porch. It’s about sixty or so degrees in Austin and the cold nips at your bare legs, but that’s the least of your worries. Without a place to go, you descend the porch steps and find yourself walking towards the swing that’s hanging from the old bur oak tree in the front yard. You had asked your father for a swing when you were three years old—it wasn’t until your brothers asked for a swing a couple years later that he’d hung one up.

You sit down, hands curling around the rope that’s so old and weathered it’s beginning to fray slightly but not so much so that you’re concerned about it snapping. You’re so busy trying to keep it together that you don’t notice the sound of crisp, autumnal leaves crunching under a pair of boots behind you. A hand gingerly touches your shoulder. You let out a startled gasp and glance over to see it’s Joel.

“Hey there, darlin’,” he says, gently.

You stare at him in surprise.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Needed to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” you grit the lie through your teeth.

Joel’s expression softens. “You ain’t gotta pretend with me, sweetheart.”

His concern is genuine. It’s real.

You don’t quite know how to handle it. Accept it.

“It got real ugly in there, ‘specially with your dad.”

Tears prickle at your eyes all over again. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Joel. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Baffled, Joel walks around the swing and a minor labored grunt escapes him as he squats in front of you. “There’s a few people who need to be apologizin’ for what happened, but darlin’ you sure as fuckin’ hell ain’t one of them.”

It’s odd. Feels foreign, even.

You’re not used to someone being on your side—it prompts more tears to spring forward and despite your best efforts to fight them off, it’s useless. You manage to whisper his name. It’s a feeble warning, one that’s telling him to go back inside before he’s caught in the torrential downpour of emotions you are mere seconds away from unleashing on him.

But he doesn’t budge. He waits. Joel knows you’re about to break and he’s ready to catch the pieces.

Finally, a tear slips and rolls down your cheek, only to be followed by another and then another. You’re holding onto the swing for dear life now, emotions that you’ve been holding in for your whole life now coming to the surface. The rope digs painfully into the palms of your hands. He reaches out and curls his fingers lightly around your wrists.

“S’okay to let go,” Joel encourages you and you’re certain he’s not just referring to the swing. “Listen to me, darlin’ girl. I ain’t gonna let you fall, alright? I’m right here to catch you. You can let go. I’ve got you, okay?”

You allow Joel to take your hands off the rope and he guides them around his shoulders as you begin to crumble. Leaning forward slightly off the swing, you wrap you arms around him and bury your face into his neck. “Joel,” you choke out his name as he wraps his own arms around your waist, pulling you closer into him.

He feels like stability.

He feels like security.

He feels like safety.

Your entire body shudders as you cry, cry, cry.

“S’alright, sweet girl. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

He repeats his reassurance over and over again.

He wants you to believe it.

And you do believe it.

Joel’s as patient as can be. It’s growing colder and his knees are begging for a change of positon, but couldn’t care less about the discomfort. He rubs a soothing circle into your back and waits until there is nothing left except little hiccups and sniffles.

“Shit,” you mumble when you pull back and notice you’d left behind a wet spot on his shirt along with light traces of mascara. You wipe at your eyes with the sleeve of your sweater. “I ruined your shirt.”

“S’okay. Nothin’ the dry cleaners can’t take care of for me.” Joel chuckles and lets go of you. “You feel a little better now, darlin’?”

“I do.” You glance over your shoulder at the house, then exhale a sigh and turn back to him, admitting quietly, “I don’t want to go back in there, though.”

He rises to his feet and pulls out a set of keys from the pocket of his black jeans. “Well, y’dont have to go back in there,” he states. “Is there somewhere I can take you? Friend’s house, maybe?”

“My best friend Megan went to Puerto Vallarta for Thanksgiving. Most of my other friends left Austin like I did,” you explain, sighing again. “Anyone who didn’t leave is spending their time with their family tonight and I don’t want to bother them.”

Joel hums, mulling it over in his mind. “Well, don’t know how comfortable you’ll be with the idea, but my place ain’t all too far from here. Ten minutes or so. Less if there’s no one out on the roads.”

“Joel, that’s so nice of you to offer, but I’ve already ruined your dinner tonight. The last thing I want to do is put you out even more,” you say, sheepishly.

“Sweetheart, you didn’t ruin a fuckin’ thing for me tonight. And you wouldn’t be puttin’ me out at all,” he promises. “S’gettin’ late and truth be told, I just wanna get you somewhere warm.” Holding out his free hand, he adds, “And comfortable.”

“But Joel—”

“I can be real stubborn too, y’know,” he teases you with a playful grin. “We’ll be out here all night long freezin’ our fuckin’ asses off.”

He isn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Okay,” you relent, accepting the offer.

You place your hand in his and he helps you off the swing. He doesn’t let it go as he leads the way to a sleek, black Dodge Ram that’s parked behind your grandfather’s silver Mercedes. He gives your hand a gentle squeeze before dropping it. “Sorry, sweet girl. It’s a bit of a trip up into the seat,” he remarks, chuckling as he opens the passenger side door for you. He gives you a boost into the truck; the scent of new leather is mixed with that of his cologne. It is all man and couldn’t be sexier. “Good up there?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Joel closes the door and hurriedly walks around to the driver’s side of the pickup, climbing up into his seat with ease. “Seatbelt,” he tells you as he sticks the key into the ignition. The first thing he does as soon as the engine roars to life is turn on your seat warmer. He switches on the heater as well, waiting a minute before asking, “You warm enough?”

“I am. Thank you, Joel.”

“‘Course.” He nods and pulls away from the curb.

As Joel’s driving you further and further from your parents’ house, all you feel is sweet relief.

“M’sorry the place is such a mess.”

Joel leads you into his living room and touches his hand to the back of his neck, embarrassed.

Amused, you raise an eyebrow at him and say, “I’d hardly call cardboard boxes stacked neatly over on one side of the room a mess, Joel.” You take a look around his townhouse—most of his furniture’s still wrapped up in plastic, except for the black leather couch and the rustic, acacia wood coffee table. He has a flat screen mounted over the brick fireplace; he’s been sleeping on the couch, or at least, that’s what the pillow and Texas Longhorns fleece throw tells you. You turn to him. “If you want to see a real mess, you should see my apartment in Chicago.”

You watch him as he takes off his glasses and puts them down on the coffee table.

“S’it pretty bad?”

“My roommate’s a kindergarten teacher too. You’d be surprised at how many popsicle sticks two girls in their twenties can end up bringing home. Not to mention all the glitter.”

“If you’re tryin’ to make me feel better, it’s workin’ like a charm.” Joel picks up his blanket and drapes it over the armchair adjacent to the couch. “Go on and make yourself comfortable, darlin’. You thirsty at all? I’ve got water or I can make coffee. Also got a pack of beer in the fridge,” he adds, jokingly.

“What kind of beer?” you ask curiously as you sink down onto the couch.

He seems pleasantly surprised by your interest.

“Lone Star.”

“I’ll have one. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“‘Course it’s not too much trouble. Not at all.”

It’s hard not to stare as he walks away towards the kitchen. Your thighs clench together—his back, his shoulders, those unkempt salt and pepper curls of his that tuft at the nape of his neck right above his collar—this man is the epitome of utter perfection. Your mind wanders and you can’t help imagine the way your legs would look thrown over those broad shoulders. How his large hands would feel on your plush skin as they wrap around your thighs to hold them in place against his chest while he fucks y—

“Here you go, darlin’.”

Joel’s deep voice shatters your train of thought.

He’s standing beside you, holding out the bottle of beer, which he’d uncapped along with his own.

Blood rushes to your cheeks. “Thank you,” you say as you accept the beer from him, trying not to lose the sliver of composure that you’re holding onto—it wavers when your fingers accidentally brush his.

“S’it too cold in here for you?” he asks. “I normally keep the thermostat pretty low.”

“It’s a little cold,” you admit. “But it’s not a prob—”

It’s too late. Joel walks over to the fireplace and he manages to strike a match and light it with just his free hand. After tossing in a couple logs, he makes his way back over to the couch and he takes a seat beside you. “That a bit better, sweetheart?”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugs. “You said it was cold.”

He takes a long, generous swig of the golden lager before setting the bottle down on one of the green ceramic coasters on the coffee table. He sits back; an arm stretches out over the back of the couch in a casual manner and his legs spread open causing your thighs to clench together once more.

“You feelin’ alright?”

“Huh?” You then realize he is referring to what had happened at dinner. “Oh. Um. Yeah, I’m alright.”

Joel peers at you, his concern evident, clear in the depths of his dark brown eyes. “You sure?”

“No. Not really,” you confess, tracing the mouth of your bottle with your index finger. “But I’ll get over it. I don’t have a choice but to get over it.” Another lump starts forming in the back of your throat and you swallow it, quickly chasing it down with a gulp of beer.

“M’guessin’ your family’s got somethin’ to do with why you decided to leave Austin?”

“Bingo,” you deadpan. “I was so sick and tired of it all. How I was talked to, how I was treated. Like I’m such a fucking disappointment.”

He frowns. “You’re not a disappointment, though.”

“My parents think I’m a disappointment. My dad’s never told me he’s proud of me, Joel. Nothing I do, nothing I have ever done is good enough for either of them, but especially not for him.” There is a dull ache that settles in your heart and all you can do is silently will yourself not to breakdown again, not in front of him, at least. You sigh. “Do you know what it’s like, not feeling good enough for someone that is supposed to love you no matter what? Someone who’s supposed to love you unconditionally?”

Joel knows it’s a rhetorical question, he knows it’s not something you’re expecting him to answer.

But he does answer, because he does know.

“I do, actually. I know all too well what it feels like.”

He looks down at his left hand, which is resting on his thigh and you do too. Your eyes flicker over the fading tanline on his finger—where he once wore a wedding band. You don’t even think twice about it and reach over, sweeping your own finger over the patch of pale skin. Without missing a beat, you tell him, “You’re good enough, Joel.”

He can’t help but laugh a little. “She’d disagree.”

“She’s wrong.”

“You don’t know what happened.”

“I don’t have to know what happened.”

“That ain’t how it works, sweetheart.”

Stubbornly, you lift your chin. “I don’t care.”

Joel laughs. “Y’think you know me, darlin’? Y’think you know what kinda man I am? Hm?”

“I do know.” You place your hand on top of his and his jaw clenches. “You’re a good man, Joel Miller. I know that you’re a good man.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong ‘bout that.” There’s a brief pause and he hesitates before confessing, “A good man wouldn’t be sittin’ here just fuckin’ dyin’ to kiss his best friend’s daughter.”

You freeze and grip your bottle so tight, you would not be the slightest bit surprised if it shatters right in your hand. “You—you want to kiss me?”

“Since the moment you opened up that front door and said hello to me.” Joel shakes his head. “S’not right.” He’s riddled with guilt, with shame. He pulls his hand out from under yours. “I ain’t a good man at all. You’re half my fuckin’ age and I shouldn’t—”

You cut him off, softly uttering his name. “Joel?”

“Yeah?” His voice sounds hoarse. Strained.

“Can you—will you kiss me? Please?”

You need more than just his kiss, so much more.

You need him to unravel you in every way possible, but beggars can’t be choosers and if one kiss was all you’ll get tonight, then you’ll fucking take it.

Joel swallows dryly. “That really what you want?”

His eyes flicker down to your lips and then back to meet your sweet, innocent gaze.

“Yes,” you breathe in reply. “Please. Kiss me.”

He leans in, and there’s brief hesitation on his part and he stops mere centimeters from your face, his nose lightly brushing against yours. “We shouldn’t be doin’ this.” His warm breath fans over your lips; they’re parted, eager to meet his own. “I shouldn’t let this happen. I—I should take you back home to your family before I do somethin’ real stupid.”

Your heart sinks. “That really what you want?” you parrot his own question back to him and hold your breath, knowing there’s a chance his answer could be the answer that you don’t want to hear, the one that could end up crushing you.

Joel lifts his hand, cupping the side of your face in his palm. “‘Course it’s not what I want.” His thumb strokes your cheek, his dark eyes taking in each of your features. He’s studying, memorizing them, as if he’ll never get another chance to be this close to you again. With the line he’s about to cross, you’re both about to cross, that just might be the case.

The tension seeps through your skin and into your bones.

You exhale shakily. “Then just kiss me already.”

He moves his hand and gently curls it around your chin, holding you steady as he leans further in and closes the gap of space in between you. He moves slowly and he’s gentle—too gentle. You want to tell him you’re not made of porcelain, but you’re much too preoccupied with how Joel’s mouth feels, how perfectly it molds against yours. He delicately nips your bottom lip with his teeth. It’s a silent request.

He wants more, more, more. Your lips part for him, granting him the access he’s seeking. Joel doesn’t waste a single moment and he explores every inch of your mouth with his tongue, eliciting a whimper from you. Without breaking contact, he takes your beer and somehow he manages to lean over to set it down on the coffee table without dropping it. He then pushes you back into the couch and the next thing you know, you’re lying on your back and he’s settled in between your legs, using one of his arms to keep himself propped up, while the other wraps itself in your hair. Your own hands clutch at fistfuls of his shirt, fingers gripping the fabric so tight, the skin over your knuckles stretches painfully thin.

You whimper out again, the noise prompting a low growl to rumble through his chest—suddenly, he’s not being so gentle. He isn’t being rough. But he is hungry, he’s possessive, and he’s letting it show in the way he’s swelling your lips with his kisses, how his fingers are gripping the hair at the base of your neck as he firmly tilts your head backwards to give himself better access to your mouth.

Your mind is racing, and yet, you can’t think at all.

It’s not until his hips buck into you and you feel his bulge through his jeans against you that you break away from him. “Joel,” you gasp his out name. You grip his shirt even harder, chest heaving as you try to catch a much needed breath of air. You can feel the arousal pooling between your legs. The flames burning in the fireplace are nothing in comparison to the ones that are burning deep in your belly.

“Fuck,” he curses, pulling back. “M’sorry—”

The last thing you want is for him to be sorry.

“No! Please don’t be sorry,” you rasp, gazing up at him. Your eyes are glazed over with a lust you have never felt for another man before. “I want this, you know I want this—don’t you?”

Joel sighs, brushing a soft kiss to your temple. You wish he could take a peek into your mind, see how badly you want to be wrapped up in his arms—you want to get lost in his embrace, feel him all around you, inside you. You want him to write his name on your bare skin with his tongue, whisper his secrets into the spot where you’re aching for him most.

He sighs again and lightly shakes his head.

“Baby, y’need to think real hard ‘bout this—”

“I want this,” you repeat yourself. “I want you.”

Relaxing the death grip you have on his shirt, your hands release the fabric and move to the buttons. Your fingers tremble slightly as you undo each one of them; after an embarrassing fumble or two, you manage to get them all and push Joel’s shirt off of his shoulders. He sucks in a quick, sharp breath as your greedy hands begin roaming, exploring every inch of smooth, tan skin on his upper body.

Your touch erases all the uncertainty he’s feeling.

“Wanna feel you too, baby.” Joel takes the hem of your sweater and gestures for you to sit up slightly so he can pull it over your head. Carelessly tossing it somewhere behind him, he glances down, blood rushing to his cock as he takes in the sight of your supple curves clad in sweet, delicate white lace. “Christ, you look so fuckin’ soft.”

He doesn’t even realize he’s saying it out loud, not until he catches the flirtatious little grin tugging at the corners of your mouth. You sit up slightly once again and reach behind you to unhook the lingerie and take it off, adding it to the ever growing pile of clothes on the hardwood floor. Licking his lips, he meets your gaze for just a moment before dipping his head down, wrapping them around one of your hardened nipples. “Joel,” you mewl his name as he flicks the pebbled flesh with his tongue.

Joel releases it with a lewd, wet pop and he tosses you a smirk before he moves to the other to give it the same attention. He’s a biter, you find out as he takes it between his teeth, nipping over and over.

Your throbbing center clenches around nothing.

“Joel, please. I need you—I fucking need you.”

He tears away from your nipple. “Where, baby?”

You open your mouth to answer him, but your own gasp cuts you off as he starts trailing his lips down the length of your body until he comes to a stop at the waistband of your skirt. One of his hands finds the zipper on the side and he looks up at you, as if asking for permission. Desperate, you nod. Pulling the zipper down, he slides the skirt, along with the pair of lace white panties you’re wearing off of you and discards them, leaving you completely naked.

Your insecurities begin to trickle in, but Joel’s able to halt them right in their tracks.

“You’re too fuckin’ beautiful, sweetheart,” he says, his reassurance calming your nerves instantly. “So beautiful. So beautiful and so fuckin’ perfect.”

You watch as he makes himself comfortable—well as comfortable as he can—in between your legs. He shoots you a sheepish look.

“Knew I should’a put the damn bed together. But I been puttin’ it off and puttin’ it off all week long.”

You giggle breathlessly. “Who needs a bed?”

Chuckling, Joel feathers a kiss on your inner thigh.

Your smile is all but slapped right off of your face.

“Joel.”

Any traces of humor vanish. You’re both reminded of the next wall that’s about to be broken, the next line that’s about to be crossed.

He looks down and groans. “Such a pretty, perfect little pussy,” he remarks, his voice low, husky. “Bet she’s nice and wet for me, ain’t she baby?” He lifts his hand and drags the tip of his finger up your slit slowly, your slick coating his digit. He smirks up at you. “Oh, she’s fuckin’ soakin’, sweet girl. S’this all for me?”

Foreplay wasn’t in the vocabulary of guys your age and while part of you wishes Joel would hurry, you also find yourself enjoying the fact that he’s taking his time, teasing you—making you really want it to the point where you’re willing to fucking plead him for it. Joel Miller’s the only man you’d ever beg for.

He skims your other thigh with his nose and kisses it just like he’d done with the other. “Tell me darlin’ s’this where you need me? Right here?”

Frantically, you nod your head.

“Words, honey. Gotta use your words for me.”

“Yes!” you choke out. “That’s where I need you. So bad. Need you so fucking bad. Please Daddy—”

You freeze and momentarily, he does too. Truth be told, you wouldn’t really blame him if he just stood up, gathered your clothes and tossed them at you, demanding you put them back on and leave.

Joel raises an eyebrow. “Daddy, huh?”

Your face is on fire. “I—it slipped,” you stammer. “I didn’t mean to call you—I’m so sorry, Joel. I’m not even sure where that came from. I’ve never—”

You’re on the verge of panicking, then notice there is a certain glimmer in his eyes and realize he liked it when you’d called him that. You’re taken aback.

He fucking likes being called Daddy.

“Sweetheart, there ain’t nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout. I promise. You can call me that. But on a condition.”

You stare at him, no idea what the condition could possibly be.

“Ain’t allowed to call anyone else that. Ever.” There is a possessiveness in his tone and it nearly makes you come on the spot. “That understood?”

You nod obediently. “Yes.”

“Yes what?” he prompts.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good. That’s a real good girl, honey.”

For a split second, you can’t breathe.

This man will surely be the death of you.

Joel plants one final kiss, this one on your mound.

“Please,” you whimper, the heat in your lower belly growing and fizzling out to the rest of your body at the feeling of his breath over your aching core.

“Please what?” he murmurs into the sensitive skin as his arms curl around your legs. “Tell Daddy—tell Daddy what you need baby, so he can take care of you.”

“Your mouth,” you beg him, desperation mounting with each passing second. Your hips buck upward; his biceps flex as he tightens his arms around your thighs, pinning you down in place. “Your mouth—I need your mouth. Please.”

Joel moves his head to the junction of your thighs, his mouth hovering right over where you needed it the most. He looks up at you with hunger, like he’s a ravenous, starved man who hasn’t had a thing to eat in days. “What a good girl,” he praises, dipping his head even lower. His mouth waters at the sight of your glistening folds. “Bet you taste as delicious as you fuckin’ look, don’t you, pretty girl?”

He flattens his tongue and glides it up your slit, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your thighs as he gets his first taste. You gasp out when it grazes your swollen, aroused clit and your head falls back onto the couch. “Oh fuck,” you whine, reaching for his hair. You weave your hands through his graying locks and pull his face closer. Another swipe of his tongue causes your back to arch up off the leather and the edges of your vision to blur.

He pulls an arm from around your legs and drags a finger down your drenched entrance, lips securing themselves around your clit. His gaze stays locked on you as he pushes his long, thick digit into you—you feel him smirk as he curls it upwards, pressing the pad of his finger firmly against the soft spongy spot inside you, making you see stars. Joel slips in a second finger and curls it along with the other to double the pleasure. He begins thrusting his digits in and out of your warm cunt, eliciting what had to be the sweetest sounds that he’d ever heard in his entire life from you. He combines it with with slow, firm, and precise stokes of his tongue on your clit.

“Fuck, yes, just like that,” you encourage him, your loud, breathy moans bouncing off the bare, freshly painted walls of his house. “Yes Daddy, fuck—feels so fucking good, please don’t fucking stop—”

It’s not like you have to tell him what to do.

Joel knows exactly what he’s doing, and he knows it too. He listens to every single one of your moans and feels every single buck of your hips. He is sure to pay extra attention to when your hands pull and tug at his curls; he remembers what combinations of licking, sucking, and fucking make you squeeze your plush thighs tighter around his head; reminds himself of which technique brings your body off of the couch, what makes your toes curl. Joel’s quick to learn your body’s cues, each and every last one. He already knows when to give you more, when to give you less—when he needs speed up, when it is time to slow it all down.

You sing his name over and over again, pressure of an orgasm already building between your hips. His tongue swirls around your sensitive little bundle of nerves as his fingers pump in and out of your cunt and you glance down. You almost choke when you catch a tiny glimpse of the muscles in his forearm, the way they flex underneath his skin with each of his movements as he’s fucking you. Your gaze flits to his face. His own eyes are fixed intently on you.

You’re milliseconds away from release.

“Joel, I’m so fucking close. I’m gonna come—”

His arm squeezes your thigh in encouragement.

One last, broad stroke of Joel’s tongue on your clit sends an overwhelming wave of pleasure crashing over you. Strangled cries tear themselves from the back of your throat as your velvet walls flutter and convulse, squeezing his fingers. Joel, who’s face is still half buried in your pussy, takes it upon himself to help you ride through the high. He peppers soft, delicate kisses onto your swollen clit as his fingers continue to slide in and out of you slowly. He waits patiently until your loud cries dissolve into nothing but breathless little whimpers before he crawls up, positioning himself on top of you, a hand on either side of your head. His beard and mustache glisten with a mixture of saliva and slick—and somehow it it ignites another fire and you’re ready for more, so much more.

“Sweet girl,” Joel murmurs. Leaning down, his lips meet yours and you taste yourself on his tongue

You place a hand on his chest, right over his heart, which beats strong and steady against your palm.

You start dragging your hand down his chest, your fingernails raking over his skin. It travels lower and lower, gliding over the softness of his stomach. He tenses when you brush the waistband of his jeans.

Tearing away from you, he grits out, “Baby. No.”

You immediately snatch your hand away from him.

“You changed your mind?” you question, stomach sinking at the thought of it being over already.

You’re just so fucking greedy for this man.

He offers reassurance—and an explanation.

“No, that ain’t it at all. S’just—” Joel pauses briefly and flushes a shade of red. “S’just that, well, I ain’t got condoms on me, darlin’.”

Relieved, you assure him, “It’s okay. I’m clean.”

“Me too. But that ain’t what I’m worried about,” he admits, his face going from red to maroon.

You smile, finding his embarrassment endearing.

“I’m on birth control.”

Joel clenches his hands into fists. His cock strains against his zipper at the thought of it—taking your cunt bare. “Y’sure you want this?” He rasps out. “I need you to be a hundred percent sure ‘bout it.”

“I’m a thousand percent sure, Joel. I fucking need it. More than anything I’ve ever needed in my life.”

That’s all he needed to hear.

Joel stands up, his gaze never leaving your own as he kicks off his black leather boots. You sit up, and it takes every ounce of strength you have in you to remain composed as he unbuckles his belt, unzips his jeans and pushes them down his legs. You bite down on your bottom lip and try not to stare at his bulge like it’s your first time ever seeing a dick, but if he’s as big as he looks in his boxer briefs, maybe this would end up being a lot more than what your body could handle.

He hooks his thumbs underneath the elastic of his boxer briefs and slides them off, allowing his thick, hard cock to spring free from its confinement.

You swallow harshly. He’s fucking massive.

“Like what you see, sweetheart?” Joel chuckles at the expression on your face as he kicks aside all of his clothes. His length rests on his lower abdomen and precome smears the skin there. Wrapping one of his hands around it, he gives it a couple strokes, just a hint of relief until you come into play. “Hm?”

Licking your lips, you nod and stand up. You take a couple of wobbling step towards him—Joel’s cock hasn’t been anywhere near you and you’re already fucking walking side to side. “Come here,” you say to him, taking both his hands in your own. You pull him back to the couch and gently guide him down into a sitting position. Swinging your leg over both of his, you straddle his lap. You gingerly place your hands on his shoulders, nails digging into his flesh softly when you feel him brush against your pussy; the contact makes you both moan in unsion. “This okay?” you ask him, breathily. You can’t be sure as to why you’re suddenly feeling a bit shy, like you’re not planning to ride his fucking soul out of him.

“More than okay.” Joel brushes your hair over your shoulder and then drags his hand down the length of your body, committing to his memory every one of your curves. “Gonna be a real good girl and ride my cock, baby?”

You gift him with a cheeky grin. “Yes, Daddy.”

The shyness begins to dissipate and you dive your hand between your bodies, wrapping it around his cock, causing his breath to catch in his throat. You lift yourself slightly off his lap, teasingly gliding the head of his cock down your drenched slit, then up, letting it graze over your clit, which is still senstive to the touch thanks to his lips and tongue.

Joel’s hands find their way around you, running up the curve of your spine. “Wasn’t aware that my girl was such a little fuckin’ tease,” he remarks in a low tone. He slides his hands back down and his large, warm palms cup your ass, fingers kneading flesh.

“Your girl?” you repeat, your heart skipping a beat, stomach fluttering at the idea of being his. “Is that what I am to you, Joel? Your girl?”

“S’that what you want, honey?” Joel whispers, his eyes finding your own, two hopeful gazes meeting in the deepest, most intimate moment that you’ve shared all evening. “Y’wanna be my girl?”

Leaning forward, your reply is preceded by kiss, so soft and so sweet his heart swells inside his chest.

“I do,” you mumble against his lips. “I really do.”

Still gripping your ass, Joel eases you up and lines himself up at your entrance. He bucks his hips and slides the head of his cock past your folds and into your heat. “Breathe, baby,” he whispers, his hands moving to your hips, thumbs grazing your skin. He slowly guides you further down his shaft, grunting as you sink down, taking him inch by inch. “Christ, you’re so goddamn fuckin’ tight—”

The initial stretch is almost too much for you. Your nails sink deeper into his shoulders as he pulls you down further down onto him. “Joel,” you whimper, biting back a loud cry. You’re fully seated, his cock completely sheathed inside you, his head pressing against your cervix. You’re so full of him.

One of his hands abandons your hip and slips over your lower belly.

“This where you’re feelin’ me, pretty girl?” he coos gently. “This where you feel Daddy’s cock? In your belly?”

“Yes,” you sigh out contentedly. “Feels so good.”

You lift yourself off of him, then slide back down in a slow, languid motion.

Joel’s head falls back onto the couch. “Christ.” He mutters the word, his chest heaving. Staring up at the ceiling, he takes a moment to catch his breath and silently wills himself not to explode. Once he’s managed to somewhat compose himself, he looks at you again, pupils blown so wide you can’t find a single trace of brown. “Go on, then,” he rasps. “Go on, sweetheart.”

The living room fills with the sounds of low moans and panting breaths as you move, alternating your maneuvers between rocking and bouncing on him in a frenzied, fast paced rhythm. The friction of his pelvis each time you grind into it winds up the coil between your hips and suddenly you’re desperate, so pathetically desperate for another release.

“Yeah, that’s it baby,” Joel encourages, feeling the beginning of his own climax building quick—much too quick for his liking. “Jus’ like that, honey. What a good girl you are for me, so fuckin’ good for me. Just like I fuckin’ knew you would be.”

“Fuck,” you whine. “You feel so good, Daddy. Feel so fucking good inside me—”

Leaning back, you firmly plant both your hands on his thighs and arch your body, head falling back as you pick up the pace. The burning fire casts a soft, orange glow around you and his jaw falls slack. His eyes drink in every single fucking thing about you, watch you with an adoration that, for the first time in your whole life, makes you feel wanted. Actually wanted.

“Joel,” you whisper his name over and over. You’re both beginning to lose track of where you end and he begins. You can hardly hear the praises that are spilling from his plush lips over the squelching wet sounds of your cunt sliding up and down his cock. There’s no chance to warn him—your mouth parts in a silent scream as you come undone on him.

“M’so fuckin’ close,” Joel grunts. He feels his cock twitch as your pussy grips him like a vice. “Where? Where do you want it, pretty girl?”

“Inside me. Please, I need you to come inside me,” you plead him, the innocent tone of your voice the last thing to push him over the edge he’s teetering on. “Fill me up, Daddy—please, want every drop of you inside me—”

Joel reaches for your arms and yanks you forward, into him. Throwing them around his neck, his own arms wrap around you and roughly slam you down onto him, holding you firmly in place. He bucks his hips upwards, balls tightening, his cock pulsing as he comes. Strings of hissed curse words and deep gutteral groans muffle when he drops his face into your collarbone. Still holding you in place, he spills his load into you, his seed filling you to the brim.

He sags back against the couch and pulls you with him. Wrapping his arms tighter around you, he lets himself stay buried inside of you, the primal in him relishing the heavenly feeling of his come dripping messily out of your pussy and all over his thighs.

“You alright, sweetheart?” he asks after a minute.

“M’perfect,” you mumble against his chest. You’re not sure if it’s because you’re coming down from a high or if it’s because he’s tracing patterns on your shoulder blade with his finger, but you shiver in his arms.

“Let me get the blanket—”

Joel starts to move to get up, but you stop him.

“No, please don’t,” you say, pushing him back. You put all of your weight onto him, as if he can’t move you off to the side if he really wanted to. “I—I want you inside me for a little while longer. Please.”

“But baby, you’re cold—”

You don’t bother explaining to him that you’re not.

“Just hold me. Please.”

And that’s exactly what he does.

Snuggling into him, you close your eyes and Joel’s hand strokes at your hair. Between that, the thrum of his heartbeat against your cheek and the sound of the fireplace crackling behind you, you’re nearly soothed into sleep.

“Joel?”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

“I hate Thanksgiving,” you admit, smiling tiredly to yourself when you feel a laugh rumble in his chest.

“Do you, now?”

You nod. “I do. But I’m really thankful for you.”

Giving you a gentle squeeze, Joel kisses the top of your head and murmurs, “Well, m’thankful for you too, sweet girl.” He pauses momentarily. “I ain’t all too sure how I’m s’pposed to just let you go home. I know I have to but—”

Lifting your head off of his chest, you take the side of his face and cradle it in your palm. You meet his gaze, heart sinking when you see the sadness that has replaced the lust from earlier.

He doesn’t mean home to your parents’ house. He means Chicago.

You graze his beard with your thumb. “I’m coming back in a few weeks,” you remind him, gently. “I’ve only planned to spend a week out here just for the holidays, but I can visit sooner. As soon as the kids go on winter break, I can come back to Austin.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course I would, Joel. I’m not sure how it would work what with my parents and all, though. I don’t want them catching onto us.”

“C’mere.” Joel brushes your lips with his before he makes his promise. “I’ll figure it out, baby. Leave it all to me and I’ll figure it out.”

divider credit to @saradika-graphics 🤎

[kngrose]

hiii can u pls make yandere jinx reacting to somebody trying 2 ask out the reader

(feel free 2 ignore!!💗💗)

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄���𝐄 𝐉𝐈𝐍𝐗

when someone asks out her partner

WARNINGS: implied mental illness, violence, implied murder, coercion, manipulation. be safe, heed warnings!

from roselí. ᡣ𐭩 : i tried to make this as realistic and in character as i possibly could. i rlly wish people would study characters more often </3

It’s not like you were going to say yes, Jinx just never lets you get the chance to handle these situations on your own. She’s so impulsive; a loose canon just ready to shoot at the smallest spark.

Bless the poor thing, pretty little painter you usually catch making murals on buildings and alleys— you could tell they’d spent a lot of time working up the courage to ask. There’s a telling flush on their cheeks that spreads to their ears, their shuffling nervously on their feet— they can’t seem to keep their lip from under their teeth. They’re actually cute.

But you weren’t going to say yes.

Jinx had been leaning lazily against a crumbling wall when it all took place, her bright pink eyes tracking you and the stranger near a rusty vending machine. She twirled her zap-gun idly, the manic energy simmering just beneath the surface of her carefree façade.

Her ears pricked at the stranger’s words.

“So, uh, I was wondering if you’d like to grab a drink sometime? Just you and me.”

Her heart skipped. Then it dropped. The world tilted, her vision blurring for a moment before splitting into two: one part cold fury, one part trembling vulnerability. A clawing void of rejection surged in her chest.

They want to take her from you.

Her hands stopped their idle twirl, gripping her weapon tightly. She was all jagged edges now, sauntering toward the scene with a growing, unhinged smile plastered across her face.

“Well, well, well! What do we have here? Little paint shop loser thinks they can steal my baby, huh?” she cooed dryly. The stranger held their hands up defensively, stammering, “N-no, I didn’t know she was—”

“LIAR!” Jinx’s voice cracked, her finger twitching on the trigger of the zapper. She wavered between hysterical rage and a crushing sense of inadequacy, her bipolar emotions splitting her perception into black and white. You are hers—all hers—and this person was a threat. The idea of losing you gripped her like a vice, her mind screaming.

She’ll leave you. She’ll leave because you’re not enough.

“You thought you could just waltz right up, and take her— right? She cackled dryly, “WRONG!” You could see the whirlwind of thought manifesting on her face— snarls turning into grins turning into scowls. You stepped forward, raising a hand to try and calm her. “Jinx, it’s not—”

“Quiet, cupcake,” she snapped, her voice suddenly sharp. But the moment she looked at you, her tone softened into something sickeningly sweet. “I’ll take care of this, okay? You just stand there looking all cute and perfect for me.”

The poor thing tried to back away, mumbling apologies, but Jinx was already there, her speed unnervingly quick. She was inches from their face now, her gun’s barrel resting lightly against their chest. “You know,” she whispered, her voice dangerously low and leveled, “I don’t like sharing. In fact, I hate it.” She trailed the gun upwards, letting it rise under their chin. “Of all the canvases you chose mine…” She meets their gaze with a stone cold glare, “Wanna paint the walls with your insides? Hmm?”

“Jinx!” You blurt frantically— she’s taking this way too far. “it’s fine! You don’t have to do this— I wasn’t even going to say yes—”

"No, it's NOT fine!" Jinx snapped, her voice cracking as she turned toward her you, her expression twisting in anguish. Her manic energy flipped into desperation in an instant. "Why would you even talk to someone like them?! Am I not enough? You're not— you're not gonna leave me, right? RIGHT?!" Her breathing grew ragged, and tears pricked the corners of her eyes. The admirer took a nervous step back, clearly reconsidering every life decision that had led to this moment.

“No— you’re enough. I’m not going anywhere,” you assured her softly, taking small measured steps towards her. Jinx’s wild gaze flickered to you, the raw emotion on her face breaking through the chaos. Tears welled in her eyes, but the anger didn’t leave, not fully. Her breathing was ragged as her your steady voice seemingly pulled her back from the brink.

Abruptly, she embraced you, making you flinch. She buried her face into you shoulder, her voice muffled, “I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered, raw and vulnerable. You took the opportunity to motion to the painter still standing still in fear. ‘Leave’, you mouthed frantically, still trying to pacify Jinx by rubbing her back softly.

“You won’t, Jinx. I love you.”

Jinx's head whipped rapidly up toward you, leveling your eyes. Her expression was… darkening. She was splitting again, now so suddenly, her emotions cycling too fast for anyone to keep up. “You mean that?” She asked, raising a sharp brow. She traced your face meticulously.

“What? Of course I mean that.” You stare at her bewilderingly, eyebrows furrowing. You could only watch as she processed something internally, but you could never guess what goes on in her sick mind. “Good.” She smiled, a sweet smile. She grabbed your hand gently, placing her gun into your palm, “Shoot them.”

“W-what—! Jinx— you can’t be serious?” Your mind swirled, you were so taken aback by her statement you physically reeled your head, the gun slipping in your palm. Her hand moved to your shoulder, fingers digging into your skin with possessive force, her grip tightening as she leaned in, her lips brushing your neck. "Didn't you hear them? They want you, not me. I'm the one who's supposed to be with you," she hissed, a manic fury flickering in her wide, unblinking eyes.

The sound of your heart hammering in your chest was deafening. You wanted to argue, to protest, to deny this madness, but the words caught in your throat. The way she looked at you— possessive, desperate, almost like a starving animal ready to pounce-made it clear there was no room for dissent.

"You have to choose," Jinx cooed, a twisted smile playing at the edges of her lips. She gestured toward the figure standing helplessly in the distance, "Either you choose me... or you choose them." Her voice dropped lower, darker, her breath coming in ragged bursts. "But if you choose them... you know what will happen. Don't you?"

You tried to pull away, but her grip on you was ironclad. Her fingers tightened, forcing your arm to aim at the person who'd dared to look at you with affection. Jinx's hand hovered over yours, guiding the gun slowly, insistently, until the barrel was trained on their chest.

"You're going to make them sorry, right? You're going to show them who you really belong to." The gun felt like a lead weight, too heavy for your trembling hands. But Jinx's eyes were on you, her gaze cold and calculating, burning with obsession. She moved closer, her body almost pressed against yours now, her voice dropping into a low, seductive whisper. "Don't make me do it for you. I want to see you do it. I want you to prove your loyalty. You don't want to disappoint me, do you?"

"They're waiting for you. Waiting for you to make your choice. Show them how much you care about me, darling. Show them who's the real threat here."

You could feel her breath against your ear as she leaned in, her voice almost sweet now, laced with madness. "It's simple, really. One pull of the trigger— POW! And it's all over. You and me. Forever. No one else. Ever." She snarled noticing your hesitation, ever the big heart you had.

"You know I won't let them have you," she whispered, her voice laced with a mix of fear and obsession. “Jinx—” You murmur painfully, biting back scared tears, but she hushes you instantly. "You're mine, and I won't share you."

Her smile returned, but there was no joy in it. Only the chilling certainty of someone who had already made up their mind. "Do it. Or I will," she dared, her eyes narrowing as her grip on you tightened. The world narrowed down to that single moment— the gun in your hand, the silent figure before you, and Jinx, her eyes gleaming with a terrifying expectation. There was no escape, no way out.

Only the grim reality of her twisted love, a love that demanded everything-and if you didn't comply, it would take everything away. Her voice was the last thing you heard before you were forced to make the decision.

"Choose. Me or them."

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[rwshfordgirl]

DANIEL'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

all the images were taken from pinterest.

where kenan and reader are ex-lovers who meet again at a birthday party. confessions and feelings come to the surface.

pairing: kenan yildiz x reader

a/n: i loved that soooooooooooo much! thanks to everyone who voted in the poll so this fic could be written for yildiz;) i made it with the intention of seeing which narration you prefer, i loved writing this way and i intend to continue. you can send me your opinion on the subject in the question box available on the profile, i would love to know.

requests are open | check here my masterlist

The silence in the house helped you think about what decision to make, the cold outside makes you feel unwilling to go out, it's warm at home and the new episode of the series you like so much has just been released.

You once read on some website that there is a superstition about being invited to events at the last minute, and you shouldn't go. But you know that your friends arranged this meeting at the last minute, Daniel had no intention of having a party to celebrate his birthday. Eve, his girlfriend, must have convinced him the day before.

The fact that you haven't seen them in a long time and always make up lame excuses made you make your decision. You snorted and got up from the couch, "I need to see them." The voice in your mind signaled and you heeded the request. 

You know very well what makes you apprehensive about going to the party. You swallow hard and fiddle with the necklace, movements that signal your discomfort with something, your body reacting to the thought of it. A reunion with someone who left your life months ago, but who doesn't leave your head, each action of yours triggers a memory.

The reason for the breakup still intrigues you, in the silence of the night when you struggle to close your eyes and sleep, "it fell into a routine." Where have you ever seen a two-year relationship end because it fell into a routine? "Why didn't you come up with a better excuse, Kenan Yildiz?"

You thought about the possibility of not meeting him, you knew that Juventus had played in another city all day, he wouldn't arrive on time, right?

But screw Kenan, you try to convince your mind that you will treat him the same way he treats you. That is, if he goes to the party.

The fact that you wore your favorite outfit made you more excited for the event. The white boots, high-waisted jeans, and long-sleeved white silk blouse made you smile when you looked in the mirror.

The route to Daniel's house was taken by Uber, although it was close to home, walking through the streets of Turin at night didn't seem like a good option.

"Thanks." You said to the Uber driver before getting out of the car. 

The house was full of cars, you looked at each car there looking for one in particular, but no sign of the car you often sat in the passenger seat.

The inside of Daniel's house looked like a party scene from an American movie from the 2000s. Lots of people dancing and drinking, no one you knew was in sight.

"You came." Eve came up behind you and hugged you, her excitement at seeing you made you smile. "I haven't seen you guys in a long time." You said as you returned the hug. The loud sound of the music and voices talking made you almost scream in her ear. "I thought you weren't going to come because of Kenan." Eve said after letting go of your hug and you rolled your eyes. "You're my friends and I don't care about Kenan, it doesn't matter if he comes or not." Eve didn't seem to believe what was said, she looked at you suspiciously. "Okay then, But I'm warning you, he's already here." You pursed your lips in a failed attempt to show indifference.

Eve led you to the living room of Daniel's house, the most empty space in the house. You were thinking about how you would behave in front of Yildiz, your intention is to remain indifferent and you know that this is a difficulty for you.

At the entrance of the room, the first people you see are Kenan's friends, they laugh outrageously at something Daniel shows on his cell phone. As you enter the room, you come across the rest of the group and you concentrate on not looking at Kenan, who is sitting in an armchair talking to a Spanish friend whose name you don't remember. But you swallowed hard when, looking out of the corner of your eye, you saw Kenan wearing his white sneakers, black pants and a gray long-sleeved shirt. Kenan never looks ugly.

"Look who came." Eve introduced you to your friends who screamed and clapped when they saw you. You laughed at that but you couldn't help but notice the look that Edoardo, one of Kenan's best friends, gave to the Turkish player. Kenan looked at him and then looked at you, smiled and lowered his head to look at his cell phone. One of your friends saw the scene and looked at you with wide eyes.

"The night will go well, just don't look at him." Your subconscious tried to calm you down, you mentally prayed that no one there would notice that you were taking deep breaths every second. You sat on the couch next to Eve, Yilidz was a meter away and fixated on his cell phone. "Focus on Eve and the other girls."

It's complicated, but you try to do it until the middle of the night. You know that even trying, getting the Turkish player out of your mind is a nearly impossible mission.

Your friends were drinking in the kitchen, you decided to stay in the living room scrolling through Instagram posts on your phone. Someone sits on the couch, but you don't even give a look. Its scent is unforgettable. Kenan didn't say anything, he just stared at you, unblinking. You didn't take your eyes off your phone, but also you didn't pay any attention to what was on the screen. "Did something happen?" You turned your face suddenly, coming face to face with Yildiz's beautiful eyes.

"No, I just wanted to talk to you. It's been a long time since we've seen each other." You took a deep breath and nodded, biting your lower lip. "I see." He smiled without showing his teeth. "Your brother was at the game yesterday, he told me that he misses me at family gatherings." Your eyes were fixed on his. "Only he misses you." You said rudely and Kenan raised his eyebrows.

"Why so rude? I want to talk to you nicely." You laughed mockingly. "Are you kidding? You barely sat down here and the first thing you say is that my brother misses you. I don't know where you're going with this?" Kenan looked at you in disbelief and shook his head in denial before standing up "It was good to see you too." After that, he went towards the kitchen.

You were willing to stay here until the end of the party but Kenan ruined the mood. You said goodbye to your friends in the kitchen while Yildiz watched everything while drinking water straight from the bottle.

The internet signal was weak, the app couldn't work properly. Leaving alone late at night was an option you hated, however you had to start considering it since the second option would be having to go back to the party and run away from Yildiz. Sitting on the curb and crying was also a very good option.

"You're not walking home, are you?" Kenan's voice was too close to your ear. You turned around and saw him standing there, leaning against the lamppost with his arms crossed. "I'm going." You said, turning your back again and walking slowly.

The noise a car next to you made, startled you. Kenan stepped in front of you and pointed his head in the direction of the car. "I'm not letting you go alone." He walked around and opened the passenger door. "I'm never getting in your car again in my life." As much as you wanted to get inside that car and go home safely, Kenan didn't need to know that. You stomped your foot and kept walking without looking back.

But Kenan doesn't give up easily, he got in the car and followed you slowly "Okay, don't get in the car! But I'll walk you home." You huffed, stopped walking and crouched down to the same height as the car window. "I don't know what's happening to you, but please stop! Stop pretending you care about me." Kenan held the steering wheel with one hand and had a serious look on his face.

"You think I don't care about you?" Kenan looked genuinely upset. "You still ask?" You laughed like you couldn't believe what was happening.

Kenan got out of the car and came to stand in front of her at the speed of light. You could see the disappointment in his eyes. "I care about you, I care a lot." He said putting his hands on your shoulders "No Kenan, you only care about yourself! I wasn't the one who made up a lame excuse to end a relationship of years. Please stop touching me." You pulled away and avoided him.

Yildiz was quick to gently pull you by the arm and so that you were close to him again. "Stop it please, listen to me, listen to what I have to tell you." He seemed like he was about to get on his knees and beg forgiveness for his sins. "You have two minutes."

"I really don't know what I was thinking when I broke up with you, I swear." Even though he seemed to be sincere, you didn't want to believe his words. "Kenan, please! You want me to believe you weren't cheating on me?"

You had never expressed this thought, Yildiz was completely shocked by what he had just heard. Many things made you think this way, many comments from people who didn't know the relationship you had with the player.

"Don't do that, don't think I'm cheating on you, don't imagine that." Kenan was visibly desperate and his hands returned to his shoulders, "Too late for that." Kenan lowered his head, "I would never cheat on you, never. First, it goes against my principles and values. And second, you are everything to me! I loved you and I love you very much, I would never be able to love any other woman other than you, I would never kiss anyone other than you."

You knew this, you knew how Kenan had been raised by his family and how he made it clear every day that you were the woman of his life. Even at the beginning of your relationship, when you were both very young, Kenan always made a point of showing you how much he loved you.

"Sorry, Kenan." Your voice was choked and Kenan looked you in the eyes again, "But I don't understand, you broke up with me saying that we fell into a routine, what do you mean Kenan?" He ran his hand through his hair nervously "I don't know, I honestly don't know. I think the phase I was going through at Juventus affected me a lot and I regret that decision all the time."

"I miss you every day, I'll never learn to live without you." Kenan's words left you disconcerted, what he feels is mutual, life without him has been difficult. "Why didn't you tell me anything?" You asked "I was scared, scared that you wouldn't want to know about me anymore."

Tears were streaming down his face and Kenan's eyes were glazed over. "I think about you every day, Kenan."

The habit of always keeping your feelings and thoughts to yourself makes you never express things like this. But saying it now seemed to ease your heart.

"I love you so much." You said loud and clear.

It was everything the player wanted and needed to hear. Yildiz approached slowly, you heard the sound of his breathing getting closer by the second. It wasn't long before your mouths were lovingly glued to each other. A kiss full of longing, it had been six months without that.

"I love you so much. I don't want to be the reason behind your crying ever again."

[shini--chan]

How would yandere deal with a 21st century time traveler who also happened to be a top engineer at NASA?

This would be interesting. I've decided to go with Rome as a yandere since that would be the most interesting

Yandere Rome - Ye Olden Days

Trigger warnings: misogyny for the plot, imperialism, breakdowns, isolation

Rome would at first be suspicious of this strange woman that would have been dumped onto his lap. Though since clearly otherworldly powers were involved, he'd convince himself that you're a gift from the gods and not to look a gift horse in the mouth. After all, the gods are as cruel as they are generous and fickle to the core, so he would decide to embrace your presence and welcome you to his home. 

It would entail a lot of questioning and inspecting you, and taking your clothing apart and criticising you for your choices. Julius would jealously guard you and thus also restrict your freedoms. It would be here that his yandere tendencies would start to emerge. I see you being transported back to the times of the Roman Republic. During that time, his power wouldn't be that great and he would have to contend with scores of enemies. With the future not being certain for him, you'd be viewed as a favour granted to him by the gods. Thus he wouldn’t be inclined to share you, and his controlling behaviours would have their roots in self-preservation and fear. 

It was a fine day when you decided that you wanted to venture out of the mansion that Julius was hosting you in. After weeks of seeing the same walls and mosaics and the same faces, you were becoming stir crazy. Best cap the ill growth off before it could become something terrifying. 

After a good half an hour of invading various rooms, you discovered him by a fountain, eating a meagre breakfast of bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar. It wasn’t the lavish meals that you had expected when you first came here, but in retrospect, you shouldn’t have been surprised. You had been transported back to the time of the Republic and not the late Empire of Pax Romana. 

Clearing your voice as you approached, you were pleased to note how he immediately whipped his head around and gave you a slight smile. 

“Lost in thought on this good morning?” you inquired carefully. Experience had taught you he responded best to politeness and attentiveness; at least from you. 

“Yes, a lot has been weighing on my mind recently. Especially with recent events…” he told you and then trailed off. His eyes traveled to your hips and waist, like he was reminding yourself that you were a woman. It didn’t help that the belt that fastened your stola accentuated your womanly features. 

It was a loathsome habit of his and you swore to yourself that you would one day rid him of it. Your pride demanded it. 

The silence that ensued was awkward, yet you weren’t going to take any blame for it. He broke the flow of conversation so he should fix it. You stared at him expectantly, silently prompting him to continue. Thankfully, he took the cue, even if he went down a different avenue. 

“You came here to see me?” 

Straight to the chase, it was. While you preferred it, it did diminish your chances of having your wish fulfilled. However, it would be very awkward now to beat around the bush when he had offered you an opening. 

“I wish to venture outside the mansion and into the city. May I?”

“Absolutely not.”

The rejection had always been a likely possibility, one that you had made yourself well aware of. It still stung. Dozens of counterarguments cropped up, along with schemes of heading out on your own. You weren’t some Roman damsel and you had asserted yourself in more difficult circumstances. Crafty as you were, you could slip out without them stopping you. Better ask for forgiveness instead of permission, eh?

“Here, you are now what a stranger in a strange land and so I would recommend that you heed what I say” he sternly admonished you. 

The unintended literary reference nearly made you want to giggle, yet it was tempered by the frustration of being so transparent to him. You were indeed a stranger in a strange land, and that fact did nothing to soothe your frazzled nerves. While he was on edge, so were you. Couldn’t he be decent enough to offer you an olive branch? 

“Why are you so against the notion? If you fear that I would attract too much attention, I can assure you that I can blend in a crowd just fine.”

Julius pushed himself off the lip of the fountain and stared at you a few moments. One eyebrow raised up and his mouth was pressed to a line. You didn’t buckle, for this was a test of strength. When you didn’t yield, he still argued: 

“Are you really sure about that? You are so soft compared to the people of this day and era. It would be like trying to disguise a fine ceramic as granite. The way you carry yourself, how you treat people and how you speak, they would all establish you as a foreigner of the most exotic stock. And I would rather not have to rescue you from slavery due to your foolishness. So the answer is no and remains no.”

Due to you being a woman, he would write you off as being unknowledgable about things of import. Surely you would know of them, but the devil is always in the details. You wouldn't know the components of the fabious inventions that you'd describe, nor would you know how the parts of the foreign systems you would be so familiar with would interact with each other. Imagine his shock when he'd find out that you'd actually have the technical knowledge, to a certain extent. His logical conclusion would be that Etrucia would one day stamp him into the dust and become the dominant world power. It would come with a lot of fretting …

The cold water to his face did little to clear his mind or stood his hands from shaking. Having managed to effect patrician calm in front of you and the rest of the household, that stoicism had melted away when he was alone. Only in the solitude of his chamber did he allow himself to contemplate the implications of the discovery. 

Mathematics came naturally to you, even if you insisted on using those strange numerals. Julius decidedly shied away from considering this “zero” any further, lest it make the spiraling worse. No, he had enough on his plate. 

He shaked stray droplets from his hands, and hastily dried his face. The sun was setting - it offered a cruelly magnificent sight. As lost as he was in his thoughts, he couldn’t bring himself to appreciate it. 

You were a woman, smart and prideful and driven. Not bad traits. You were good with numbers, had a deft hand when it came to drawing and you were quick on the uptake when he explained something to you. Good features to have as a woman. The problem lay in the extent you had all of them, and how you utilised them. 

In the beginning, you had told him that you worked in an institution of your people that aimed at researching worlds other than these. And that it was also working at bringing people to some of those other worlds. It had sounded fantastical, yet the gods could work wonders and over two millennia was enough time to alter the face of the world completely. So he had accepted your tale and assumed you played a minor supporting role.

He had been proved wrong today, very wrong. 

There were the hundreds of opportunities your actual skillset opened up for him, yet all he could think about was that you were a woman and that you shouldn’t be working in such a field. You were too much like Etruscia, now that he thought about it. 

She carried herself with the same energy as you. The other personification was all ambition and passion and the continuous drive forward. The older country had built herself a golden altar with all her wealth, to cement her place in history. Wealthy to the point that it was obscene, and ever so inclined to revel in the freedom she and her women enjoyed. It was wrong and perverted and now all he could think about was Veilia’s sharp features and sharper wit. 

Did this mean that he would be relegated to the ash heap of history, while she soared high and folded the future like clay. She had been stronger than him for the longest time and when he was younger, he had looked up to her. Veilia had taught him how to honour the gods through gladiator games and how to read the future through the flight of birds and the path of lighning strikes. She had helped him establish himself, aided him in writing his laws and making his own script. That didn’t mean that she was totally selfless and wouldn’t seek to annialate him should he grow too powerful. It didn’t mean that he didn’t yearn to superceed him. 

It didn’t mean that she didn’t have her own failings, with her perversions and disregard to the natural order. And now you had conveyed to him that he would fail. It was the stuff of his nightmares.  

It would take a lot to get him to calm down and not immediately march off to war. It would soothe him to see you use a Latin script and have some values aligning with his. Though he would rightly suspect some of your arguments and calming words. That being said, he wouldn't have the means to verify your claims, so he would seek the council of the gods and fortune tellers. 

Eventually, he would pry for ever more knowledge. Should you attempt to use your knowledge as a bargaining tool, then he would do the same and look you in a room. Food and water would be traded for schematics and diagrams and calculations. You would have to earn your upkeep, so to say. Should one of the plans or explanations he'd give you fall flat, then you'd be punished. Still, you would be a treasure he would safekeep and protect at all costs. And just like this a treasure, he would strongly regulate who you would interact with. 

Of course, he would also inquire on history, societal changes, politics and philosophy. Finally, he would determine that future society would be morally bankrupt. While your practical knowledge would be invaluable and your theoretical knowledge noteworthy, everything outside information that can actually deliver tangible results would be taken with a wagon load of salt. In between everything, he would convince himself that future human civilization would be up the creek without a paddle and that it would be his mission to avert such an outcome. Julius would start with turning you into an upstanding citizen and somebody of impeccable morality. While he would try a diplomatic approach often enough, he wouldn’t take any resistance well.

[farfromstrange]

Just Let Me Love You | Matt Murdock x Reader

Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader (f!Reader heavily implied)

Summary: You're struggling with your body image and Matt notices

Warnings: Angst, TW: allusions to an ED, self-deprecating talk (Reader has internalized fatphobia toward herself), not proof red (I was too emotional for that)

Word Count: 2.1k

A/n: So, my body is changing and I hate it. As someone who was the Fat Funny Friend growing up, I got inspired by the song. Now I wasn't sure if to tag for a plus-sized reader because when I wrote this, I had myself in mind, and I'm not even sure what "category" I fall into, so this is pretty universal and I think any of you who are struggling with body dysmorphia might appreciate this. Heed the warnings before proceeding and don't forget to eat if you haven't already! (Also, I used my tag list to tag for this, but don't read it if this triggers you, please!)

Our brains are wired to function in a certain way. But not every brain is balanced in chemistry. 

For the longest time, she thought there was something seriously wrong with her. She never fit in anywhere, so she tried to make herself fit. Change her attitude, change her behavior, change her hobbies, and change the way she looks. She did it so many times, she lost count. 

She relied on humor, telling funny little anecdotes to make whatever friend group she was a part of at the time laugh at her. But that was all she could do. Make them laugh. She lit up the mood, lit up the room, but she seemingly never lit up anyone’s heart the way her friends did. 

They talked about their relationships, talked about their families and friends, and she played along. She listened. When she talked about her likes, they pretended to care, but within minutes, they lost interest. She thought it just wasn’t that important. Not as important as how beautiful they all were, anyway. And they were striking, she thought. That’s why everyone always chose them and never approached her. But she swallowed it to at least be a part of something. 

She always helped everyone but herself. She was there when no one else was, but even when she was a part of something, she never fully fit in. There was an impossible standard looming over her head, and she couldn’t possibly reach it. 

Don’t be too loud. Don’t be too silly. Don’t say no. Don’t talk about your problems, only listen to everyone else’s. Don’t believe that he wants you because he is too good for you, and all he wants is your best friend who is ten times prettier than you. And don’t believe that personality and humor will get you anywhere; you will end up miserably alone the same way people who look like you always will. 

The same voice, over and over again. Word turning into knives. It was exhausting to fight against the demons within her because they just sounded so damn convincing. 

When she met him, the man who stole her heart, she never thought he would ask her out. When he did, she was dumbfounded. In every possible situation, he found himself assuring her that he wouldn’t drop her for the pretty blonde in the office, or his psychotic ex-girlfriend who just happened to have the most beautiful body known to man. To her, at least. Everyone around him was just so beautiful, and he was even more so–he was the prettiest specimen in the world, and everyone desired him. Of course, she grew insecure. She couldn’t help it. It was a reflex.

She fell in love with a man who finally saw her for who she was and he loved her despite—no, he loved her regardless. For who she was. He took her, accepted her, and began seeing her as the most beautiful person in the world. For the first time, she felt appreciated, loved, and not so miserably alone. 

Yet, the fear continued to linger. The fear that one day, he would notice that perhaps, a woman of average looks wouldn’t be enough for him anymore. That she was, indeed, as unconventionally unattractive as everyone said she was from the first day she actually understood what was being said to her. She was just a child then. 

The funny friend. The awkward friend. The weird one. The girl without real friends. The girl with the silly clothes, the silly smile, the slightly crooked teeth, the belly pouch… The girl who lost weight, the girl who gained weight, and the girl who shouldn’t be so proud of herself because she had nothing to be proud of. 

“Sweetheart?” he asked her, yanking her out of the downward spiral that only continued to get worse over time. “Did you have anything to eat yet?”

He stood in the kitchen, the sleeves of his dress shirt bunched around his elbow. It was hot outside, too hot for her liking, and even his clothes were slightly stained with sweat. 

She looked up from the couch, still wrapped up in a blanket despite the high temperatures, a book resting on her thighs. He met her eyes with a smile. 

“I noticed your leftovers are still in the fridge. Could smell them,” he clarified. “I was just wondering whether that was on purpose or not.”

Worrying fit it better, she thought to herself. He always worried too much. 

She closed her book. “I might’ve forgotten,” she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

His eyebrows furrowed. “You forgot?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice, but it never reached his eyes. 

“Yeah. I probably got too caught up reading or something. It’s no big deal. I’ll eat later. Or drink another latte.”

He hummed. “You know, iced coffee is not considered a healthy diet. Your body needs fuel.”

“Jesus Christ, Matt,” she raised her voice, “I’m okay!”

“You don’t look okay,” he stated as a matter of fact. 

“And how would you know?”

“I just do.”

He approached, his muscles straining against his shirt. It wasn’t fair, how good he looked. How well he carried himself. And he still had the audacity to look at her and tell her she had much more going for herself than just her humor. That she was beautiful. Pretty enough. 

“Hey,” Matt lowered himself on the couch beside her, “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, huh?”

“I forgot to eat, I told you,” she said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“But it’s the truth.”

“Not if you did it on purpose.”

The book landed on the coffee table and she got up, pacing the small space of their shared apartment in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. He could hear her heartbeat pounding against her ribcage, the pent-up tears, and the tension, and he wanted nothing more than to reach out. But he waited. He gave her the space she needed to collect her thoughts.

“I forgot,” she repeated. “At first. And then I just happened to pass by a mirror and…and I looked at myself. I mean, really looked at myself.”

“Oh–” He sighed. “Baby…”

“I’m smaller when my stomach is empty, you know. And I thought it wouldn’t hurt me to, uh…cut back a little?”

He was about to respond, but she cut him off. “I don’t mean that I’m starving myself. I just…I forgot to eat, and then, when I remembered, I remembered what I saw and I was just…I’m not hungry anymore. I…I don’t think it’s a big deal. I’m not doing it on purpose, I’m just…”

She stopped pacing. She met his unfocused hazel eyes that held so much pain when he looked at her. He reached out, not saying a word, and she extended her shaky fingers toward the lifeline he was throwing. 

“Oh, God,” she whispered. She realized then why he looked so hurt. “It’s getting bad again, isn’t it?”

The question hung in the room as he pulled her toward himself. 

She didn’t protest when he pulled her back onto the couch, his arms engulfing her and pulling her back against his sturdy chest.

“What makes you think that you need to hurt yourself to fit some unrealistic beauty standard?” he asked softly, his voice merely a breath tickling her ear. 

She whimpered, not wanting to answer. 

“What makes you think that not being healthy is the solution to the way you see yourself? Wouldn’t that just make it worse?”

“I just…” She took a deep breath. “I just… I just want to be enough.”

“But you are enough,” he answered in a heartbeat, placing his hand on her neck and turning her face to him. He missed her face with his gaze, but she could still feel him in every fiber of her being as he sat there and felt her pulse, and she matched her breathing to his. 

A tear rolled down her cheek. “You don’t understand what it’s like,” she whispered back. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be only seen as the comedic relief in every relationship you have ever been in while your friends pulled the guys you wanted. Because they never wanted you, and they never saw competition in you either because you were just never the center of anyone’s attention.”

He was silent for a moment. The taste of her tears reached his tongue, and he visibly recoiled at the pain she held inside of her. Matt pulled her closer, holding her a little tighter. She melted. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of leaving her to deal with her thoughts, he placed his lips against her ear again. “You’re the center of my attention,” he said. “Of my world. My universe. And I couldn’t care less about the way you look.”

“That’s because you’re blind,” she shot back, a sob rippling through her body. 

He shook his head. “No. Those who reduce you to your looks are blind, and they don’t even deserve you in the first place. What matters most is this–” his large hand found its way onto the left side of her chest, above her heart. “What’s in here is what makes you beautiful, not what covers the outside.”

“But that’s not enough, is it?”

“To me, it is.”

“Not to me, Matthew. Like I said, you don’t get it.”

She struggled against his grip, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Then let me rephrase it,” he tried again, pressing his hand further against her chest. “I care more about who you are inside because I love you. But I don’t need sight to appreciate your physical beauty along with the sound of your heartbeat. Your breathing. Your touch. You know why?”

She shook her head. “Enlighten me.”

“Because I can feel you, sweetheart, and you are the most breathtaking human being I have ever had the pleasure of laying my hands on.”

If words were enough to make a person pass out, this would surely have been her breaking point. 

“You mean that?” She turned around, her tears now glistening with a taste of hope. 

He brushed them away with his thumb and nodded. “Every last word.”

Her eyes fluttered closed at the ghost of his touch. “I don’t like my body,” the admission came quietly.

In response, Matt nodded. “I know, but you have nothing to be ashamed of. That body deserves to be loved. You deserve to be loved.”

“I feel like…like I don’t deserve you. I don’t want you to leave me for…for Karen.”

The mention of her name caused him to frown. “Karen?” he asked. She nodded. He sighed, forcing her head to his chest, forcing her to listen to his heartbeat the same way he always did to her. “Don’t even think like that,” he told her. “I would never leave you for someone else. For no one, for nothing. I need you to stop assuming that, sweetheart. It’s not true.”

“It feels true,” she cried. 

His lips brushed the crown of her head. “But it isn’t.”

“But–”

“I love you,” he said, a bit more insistent this time. “Only you. I would rather die than never be with you again. And I mean that. Bring me the poison and I’ll prove it to you. I’ll get on my knees and worship the ground you walk on if that’ll make you believe me, but I won’t leave you.”

She clung to him, her nails digging into his shirt. Matt shushed her, his fingers brushing through her hair. The rhythm was soothing. 

She sobbed until she had nothing left to give. She cried because she knew he was right. She knew she was overthinking, but she was powerless to fight it. He was the only one who could open her eyes, and even then, she more often than not slipped away. She hated it. She hated the way her brain was wired, the things she was taught, and the things she continuously and wrongly kept teaching herself. 

Eventually, though, she slacked in his arms. 

“I don’t really like myself right now,” she confessed. “But I don’t know how to stop it.”

Matt chuckled softly, his chest rumbling. He tilted her chin up. “Then let me help you,” he said. 

“How?” she asked. 

He leaned down, his lips brushing against hers in a gentle kiss. “Just let me love you.” 

Tagging from Matt Murdock Tag List: @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @itwasthereaminuteago @mattkinsella @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @ravenclaw617 @thychuvaluswife @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Three for One 10

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, cheating, customer service abuse, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: As a customer service associate, you’re used to work with a wide variety of characters. Your efforts to go above and beyond draw the attention of a certain set of customers who want more than what’s on the shelf.

Character: Andy Barber, Lloyd Hansen, Ransom Drysdale

Note: Happy Christmas Eve.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me 💞

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

Love you all. Take care. 💖

A mess of wrapping paper and gift bags litter the floor around you. Their contents are just as neglectfully strewn across the room, forgotten for the desecration bartered with their giving. Reality blurs between the three men as you’re passed between them, bent, contorted, twisted exactly how they want you.

Your thighs quiver as you’re left to fall onto your ass, heaving as you lean against the end of the section. Fuzzy-brained and bleary-eyed you watch a dark figure bend and the crinkle of paper triggers something in you. The urge to flee courses up from your stomach though you don’t have the strength to heed it.

“Mine,” Andy declares and drops a box beside your foot. You blink and don’t move.

“What the hell, dude? You’re up our asses about rules–” Lloyd challenges.

“Stop whining,” Andy growls back.

You shudder as you remain paralysed in the fog. The box hits your leg as it’s kicked towards you. You reach shakily, not sitting forward, and drag it into your lap. Your hands work without seeing. You pull free a thick ribbon and flick the lid off with your thumb. You feel the soft fabric inside, cashmere maybe? You wouldn’t know.

“Come on, honey,” Andy has you by the arm in an instant.

As he hauls you to your feet, the box and sweater falling forgotten from your lap, he stops. You’re caught in the vice of his grip as his arm stretches past another figure standing almost between you. Andy squeezes harder as he flinches, Lloyd jabbing a finger in his chest. You blink as you struggle to process the scene.

“If all rules are off, then you better not say fucking shit,” Lloyd snarls.

Andy shoves him away, ignoring him as he guides you back until your legs touch the sectional. You have only the gold medallion necklace and stockings left on you. The socks have rumpled below your knees unevenly as the gold charm sticks to your sweaty flesh.  

He eases you down onto your back and you sigh as your body relaxes instinctively. You’re not thinking straight. You’re clinging to the hope that this is over, or close too. You can’t take much more. They can’t do this all day.

Andy pulls off his sweater as he puffs. His exasperation tinges the air thickly. The other men loom behind him grumbling.

You wince as Andy pushes your knees wide. You try to close them but he plants one of his own between them. You whimper as your swollen cunt throbs. 

“Please,” you beg weakly, reaching to cover your pelvis.

“It’s okay, honey,” Andy sets a hand next to your head to hold himself over you, “we’re getting to the good part.”

“Fucking lame…” Ransom mutters.

You wriggle and put your other hand on Andy’s chest, “please,” you repeat.

“Shh, honey, I’m gonna be good to you,” he feels along your thigh and your insides clench. It’s not over.

You could sob as he touches your folds. You’re overwrought to the point of delirium. He slides between your lips, still slick from your last falling apart. He rubs your clit until you squeak, taking it as an invitation to do more. He dips his fingers into you and back out, repeating the act as your walls squeeze him each time.

He hushes you again as you babble. He pulls his thick fingers out and spreads your cunt wide. He shifts, jarring his hips around as he drops to an elbow. How breath scalds down your face and neck as he puffs through his nose.

He pokes his tip between his knuckles, grunting as he tilts his hips. It’s then you realise what he means to do. He stretches you around his head and you whine as you sink your nails into the furry muscles along his chest. You press your other hand to his hip, repeating again your pathetic plea.

“Always taking his fucking time,” Lloyd hisses, “gonna be all day before he gets his balls wet.”

“Is that good, honey?” Andy pets your forehead as he inches into you. 

You bed your legs and squeak. You can barely breathe as you strain to take him in. Your already tender cunt thrums around his intrusion. His small rocking motion jostles you as he tries to ease deeper and deeper. He stops halfway as you cry out, the resistance of your body trapping him.

“Just relax,” he coos as he frames your face, kissing your forehead, “relax,” he coaxes, hips still in rhythm as he battles past the barrier, “honey, I’m being… nice.”

He grunts and snaps his hips, breaking past your last defenses. You wail as you push on his pelvis, still trying to stop him. Your hand trails over to his stomach, slightly soft and as thick as the rest of him. There’s an extra layer of fat there unlike the other men and their firm abs.

“I’m fucking bored,” Lloyd growls but you can’t track his movement as Andy blocks out the room with his body.

You grit your teeth as he reaches his limit, well past your own. You arch your back and feet as you bring both your hands to his shoulders. Your eyes wet and roll back as you garble senselessly. You want him to stop. He said he wouldn’t let them hurt you but here he is, hurting you himself.

Andy’s arm slips under your neck, propping your head up as he covers your mouth with his own. That kiss disgusts you. A manufactured gesture of affection all while he violates you. You want to bite him and spit in his face. You don’t have the energy, you just let it happen. You let his tongue slip inside, you let him split you in two.

There’s another crumple of paper. You don’t react. You’re limp, nearly lifeless beneath Andy as he fucks you with long strokes. Your eyes slit just enough to see as something lands beside you on the couch. Another torn remnant of wrapping paper.

“What do you know?” Lloyd clucks, “it’s one of mine.”

There’s a slap of flesh that has Andy ramming harder into you as he parts from your mouth and grunts.

“Come on, big boy, turn her over.”

“Fuck off,” Andy sneers.

“This isn’t the deal. Turn her over,” Lloyd insists, “it’s two against one if you wanna fuck around and find out.”

Ransom shadow lurks closer as your eyes drift. Andy sighs and curls his arm tighter around your neck while hooking the other around your waist. He sinks down into you and turns you over with him, bringing himself under you. The hard zipper of his open fly bites into you.

You lay bent over him, your head lolling over his shoulder as you shiver with the new flow of cool air across your back. There’s the crinkle of plastic behind you. You don’t care. It can’t be worse if you don’t know what’s going on.

Andy frames your hip and keeps you moving on him. Your legs are weak and jittery as you straddle him. His other hand comes to your chin and he lifts your head, holding you above him as he once more draws you into a desperate kiss. A kiss laced in denial and delusion.

There’s a pinch on your ass and you squeal into Andy’s mouth. The sharp tweak is followed by a jarring slap across the flesh. Lloyd snickers and a cold liquid oozes between your cheeks. You clench at the slimy liquid leaking around your puckered hole.

“I got the flavoured stuff, pussy cat,” he clicks a cap as your ears prick, your eyes searching side to side.

Lloyd’s fingers slip between your cheeks and he circles around your hole. You whimper but Andy keeps you locked in, hand curling around your hip as his other stretches across your throat. The tickle against your tight ring turns to a stinging burn as a thick finger pushes inside, wiggling as it tests your resistance.

You nearly bite Andy as your eyes well. He pushes you away from his mouth as you heave and struggle to bear through the fiery pain radiating from your ass. Lloyd pushes to his first knuckle, then his second, and finally the last. You eke out tiny noises as you struggle to catch your breath.

Andy hushes as he rocks from below, still fucking you, still using you despite this new trespass. You dig your nails into his chest, arms trapped between your bodies, and quiver.

“H-urts,” you babble, “please…”

“Shhh, you’ll be okay,” Andy rasps.

Lloyd snickers as he pulls his finger out and lines up a second. You squeeze your eyes shut and tense as he forces in two that time. He’s less patient as he bulldozes inside, wiggling his fingers inside you once more. He thrusts in and out, the flames licking hotter and hotter.

He pulls his fingers all the way out and licks you instead. The sensation is almost soothing as he laps at your hole. He greedily swirls his tongue, pausing to poke his fingers in a few times, then resumes his loud, gross licking. 

The razing sensation of Lloyd’s tending mingles with the pressure of Andy inside you. Your walls twitch as you feel the coil winding tight. No, it shouldn’t feel good. Stop, please stop. 

Lloyd buries his fingers, keeping them deep, tilting his hand against you as he curls his knuckles. You can feel it in your cunt along with Andy’s steady motion. You bubble over and whine as you cum, both holes spasming as you succumb to the wave of rolling pleasure.

Andy growls as Lloyd snickers and slides his fingers free. You sense a shift behind you but the grip on your neck keeps you from looking. 

“Go for it,” Lloyd chuckles, “loosened her up nice and good for you.”

Another drizzle of cold lube drips down to your now burning hole. You flinch as two hands spread over your cheeks and pull them wide. Ransom pushes your ass together before smacking it. The impact scours your flesh.

He hums and slides his dick between your cheeks. His rigid length glides between the oily flesh as he leans over you, one hand on the armrest to keep himself on his feet. He rocks as he slickens his dick from tip to base before lining up with your hole.

He pushes the head of his dick against you, grunting as he leans his weight into you. You let out a shrill cry as he forces his way inside. Even just his tip is enough to break you. Tears spring free and stream down your cheeks.

He jerks his hips, ramming deeper than you’re ready for. You wail and grasp Andy’s wrist as he nearly chokes your voice out of you. Your eyes meet his, blurry with your agony, but you see the glint in his irises. That tic in his cheek. He’s lost in what he wants. You see him clearly. Selfish, a liar.

Ransom puts his knee on the end of the section as he thrusts again, deeper and deeper. As he does, Andy moves you between them in tandem. The crush of them around you is suffocating. The air is sticky and roiling around you. 

Your heart hammers as terror takes over. There is no pleasure to be found anymore. Your chest feels ready to burst as you pant through your constricted throat. Your head pounds as you hyperventilate through your nostrils.

Your hand is pulled away from Andy’s shoulder. Your fingers are once more closed around a rigid length, held closed by another to pump up and down. Your eyes flutter and flip back into your head. Your ears buzz and your body grows heavy. You feel yourself fading as you can’t get enough air into your lungs.

Ransom ruts harder from behind, jolting you into Andy. The fullness is painful and all-consuming. They work together, torturing your insides as one slides in only for the other to slide in. You are overflowing and overstimulated.

Your arm shakes and aches as Lloyd keeps it moving. He groans as he steps closer, his shadow cast over you. He grabs your chin to turn your hand above Andy’s knuckles. He groans as he keeps your hand moving around him. He grunts and aims his tip down, spurting all down your face, from your forehead, down the bridge of your nose, to your chin.

He drags his throbbing head through the glaze of his cum. He smears it all around and pushes his tip against your lips. He snickers meanly as he pushes between your lips. You taste the salty repugnance and nearly gag. You’re too tired, too weak to be disgusted. 

He fucks your mouth casually as Andy keeps you in place for him. He relents only as you feel him starting to go soft. He slides out and steps back, letting out an emphatic sigh of satisfaction. He taps your cheek with a cluck.

“Look at the little pussy cat,” he mocks. “Not so fucking smiley now.”

You blink and your head falls over Andy’s grip. Then the rest of you slackens. You’re a doll, lifeless between the men, a thing to be played with. You welcome your descent into the abyss, your only escape from this hell.

[gddancefloor]

Gnaw on the flesh of the young and fresh,

NOW DESPOIL WHAT YOUR PREY HAS LEFT.

Here's Nana! Another character from the project that Hana's from.

I've been working on an original song after slowly but surely coming out of depression, and I think it's going really well so far. The song is called "DAYCARE AFTER-HOURS", and I will be talking about some of the lore to it and the symbolism to it in this post. But firstly...

The song is STILL A DRAFT. The lyrics will be below the cut.

This drawing has taken 13 hours, so I'm really hoping you enjoy it. My wrist started burning working on this drawing lmao

Also, MASSIVE TW for abuse (sexual, physical, emotional), blood, and murder. This song + story is EXTREMELY dark. Please, PLEASE heed this warning.

With that being said, below the cut is the lore/story to this.

Nana owns a daycare that's for preschool-aged children on up to the age of twelve. Older kids don't often need it, but with the existence of a place to leave your child after school while you work, it's an opportunity that shouldn't be wasted. Nana is renowned for being one of the best nannies in the village, doing things the "old fashioned" way and being very sweet and gentle with the young ones.

She's perfect to parents. From the moment the daycare opens to the moment the doors shutter, they see what Nana wants them to see.

But, when some careless parents get too trusting and decide to leave their older kids overnight — allowed by Nana and even encouraged, that's when the After Hours occur and Nana gets what she really wants.

Nana uses the blood of twelve-year-olds (often girls), soon to age out of her daycare, for the belief that the sacrifice of their blood will appease her false god. What she's looking for is pleasure, longevity, and luck. Luck to never get caught for her actions, longevity to live as long as possible to keep her worship going forever, and pleasure from a child's suffering.

And this drive only worsens when one day, parents drop off their young daughter, a rabbit named Hana. Nana could only wait for the moment she's old enough for her harvest, because nothing's luckier than a rabbit, especially a young, growing one. At this moment, Hana was only six-years-old, leaving her parents to decide that this is where she'd be going until she's aged out.

From sun up to sun down, the young Hana saw what Nana wanted her to see. She knows that young children tend to run their mouths and expose the truth of what an adult did to them, so it's easy to treat the child as if one were a true kind-hearted caretaker. It works, to say the least.

Hana's twelve now. Nana tells Hana's parents that she can stay for a month or two longer, that there's no rush, and this is when Hana soon discovers the truth. So blind and so innocent, crushed with the claws of Nana.

At night, Nana takes Hana downstairs, telling her to keep her voice down and that this is just a little game she enjoys to play with the older kids. Taking the "Nanny's Scissors" out of her dress's side pocket, Nana widens them and slowly drags them across Hana's wrist and neck, bringing her lips up to the wounds and sucking them, lapping up the blood that seeps. At first, Hana believes this is normal, because why would Nana hurt her, right? She's her caretaker.

But, after this happens over and over again, Hana being told to not tell her parents (and leading to Hana lying to them frequently about her injuries being from playground accidents), Hana realizes she can't tolerate this "game" anymore, yet still endures it because Nana made the threat that no matter what Hana does, she will always be bound to her and that she'll kill and eat her body if she tells.

I won't say much about this since it's quite triggering for some people, but Nana believes just the blood of a rabbit isn't enough to receive the epitome of her blessings, and decides to resort to... Well, S/A, consuming the blood from that too. This doesn't happen as often, but Nana did it purely from going insane for her "love" of Hana. (It isn't love in that sense, more like obsession.)

What will be shown in the MV during the final chorus is Hana snapping and grabbing the scissors from Nana, stabbing her to death in the throat and neck out of pure, unadulterated rage. That would be the only time Hana shows full anger, sick of all the pain that she's dealt with because of her abuser. And because Hana had never wanted to hurt anyone, being a sweet little girl, she falls to her knees and breaks down, even if the person she hurt was her abuser.

And that's the story for now.

===

Lyrics:

[VERSE I] Sun up to sun down, Mom and Dad see the veil Covered in bright pastels and a perfect woman ideal And since a little kit, I've been left here in her care Now old enough to be an unlucky victim of this nightmare

Too good to be true, predators never change You smile with your fangs and thirst with your eyes soon as you say my name Sacrificial prey's blood is what you really want And there's no better choice than your prized rabbit's for a blessing of luck

[PRE CHORUS] I'm taken down and ravished open Claws grip my neck leaving me choking You're lapping up the slit that's seeping And I'm not the first one you've broken

[CHORUS I] The seemingly perfect caretaker A predator of what it's collared "I'm quite lucky to have a girl like her Your daughter's just so well behaved and mannered!"

You'll act so the parents never know What happens here when those doors close

Learning what's going on behind the scenes A first-hand witness to these cruel schemes Feed from the wound from which I bleed Aren't you supposed to protect me?

Gnaw on the flesh of the young and fresh Now despoil what your prey has left

===

The first verse is after the chorus in the audio because it's just a draft. I'm not even intending on keeping Teto in this and probably going to use Solaria's whisper VB in the final project. It's just difficult to get the vocals to sound like an actual kid.

I will have a separate post for Hana's character information as soon as I make her reference sheet, since this post was more so focused on Nana. Also, keep in mind this story is VERY new (just came up with it this week) so a LOT of changes will be made. This is what I have for now, and I'm really happy with it so far.

Lastly, this song is about grooming and power dynamic abuse. That's all I'll say for now.

Thank you SO much for reading and have a lovely day.

[artsycervidae]

I finished my short story. It's set in the Boku no Hero Academia universe, but the cast consists of OCs. Heed the trigger warnings; this is intended to be a thriller/horror, so it's exploring heavy themes. Though these are also themes touched on in the series itself, tread with care.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Graphic imagery, Unreliable narrator, Ableism (internalized and external), Chronic illness, Attempted murder-suicide, Attempted suicide mention, Severe depression, Animal death, Familial Abuse (specifically child abuse at the hands of the mother), Codependent relationship between family members, Longstanding acts of harm/sabotage, Quirk eugenics, Stalking, Organized crime, Body horror, Theft of personal belongings, Abuse of prescription drugs, Dosing/poisoning of someone's food

     Sato Hikaru came to consciousness unwillingly. He was at first aware of the coldness tickling his feet and legs, so he balled up to retain what little heat he insulated beneath seven layers. It didn't matter-- he was awake now. The blurry red digits on his alarm clock seemed to glow through his eyelids even when he rolled to his other side; the room was devoid of personal affectation, so the light bounced off the bare, eggshell walls. He flopped back over and stared back at the clock. 4:16 am. He supposed that was early enough.

     Hikaru pat blindly for his laptop, found its power cord, and carefully pulled it toward himself along the floor. Still partly under his mountain of blankets, he logged onto his email and went into the drafts where he had prepared a sick note: something believably miserable about being unable to eat or sleep, but still coherent enough to assert he could work remotely. Mysterious pain and nausea wasn't uncommon given his medical history; so long as he didn't wear thin on his coworkers' graces, nobody would begrudge him for staying home. His agency performance reports were already encrypted and attached so that he only had to send them. Then he went into the work calendar and helpfully logged his absences ahead of time so that he could receive meeting notes. Each and every sick day had to cause as little disturbance as possible.

     One of the benefits of being under the Hero Public Safety Commission's employ: as an office-holding, audit-accurate salaryman, there was a benefit of the doubt afforded to him automatically. This was further buttressed with behavior. He had never before been tardy-- ever. He didn't play hooky like others had. He attended mandatory dinner parties. He was civil, clean, and convenient. Unfortunately, not everyone could be relied upon for such predictability.

     When the streetlight directly outside his window elbowed its way through his curtain, he picked up his phone and texted his mother to give her the same overnight illness excuse-- this time, embellishing a sleepless night of 'work catch-up' spent with his nose to the grindstone. Then he abandoned his phone beneath the blankets, slipping from his cocoon to pluck pajamas out of a nearby heap of clothing. The truth about his work was that all this and next months' assignments were drafted to near completion, sitting prettily on his harddrive for the chance to defend his reputation. There were some bits and pieces of information left blank for future application, but all the mundane busy work had been taken care of two weeks prior, during a particularly animated frenzy to get as much bullshit out of his way as possible. So long as he drip fed his supervisor with satisfactory and timely submissions, he could continue to devote the rest of the month entirely to his true work.

     In the bathroom, he unscrewed the hoses from to the faucets, rolled them up, and properly stored them on the hooks he installed in the corridor. That way he could close the door as he readied for the day. Not that he needed the privacy. He no longer shared this space with anyone, and didn't intend to make room. He just liked to see closed walls on all sides of him and know he was secure, if only in the bathroom and at his most vulnerable.

     Once he was cleaned and dressed comfortably, Hikaru replaced the hoses then wandered the darkness of his apartment. He unconsciously stepped to the side of the bundled cords lining the hallway, placing his bare feet one after the other to avoid tripping on or dislodging anything. He started by staking out the living room, which was furnished. The locks on his front entrance were still engaged. The door to the patio (which was more like a windsill with how narrow it was) was locked and shuttered. A laundry pole scavenged from the trash was jammed solidly into the track for additional security. Even so, he didn't relax. He always acted with a vague image in his mind of what would happen if he lowered his guard.

     This brought him to the 'study,' the spare bedroom that all the hoses and cords fed into; also a room which his mother always insisted he keep available for her. Nevermind that she hadn't been in Japan for longer than twelve combined hours in the last two years since she ran off. Sato Hanami was probably already planning how to make her next escape: they were supposed to go shopping and grab lunch together before she moved on to her next event... but before she could cancel plans on him, he left her high and dry first.

     The last night they were really together was meant to celebrate his acceptance into medical school. They had arrangements at a fancy restaurant, tickets to a theater play, and each other... but he couldn't appreciate it. Frankly, the cracks in their foundation preceded that night. Hikaru, for a long time, had felt his mother was keeping more from him than the potential identity of his father. Despite the unanswered questions and sidestepped conversations, he respected his caretaker's authority and secrecy even when it involved him. But he was freshly eighteen and due his own share of responsibility and respect.

     That was the night he told her he knew he had a Quirk. Rather than react with equal enthusiasm, bafflement, or disbelief, she nervously batted the subject around. It may as well have been a typhoon on the other side of the world. Then she 'innocuously' got up to use the restroom at some point. Hikaru waited-- their entrees going cold on their plates-- for twenty minutes before he realized she was gone. She picked up his phone call, already in the cab and babbling some story about being summoned to America: she was to co-host a lucrative wellness tour with her longtime friend. She was on her way to dine with ultra rich celebrities interested in the procedure of her treatments. When he tried to insist to her again that he needed her to guide him, to help him understand what he was now and how to handle it, she snapped: "Don't tell me about it! Shut up." It took him aback so much, he obeyed automatically. She nervously filled the silence, "... Besides, it's taken so long to show itself, it's bound to be a busted one." Each insistence was another stab to the heart, and he quietly assented until she ended the call with a small silence and an exasperated sigh: "... Work hard, no matter what, okay? I can only stay away so long."

     So befuddled and frustrated was he, that he went home and sold the furniture from their bedrooms. He was so disgusted with her. With himself. She loved him as any mother loved her son, but she especially adored when he ached for her approval to the point of hysteria. She did this often, especially when it came to his school career-- dangled a tantalizing prize in front of him before throwing it over the ledge, hoping he would jump off after it as some extravagant expression of devotion. Needless to say, his grades were flawless. But this was different. His mother overshot her mark; he knew something she hadn't, and she ran instead of taking him seriously. Instead of doubling his efforts to gain her attention, he stopped playing her games.

     He never told her about her former bedroom. Nor did he share that he'd dropped out of that medical school and began his career as a desk jockey for the government. She had been told, surely: a career change wasn't as easy to hide as a personal interest or private thought. Shortly after he began working is when her checks started coming in. It was their first line of communication since she 'fled' Japan, and he let them pile up in the cubby he kept by the door.

     He waited for her to be the one to message him first-- those first weeks had been filled with playing a façade for the world, succumbing to depressive crying and anxious fits when he was safe at home. When she finally texted, it took all his willpower not to respond immediately. Not that it mattered: he would soon learn that she never stayed anywhere for long. Even if she remained in the country, she was skipping like an airborne stone across the surface of the globe.

     He almost envied her freedom of movement. She seemed so unrestricted, though he knew she was with Iwamoto Kaede: she was his mother's 'dearest confidant,' fellow wellness guru, and probably the one who Hanami convinced to accompany her, expanding their 'career' to the horizon. Hikaru still harbored both gratitude and a grudge for that. He never liked the way Kaede hovered around their lives, as if being a close friend and neighbor wasn't enough.

     But with her gone, his surveillance had to be careful. They operated from her 'empty' apartment, though Hikaru knew there was someone in there at most times of day. He'd never heard or seen them, but he knew they were there as surely as he knew his organs existed despite hiding inside his body.

     His mental fortitude nearly unraveled with the isolation. For a while, he was convinced that he was the one Hanami was running from. Why else would she have left in such a nervous hurry? It wasn't that he was unimportant to her-- it was that he was dangerous.

     She was scared of him. Of what he could be. And rather than discourage him, this fantasy instilled him with autonomy and independence. He made changes to his life. He reflected on himself.

     After confirming the integrity of his lair, he stopped outside the study door and stared at the doorknob. He had to shed the alibi of that cowardly man: someone who went straight to work and then straight home, who bought all his necessities once a month without fluctuation, who was always the one apologizing when someone deemed him inconvenient. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and entered.

     His eyelids fluttered rapidly, adapting to the lilac-blue lightboxes. Plastic tarp crinkled underfoot. The only similarities this room held to an actual study were the row of composition books stacked against the wall, various pens of many colors contained in a nearby cup, and the apartment's provided router installed into the ceiling corner. Otherwise, it resembled mostly a greenhouse: rows of potted, pooled, and hanging plantlife filled the room wall to wall with very little space for their caretaker to tiptoe through.

     Hikaru went to the notebooks and selected the topmost one, plucking a blue pen from the cup. Then he cast out a gentle "Good morning," to his companions. He worked his way through the nursery, weaving between leaves and stepping over water hoses. The plants were weeded and inspected. He was only making the first subjective notations before he got into the real work: the testing and sampling, which gave him concrete results. Numbers to back up his theories.

     Blackout curtains kept anyone from asking questions about the artificial lights that stayed on all day and night, and he budgeted all other use of his electricity by charging everything at work on the occasions he went in. He was running dangerously low on battery packs. Perhaps on his next commute, he would stay the night with the excuse of making up for his absences. At least all the work that mattered was on paper: untraceable, easy to take with him anywhere, written in shorthand, ready to be burned at a moment's notice-- the greatest complications were his rebellious carpal tunnels, which would inconvenience him during productive flows. He began to wear wrist braces regularly. Despite how long he coasted under the radar, people eventually noticed. By then, however, he was as good at lying as his mother-- even better at omissions and excuses.

     He was lucky his wrist began to cramp when it did, for once. He put his work down and meandered, loosening his brace to hang by his thumb. Sighing, he rolled the joint in slow circles and stretches. He was caught between the study and hall when he heard the front doorknob click. His skin jumped as the intruder's entrance was abruptly stopped by the other locks. "For the love of--" a familiar voice uttered from outside before Hikaru could bolt for the matches and set the building aflame. Then the doorbell began ringing.

    "Coming!" He hollered to his impatient guest before racing clumsily for his bedroom. He snatched up his phone after flinging the blankets aside. Several missed texts. A couple missed calls. All from Mom.

     He couldn't believe it. His head buzzed, nearly afloat with fear and excitement. What was she doing here? What was he going to do about this? He couldn't think-- didn't have the luxury. His body moved of its own accord. Once he passed the study threshold, he had to revert to Sato Hikaru again. Above all else, he knew he must keep these lives separate. He walked to the front door and unlocked the chain, the deadbolt, and the barrel bolt. The knob, of course, had already been unlocked via a spare key.

     He opened the door right as Hanami's finger hovered over the bell button again; she startled and her filtered mask shifted on her grinning cheeks. "Hikaru," she sang out, "you're still in your pajamas! Did you oversleep?" As she was saying this, he squinted against the sun blazing behind her shoulders. Had he truly been making observations and notes into the afternoon?

     "Mom, what are you doing here?" He asked, and although he treated her with a consciously cordial distance, he wanted to welcome her back home with an embrace. Two years ago, he would have been desperate for her to show up out of nowhere like this. It wasn't hard to feign illness-- he was trembling, physically fighting himself as he stepped aside to let her in. "Did you come here from the airport on your own? Haven't you been keeping up with Japanese news? It's dangerous to go around alone--"

     "What? Nonsense," she replied, shifting her convenience store bags into her other arm. "All Might may be retired, but he was still the number one hero, and always will be in my mind so long as he lives." The irony of those words: invoking a hero whose presence had never once shone light onto their horrible situation made Hikaru frown.

     "But the random sightings of those things-- those Nomu--"

      "I won't be listening to any paranoid drivel, Hikaru. If I want that, I'll turn on the TV." (His armpits prickled-- he had sold that long ago for money, for his nursery. He wondered when she would notice all the empty spaces in their home.) She moved to pat his face, but he swiftly stepped to her burdened side in an attempt to take the groceries. "Oh-- dear, you don't have to do that." The gesture successfully distracted her and she took command by moving into the kitchen, setting down her bags and removing her mask. "Wow, it's so dark in here." But when she flicked at the light switch, it didn't turn anything on. Nor did it obey when she aggressively tried three more times.

     "I don't have light bulbs, Mom. Migraines."

     "Right," she seemed only marginally discomforted by how poorly she fit back into this life. She returned to her bags, rifling through them in search of something. "I thought you would be hungry. You work so hard and rest so little when you're unwell... even as a kid, you were always sneaking out of bed, trying to squirrel yourself away in dark, quiet places to read. Oh!"

     She turned around with a paper packet. A chill rooted itself along the curve of Hikaru's spine at the sight of it. This could spoil the whole visit. "For you," she said, amiable and at ease. "You've got the flu, right? I talked to a doctor friend of mine-- this will help you sleep it off. And probably help with those migraines!"

     "Thank you," he said softly, trying to seem more pleasantly surprised than quietly horrified. She must have sensed his cautiousness-- there was always the chance he wouldn't let her touch him again, so this was her thinking three steps ahead of him. He didn't expect her to go so far as to procure him a prescription or behind-the-counter medication. It was too obvious, too dangerous... unless it wasn't. He wanted to take a look at it, but she didn't hand it to him either. Rather, she set it in front of her with the produce and pantry goods.

    "I brought you tea, too."

    "Thanks, Mom." Under the guise of setting up his electric kettle, he watched her unpack dinner ingredients. "... How was Sydney?"

     She stuck out her lower lip in theatrical disappointment. "I was in Sydney last week, dear. I came in from Paris." He knew it would hurt her feelings if he wasn't obsessing over her every movement. They had to watch out for each other-- nevermind that she was the one who left him.

     "How was Paris?" he smiled, glad to gave gotten a reaction from her that wasn't completely staged.

     "Boring. I missed you the whole time."

     The sincerity softened and humbled him. "I've missed you too, Mom." ... Was he being too cruel? The fact she showed up in a time of need meant she was trying. She was even filling the quiet for him, breaking the ice by launching into a story about a little Parisian café she frequented with Kaede.

     When he tried to fall into routine next to her, she looked at him. "Go sit!" she insisted, and he remembered his white lie. He continued to watch her work from the couch, his arm stretched along its back. She cracked open the window curtain first for some natural light to see by. Then she spoke to him as she washed, cut, and assembled ingredients. "As I was saying, Kaede's daughter was recently engaged, so we had a drink to celebrate. We also got them a nice bottle of dinner wine," she gave a little chuckle, "they might have need for it. Kaede said that their first goal after the wedding is to start growing their family."

     "Give the couple my congratulations," Hikaru said warmly, though he hardly knew Kaede's daughter or her partner. He doubted they were real.

     "Have you been seeing anyone?" his mother asked suddenly and shamelessly.

     "No, Mom," he sighed. "I'm busted and broken, remember?"

     "You're not--!" she argued defensively, rounding about and casting a vicious gesture with an unsheathed knife. The motion had been so abrupt that they both felt the air crackle. A past recrimination lingered unspoken before she turned back to chopping vegetables. Hikaru could have pressed it. But the last thing he needed was an explosive argument-- much less the forced, heartmelting reconcilation in its aftermath. He resisted the urge to needle and squirm under her skin, to annoy her the way she annoyed him now.

     "... No, I'm not seeing anyone. I'm Quirkless, so I'm at a disadvantage."

     "So what? What does that have to do with dating?"

     This was the invisible wall they broke their noses upon. Although her Quirk was supposedly dubbed "Empathy," sometimes it felt Hanami was anything but. Or perhaps she relied too much on the Quirk to bother with context anymore. She needed only touch someone and she would be granted the knowledge of their emotional state, their physical well-being, and their memories. Her Quirk appealed to human desire-- to be immediately understood, to have needs and wants realized without the work of expressing it. It couldn't hurt that she was a natural beauty: petitely formed, clear-skinned, dark-lashed, and pouty-lipped. Meanwhile, her son was comparatively average: soft-bellied, beetle-browed, pockmarked, and gloomy-faced. Even though she was over fifty, she had an uncanny knack for makeup and lighting. She looked like a movie star in public, while people barely spared Hikaru anything longer than a brief glance. He struggled to explain this concept, despite appreciating his privacy. "Mom, I have boring looks, a boring job, and boring hobbies. On paper, I'm Quirkless; even if I found someone I was comfortable telling personal information to--"

     "Hardly personal," his mother muttered.

     "--then it's not like anyone would have an optimistic view of me. The only people who make me feel wanted are the ones who like me... at a disadvantage."

     Hanami paused. Strafed past the implication. "Well... I'm your mother, so it's my job to make sure you're happy and settled in life. Someone who can't give you the support you need in this time of your life isn't worth your time anyway."

      He stared at her. She was too engrossed in measuring out bouillon. He understood the message: he just didn't know what she expected him to say. *'Sure, Mom. After all, that's what the people watching us want, isn't it? They want whatever I have. They want what my father had.'* He wondered if she was really giving up, or if she had simply forgotten all the pains and suffering he'd been through.

     Well, he still remembered the innumerable meetings with Quirk professionals. His world had flipped upside down with every sheepish diagnosis, every nuanced discussion that Quirks were still actively studied, that humanity learned more every day. She wanted to be sure: It was imperative that every doctor that saw him support her alibi. And her scheme worked. Each one said the same thing: Quirkless kids were becoming more common, and it was possible to be born with an 'average' amount of toe bones and still be Quirkless. It wasn't a direct correlation after all-- human evolution was messier than that.

     When the children at school sensed an otherness in him, the bullying began. Then the constant moving. Then the sicknesses. His immune system succumbed to the stress, weakening his body so that he couldn't leave bed. His primary sickbed companion besides his mother was his childhood friend-- an adopted Shiba Inu named Koyubi.

     Every morning, when there were only doctors' visits and existential crises to awaken to, he could only be comforted by her immediate presence on his stomach. Her square head tucked perfectly into the groove of his arm, and her worried little brows puckered anytime his breathing went shallow. Hanami hated the dog to be on their furniture, but Koyubi's unwavering faith in him made it easier to live. He would pat the empty space at his side, specifically reserved for the canine. She never bounced or jolted him-- her clambering was sweet and polite, and she wanted nothing more than to rest with him... So constant was her loyalty that she too became sick. She must have contracted something from him, his mother said, and she quarantined them both. Then Koyubi died in the other room, when she ought to have fallen asleep next to him.

     Surely Hanami remembered the suicide attempt of his adolescence shortly after, when he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It wasn't about the dog-- not entirely. His world was shrinking, his future slipping through his fingers like sand before he had the chance to appreciate it. He could feel himself, as a tangible thing deteriorating, eroding. The suicide attempt and depersonalization, followed by long sessions of therapy and reduced freedoms, was never in the past for him, even after he persevered through the worst of it... As a child, he had already grappled with the harsh truth that nobody's life was really their own.

     He couldn't bring himself to believe Hanami would actually forget any of that. She had seen his suffering through it all. Everything she did, she did for him, because she loved him and wanted him to be safe and happy.

    But then, if she loved him so much, why did she let him believe he was Quirkless for so long? Why was it that when he confronted her with the truth, she ran, absconding across the globe to get away from him? Why did it take him 'falling ill again' to draw her back into his life? He once believed she was his greatest advocate. But that was wrong-- he held no possession over this woman until he uncovered her most shameful secret: it had always been his life in her hands, and she wasn't used to the roles being reversed.

     "What about that girl, Izumi?" His mother asked, apparently stubborn on this particular subject. "The one who gave you the spider plant?"

     "Mom, we were just schoolmates. I haven't spoken to her since graduation." Of course, because Hanami had never cared to actually learn the inner workings of his life, this was a huge leap in logic. Izumi was his only friend when he rejoined society. Everyone else greeted Hikaru politely and that was all-- his desk had been empty for the majority of his transfer. It may as well have remained that way. But she had gotten him a small plant as a 'welcome back' gift, though they had only met at the beginning of their term. She offered to help him catch up on assignments before finals, not that he needed it. His mother's carrot-and-stick approach to childrearing had elevated him to an intelligence above his peers.

    But he never forgot the kindness with which she offered him help. Almost every day, she would coast by his desk and make her offer. She didn't put it upon him or assume, and neither did she feign blindness to his hardship. He had secretly used Koyubi's ashes as fertilizer for her plant, which felt right to him at the time; taking care of something else made him want to kill himself less. Koyubi lived on through the spider plant. What it represented to him became something irreplaceable: it wasn't just for him to nurture, nor was it a distraction from his compulsive mental unraveling. It was a seed of thought, germinating into a tangle of unburied lies.

     That plant was still alive and well in the study. He had taken care of it religiously, hoping to dry and press its blossoms to show his appreciation to Izumi. But rather than sprouting tiny bone-white flowers, it had produced a bud that opened and dropped a little calcium deposit on his floor. He asked Izumi about it, whose psychometric Quirk could identify small objects. He told her he found it not far from the potted plant, but she laughed and shook her head. 'Your puppy was probably teething nearby and the tooth came off into a chew toy,' she said with an assuring smile. 'I didn't know you had a dog!'

     After that, he could never have a normal relationship with her-- much less a romantic one. She knew too much.

     "Well. What about your neighbor down the hall? Watanabe?" She snapped herb leaves into the steaming Dutch oven. "You two seemed close." By which she meant, she had become envious that her son was outgrowing her company. And still, she was expected to shrug him off onto someone else.

     "Watabe?" Hikaru corrected. "She moved away before you left. That's why she brought me that peace lily." The flower had been her grandmother's. At first Hikaru was against accepting such a gesture, but Watabe made it clear that it would mean more for him to have it. 'Really, I have a rotten thumb,' she'd said, by then fatigued. Life and its hardships was slowly sapping her natural warmth and loveliness. 'I'm so busy putting things in storage and helping my family arrange the funeral-- I'm already killing it with my negligence.' She hadn't been wrong, so he accepted the lily. He never saw Watabe in the halls again, but returned the flower to its former beauty and health in her honor... and over time, in place of the stamen, a meat-encrusted phalange grew from the pale cupped petal.

     "Whatever happened to that lily?" His mother asked, suddenly deciding to give a shit about the mundane details. She took the opportunity to take a good look around the apartment, faltered, the corners of her mouth twitching down. "What happened to the TV?... Where are all your plants, Hikaru?"

     He slowly rose from the couch, wiping his clammy hands onto his fabric pants. "... I sold the TV. The plants are in my office, Mom."

     "Oh!" She was surprised and almost let it slide, but now the gears in her head were working. She returned to the soup and stirred up its contents. "... All of your plants? Do you have the space for that?" Even though he couldn't see her face, he could envision her eyes darting as she fumbled with the impossibilities. If she wasn't regretting her actions now, she never would.

     May as well get it over with.

     "My home office, Mom."

     She paused for a moment. "Oh. Do we share a bedroom again? We haven't done that since you were--"

     "No, Mom. I have my room and my office. That's it." He hesitated before awkwardly muttering, "Well, the bathroom and hallway and--"

     "Where am I meant to sleep then." It was a question, but spoken with such seething vitriol that Hikaru could only sigh. It was as he thought: she wouldn't reconsider her behavior. Not now. Not ever.

     "Did you really leave for two years and expect me to keep that absence open for you?" He wasn't talking about the room.

     Hanami wouldn't deign to respond. Once again, asking for her thought process was taken as a passive aggressive barb. She slowly opened the cupboard where the bowls were stored. She spooned out soup then brought the servings to the wall-attached bar table, which separated the kitchen and the living room. Hikaru circled the couch to the two stools, but Hanami remained standing on her side of the bar.

    "Well... you can just throw them out. Make room for me." She stirred her spoon around the bowl and dipped her head low enough that Hikaru felt safe glancing past her.

     The paper package was open. He hadn't been watching close enough.

    "Hell no."

     Her head jerked up again at that. Her eyes boggled out with such nausea, a coldness washed plunged down on his head. "Why can't you convert it into a bedroom again?"

     "I got rid of the bed. I need somewhere to do my work, Mom."

     "Why can't I share your room then?"

     "I don't have furniture in there either."

     "What?!" She shook her head in disbelief. "Why would you do that?"

     "Because I could!" He nearly lost control of his volume. He cleared his throat and mimicked the way she formed an endless spiral in the soup, just so she could see how stupid she looked. "I'm not a toddler anymore, Mom. I'm a grown adult and I want my space. I haven't been cashing your checks, either. You can take those back. I got a job so I can support myself."

    "But your sicknesses--"

     "Don't start," he warned her. And for once, she seemed to listen. After all, he hadn't had a real sick day since she'd been gone. Without her anxiety polluting his life and body and decisions, he had gained his strength back all on his own and lost his parasitic neediness. He was thinking clearly for once about all the things his mother said that didn't make sense. All the things she did-- supposedly for his benefit-- that only made him worse.

     "You wouldn't have to anymore," she insisted. "I make enough that you don't have to work at all!"

     "I like to work."

     "We could move out," she decided then and there, "find a seaside condo!"

     "I like this apartment."

     "Most men would like for their rich parent to take care of them, you know," she teased, as if comedy could make this any less uncomfortable for him.

     "I don't. It's embarrassing."

     "Your disrespect is embarrassing."

     An awkward quiet punctuated her bluntness. Hanami smoothed her cinnamon-hued hair down and came out with her concerns. "Maybe... you could at least convert it into a bedroom for a roommate. It doesn't have to be for me."

      "Mom," he groaned, inwardly rolling his eyes and dropping his shoulders.

    "You don't have any friends to rely on if things go badly Has anyone at work even messaged you to make sure you're well?"

     "What does it matter to you?"

     "I'm your mother," she said, as if that meant anything. Her face slacked, and she looked at him solemnly. "I love you... I know we've had our fair share of secrets between us, but that doesn't mean you can do this alone. It's been just you and me for as long as you've been alive, Hikaru. I've kept you safe for this long, suppressing that Quirk of yours so that there's no target on your back... Doesn't that mean anything?"

     He should have known better than to hope. Of course this wasn't about them-- it was always about her. If she did the minimum what she was told to do (such as raise a boy with a rare Quirk and encourage his reproduction) without cooperating with demands, then she couldn't be blamed for anything. Her conscience was clean now that he was an adult: she meant to leave him on his own. Hikaru stood with his untouched soup. "Thanks for the dinner," he said dryly. This was the final mercy he would give her. She had pushed them to this breaking point-- but he cared for her so deeply that if she backed down now, he would at least pretend to forget. He couldn't forgive her, but he could spare her.

      She didn't take the hint. "Hikaru, tell me what's going on. Why are you acting so cold to me? Don't you love me anymore?"

     "Let's not keep secrets then," Hikaru began, his voice aloft with unrestrained bitterness. "Since you're so willing to make amends, I have questions of my own. What are you hiding?" As he moved, so did she. She rotated her body so that he was never behind her, turning fully from the table as he approached the sink.

     "What?" Hanami cocked her head.

     "You never did ask about my Quirk. You didn't even want to know how I found out about it. The first thing you did was get as far from me as possible." He dumped the soup down the drain slowly. The overcooked vegetables plopped and disintegrated into a mass, clogging progress. "... I'll get to the heart of it. I know you're scared of what I could be. So I have to wonder..." He looked her in the eye. "Who was my father?"

     Her breath hitched, and with a glistening in her eyes, she whispered, "Don't ask me that."

     "Why can't I know?"

     "It's for your own good."

     "I don't want my own good. I want the truth."

     "Then it's for my own good!" she cried. "Do you want to hurt me?" Her voice had sharpened to a sleek edge, defensiveness creeping into her words.

     "Fine then. Dad's off the table." He stepped closer and noted how she didn't shrink away. She was scared, but not of what he could do to her. She believed she had him outmatched if it came to a physical altercation. But she still held back, giving him the upper hand somehow... "Tell me about you, then."

     She blinked innocently. He went on. "I know Empathy isn't your real Quirk. I know that Sato Hanami only officially existed at all twenty-one years ago. And that her entire history is fabricated." Sato Hanami, as an identity, was only a little more than a year older than Sato Hikaru. "Whoever falsified your information did a messy job. I'm surprised I'm the first one in the HPSC to notice... but I guess they have more 'friends' to wave those concerns off for you."

     She didn't answer for so long that he wondered if this was how she planned to salvage this nightmare: to get her purse from off the kitchen counter first, bid a farewell excuse for her next event, and she would be gone. Maybe for another year or two. Maybe for only an hour, returning at the ripe opportunity to find Hikaru in the throes of regret, malleable and desperate.

     Hanami squeezed the countertop edge until her knuckles paled. "... Why are you doing this?"

     "Answer me or get out."

     He saw her consider it. Saw her eyes flicker to the door before she heaved a sigh. "... Think carefully about whether you want this or not."

     Hikaru dropped his bowl into the sink with a clatter, and before he could grab her and force her out of his apartment, she started: "My name used to be Kumagai Misato. You probably know me better as Vitality." This made him sink into the counter himself. He stared at her, trying to recognize the former hero. She stared back, knowing he wouldn't.

      His suspicions had been off. Perhaps it was his bias. He'd assumed she'd been a villain, or some no-name civilian snatched from her home. The fact she used to be so high-profile gave him further reason to hesitate. But he'd had enough of her kicking out his every attempt to gain freedom. "It's nice to finally meet you, Kumagai," Hikaru said dryly. "When were you planning to tell me that my Quirk is an offshoot of Biohack?"

      "Don't act like this." She couldn't look at him. She was staring right past his elbow, to the cold stove and its unwanted nutrition. "I still raised you. I'm your mother, and I'm due that respect at least."

     "... Someone changed your appearance. So they didn't want you to be recognized."

     Her lips twisted in mock dismay. "Give me some credit... I didn't want to be recognized." Her eyes briefly glanced to the leftover soup on the stove. Hikaru drew the connection between her plastic surgery and the readily available prescription pad: hot anger washed down his body, realizing that she had means of subtlety which she never shared.

     Their blood relation couldn't be argued. The confirmation of her true Quirk suddenly filled in part of the puzzle for him: like Empathy, Biohack allowed its user to interphase with a living thing and procure a mentally itemized list of its target's components, statuses, and logistics. The most outstanding and vital difference was that Biohack operated on a cellular level: Vitality couldn't produce or evaporate new matter, but could 'persuade' microscopic lifeforms to override their natural lifespans.

     With a power like that, given enough work and resources and practice, she could probably help cure cancer. She could be tinkered upon and made into a walking bioweapon. Instead, she was playing a pretend game of house, a warden's simulacra of a mother, soothing yet antagonizing a child's pain, snipping the wings of his unpracticed ability. "And I bet Kaede is your handler. Or," and his eyes narrowed at her, "your work driver."

     Hanami-- Kumagai, whatever-- smiled. He steeled his heart against her approval. "Technically she was our handler. But there's no point in keeping a close eye on a Quirkless citizen." Just like that, the power structure changed. He realized now that his biggest mistake was confiding in her back then. "Relax. I'm not going to tell her."

     "How can I trust you?"

     "Because I still haven't told her all this time," Hanami--Vitality-- huffed. "Because I've been doing all I can to keep her away from you as you figure yourself out."

     Hikaru tried not to find himself distracted. Just because she was being cooperative now did not absolve her of past actions. "... How many of our family members are our actual family?" Not that blood relation meant much to this witch, but not everyone was as callous as his mother.

     With another twisted smile-- so proud, but so resentful-- she said, "You've been quietly mapping your way out of the dungeon. Good boy. It's good to know how many soldiers you'll have to fight through to get out. The answer is: none of them... they've never been our allies."

     He had guessed as much. Before Hikaru had become 'reclusive and unfriendly' in his spiraling health, the Sato family gatherings were mandatory; he had assumed his 'relatives' grew tired of accommodating his needs. Not that he would attend again, if given the chance. Now he knew 'reunion' meant submerging himself into a pit of vipers. The only thing that made such events tolerable had been his mother: the one who always made sure there were wheelchair options, who held his things when he became winded, and who knew when to guide him somewhere dark and quiet when the onslaught of stimulation drove him to silent suffering. Little acts of consideration held the stretched seams of their bond together.

     "They're not so smart." He couldn't help commiserating with her, maybe out of some misplaced sympathy still clinging to the wrinkles of his heart. "I always got the feeling they never knew exactly what you told me about my dad."

A 'second-removed aunt' would suggest his father died before he was born, and then suddenly a 'distant cousin' around his age would insist they had known of him after Hikaru's birth. It was a gas leak, someone recalled, and another would wonder if it was an explosion, and someone else would combine the theories to a gas-based explosion. Their dodginess always put the spotlight on his mother.

The only thing Hikaru knew for certain was that even if he asked his own mother about his absent parent, it would produce nothing helpful. She would either clam up completely, overwhelm herself with her own crying, or refuse to answer anything with any certainty. She was like this with everyone, and for the longest time, because he never wanted to hurt her, Hikaru let that sleeping dog lie.

Until she hurt him first.

Before he could open his mouth to ask how she met his dad, she moved. He moved too. In that second his mother lunged for him with an arm outstretched, he reeled back wildly across the counter. His hand found purchase and he swiped out at her with the chef's knife. "Stay back!"

Neither of them harmed each other. As seasoned and experienced as she had been, his mother chose not to strongarm him. All she'd had to do was knock the knife from his hand and seize him. She could inflame the cells in his lungs, turn the water vapor into a pathogen (depending on how good she was), and give him pneumonia. She could make his bones porous and let his legs snap under his own weight. Or maybe she could just flip a switch in his head. He truly didn't know what kind of person Vitality had become in this new life... he didn't know what she was willing to do to survive.

Instead of doing anything of the sort, she looked at the knife. And then she burst into tears. He stood there as she sank down to her knees, bawling like a child. All the while, she babbled on about how she never wanted a motherhood like this. She loved him, she was trying so hard, and she was sorry that she failed him. She was frightened that any day, the people watching them would realize they'd been conned. They would come to take Hikaru away, and she was powerless to stop them. The world would only get worse.

"I'm sorry," Hikaru said, crouching next to her. He left the knife on the counter and scooted closer. His mother was so slim. She had curled her arms around herself so tightly that she seemed to be crushing herself down smaller and smaller. In his mind, he held her and hid his face in her hair as she cried. They were both victims of their mutual circumstance...

'This is exactly what she wants.'

His insides felt hollow when he caught himself. He nearly fell for it. She could have done anything in that moment's weakness. Immediately, he pulled away and got back to his feet to look down on the sight. From an elevated view, he could see all the moving parts. The abandonment, the big fight, the melodramatic apologies. The medicated soup neither of them ate-- for after all, she never intended to dine with him. This was not a meeting of equals. His mother could have simply left the packet on the counter... but she had to take control of him. She needed to have control of something.

He began to clean around her, letting her sit and sob on the kitchen floor. He couldn't build up the strength to abandon his post, so he took his time tossing out the food, tidying the dishes, and putting things away. Eventually her wet hiccupping stopped, and he glanced her way before a horrible nausea rolled his stomach. She watched him with an openly curious expression, her nose and cheeks pinkened. Her eyes shone with tears, yet there held in them a sharpness... a bitterness that he had not done the proper thing and comforted her, like any son would do. She hated that he didn't trust her.

A dim memory flashed before him: fat baby hands patting her back as he sang to her her, 'It'll be okay, it's all okay,' in an astringent waiting room. She held his little hands and squeezed them. He took one back to cover his mouth as he coughed. And then that same glimmer of inspiration appeared in her eyes.. The recollection blended with all the other examinations he had undergone, though he knew without doubt this was one of the first ones. This was the important one, he realized by way of hindsight: it decided their entire, mangled future.

He wished he was capable of Empathy instead. If only he could tell when she was lying to him and when she was sincere. For so long, he battled with the idea that his suffering had been at the hands of his mother. His mother, the one who worked harder than anyone else to keep him comfortable and safe, she who had never before left his side. Had she been protecting him, or was that an excuse to keep misery as her company?

He knew the night would be cold. He began to fill his electric kettle with water, preparing to make her a large serving of tea to keep her warm on her way to the airport. "I can't let you stay here," he told her. "Especially not if Kaede is expecting you at your next charity dinner." He didn't want to go out... but he still ought to protect what mattered to him, so he planned his route back after accompanying her to the train station. He was loathe to give up his sentry, terrified that by drawing him away from the apartment some fiend would infiltrate his privacy, but... he still loved her, even after everything she had done.

She could be so quiet when she wanted to be. If he hadn't turned to prepare her tea at the table, he would never have caught her in the hallway, staring at all the cords and hoses. She reached for the door that his other self hid behind.

He must have scared her. It was one thing to grab for a weapon, any weapon, in the face of potential danger. It was another to vault over the bar, graceful and gravely swift. Without thinking, he grabbed her by the wrist. She let him yank her, and did not scream or cry or wrench herself away. In that instant, he felt something slam into his sternum-- a sudden ghost pressure that made him release her and stumble back. They froze again, caught in another disjointed conflict. They watched each other, more or less unmoored as they processed everything. She had felt the hand-laid mental wall he built up against her, knew now what he was capable of. Whatever fears he was feeling, whatever his problems might be, she was no longer privy to them. He had categorically shut her out, compartmentalized into a 'public' personal file that only knew Hikaru to be a sleep-deprived workaholic.

"Please leave it alone," he requested. "That's private."

---

Hikaru began to cough during their walk. Softly at first like clearing his throat, but the fits soon became frequent. Hanami seemed to consider offering her tea, but decided against it. Instead, she gestured vaguely with the thermos he gave to her: heads up. He was grateful for that-- after all, they now had company. Two people were behind them. The lurkers from Kaede's apartment he assumed, and supposed another two would be waiting for them at the station. He kept his mask on, and they didn't dare to speak or even look at each other as they walked, instead pretending to ignore their invisible surveillance.

It took all his self-restraint not to turn on her in their last seconds. The vile desire to hurt her as much as she had hurt him still hummed just under his skin. He considered shoving her onto the tracks just before the train pulled in-- causing a scene that would force the faceless henchmen to react. He wondered what would happen if he ever needed to run. He considered what it was like to destroy yourself completely, to be reborn anew... how would he leave everything he knew behind and try to get out of reach before the walls shrank in on him?

"... I never knew what to do with you, you know," Hanami murmured under her breath, so that only he could hear. "You were always the kindest, smartest kid I knew. Kids half your age could hurt your feelings... I knew if anyone else got a hold of you, they would render your heart into pieces and you wouldn't stand a chance."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he muttered back.

"You're welcome," she said, and they were quiet again until the train pulled up. "The tour will last another year. You have until then. Goodbye." How considerate of her, to keep it brief. To buy him time. But as she stepped into the train, his heart stopped in his chest, and he found himself calling to her.

"Hey."

His mother glanced back. Either time slowed, or she sustained this gaze for several deliberate seconds. He couldn't tell. He stepped past the yellow line and wrapped his arms around her body. She tensed, then relaxed, settling her arms over his shoulders. With his face so close to her ear, he asked, "... Your doctor friend... they're the same one who did your surgery, aren't they?... Who are they?"

She pulled away and scrutinized him. Then tilted her head forward, as if to ask one final time if he was certain he wanted to know. He didn't budge.

She slipped out of his hug, brushing his hair from his face using her wrist. His nausea settled only fractionally. "Body Shop," she said in English. Then she turned and walked back into the train, the doors closing between them.

As the train pulled away, Hikaru felt it take a piece of him with it, unraveling his insides like a busy spool. When he saw the three figures stand and close in on the woman before he lost sight of her completely, his head spun with delirious rage and fear... even though he knew she wasn't so easy to corner. She would squirm out of the pan before determining whether it landed her in the fire or not, and deal with the consequences then. Before her absence took more than he could stand to lose, he cut her free, turned, and walked away.

---

He made it home after dark, just in time to fall into an uproarous hacking, his bones aching for relief, muscles burning with exertion. He wheezed air into his lungs laboriously and went straight to the kitchen sink for a drink of water. There, he found the disembowled paper bag next to the sink, right where it had been forgotten.

He grabbed it, sought identification to no avail, then tore open the rest of its contents. All the medicine was gone. He took a moment to stare down at the mess, considering what might have happened if he just pretended he hadn't noticed. Would she have eaten if he did? Or was all of her effort for him and only him?

He couldn't return to his work. The chance of contaminating his specimens was too great. He would have to finish scrawling his reports and measurements down by his dying phone's flashlight, away from them all... to be alone was torture, but he wasn't as selfish as his mother was.

So he went back to the bathroom and scrubbed down. Spending that energy was necessary, but his strength waned. By the time he was in his hazardous material suit, his throat was scratchy and his body was shivering. Hikaru weakly approached the study, opening the door slowly so as not to overexert or jostle himself. He picked up his notebook and looked out over the room.

The spider plant hung overhead, a small tarp catching Koyubi's puppy teeth as they bloomed and fell. Arms protruded from garden pots with fingers lifting and curling with invitation. Brown-eyed Susans rolled around with no particular field of vision and blunk their yellow-petaled eyelashes now and again. A human spinal column-- or at least, a rope of nerve tendrils soon to become a spine-- braided its length along a custom trellis. A brain floated in an artificial pond like a lily pad, the stem rooted to the muddy bottom. Organs grew in wall-mounted, and tight-lidded aquariums: the brackish water beheld lacy scum and mold rings diversifying into innumerable flora and bacteria, converging into a singular whole.

Any sane person would have thrown the plants out immediately and never so much as looked at a cactus. But using his Quirk made him feel better; even the most vicelike grip on his brain now was lessened by the presence of his plantlife. It was as though there was something excessive in him, poisoning him, and by nurturing his garden to its anatomical apotheosis, there was less of that something. It was rewarding. It was euphoric. The only thing he wanted to do was grow, study, and learn. He was good at it, and it presented a puzzle in a language only he could parse.

But he knew it was a two-way street. He couldn't risk getting all of them sick, or all his hard work would be for nothing. "Goodnight." His farewell sounded tinny in the confines of his hood as he shuffled out the door.

By the time he was tucked into bed, Hikaru's chills were so severe that the shivers shook his handwriting. He could only reflect on his previously collected data and marvel at the possibilities of his Quirk. The variables were endlessly fluctuating: all his creations were vulnerable to soil composition, water levels, light intensity, bodily fluids... he reread the section regarding biological material. Hindsight and obsessive studying had cast light some of the mystery.

According to the Quirk singularity theory, the combination of hereditary genes could combine into more complex, powerful Quirks. A lineage of autonomic-override Quirks, such as his mother's, could lead to interesting combinations. But he couldn't explain the plants... the only inheritance that remained of his father, the most nebulous aspect of his power.

Hikaru understood why someone would want his Quirk. Growing bodies came incredibly naturally to him. Over time, as sweat and skin mixed into the nutrients, the microscopic formula became stronger. Semen, as awkward and uncomfortable a phase it had been, worked fractionally better than sweat or saliva. Blood was easier to extract though, and paper cuts were easy enough to explain.

But the more ineffable aspect was the proximity to his plants: the way he knew they were sick or dying, because then he too would wilt. His strength correlated to theirs. There was more to his Quirk than merely imbuing it with his essence... if it were so simple, then he wouldn't be a hostage in his own life.

The spider plant's first blossom was the revelation: he was as much a victim as his mother, and the things he did to explore his options came from a need to save himself. He wasn't proud of it, not entirely. But he also hadn't hurt anyone. He had taken hair from strangers' sweaters, stolen misplaced beverages, and even gone so far as to filch used dental picks from the trash, for their saliva. Was it such a crime to be thorough? Were people really so fond of their discarded napkins and bandages? He had to be sure-- he had to prove to himself that there was a rhyme or reason to his experiments, so he randomized the test subjects. He wanted to see how precise his Quirk could be.

Thanks to all the groundwork, he had a project and a hypothesis. Could he be criticized for being thorough? And given tonight's revelations... it would be possible.

In another life, maybe his mother could have trusted him. They could have talked it over together, and maybe he wouldn't have to do this. The only way he could think to trace back his Quirk to a different progenitor-- without anyone knowing anything about what he had done or planned to do-- was to recreate his and his mother's and dissect the differences.

In a matter of time, Hikaru would know whether or not he could grow a Quirk. He would find out more about this 'Body Shop,' and he would escape the confines of his cage.

One day. One day.

[crush3dmary]

A public explanation of why I will not be tagging Philosophy with dead dove, do not eat:

So this has been on my radar for a while now, between me debating whether to add the tag, especially with the increase in violence in the last few chapters, and someone outright suggesting it to me recently. I've given it a lot of thought, and here is where those thoughts have ended up.

So, anyone well versed in fandom is well aware that dead dove: do not eat is just a way to say "heed the tags, because I mean it". I know this, and most avid writers know this, but unfortunately there are certain connotations to that term that I don't feel comfortable applying to my fic. Because, by its strictest defition, yes, it IS a dead dove fic. I am very serious when I say it contains violence, sexual content with occasionally dubious consent, and other content that people might find disturbing. I do want people to understand that when they see my tags and the warnings in my author's notes.

However, DDDNE has, objectively, also been sort of co-opted by the average fandomgoer to mean "this is a fucked up fic, it is extremely explicit and is meant to display gore and sex in ways that romanticize this kind of content". As much as I and anyone who has been around for a while knows that's not what the tag means, the reality is, that's what most laypeople think when they see it.

That is objectively the connotation a DDDNE tag carries, and I think looking at the optics of that is important. That's why I've decided I'm not going to use it. Philosophy, at the end of the day, is not a fic about gore and sex. It's a study of Ryou's declining mindset and descent into Zorc's corruption. It does contain sex and violence, but they are used as narrative tools to further the story. The story is not ABOUT the content warnings, it contains them to further the narrative, and that's where I think there's a discrepancy between the optics of a DDDNE tag and what the fic is actually about. The idea of people looking at my fic and thinking "guro porn that's shocking for the sake of being edgy" genuinely upsets me, regardless of what I think of that kind of content (I enjoy it, I do seek it out on occasion), and it upsets me because I feel like my story being seen through that lens is a huge disservice to what I'm trying to do with it.

Yes, my fic does contain questionable content, and I won't deny that, but it's absolutely not a fic that's specifically about sex and violence. Those are simply tools I am using to tell the story from the perspective of a teenage boy with debilitating OCD who is being strung along by yugioh Satan to essentially destroy the world. And yes, there are very disturbing scenes (some people didn't like the belt scene, though it's actually one of my favourites, and I'll admit the scene at the end of ch13-Bark like a God was intense on the violence even for me) but the disturbing scenes are meant to add to the character study rather than for the sake of shock value or anything of the like.

So, I've decided that based on those optics, it's not the right tag for this fic. However, in the interest of making sure nobody gets genuinely upset by the graphic content or feels like it's been sprung on them, I HAVE added the tag "exactly what it says on the tin" which has essentially the same intent as DDDNE without the connotations. I also a few months back added "the dove is not quite dead, but it sure isn't walking or flying" to the initial authors note in chapter 1, mostly because I saw that on twitter and thought it was funny, but it does help emphasize what you can expect when you start reading the fic. Just in general I might go back and assess my author's notes and skip lines on my next reread to make sure everything is accurate and there are no discrepancies. It's going to be impossible to tag for everything that could possibly trigger someone, and I've been trying to be very clear with the direction this fic is heading, but at least I can potentially stop people from being blindsided.

Anyways, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Time for bed.

[therealprismcat]

PLEASE DO IT

the people have decided, here's a fanfic rec list of dsaf fanfics that arent focussed on davesport! (in no particular order)

Centipedes by Raccoonsandpossumswritesometimes [incomplete]

Dee centric fic which is a swap between Dee and Jack. Not only is davesport not the main focus, it's also pretty toxic. TWs at the beginning of each chapter, but heed the tags.

Hello, You. by galaticanthem [incomplete]

Another similar premise to Centipedes. If you think davesport is toxic in centipedes though, here it is arguably worse. Plot is a bit confusing as of chapter 7, but as it stands, here are the trigger warnings that I can remember off of the top of my head (but basically, if you're sensitive to disturbing themes, i'd skip this one):

Murder

Abuse

Kidnapping (by the looks of it but ????)

Underage drinking

Neglect

Body horror (I think??? it's so early into the fic im unsure of half these warnings but as it is rn i think it is important they're there because thats what it looks like at least)

Dave is very objectively NOT a good person in this fic. Like, at all. I don't think any future chapter could change that. If you're a person who cannot read about their favourite character committing absolutely heinous things theres nothing wrong with that and I wouldn't read this. If you can stomach all that though, it's a good story.

Dave and Old Sport Adopt a Kid by Wario_Speedwagon [incomplete]

Davesport is there and it's prevalent and not toxic, but it's not the main focus. It's more of an accidental baby acquisition fic. I can't think of any trigger warnings for this one, but check the tags. always.

Matted Fur by Afval [one-shot]

Evil ending fic with rabbit symbolism for Dave. All TWs are in the tags.

Sharp-Toothed Rabbit by orphan_account [one-shot]

More evil end Dave ft. animal metaphors! what more could you want? All TWs in the tags.

happiest day by grimkid [one-shot]

A fic about Jack's happiest day. Jack x Steven, no TWs iirc but heed the tags.

Octane Rating by dontrollthedice [one-shot]

Canon compliant fic about the good ending, only its harrysport. i dont even like the ship but this fic makes me so unwell /pos. No TWs I think but look at the tags.

NO MIDDLE-CALLING by XYZ_Countoriss [one-shot]

Silly chatfic, what can go wrong? -oh that right. No TWs needed, but look at the tags.

Operation Get Your Brother to Remember You After Years of Thinking He is Dead by Sockth [incomplete]

A fic focussed on Peter and Jack, I think the title is self explanatory. No TWs but look at tags.

Safety Infiltration by themostneontwig [incomplete]

After Jack betrays Dee in the evil route, Dave decides he needs to be stopped. A fic based around the idea of Legacy Jack founding the pizzaplex. No TWs that instantly come to mind other than the fact that it's set almost immediately after Jack kills Dee. Look at the tags though.

Hot Chocolate by Wario_Speedwagon [one-shot]

Ouch, set right after Jack dies the first time round. This fic physically hurt me and I mean that in the best way possible. TWs in tags.

After the Storm by themostneontwig [one-shot]

Christmas fic focussed on Peter and Jack. Read this one after Hot Chocolate, it can save you. No TWs unless you're Ebenezer Scrooge in which case dni

Jack's Squad Has UNO Night by Wario_Speedwagon [one-shot]

The title's a lie they play cluedo /j just some wholesome fun. No TWs.

An Unexpected Connection by End_Transmission [one-shot]

Post good end, but Jack 'lives'. We all know Dave had at least ONE kid. No TWs.

Peter Kennedy and the Worst Place on Earth by biptari [incomplete]

AU where Jack and Peter swap places. Steven x Peter. As for TWs I can't say everything off of the top of my head but I KNOW Henry is homophobic and transphobic in this. I can't remember if he says slurs 100% but I'm pretty sure he does use at least one so like, watch out. Other than that, heed the tags.

That's all I have right now. If you know some more then feel free to reblog to add them. No hate to davesport or anything but if you write dsaf fanfics that aren't focussed on davesport then you are my lifeline /hj

[gnabnahc317cb97]

Leave Me

Minho x Reader (gender not specified)

Word count: 630

Synopsis: You do the unthinkable after another fight with your husband

Warnings: 18+ONLY MDNI! This story is about an attempted suicide. It mentions toxic behavior, arguments, and uses strong language. If any of that can be triggering or upsetting please don't proceed with this story. I don't want anyone to be upset by anything I've created so please heed the warnings!

Minho stood next to the hospital bed you were in, tubes, IV’s and cords hooked up, keeping you alive when he knew you didn’t want to be. He stood there guilt stricken, gut wrenched. How could you do this to yourself? Your father had gone off on him, rightfully so, it was Minho’s fault. He’d made a promise on the day you said your vows. He swore to love you, to never let you down. He swore to protect you from pain to shelter you from it, not be the cause of it. He’d promised your mom and your dad. If he wasn’t always so concerned about the future he would have noticed you needed him by your side, he thought to himself. After all of those days, you kept it inside he didn’t know how he’d missed all the tears that you cried. 

A fight. 

Just a fight. 

It was just a fight. 

He was working too much, not present enough. It was like you blink and years had passed you by. You wanted to start a family but you worried he was drifting away, possibly having an affair. A fight. Just a fight. It was just a fight. Minho didn’t like the person he was when he hurt you cause his knee jerk reaction was to leave. He would desert you in the middle of an argument, too angry to listen anymore like he’d done this time.  

You were the only one he’d ever dreamed of, a truth that he hid with lies when he was mad. He said he loved you enough to let you be free, so if you wanted to leave then leave then slammed the door behind him as he left himself.  

When he was calm again, like always, he realized he truly didn’t deserve you. He couldn’t blame you, it was him, his absence, his temper, it started with him. He loved you but would leave you in moments of need until you finally broke like the promise he refused to keep.  

Minho went back to apologize, to make things right but when he walked through the door he found you in the living room, unconscious, with an empty bottle of your meds on the floor close by. He quickly turned you on your side and made sure you weren’t choking on your tongue or vomit then called emergency. As he stood over you now in the hospital now, it killed him. Cause maybe he’s the reason why. Of course he’s the reason why. He got on his knees holding your hand in both of his. 

“I’m begging you don’t leave me. You can do so much better and if you wake up and want a divorce, I won’t blame you but please, please don’t die, please don’t leave me.” He was crying with his head pressed to the back of your hand now. 

“I’m so sorry for the way things went down and I’d be lying through my teeth if I told you I was surprised. I wish that I could run back and right my wrongs, maybe you wouldn’t be gone if I spent my energy trying to actually be a better man. I don’t think you understand what you mean to me. What did I think would happen, our love was deeper than ration. No I don’t deserve you but please don’t leave me.” Your hand squeezed Minho’s and his head shot up in a flash. He saw you looking down at him with tears in your eyes and he could tell you wanted to say something but with the tubes, right now that was impossible. Minho nodded, tears streaking his face and ran his thumb over the apple of your cheek. 

“It’s going to be okay. I love you.” 

Please do not repost or translate any of my works. My blog and stories are NSFW and 18+ ONLY! Minors, ageless, and blank blogs will be blocked!

[wake-me-up-inside-imagines]

Could you write something angst-y again about your characters Leo, Micah and Rain? It's mostly up to you, but maybe something about Leo struggling with self harm in secret, but his partners notice and comfort him?

And btw i really love stories and headcanons about your ocs, i like the way you write each character's actions/personality ^^

Aww than you so much, and sure thing! This was something I was meaning to write anyway, so I hope you enjoy!

Also, this is not going to be a happy story. There's definitely comfort, don't get me wrong, but it's not going to end super happy. I wrote this to be a prequel to a series I have running on ao3 (not sure if you're someone who came from my ao3 or not, but if you're not, it's called You Know These Beautiful Thoughts You Always Think?), so it's not going to really result in full comfort/mental improvement in this specific fic.

Also also, just want to make this clear: DO NOT DO WHAT LEO DOES. This is meant to display how not ok he is, his mindset is not healthy in the slightest. Please do not believe that recovery isn't possible like Leo does, because it is, and it's worth it. Just don't replicate any of this at all. If you're struggling with self-harm, please get help, it's worth getting better.

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. HEED THE TRIGGER WARNINGS, IT IS NOT ON ME IF YOU IGNORE THEM.

With that, I hope you enjoy!

Is a the Relief Worth The Deception?

Crossposted on my ao3

TW: Graphic depictions of self-harm, razor blades, extremely unhealthy mindsets, Suicide mentions, anxiety, self-hatred, panic attacks, mentions of dysphoria, blood and gore, kinda dead dove: do not eatish, non-sexual nudity, not so happy ending. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Word count: 11,182

Divider credit goes to @cafekitsune

Sometimes, Leo felt like he was drowning.

Overwhelming emotions often swirled inside of him, creating a typhoon of self-hatred and overwhelming despair that filled him until he felt he would burst at the seams. Everything would become too much, whether it be the largest of problems or the smallest of inconveniences. His mind was flooded with endless tragedies, reminders of his shortcomings in practically every field of life, his thoughts becoming sharp winds battering at the sides of his skull until the pressure was almost too much. 

Leo was frequently overcome by such moments. The floodgates of his failures, his flaws, would open up, and he would begin sinking, the swirling waters only serving to drag him down the longer he struggled to stay afloat. 

But he had a saving grace. A life vest that not only helped keep him afloat, but also released the water from his being, relieving the pressure his thoughts created within the body that wasn't big enough to contain all the pain.

Ordinarily, metal would sink, bringing anyone unfortunate enough to cling to it under. But in the torrents of Leo's mind, it floated.

It wasn't a perfect solution by any means. It kept him afloat, but the marks it left behind remained for a long time, a stinging pain that hurt long after Leo had needed them to. Oftentimes, the marks were far from disappearing by the time Leo needed to use it again, creating even more marks, until the entirety of his lower chest was covered in them, red and angry and scabbing up in itchy lines. And then, of course, there were his boyfriends, who certainly wouldn't approve of Leo's method of coping, if they were to find out. Although the marks were often hidden from view, covered by the fabric of Leo's clothes, it was hard to keep them a secret when Rain was so touchy, and Micah was so observant, and fuck, their hands are getting a little too close to his marks for comfort-

But it was fine. He'd find a way to keep them hidden. He could fake his way through it, really, he could. He'd survive. He'd gotten this far. He'd gone this many years using such a solution, he saw no reason to stop now. He couldn't get better, he knew this well, but he didn't need to. He was fine. Nobody would find out. 

Until they did.

He wasn't sure why it had been such a rough day, he really didn't. Nothing went wrong, everything had been fine, so why did his brain decide that now would be the time to relentlessly torment him?

His past mistakes were haunting him, dragging him down into the deep murky depths of his self-hatred. It didn't matter that he had changed, it didn't matter that he'd become a different person, he was disgusting, and always would be. He was a terrible individual, one who wasn't deserving of a good life. He didn't deserve his boyfriends, or his friends, or his family, or any of the blessings he'd been gifted with. He was a disgrace of a human, the lowest of the low, a person with absolutely no worth in any regard. It didn't matter how hard he tried to be better, because at the end of the day, he would always be the same person as before. He wasn't worthy of love.

He gasped for air, but there was nothing there. He was drowning again.

His skin was crawling, itching. He needed to calm the storm, he needed to let the pressure out. He needed release.

His boyfriends had come over earlier. They were still there, sleeping peacefully besides Leo, covered in his blankets as they rested on his bed. It was late, way too late for Leo to be awake, and way too late for these kinds of thoughts to be beating against his skull. But they were there anyway, oblivious to the time, leaving Leo to struggle desperately against the waves of his mind while Rain and Micah slept peacefully beside him, completely unaware of anything.

Normally, Leo would never have risked coping in such a way while there were people anywhere nearby, especially not his boyfriends, but...

They were asleep. They wouldn't know, would they? All he had to do was be quiet, and nothing would go wrong.

Leo looked to his sleeping boyfriends, and then looked down at himself. Was it worth it? Was the reward worth the risk? Especially when the risk was so close?

The winds battering his skull decided that it was. 

Slowly, as not to disturb Micah and Rain's sleep, Leo unwrapped Rain's arms from around his waist and clambered out of the bed, swinging his legs over the side and dropping down as silently as he could. His feet didn't make a sound as they connected with the carpeted floor, and without much hesitation, Leo stood up, sliding off the bed and making his way to the bathroom door. He'd never been more thankful to be on the outside part of the bed than he was in that moment, especially since he normally slept in between his boyfriends. He would have had to crawl over their bodies to get off the bed if that had been the case that night, but luckily for him, he had chosen to be on the outside that night. If he was going to drown, at least he'd do it when it was more convenient. 

It was hard to navigate the dark room without his glasses, but Leo made due, shuffling around the blurry objects he could make out without bumping into them, successfully making it to the bathroom door. As quietly as he could, Leo shuffled his way into his bathroom, closing the door behind him at an agonizingly slow pace. Thankfully, the door made no noise as it shut, and Leo breathed a sigh of relief, flicking on the light once the door had fully shut. 

His eyes roamed around the room, blinking rapidly against the harsh, unnatural lights that had flooded the bathroom. As soon as his sight adjusted, Leo tip-toed his way to his sink and bent down, his knees popping underneath him as he lowered himself to the ground. He silently grabbed the handle to the cabinet door, still careful not to make too much noise, opening them up and peering inside. A bunch of his stuff was there, a lot of it looking forgotten and unused, but Leo ignored it, instead rooting around in the back of the cabinet, sticking his hands under the cluttered objects and feeling around until his hands hit a familiar, rather large, cardboard box. Leo's fingers wrapped around the corner of the box, pulling it out from the mess of a cabinet he had, careful not to let anything else resting there fall down. 

The packaging wasn't anything special, it was just a regular, average box that most shaving razors came in. The simple, unassuming design was exactly why Leo stashed his spare razor blades there. If anyone were to find it, they would just assume he had a spare shaving razor tucked away in there, in case his current one broke. Opening up the box would reveal a decent amount of blades, clean and shiny, a lot more than what should be in any one razor box. 

Shaky fingers grabbed one of these razors, quickly pocketing it before closing the box and shoving it back under the sink, far away from where any wandering eyes would find it. Having found what he came for, he closed the cabinet doors, slowly stood back up, and made his way back to the bathroom door, flicking off the light and enveloping himself in darkness before opening the door back up and stepping outside. It took a moment for his eyes to begin seeing through the gloom, but once he did, he made his way to the bedroom door, his destination set firmly in his mind. He grabbed the doorknob and twisted, pushing the door open without making a creak.

Leo padded out through the doorway, his footsteps nearly soundless as he crept into the wider apartment. He couldn't use the bathroom attached to his room, he knew that. His boyfriends would surely wake up if he did, and he couldn't let that happen. He needed to avoid them waking up at all costs, lest they find out about his struggles. So, that only left one place he could hide away: Natalia's bathroom. It was just down the hall, far enough away from his bedroom for his boyfriends to remain blissfully unaware of his absence. It's a good thing Natalia wasn't there to catch him. She was at Stella's, far away from Leo and his hurricane of emotions. 

Taking one last backward glance at the bedroom doorway, Leo snuck into the bathroom, his feet crossing over from wood to tile. His hand found the doorknob behind him and pulled it shut, careful to avoid slamming it loud enough for his boyfriends to hear. His feet led him to the base of the tub, his hands habitually finding the faucet's handle and twisting it as far left as it would go. Water immediately began pouring from the tap, the noise thundering in Leo's ears, and he swiftly yanked the little handle on top of the faucet to direct the water to the showerhead. The water stopped pouring from the tap, instead beginning to fall from the shower itself, the little patter's of water on the tub still audible, but far less loud than before. 

Leo waited a moment, cocking his ear towards the door. He listened for what felt like minutes, on high alert, but he heard no sounds near the door. He was safe.

Breathing out a large sigh of relief, Leo began undressing, making sure to remove the razor blade from his pocket before stepping out of his sleep shorts. Once those were gone, Leo removed his boxers, and then his shirt, pulling it over and off from around his head in a swift, efficient motion. Leo didn't sleep in his binder, so he was left completely naked, his chest and lower areas exposed to the chilly apartment air. He grabbed a clean towel from under the sink, laying it gently on the floor in front of him.

Taking in a shaky breath, Leo grabbed the razor blade from where he left it on the edge of the sink, turned back towards the shower, and stepped in, careful not to hit his feet on the rim of the tub. He stood there, his back being pelted with the hot, steaming shower water, looking down at the razor blade he was holding in the palm of his hand. Was it really worth it? Was it worth doing this right now?

The itchy, nearly unbearable crawling in his skin decided it was. His body craved a release, and this was the only way to satisfy that need. He was in too deep anyway, he might as well get on with it. 

Looking down at himself, Leo ignored the chest that caused him so much grief, instead focusing on the skin directly below it. There were already marks there, and even more scars underneath them, the thin white lines permanent reminders of how long he had been doing this for. The fresher marks were healed over, still red, but no longer open wounds. Leo could change that. 

WIthout hesitating, Leo dragged the edge of the razor blade against his skin, splitting the area in half, deep enough that it immediately began bubbling up with blood. Leo watched, fascinated, as the crimson liquid spilled over the skin, rolled downwards and leaving a gory river behind. This was always one of Leo's favorite parts. He recognized how sick it was, but a part of him was always relaxed at the sight of his blood leaking out from his body. It was kind of beautiful, in a disgusting, twisted way. 

Leo broke eye contact with the bead of blood trailing down his body, and continued on. He slashed at his skin, each new line bringing a fresh wave of blood, rolling down his naked body in red rivulets. The rivers would eventually get washed away by the shower water, but the cuts wouldn't stop bleeding for a while, more blood spilling over until the process began repeating itself. The razor blade traveled downwards, sliding across any skin that was still intact, letting out more of the sweet, crimson liquid. Leo closed his eyes. His torso had become a mess of red, bloody lines, but he didnt care, too engrossed in the stinging pain and the feeling of relief he got to notice much. It felt nice to hurt. It made him feel better, to get what he deserved. 

He was so focused on the pain and pressure that he didn't hear the door opening up, nearly screaming when a voice spoke through the crack in the door. 

"Leo? Dude, are you ok, it's way too late to be showering-"

Leo's head snapped to the side, his hands immediately trying to pull the shower curtain over his exposed body before Rain saw what he had been up to. It was too late though, Rain's widened eyes were already trained where the cuts had been visible only seconds ago. 

Fuck. He had forgotten to lock the stupid fucking door, and now he was screwed, he really couldn't do anything right, could he-

Rain inhaled a shaky breath, his eyes never leaving the portion of the curtain now covering Leo's cuts. Leo kept his eyes trained on Rain's form, trying to read whatever emotion was on his face, but besides his wide eyes, Rain's expression was unreadable, probably due to how fuzzy his features looked to Leo's glassesless eyes. He seemed frozen in place, almost as if the sight of Leo's injuries had short circuited something in his brain. 

Rain's mouth opened slowly. "Leo-"

"I'm fine." Leo snapped, his words suspiciously defensive. His hands were trembling. This was never supposed to happen, they weren't supposed to find out, what was he meant to do now? They couldn't know, they'd make him stop, or worse they'd leave him, were they going to leave him? They couldn't do that, he wouldn't recover, shit, why did he have to be such a screw up- "I just wanted to shower. Please leave."

Rain's mouth snapped shut. His eyes flicked from Leo to the curtain, and then to the rim of the tub, and then back to Leo. Leo tracked where his eyes had gone, and winced when he noticed there were a few pinkish drops of water sitting on the edge of the bath. He hadn't realized that there were bloody drops anywhere visible, there was really no way he was going to be able to play this off, was there?

Leo's eyes spotted movement, but before he could even figure out what was happening, Rain was in front of the shower, his feet tripping over the plunger Leo kept next to the front of the shower. He managed to catch himself on the wall before reaching behind the curtain and shutting the shower off with one swift flick of his wrist. His hand then moved to the curtain, trying to pull it back enough for him to see Leo, but Leo intercepted him, grabbing onto the curtain and keeping it where it was currently placed. 

"Dude, what the fuck was that for?" Leo squeaked out, holding onto the shower curtain with a death grip. He hated how scared his voice sounded, he hated how it had gotten high pitched with sheer terror, he hated the ice in his veins that was forcing him to tremble, he hated that there was no way he was going to get out of this. One hand let go of the shower curtain, frantically rubbing at the cuts on his torso, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, the blood on his skin didn't disappear, only spreading further across his body and hand. The cuts continued to bleed with nothing to wash it away, which now that Leo thought about it, was probably Rain's intention in the first place. He couldn't hide what he'd done now, it was only a matter of time before he lost the battle with the curtain.

"Leo, baby, I need you to let go." Rain sounded no less panicked than Leo himself felt, although he seemed to be doing a better job at hiding it. His hands tugged incessantly at the curtain, but Leo wouldn't release it, holding it to his body like a vice. "Leo, please, I need you to get out of the shower. Just...Just let go, and step out, please."

Leo shook his head, his breathing picking up. He clutched the curtain closer to his body, his hand tightening around the razor blade still resting in his palm. He backed up, his heels hitting the back of the tub, trapping him where he was. He felt like a cornered animal. Yes, that's what he was, wasn't it? A scared, cornered animal, about to lash out at any moment. "No. I can't. I don't want to."

Rain let out a watery sigh, his eyes leaving Leo to dart around the room. He was no doubt trying to figure out how to get Leo out of the shower, but no matter what he did, Leo wasn't going to leave. Nobody could make him. He was staying right where he was until either Rain left, or he physically forced him out of the tub. He wasn't going to be exposed without a fight. 

A moment of silence passed, Rain still looking around. The only noise to be heard was Leo's harsh breathing, as well as the occasional drip of water splashing against the drain. Eventually, Rain looked back towards Leo, a newfound desperation shining in his eyes. "Leo please, I need you to come out of there. I'm not mad at you, I swear I'm not, just please, let me see, let me help you-"

"I don't need help." Leo all but growled, holding the curtain impossibly closer to his chest. His chest was heaving now, tears pricking his eyes as he hyperventilated. He backed himself further into his tiny corner, his skin meeting the painfully cool wall behind him. He wanted to scream, to yell at Rain to leave until his boyfriend disappeared, but the small amount of rational thought in his mind wouldn't let him, reminding him that Rain wasn't going to hurt him, that he was only trying to help-

A strange noise left the back of Rain's throat, a mix between a cry and a moan. His eyes stayed on Leo for another moment, dark with despair and helplessness, before his head suddenly turned back towards the open door, his mouth parting wide. "Micah!"

Leo jumped at Rain's yell, shock running through his body. "Don't!" He begged, curling up closer to the corner and whisper-yelling in terror. "Don't call Micah, I don't want him to see, please, let him sleep!"

"I'm sorry, but I have to." Rain whispered briefly looking back at Leo before turning towards the door again. "MICAH!"

Leo shook violently, his breathing completely out of control. He looked for a place to hide, but there was none, not unless he wanted to run butt-naked through his apartment, and Micah would surely catch him if he did that. But this couldn't happen, Micah couldn't come in, he couldn't, he would be so mad at him, and so disgusted, he couldn't face him, he couldn't face Rain, he needed them to leave, he needed to hurt in peace, he needed to hide, he couldn't do this let him out let him out let him out let him out let him out-

The shower curtain fell from Leo's fingers. They were trembling too hard to continue holding on. The razor blade followed suit, landing on the ground with a harsh clatter, blood still clinging to its edge. Leo's knees gave out on him, his body collapsing underneath him, his back sliding down the wall. His cuts were on full display now, still bleeding, and no matter how he tried to wrap his arms around himself, there would always be wounds visible, the blood rolling down his stomach in obvious rivelets. He had to settle for curling in a little ball, his sobs echoing off the bathroom walls as he tried to hide as much of himself as possible, his knees coming up to hide the parts of his torso his arms couldn't.

Hands rested themselves on Leo's shoulders. He flinched violently, curling up closer to himself, but the hands didn't leave his body, instead moving to grab at Leo's armpits. Leo tried to fight back, squirming away as best as he could, but the hands persisted, pulling him forward until he was being half dragged, half pulled out of the tub and onto the cold tile floor. Leo gave up fighting when his body was pulled over the edge of the tub, using the last of his strength to push himself up the extra inch or two the hands couldn't seem to get him over on their own. 

As soon as Leo fell over the edge, a warm body smushed itself against him, the hands pulling him up so that his shoulder was leaning against Rain's chest. Leo curled up into himself once again, sobs wracking his body as arms wrapped around his naked back, pulling him closer to Rain's own body. 

"I've got you dragonfly, I've got you." Rain whispered, his own voice thick with tears. Leo felt material wrap around him, covering up his bare body as it trembled against Rain. His towel. Rain must have picked it up right after pulling Leo to him. "It's ok sweet boy, it's ok. Everything's gonna be ok, but I need you to breathe. Do you think you can do that? Breath with me, feel my chest rising and falling. Breathe baby, breathe."

Leo tried, attempting to time his breaths with the motion of Rain's chest, but he simply couldn't. Everything was too overwhelming, the fact that he had been caught never leaving his mind. He tried to suck in steady breaths, but his lungs wouldn't cooperate, his chest heaving as he tried to get any amount of air in his system. He could still feel blood dripping down his body, surely soaking into Rain's white sleep shirt by now, and the knowledge of what he had done to himself only contributed more to his panicked breathing. 

"Rain? Rain? Where are you? What's going on? Is Leo with-" Micah's voice drew closer before cutting off. Leo couldn't see him, his face was buried in Rain's chest after all, but he could hear Micah's footsteps well enough to know that he had found them, and was probably standing right outside the bathroom. "Shit, what's going on? Is Leo ok? Why..." He trailed off, for what reason, Lo couldn't be sure. "Why is there blood on the floor?"

Leo could feel Rain shaking his head, turning slightly to look at their confused boyfriend. "No, he's not ok, not even a little bit. He's hurt." His head turned back to Leo. "Leo, bug?"

A small whine left Leo's lips. He was still shaking violently, his sides shaking inconsistently with each breath. He pressed himself closer to Rain, trying to hide himself as much as possible, but he knew he couldn't keep Micah from seeing him when footsteps sounded out again, going around and behind him before another warm body enveloped his back. 

"Sweetheart? What's going on? Where are you hurt? Why are you hurt?" Micah asked, concern flooding his voice. He wrapped his own arms around Leo, his arms accidentally brushing against where Leo's cuts were. His arms withdrew when Leo flinched, instead moving to place his hands on Leo's curled up back. "Baby?"

The towel wrapped around Leo's body moved slightly, fingers slightly pulling at it. "Leo, can you let Micah see?"

Leo froze with shame and fear. No, no, Micah couldn't see. He couldn't be allowed to see what he'd done to himself. He clutched the towel closer to him, shaking his head in Rain's chest. He wouldn't show Micah, he couldn't.

"Please sweetheart?" Rain asked, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat, his fingers rubbing circles on Leo's back. "He's not going to be mad, I promise. We can't clean you up if we can't see where you're hurt. You need to let us help you."

Leo didn't react, but he loosened his hold on the towel, allowing Rain to tug it off of his body. It was like all the fight in him had left at once, leaving him a defeated, exhausted shell of himself. He couldn't fight them off anymore. It didn't matter anyway. Rain already knew, towel or no towel, and he would have ended up telling Micah outright if Leo had continued to refuse showing off his cuts, so really, what could he do? It didn't matter, they'd end up hating him anyways, he couldn't avoid it any longer. Might as well get it over with.

The towel was pulled off of Leo's body, slowly dragging up his skin until it had been completely removed from covering him up. His shivering grew even more intense, both due to the cold, and due to his immense fear of Micah's reaction. Micah wasn't saying anything, he wasn't making any noise at all, but Leo knew his cuts must be visible by now, with nothing left to hide them. Besides the cuts themselves, there was a lot of blood spread all across his body, not to mention the rather obvious bloodstains now soaked into Rain's previously white sleep shirt. It would have been impossible for Micah to miss what had happened now.

A shaky, sharp intake of breath sounded out from behind Leo. "Oh, baby..."

Leo crumpled into himself even more, burying his tear streaked face into Rain's shoulder. He didn't want pity. He didn't need it. He was strong, he wasn't a crybaby, he didn't need anyone else to deal with, or even see his problems.

His hands went to cover up his cuts, desperate to block them from view, the painful sting of his skin against his wounds doing nothing to help him, not like it normally did. He forced his tears back, no longer allowing himself to cry, forcing his breathing to smooth out into more deep, calming breaths. Rain's arms wrapped around him tighter, his lanky boyfriend whispering reassurances of love and safety in his ear, but Leo barely heard him, too wrapped up in his shutdown attempt to pay much attention to what was going on around him. 

"Micah," Rain started, his voice barely a whisper. "There's a first aid kit under the sink in Leo's bathroom. Can you grab it?"

Micah didn't say anything, but Leo felt him hesitantly pull away, his loud footsteps thundering in his ears as Micah left the bathroom, his form growing further and further away. Leo barely paid attention to what was going on around him, he was too tired to, instead allowing his mind to drift away, to distract himself from the reality he so desperately wanted to avoid. His mind tormented him, reminding him of how pathetic he was for forgetting something as simple as a lock on a door, but he barely acknowledged his thoughts, simply accepting them as they were while he tried to wipe his mind of any emotion or thought. He hadn't even realized Micah had come back, not until he felt someone kneel down behind him.

Hands placed themselves on Leo's back and shoulder, softly tugging at him. "Leo, my dearest love, can you face forward? I need to see you a little better."

Leo complied, his joints aching slightly as he pulled away from Rain's body. The cuts that had been directly pressed against Rain's shirt tried desperately to cling to the fabric, pulling small portions of the shirt along with them, but soon had to let go, the force of Leo's movement separating them. Leo shifted so that he was facing Micah directly, forcing the most neutral look he could possibly manage onto his red, tear streaked face. He didn't look Micah in the eye, instead staring at his boyfriend's torso through half-lidded eyes.

Micah's gaze searched Leo's, seemingly unnerved by how suddenly stoic he looked, trying to find even the slightest bit of emotion on his face. When he couldn't find any, he swallowed, his eyes moving back to the gruesome, crimson cuts littering a good portion of Leo's torso. "I'm gonna clean these up now." Micah whispered gently, pulling out a wet washcloth. When had that gotten there? Did he wet it in Leo's bathroom? Did it matter? "This is gonna sting a little, ok?"

Leo suppressed a small, humorless snort. Yes, because the stinging sensation was the biggest of his concerns. It's not like he had cut himself to ribbons for that exact feeling or anything, right? "That's fine." 

It looked like Micah wanted to say more, but he refrained, instead exhaling before pressing the washcloth as gently as he could to Leo's irritated skin. He was right, it did sting, but no more than it had in the shower, when water was actively pelting against the open wounds. Water droplets rolled down his stomach, slightly pink from the blood still clinging to his skin, but they were soon wiped up by the washcloth, Micah making his way down Leo's bdy in slow, steady motions. Despite the decent amount of blood coating Leo's skin, it looked like most of his injuries had stopped bleeding, save for a couple, slightly deeper ones, but even those had slowed from full on bleeding to lazy oozing, nowhere near as intense as before. Micah wiped those ones down a couple more times, his eyes drifting sadly from one cut to the next, until all the cuts had stopped bleeding, pink and puffy instead of red and puffy. Not much of an improvement, but it would do.

Once Micah had finished up, he pulled away, setting the now bloody washcloth to the side. "Are you ok?"

Leo nodded, still not looking at Micah's eyes. "Yeah."

"...Ok." Micah whispered. Leo could tell he was being cautious, walking on eggshells around Leo for his sake, but Leo knew he didn't have to. He wasn't going to break down crying again. He wouldn't. He wasn't that pathetic, although he knew his current position wasn't doing much to reaffirm that idea. 

Micah reached behind him, grabbing a little red box with the first aid symbol plastered across the front. "...I need to put some disinfectant on your cuts. They'll get infected if I don't."

"I don't think they will." Leo murmured. He watched as Micah pulled some cotton balls out of the box, and then a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, uncapping the chemical and dumping some onto one of the balls. "They've never gotten infected before, I don't see why that'll change this time."

Rain sucked in a breath from behind Leo, his arms tightening around Leo's naked stomach. Oh yeah, he was naked still. He forgot about that. "This isn't...This isn't the first time you've done this?"

"No, not even close." Leo knew he sounded like an ass, like an emotionless shell, but he couldn't help it. He didn't know what else he was supposed to do. He wasn't going to let himself be any more vulnerable than he had to be, and that started by shutting off any and every emotion he was feeling, repressing everything in his brain until he no longer felt human. 

Micah closed his eyes briefly, taking in a deep, long exhale before opening his eyes again, bringing the hydrogen peroxide covered ball to Leo's wounds. They stung, of course they did, but Leo barely registered the pain, instead just letting himself drift within his own mind again. He stared past Micah's shoulder, ignoring the feeling of the fluffy cotton ball running over each and every cut on his body, his eyes settling on the bright gleam of the razor blade, it's small, silver form sitting at the bottom of the tub. He could barely see it, but even with that tiny glimpse, he could feel himself being drawn to the blade, desperate for the stinging sensation only it could provide. This sting of the chemicals hurt, but not in the way he needed. No, only the blade could do that. 

"Micah," Rain spoke up, nearly scaring Leo into flinching. "There's a razor blade in the bathtub. He dropped it earlier, when I called for you. Can you grab it and hide it, somewhere Leo can't see it?"

Fuck. Curse Rain and his ability to see where Leo was looking. It must have been obvious that he was transfixed by the blade from the angle his head was tilted, although he never even considered Rain would be able to track his line of vision so well. Leo averted his eyes, looking to the floor, but Micah had already begun moving, leaning backwards enough for his arm to be able to reach into the tub and pluck the blade out. He held it between his fingers, seemingly unsure of where to put it, before dropping it into his pocket, the best spot he was going to get at this moment. At the very least, Leo couldn't see it or get to it anymore, much to his disappointment.

"I don't want you looking at it anymore." Rain's lips brushed up against Leo's ear, a small whisper leaving them. "You don't need to see that."

It wasn't like Leo could've done anything with it anyway, but he didn't say that, instead continuing to look at the floor, fading out. 

Hands found their way to Leo's torso, fingers just barely avoiding his fresh cuts. "We need to bandage these up." Micah murmured, trying to loo Leo in the eye. "It'll keep them clean." 

Leo didn't say anything, not even when Micah continued staring at him, attempting to catch his eye. He could feel his boyfriends look at each other over his shoulder, but he didn't have enough energy to care, barely mustering up enough strength to raise his arms high enough for Micah to wrap fresh bandages around him, until a solid portion of his torso was covered with the strong material. At least his cuts weren't visible anymore.

Micah finished up, taking the roll of bandages and putting them back in the first aid box, the rest of the materials used quick to follow. He closed the box up, pushed it to the side, and without any warning, wrapped his arms around Leo and crushed him to his chest. Leo jumped with surprise, but Micah didn't loosen his hold, one hand coming up to hold the back of Leo's head closer. 

"How long?" Micah whispered, his lips pressed against Leo's neck. "How long have you been doing this to yourself? There were so many scars underneath the blood, old ones and newer ones, how long have you been hurting like this without us knowing?"

Leo had stiffened up at the initial contact, but he relaxed in Micah's hold, resigning himself to his current position. He thought back, trying to do the math in his head. "Uhhh," he started, thinking hard. If he had started that one September, all those years ago, and it was currently February, then... "I mean, I started when I was thirteen, so that would mean..."

"You started when you were thirteen?!" Rain practically yelled out, completely stunned. Both Micah and Leo winced at the noise so close to their ears, but Rain paid them no mind, too wrapped up in his shock to notice. "Leo, you've been doing this for years?!" And nobody noticed? How did we not notice?!

Leo leaned his head against Micah's neck, too tired to lie. There was no point, it wouldn't help him hide this in the future, he might as well be honest. "Oh they did, I just got better at hiding it." He said, shrugging his shoulders. "I started with my arms, and then someone found out and got mad at me, so I moved to my torso. Nobody sees me without my shirt on, so it was easy to keep my cuts and scars hidden. It would have stayed hidden if I had just remembered to lock the stupid door..."

"I'm glad you didn't!" Rain cried, grief lacing his voice. "I knew something was wrong when you were gone, in the shower at this hour. All this time we've known you, and we never noticed. Lord, we're the worst, I can't believe we never figured it out, why you never take your shirt off, why you never let us see you naked-"

"It's really not a big deal," Leo cut him off, trying to sound reassuring. "It's just a couple of cuts. They heal after a bit, they aren't really even all that deep. It's not like I'm trying to kill myself, or even hurting myself where I could accidently kill myself, it's not that bad compared to other stuff I could be doing."

A stunned silence followed Leo’s words. He couldn’t see either of his boyfriend’s faces from this angle, but he was sure he had said the wrong thing, because both of their holds on his body tightened significantly. 

“Leo…” Micah whispered, his voice thick with…tears? That’s weird, Micah never cried, why would he start doing so now? “You’re hurting yourself. How could that possibly not be a big deal? It doesn’t matter that the cuts aren’t lethal, you’re still in pain, and you’re still marking your body up. How could we possibly not care about what you’re doing to yourself?”

Leo stayed silent for a moment. “…I’d be in more pain if I couldn’t do it.” He settled on, his voice embarrassingly unconvincing. He knew his boyfriends wouldn’t accept that answer, if anything, it would make them even more concerned, but he didn’t know what else to say. How was he supposed to make them understand just how badly he needed to hurt? How was he meant to convey his emotions, so strong he would drown in them, unable to reach the surface without this one, small vice? It was a necessary sacrifice he had to make for stability, one he knew his boyfriends could never hope to understand, not unless they somehow ended up swapping brains. 

“Why?” Rain asked, choking on his tears. A few small, wet drops landed on Leo’s shoulder. “What’s making you do this to yourself? What is making you hurt so much that the only solution is bringing yourself more pain?”

“It doesn’t really matter.” Leo responded. He wanted to wince at how uncaring he sounded, but he couldn’t find the energy to put more emotion in his voice. He didn’t want to talk about this any more, he didn’t want to acknowledge the cuts on his chest. He was done with thinking about them, the pain was no longer serving its purpose, there was no point dwelling on it any longer. He wasn't someone who was capable of getting better, so there was no point trying. He just wanted to go back to bed. "It's not going to change anytime soon, so there's no point worrying about it."

"There's no point? It doesn't matter?" Rain sounded incredulous, his voice rising in pitch with disbelief. Before Leo could respond, he was pulled backwards and around, his body being spun until he was facing Rain directly. Rain had an intense look on his face, his eyebrows furrowed with what looked to be anger, but the tears spilling from his eyes proved he wasn't angry, not really, anyway. "Baby, nothing could possibly matter more than your wellbeing. You're physically hurting yourself, and I imagine you wouldn't be doing so if you weren't mentally hurting on top of that. Something has to be going on for you to be doing this, nobody hurts themself for no reason. You are not ok right now, and instead of letting us help you, you're shutting us out."

Rain turned his head away for a second, blinking away tears. Leo wanted to reach out and wipe them away, he hated seeing his boyfriend cry, but before he could make any moves, Rain turned back toward him, hugging Leo closer and resting his lips on Leo's forehead. "We love you so, so much, dragonfly." His voice was soft, much softer than it had been before, almost like all the frustration he must have been feeling had drained away in an instant. "We love you so much, and we never want to see you hurt like this. But you are, and instead of opening up, you're turning yourself off so you won't have to face something that's scaring you, like you always do. I know you hate being vulnerable, I know it scares you, but you need to let us in. We can't help you out if you won't explain what's going on."

Leo didn't know what to say. Rain was right, of course he was, but it didn't make anything less overwhelming. He didn't know how to keep himself from shutting down. He didn't know how to let his walls down and let people in. He didn't know how to let others help him emotionally. His whole life he'd been strong, keeping everything to himself and pushing his emotions down, because he could handle it on his own, he really could. He'd never let anyone in, because he wasn't weak, he wouldn't allow himself to be. But how was he supposed to react when he was confronted like this, forced to face what he was trying so hard to repress? 

Leo hated how Rain could clock him so easily. He hated that he was an open book, no matter how hard he tried not to be. Maybe he was weak. Surely someone who was strong wouldn't have been so easy to figure out, right?

Strong arms found their way around Leo's still exposed waist. Micah's chest pressed firmly up against Leo's back, warming him up as he struggled with his words and thoughts. "Take all the time you need," he murmured, kissing the back of Leo's head gently. "We're not going anywhere. We know this is difficult for you, so we'll wait as long as you need us to."

"...I..." Leo paused. What was he even supposed to say? How was he supposed to make them understand? "...I...I just get...really overwhelmed sometimes."

Leo chewed on his tongue, contemplating what else he was meant to say. Rain and Micah remained silent, although their eyes were trained intently on Leo, waiting patiently for him to continue (well, Leo couldn't actually see Micah's eyes, but he could feel them boring into the back of his skull, so he knew his other boyfriend was paying attention). "I don't...I don't handle overwhelming emotions very well. I never have. When I get really sad, or really angry, or really disappointed with myself, or just really upset overall, it feels like I'm about to burst with the pressure and clutter of everything I'm feeling all at once. I don't know how to make it all go away. I've tried other coping mechanisms, but they never work fast enough. Hurting seems to be the only way to regulate my emotions well enough to manage. I never really thought of it as that much of a big deal, to be honest. I mean yeah, it hurts, but it's not the worst thing in the world. Cuts heal, scars don't bother me, it just seemed like a decent solution to a problem I can't otherwise solve."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a while. Leo felt like he may have said something wrong, or not been clear enough with his words, but before he could backtrack, Micah piped up from behind him. 

"So..." he started, drawing out the word in a contemplative manner. "You're using self-harm to punish yourself? You feel like you need to hurt whenever you're upset with yourself?"

"I mean, yes, but also no?" Leo responded, his words more unsure than he would have liked. "It's not always to punish myself, not necessarily. A lot of the time it is, I can't really pretend like it's not, but there are other times where I just...need a way to blow off steam over things that aren't related to me." He looked down at his chest, shame suddenly hitting him. Why did he have to be like this? Why was he unable to handle himself like a normal human? "I just never found a better way of coping with it all. This was better, simpler. An easy fix."

Rain looked like he was about to cry again. His bloodied arms came up to Leo's face (he hadn't noticed he had left blood on Rain's arms, he didn't mean to-), his hands tenderly placing themselves on either side of Leo's face. "Ok, that makes sense. I understand what you mean. I understand why you got addicted. But there's one thing I don't understand." Rain paused, looking down at Leo's chest briefly before looking back to meet Leo's gaze. "If it really wasn't that big of a deal, then why did you try so hard to hide it?"

Ooh. That one was tough. It brought up memories Leo would rather have forgotten. But he owed his boyfriends an explanation after all they'd witnessed, so he'd do his best to face Rain's question head on.

"I didn't want to disappoint you, or make you mad at me." He murmured, looking down at the floor. Micah's arms tightened around him protectively, but he carried on, not wanting anyone to interject. "One of my friends found out, and when they did, they weren't all that pleased with me. They got really mad, started yelling at me, it turned into this whole argument I don't really want to relive. The whole thing made me feel like I was a terrible person for coping the way I was, but despite that, it didn't make me want to stop. In fact, it made me want to hurt more. I was mad at myself, and mad at my friend for not understanding why I was doing what I was doing, and I was mad at everything that made me feel so awful all the time. I felt so alienated, so disgusting, like nobody in my life would understand me, or listen to me talk about my struggles. I thought everyone would react like my friend did, with anger. So, I hid it, and I made sure to do it better than before. That way, nobody would be mad at me for struggling, and I could keep coping in peace. It's so stupid, because I can't remember much about the argument itself, I can't remember a word that was said, but I still remember how it made me feel. I still remember how worthless the ordeal made me feel. I never wanted to feel like that again, so I didn't let anyone now, and I was never going to. Not until now..."

Tears were welling back up in Leo's eyes, and he tried to blink them away, desperate not to let himself cry again. He could get through all this, he didn't need to cry, he was better than that, stronger. He was already being too open, too vulnerable, speaking of things he had never talked about to anyone before. He didn't need to add crying on top of that. Why couldn't he be more like Micah, who almost never cried? Why couldn't he be that tough?

"Oh sweet boy," Micah spoke up, his mouth right up against Leo's ear. His fingers rubbed loving circles on Leo's stomach, soothing the skin that was actually intact. "We could never be mad at you over this. This isn't...This is something that you're struggling with, you don't deserve to feel even more alienated than you already feel. You didn't deserve what happened to you. You didn't deserve to be berated for succumbing to your mental health. You didn't deserve to feel alone, or discusting, or embarrassing. You are so, so loved, no matter how bad your mental health is, and we would never intentionally make you feel worse over something that's clearly been a battle for you." He stopped to kiss Leo's cheek, barely missing the part of Rain's hand still resting there, before pulling back. "We could never be mad at you, but we are concerned. I understand why you've turned to this as a coping mechanism, but we need to find you a better one. This is already a clear addiction, and it could get so much worse in the future. What if you end up hurting yourself to a lethal extent? What if you end up in the hospital? What if this becomes so debilitating that you have to do it more and more frequently, until it consumes your whole life? There's gotta be a better way to deal with all of this, there just has to be."

Leo sighed. "I know." And he did. He understood that his little problem could get out of control very easily, but it was hard to accept when nothing else seemed to work. What was he supposed to do when he got overwhelmed, if not hurt? He didn't think it was possible for him to get better, not when he was the way that he was. He'd accepted that he could never get better years ago, and he didn't see why that would change now, even with his boyfriends becoming aware. He was a lost cause, they just didn't know it yet.

"Then... I don't know, can you think of something, anything, that'll give you the same type of relief cutting does? Maybe drawing, or exercising, or doing that thing you do when you pace around your room for hours listening to music?" Rain asked, his voice slightly optimistic. Leo didn't have the heart to tell Rain that he wasn't capable of help. He wasn't capable of change. He was stuck the way he was, because he had never been able to get better, not even when he tried. He would never get better.

"I don't know." Leo whispered, and the tears were suddenly back. He was suddenly hit with the biggest wave of despair he had felt all night, the urge to hurt again swamping his brain until it was all he could think about. He wanted desperately to cut himself again, or to grind his palm into the pre-made cuts already littering his chest until they opened up again, but he knew his boyfriends would end up restraining him if he did, and the razor blade he had used was unobtainable, safely tucked away in Micah's pocket. He highly doubted Micah would let him grab it, and there was no way he could get it out without immediately being caught. With no way to comfort himself, Leo knew he wouldn't be able to keep himself from breaking down. It was too much, everything that was going on was too much. He could only shut himself down for so long, and it looked like his time was up. "I really don't know. I've tried some of that stuff, but it's never worked before. I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's ok! It's ok love, don't stress yourself, ok?" Micah tried to comfort Leo, his voice low and soothing, but it wasn't working very well. He must have noticed how Leo's hands were forming into claws, opening and closing with frantic movements, because he moved his hands down to grasp Leo's, holding them in one position. "We don't need to figure this out right now. This is a process, right?" 

Leo nodded hesitantly, and Micah continued. "I think maybe we should go rest a little. This has been a lot for one night, hasn't it?"

Leo nodded again, this time more enthusiastically. He would gladly take any out he could to stop talking about this, it was extremely overwhelming, which was not helping Leo's case at this moment. Anything to hide from what was going on within himself, and around him. He needed a distraction at the very least, if not pain. He pressed himself closer to Micah's chest, shifting himself so he could curl up closer to Micah's chest. 

Micah hugged Leo tightly to his torso, kissing his forehead lightly. "That's ok, I understand. This is obviously taking a toll on you. We can discuss this more tomorrow, for now, try to calm down a little. We don't need to stress. We'll figure this out. Everything will be ok, we'll help you as much as we can. You will be ok, I promise. We love you so much baby, never forget that." 

Leo nodded for a third time, saying nothing. He saw Rain open up his mouth, clearly intending to argue, but his jaw shut when his eyes looked over Leo and met Micah's, clearly meeting a warning look. Leo didn't want his boyfriends to argue over this, over him, he was sure it was hard enough for them to even process what they had walked in on, but it wasn't up to him to decide what his boyfriends could and couldn't feel. They were scared and worried, and although they would probably end up expressing such emotions in different ways, it wouldn't change that they just wanted Leo to be happy and healthy.

He wasn't sure that was possible for him. How could he get better when he was...well, the way he was? 

"...We should probably get these clothes back on you, huh?" Rain whispered, looking down at the pile of fabric Leo had left on the ground. Leo kept forgetting he was naked, but now that Rain had pointed it out, it was hard to ignore the biting cold that was creeping over Leo's skin, save for where Micah was pressed against him. 

"Yeah, I guess." Leo moved to stand up, holding Micah's hand as he pushed his weakened body off the ground. He was still shaking, but he was able to grab his clothes just fine, pulling his shirt over his bandaged body while his boyfriends stood by, watching his every movement with cautious eyes. Leo finished with his shirt, grabbing at his boxers and pants and pulling them up before turning back to his boyfriends, who were still watching over him. "I'm good now."

"Alright." Micah said, smiling gently at Leo. "You and Rain head back to the bedroom. I'm gonna stay here for a minute and clean the floor up."

Oh yeah. There was some of Leo's blood on the floor. Not a lot, but it was still there. Leo felt a flash of guilt for getting some of his own blood on the floor of Natalia's bathroom, but he shook it away. Without saying a word, he turned towards the door and started for the bedroom, Rain right behind him. Rain's hand shot out, grabbing onto Leo's own with a tight, needy grip, holding him close by, despite how close they already were. Once they made it out to the hallway, Rain pressed himself close to Leo's side, seemingly soaking up every inch of physical touch he could. 

They made it back to the bedroom, stumbling around furniture in the still-dark apartment until their feet hit the side of Leo's bed. Rain didn't break apart from Leo once, not even a second, still clinging on desperately to Leo's arm as he climbed into the middle portion of the bed. As soon as Leo had settled himself under the covers, Rain hopped in beside him, spooning the smaller man's back in the most protective, tight hug Leo had ever experienced from him, or at least, that he could remember. The bed still felt empty and cold without Micah's presence, but it was nice to at least have Rain with him, cuddling up to his back so securely like this. 

Rain placed his head on top of Leo's, kissing his cheek softly. "I love you." He whispered into the dark, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, despite the fact that there was no one to disturb. "I love you, I love you, I love you. I'll love you forever, my little dragonfly. Please stay safe. Please come to us the next time you feel like...like hurting yourself. I don't want to lose you."

Leo's muscles relaxed in Rain's hold. He hated how badly this was affecting his boyfriends. He hated how fearful Rain sounded, how his voice trembled with every word he spoke. He hated how he could hear and feel the little plips of tears on his skin, despite Rain's efforts to sound strong. He wished he had remembered to lock the door. He wished he could take all the pain Rain and Micah were feeling at the discovery and transfer it to himself. If he could make them forget all that had happened, not just for his sake, but for theirs, he would do it in a heartbeat. "I love you to Raindrop. I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I'm here to stay, ok?"

He wouldn't promise to come to them when he wanted to hurt, nor would he promise to kick his habit. He couldn't. He was a lot of things, but he'd rather not be a liar. He wouldn't burden them with the responsibility of dealing with his issues, that wasn't their job or responsibility. They weren't therapists, it wasn't up to them to fix the unfixable. But...maybe he could pretend to get better, if only to ease their minds. That couldn't be too hard, could it? 

"Ok." Rain murmured, giving Leo's cheek one last kiss before moving his head back to the pillow behind him. "You better keep that promise."

Leo said nothing, instead scooting closer to Rain's body behind him. The door adjacent to them creaked wider, Micah's towering form entering the room as he too made his way around the bed and into his designated spot in front of Leo. As soon as he had gotten comfortable, he wrapped his arms back around Leo, smushing himself impossibly close to Leo's body. It would have felt like a regular night, if it weren't for the noticeable desperation in Micah's actions. 

"Goodnight my love." Micah murmured, his voice low and soothing. "We'll be here when you wake up. I've got you. I'll keep you safe, I promise. I love you more than words can possibly express."

"I love you too. Leo echoed, moving his head forward enough to kiss Micah's neck. He wrapped his own arms around Micah, hugging his boyfriend closer to himself. "Thank you, for everything. I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize baby." Micah nuzzled his face into the crook of Leo's neck, kissing his jaw tenderly. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I want to talk more about all this later, but for now, get some rest. It'll do no good to have this conversation when you're so exhausted and upset."

"Ok." Leo closed his eyes. Behind him, Rain removed one hand from around Leo's stomach, grabbing his comfort blankets closer and putting them beside Leo's chest. Leo tucked his nose into them, thankful to have them nearby, and with that, he tried to let himself drift.

He faded surprisingly quickly. Maybe it was because he had already been tired, maybe it was because of all his heightened emotions draining him, or maybe it was just because it was so late at night, but no matter the reason, Leo's mind swiftly succumbed to the growing darkness numbing his body. Micah was right. He could think about this more tomorrow. He didn't need to think about it now, because he was safe. They weren't mad at him. He was fine, everything was fine, he was going to be ok.  

And if he wasn't planning on quitting anytime soon? Well, nobody had to know about that. He could say all the things they wanted to hear, keeping them as blissfully unaware as ever after regaining their trust. They didn't know about the little box under his sink after all, so it's not like he was out of tools to use on himself. He would be fine, he just had to be extra cautious when coping in the future. They wouldn't find out again. He'd make sure of it.

Relapsing wasn't that big a deal to him. He was strong, he could handle it, and besides, isn't this what he deserved? He'd be fine. He had to be. 

"I'm scared."

Rain's voice cut through the silence of Leo's dark room, spooking Micah into briefly tensing up. Leo was asleep between them, and Micah had honestly believed Rain was too. Guess he was wrong.

"Do you think he'll actually stop? Do you think he'll find a better coping mechanism? What if he gets really, really hurt one day? What if he dies? What if-"

Without disturbing their sleeping boyfriend, Micah took one hand off of Leo's slumbering form and placed it over Rain's shoulder. "He's gonna be ok. He's not gonna die, and he's not going to go to the hospital. We'll make sure he finds a better way of coping, I promise. We'll keep him safe. He just...needs a little support, yeah?"

"...Yeah, I guess. But... are you sure?"

Rain couldn't see Micah, but he nodded nonetheless. "I'm sure. We'll help him get better. He'll be ok. This is a very recoverable thing. It'll take some time, sure, but he'll learn to recover. It'll be ok, I promise."

"...Ok. I believe you." A pause. "I love you."

"I love you too, angel. Try to sleep well, ok?"

"Ok. You too."

Rain settled, and Micah breathed out a small sigh of relief, too quiet for anyone else to hear. If he was being truly, genuinely honest with himself, he wasn't sure his answers were actually true. It's not like the possibilities Rain had brought up hadn't crossed his mind at all, but he had tried to shake them off, determined to believe that Leo would get better. He had to get better. Anything else wasn't a possibility.

But fuck, if it hadn't shattered Micah's heart to find Leo like that, curled up in Rain's lap with blood dripping down his torso, the crimson liquid leaking from self-inflicted wounds. And hearing Leo speak of himself like a criminal, like he needed to be punished for his wrongdoings? Well, that had crushed the shattered pieces of Micah's heart into powder, until he thought he might keel over and die from the pain. He had never once considered that Leo could possibly be doing this to himself, he saw no signs, but there must have been something, right? Something he had missed, something he had overlooked, something that had ignored? How could he have possibly not known at least a little bit that this was going on?

Thirteen years old. Leo had been doing this to himself since he was thirteen years old. That was long before the three of them had started dating, long before he and Rain had even met Leo, and somehow, somehow despite how long it had been, how scarred Leo must have become, they never picked up on it. 

Leo had been destroyed. He had shut down. He had forced himself to stop feeling. He was not ok, but he didn't seem too upset with how he was doing, even going so far as to insinuate that he would be fine, that none of this was a big deal. That he would be ok to continue on like this. So could Micah really, truly be sure of Leo's safety at this moment?

No, no he couldn't. Not even a little bit. He couldn't say with one hundred percent certainty that Leo would stop, that he wouldn't hide his pain as long as he could, that he wouldn't end up severely injured, or even dead. So no, Micah couldn't tell for sure what would happen with their boyfriend, the love of their lives, their soulmate in every possible way.

But that's not what Rain needed to hear. He didn't need to know of Micah's doubts, not when he had so many of his own. Leo was all Rain had in terms of family, except for Micah of course, so to lose him would mean losing half his heart. It would kill him to lose Leo, it would kill him to even think about losing Leo. Micah couldn't do that to him.

So he hid his thoughts, put on a brave face, and continued on. Rain would never know how Micah's hands trembled as they patched Leo's injuries up, or how they had nearly dropped the razor blade several times when going to retrieve it. Rain would never know how he had cried when they left the bathroom, cleaning up the blood on the floor using the river he had created with his tears. Rain would never know of how Micah had washed his face desperately, unable to wipe the tear steaks and redness from his face, no matter how hard he scrubbed. And most importantly, Rain would never know how he had entered the bedroom and almost turned back around, the sight of Leo laying so still nearly causing him to hyperventilate with panic. 

No, Rain didn't need to know about any of that. Neither did Leo. Micah could handle the burden on his own. He could survive. He knew he could, because despite his fears, he would make sure Leo came out of this ok. He would be there as much as he could, and he would give all he had to make Leo better, all he had and then some. Leo getting worse was not a possibility. Micah couldn't let it be.

So he stayed awake, and he watched. He watched Leo's slow, deep breaths, his body twitching with life every so often. He watched as Rain fell deeper and deeper into slumber, his own fears forgotten temporarily as he drifted into dreamland. He watched over his hurt, grieving boyfriends, each one injured in their own ways, slept peacefully, their worries slipping from their shoulders until the moment they woke once again. 

He watched, refusing to rest. What else could he do? He wouldn't let his boyfriends, the loves of his lives, the planets his life revolved around, suffer so terribly. He had to keep them together. He had to heal their wounds, to fix them up until they were the best versions of themselves they could possibly be. Who was he, if not the one who kept them safe?

He watched, and he kept guard, waiting for morning to come. Everything would be sorted out then. Everything would be ok then. But for now, he would watch. 

[bleach-your-panties]

♡ Hi! I'm Rosie! 🤍✨️

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originally, this blog was dedicated to Bleach - hence the name. byp has been a multifandom blog since 2018-2019.

once again, I AM BLACK. take that into account while reading my works or requesting from me.

don't spam like my shit and never reblog or comment, please. i will block you. bookmarking is fine, but please space it out 😭

do not request/ask me to write you something then not interact with it. this really pisses me off.

don't like my shit if your page is blank. if your blog is under con., it'd better look like it/say so.

please have an age/age indicator (i.e. birth year, etc.) visible where i can see it or i'm blocking. i don't have time to play inspector gadget. this is tumblr etiquette by now lol.

i am here to create, not to argue over cartoons.

MY OPINIONS ARE JUST THAT. MY OPINIONS. YOUR OPINIONS DO NOT INVALIDATE MINE. please understand this byi with me or my works.

i am a heavy smut and dark content writer, and also interact with it heavily. i'd prefer it if anyone under 21 did not interact with my dc works but i can't and won't stop you. you are responsible for you. i am responsible for me.

i will only become moots with those over 18 and that interact with me or my works regularly.

my dms/asks are open but please don't trauma dump on me or vent without asking first. i also have a lot of personal trauma and could possibly become triggered. also, please don't send asks trying to sell me something or get me to donate.

♡dni with me if :

you are racist/racist apologist - yes, i consider being Confederate/Nazi-sympathetic as racist.

you are a Trump/Elon supporter. that's all to be said.

you are any type of phobia - i do not tolerate or spread hatred of particular persons/groups on my platform.

you are a minor, ageless, spam, blank, p*rn, meme account with random ass reblogs and dumb ass urls ("fatpussyhoe33")

you gatekeep/get mad at and block others for liking/self-shipping with the same characters you like. grow up, petty bitch.

you like to incite discourse about religion, politics, or current events. i am Christian and very open about my beliefs/faith. dni if that will be an issue for you.

you are a ped*/consume sexually/morally inappropriate content of underaged or child-bodied characters.

♡ that's all i have for now! ✨️🤍

[anonymityisfunwriter]

Hi, i want to start this by saying i absolutely love your work and you are one of the few writers i would trust to write this request. Recently i experienced whats called chemical pregnancy. A chemical pregnancy is a pregnancy that usually doesnt make it past about the first 2 months of pregnancy. I miscarried at 5 weeks, the night after i found out i was pregnant. It was an unplanned and frankly unwanted pregnancy due to multiple reasons so its a conflicting situation for me. I was wondering if you could write a fic with Bf!Bucky where reader has to tell Bucky about the situation (minus the unwanted part but still unplanned) and he comforts her and her unusual and confusing (due to the circumstances) grieving process. I would really appreciate this fic as this is something that has been really hard for me but please do not feel pressured to write this if it makes you uncomfortable. <3

Hi,

First and foremost, I am so very sorry. Regardless of the situation, this must be so incredibly difficult for you.

Thank you for trusting me with something like this, I can really only hope I do it justice or offer you the smallest amount of solace or distraction. Please let me know if you need anything or if I can pray for you or simply send you some good thoughts and love. My inbox is always open.

And if you are just apart of my usual audience, this is NOT part of the Grumpy x Sunshine series or any of my usual series, please heed the content and trigger warnings, while there is nothing graphic in this fic, there are some very heavy themes.

Proceed with caution.

CW/TW: Discussing child loss/miscarriage, pregnancy, and other related content

--

A Different Type of Grief

Grief.

Grief was familiar.

This was an entirely different type of grief.

It settles in the depths of your bones. Wrapping around your ribcage like a python. Not necessarily suffocating you, but just constricting enough that you felt the pain with every breath.

Every single breath was a reminder.

There were moments that you weren't sure what you were actually grieving.

An idea of a future that you didn't know you wanted quite yet. Of a person that you didn't know. A person you would now never get to know.

You'd known for less than a day.

Admittedly, the little pink plus sign was a surprise.

You never would've known if it weren't for the fact that you had to take a pregnancy test before changing birth control.

You highly doubt you would've known anything was wrong otherwise. Knowing that, makes it all the more painful.

That one day was filled with the most heightened emotions you'd ever known.

First, intense surprise. Followed by intense anxiety. And then, complete, total, unbridled happiness.

You suppose that it only made sense that this suffering was also intense. Unimaginable. Unfathomable.

When you found out, Bucky's return was still 48 hours away, but you were already planning on how you could tell him the second he got back.

You'd talked about the possibility of having a family before. And while this would be deviating from the plan you talked about before, it was still something you both ardently wanted.

You had so many ideas on how to tell him the joyous news.

You had not a single one for how to tell him this.

For the 24 hours that you knew, you spent it reimagining the future you thought you wanted. You dove in head first, embracing it in spite of all the reservations and reasons that you once held.

Chemical pregnancy. Those were really the only words that you heard. Just like that, your new future was gone, ripped away like it was nothing.

The last 24 hours were something that you would not wish upon your worst enemy, a suffering too terrible to name.

Your heart clenched every time you thought about it. About taking that away from him like it'd been taken from you. The idea of being parents. The excitement that would build over those nine months. It hurt.

It hurt so much you didn't know how your bones hadn't crumbled under the pressure.

"Doll, I'm back," Bucky announces. You wince when you hear his voice echo down the hall. Normally, you'd be waiting for him or you'd bound into his arms and showering him with affection the moment he opened the door. He frowns at the peculiarity, ambling into the apartment with his duffle bag in hand. "Doll?"

He finds you in the kitchen, obsessively cleaning and rearranging one of the spice cabinets. "Doll?"

You can't bring yourself to look at him, instead, you hyper fixate on the cabinet. Barely sparing Bucky an acknowledgement, you mumble, "Hi."

"Is everything okay?"

No, you think to yourself, none of it was okay.

You fervently shake your head, "No. This is wrong, it's all wrong!"

In spite of the last 24 hours you spent obsessively cleaning your apartment from top to bottom, you sweep the first row of spices with your hand. They scatter and smash all over the pristine floor.

Bucky jolts at the shock of the abrupt action, "Can you please talk to me? You're scaring me a little bit."

You look down at your shoes, the same ones you'd worn for the last 24 hours, not having changed once since the doctor uttered those awful words, now covered in little shards of glass.

Bucky steps to the side of you, the sound of glass crunching underneath his shoes not even registering in his mind.

Your eyes remain downcast, still staring at the floor. Your eyes flicker over to his boots. "We should stop wearing shoes in the house."

"Can you please talk to me? What's going on? Did something happen?" Bucky desperately pleads, trying to catch your eye.

You side step him, walking to the front door to place your shoes on the shoe rack, quietly murmuring, "We really should stop wearing shoes in the house."

Bucky trails right behind you, slightly disturbed by the zombie like state in which you were operating.

"What's-" he trails off, his eyes flickering to a white card on the coffee table.

On it, a small cartoon stork is carrying a little bundle in its beak.

His sharp gasp stops you in your tracks.

You squeeze your eyes shut, striding over to the table as quickly as you can to get rid of the reminder.

"I'm sorry, I meant to throw this away," you blankly mutter, taking the card you made for Bucky off the table.

"Can you please just sit down and talk to me? Are you- Are we?"

You turn back to him and it doesn't take him much to deduce the answer from your glassy eyes and the pained look on your face. "No, we're not. Not anymore."

"Not anymore," Bucky quietly repeats to himself.

Hearing him repeat the words hits you like a ton of bricks. You feel yourself unravel, no longer able to push away the unimaginable.

"I'm - I'm so sorry," you apologize, your voice cracking as you feel yourself dissipate into a puddle of tears.

Unlike the last 24 hours, this time, Bucky is there to catch you. He braces his arms as you crumble into him. You feel your knees give out and suddenly, he's the only thing holding you up, only thing holding you together.

You clutch his shirt, balled up in your fist like it's your lifeline.

"It's okay," he promises, stroking the back of your head as you sob into his shoulder. Even as tears burn and well in his eyes, he focuses on the heart ache you must be feeling. "It's okay."

"I didn't do anything wrong," you brokenly whisper.

"Oh, I know, I know you didn't," Bucky consoles you, embracing you as tightly as he can. The two of you holding onto each other as you both fought the urge to swim down into the sea of despair. "It's not your fault."

"I didn't do anything wrong," you swear over and over again.

"It's okay. We're gonna be okay," Bucky promises.

AnonymityIsFun Masterlist

General Taglist: @ludicbouquetfromearth @famousbreadcherryblossomsstuff @geminigengar @@melsmelsmels @ecolle @ybflkmj @mediocre-daydreams @thegirlnextdoorssister @toomanyfanficsbruh @mirikusashes @infamouslyclumsy

[munsonthemisfit]

This following post will be a rant about the fanfiction situation we have seen over the last couple of days. Please note: this rant covers the topic of child endangerment, assault, interacting in nsfw ways with minors, taboo themes and the internet's reaction to it all.

This post DOES NOT condone the creation of said subjects and does NOT go into detail about anything graphic other than explaining the situation at surface level. If this makes you uncomfortable then please skip this post, I have put it under a "keep reading" to ensure you aren't forced to read something that makes you upset <3

*sighs loudly*

Alright, fuckers. Buckle up, I’ve got something to say.

Firstly, there’s a major difference between a subject being dark/taboo and literally straight up illegal. I'm unsure how you cannot understand that, but here we are I suppose?

I do not care what your personal opinion is on the matter, there is a huge difference, and if you are someone who feels comfortable writing/reading/reblogging illegal material like what we have seen over the last couple of days, I truly have no shame in calling you out in the slightest. You can take that up with God or whatever kinda thing you believe in; I’m judging you and I’ll call you out on that shit when I see it. Things are illegal for a reason and I'm unsure why anyone feels the need/urge to post that kind of content without needing their hard drives checked in all honesty.

Fanfiction is a community; fandoms are a community.

We need to keep our community safe.

Writers post things with trigger warnings and content warnings, readers need to heed those warnings before consenting to interacting with it. We post smut for adults and everything else is free for all ages to enjoy.

We heavily insist that minors keep away from our content because as adults, we shouldn’t be interacting with any of y’all, but we know the risks when we post. There’s always going to be children who don’t listen, don’t respect our warnings, don’t get the hint that we block them for our protection as much as their own. Which is why writers (at least ones with their morals in check) will post on everything possible that minors are not allowed/will be blocked if caught interacting, and at almost 27 years old, I stand by this.

I don’t care if you think I’m an asshole, I do not consent for minors to be in my circle. If you are a minor and you choose to interact regardless of our boundaries/warnings, you are proving why we have to resort to blocking anyone we find infiltrating our bubble.

People over 18 do not even need to be interacting with minors, let alone providing them nsfw content, that isn’t for you yet. Kids will find ways to get what they want, and the older half of fandoms are aware of this because we used to be you, but you can’t get mad at us for doing our best to filter you out of our pages.

We do not want to appear complicit for providing any sort of adult content for you children. We have the right to protect our online space however we see fit.

Writers post stories with brief descriptions and warnings at the very top of their posts¸ to allow anyone scrolling by to know whether things are going to be your cup of tea. Even if these posts are reblogged, funnily enough, warnings and descriptions are still the first thing you can see.

I'm unsure on how people have chosen to use the excuse “I didn’t see/know” because there is literally no way you could have avoided that. To interact in any regard (liking/reblogging/commenting) you have to scroll past the entire story to get to those buttons, don’t try and say that you ignore the entire block of text in favour of interacting without knowing a single thing about it.

I refuse to believe that anyone who is on Tumblr is just “so busy” that they can skim read all forms of warnings on a horrendous post and still go ahead and spread it/encourage it by interacting. If you are going to be complicit, you are coming across as complacent.

If you choose to interact/spread horrendous content with the excuse of “well I didn’t know” despite the fact the writer themselves gives you a warning on the content, you are part of the problem.

When you come online, you have to do your part. Read things.

Take the time to truly see what is within your community, it is not our job to police it. We shouldn’t have to come and message you every time we think you are connected to something we don’t want to see, we don’t have to slide into your dms and ask if you knew what you were doing. If you have liked/reblogged a post with content we don’t like, that is you showing that you are complicit, that is you making a public statement of “this is okay with me, here my name and face is attached to positive reinforcement of giving this user notes” and that is enough to make us block you.

If you can “casually” like/reblog because you “skimmed” something, we can block under that same principle. We see your name attached to something illegal, we block. We don't owe anyone a second chance, if something makes us umcomfortable, we can remove it from our circle without needing to defend our choices.

I’ll be honest, I’m a busy person, I skim read. Yes.

However, the difference is, I will still take the time to ensure that what I am skim reading isn’t something illegal, and apparently that is something some of you are unable to do. If I have gone out of my way to like a post to get back to it later, I have skim read over the vague tone of the post beforehand, so I would have seen the giant fucking warnings that explain a post has some messed up shit in it.

I literally do not understand how you could have read over the warnings and gone “yep – I’ll read that later 😊” and then gotten upset that we have seen your name attached to the notes. That is a pathetic excuse. You should have seen the warnings and subject and taken a couple extra seconds before acting upon it.

It’s completely different if the author had sneakily slipped that in or not given a heads up about the subject, but they did, there is no excusing it, really.

As I said before, it is not our job to police things. I’m not going to sit and refresh a horrible person’s post and contact each person who likes/comments/reblogs it and be like “did you know that you’re doing this?!” because it’s not my job and you have already proven yourself to be okay with it as you’ve interacted.

We have full time jobs, classes to be attending, life to be living, we sure as hell are not going to slide into multiple DMS and question your every decision. If we see that you are causing the horrid writer to think we want more from them by interacting positively, we are going to see that as a red flag and block at source.

It might be just me, I’m not sure, but if someone tags their posts as “dark/taboo” then I will check out their page and see what their limits are. I want to know that I’m comfortable interacting with the type of content they will be writing. I don’t want to like one post from them and find out later that they post something utterly horrific because then I would appear complicit with their entire nature and that makes me massively uncomfortable.

So, yes, I will look at someone’s page and get a vibe check before interacting because funnily enough I don’t want my name attached to their potential abuse. It seems like the bare minimum to check out who’s in my circle and make sure none of us are encouraging illegal shit, y’all don’t vet authors who post and make sure they aren’t using fanfic as a way to normalise their morbid nature?

People aren’t getting policed for everything they say/do, people are being called out for attaching their name so confidently to a person/blog/story that has some horrendous content.

We are allowed to voice our discomfort and announce our detachment from said person/blog/story to bring awareness to those who were unaware to give them the chance to either consent to those posts in their circle or block at will. I’m not saying we should run around with pitchforks screaming “*insert @ here* is a nonce!!!!” if they “accidentally” like a post to “read later” as they claim, but I’m within my right as an adult with a moral compass to block/unfollow anyone I see liking that shit.

I don’t owe you an explanation, a chance at forgiveness, anything.

If something you have done makes me uncomfortable, you aren’t allowed near my page, why is that so hard for anyone to respect?

“Not everyone fully looks at content before they reblog it!!” Well, maybe y’all should start. Welcome to the internet, where you need to understand that actions have consequences. Accidents happen, but you’ve gotta accept responsibility and realise that accidents still have reactions.

If you do something we don’t morally agree with, even as an “accident”, and we are uncomfortable, we are blocking it.

“They only warned about *insert two illegal topics here* so why are you mad about us interacting with *insert different illegal topic here* that we ‘didn’t know’ was included?” – bruh, please try and have some self-awareness. People have different boundaries. If they are uncomfortable with you supporting any content with any illegal subject involved they are well within their right to block you.

The fact it took us mere seconds to skim read their accounts and find the problem, yet you are using the defence that you had “no idea” despite the fact y’all were the ones interacting with the account speaks volumes, my dude. Why are you promoting shit you “don’t agree with” and acting like you were clueless when it took us all mere seconds to find the problem and decide we aren’t okay with it?

You need to be way more careful with what you interact with online, that’s what needs to be taken from this.

Like I said – it is not our job to sit and gatekeep things 24/7. If we see people interacting with content we don’t agree with, blocking you is completely within our rights to do. You need to be responsible for your own online interactions and maybe not skimread things.

This isn’t directed at any one person, more the whole community.

I’ve unfortunately seen people defending their actions, I’ve seen many call out posts, I’ve seen people stating their repulsion to this situation, I’ve seen it all and acted accordingly. It’s that simple. This isn’t a hate post, I’m not indirectly mentioning anyone, I’ve just gathered the gist of the situation from the stream of it on my dashboard and this was my personal standpoint.

If you’re going to get mad that people are hurt over you mindlessly interacting with posts where people have fantasied and romanticised the idea of any character harming children in any form, whether you liked the posts “by accident,” or because you are a sick fuck, that is your problem, frankly. You cannot hurt people's feelings (whether it was by accident or maliciously), then get mad at them for being hurt.

You need to do better and actually read what you are interacting with before you do that. People are allowed to be hurt and uncomfortable and angry and upset over others deciding to sexualise horrendous topics.

We can’t exactly stop the content being made, but we can keep our circle clean of that shit and block/unfollow anyone who’s values clash with our own.

It’s that simple, internet. <3