#does capitolization matter or..

[sol-dial]

*Drops lazy art and scurries back into the void*

In my Marvel era I guess, I think they’re kinda neat ٩( ᐛ )و

[sapphicathenas]

anyone else thinking about effie spending 24 years watching haymitch completely fall apart. effie, who met haymitch by accident, who knows exactly what kind of person he is, who sees him every year on his birthday for 24 years and each year he’s drunker, each year he’s angrier, each year he’s faster to give up. and then they get katniss and peeta. peeta, who is kind and open and understanding, who refuses to give up on haymitch. and katniss, who is so much like haymitch at 16 that it hurts. and over the few days they’re together, effie watches haymitch come back to life. watches him try. watches him have hope. and then they get to keep not one but both of those kids. they get to come home. and then, less then a year later, effie pulls haymitch’s name at the reaping.

[mitsuki91]

Saying that Lucy Gray never loved Coriolanus Snow and just "perform it" is buying into Billy Taupe narrative... Just saying.

[tennessoui]

making a mood board for chapter 3 of the hunger games au (which i think i will have finished tomorrow for ✨posting✨) and i was like. hm. how many photos of obi-wan looking like a pretty special beautiful man should i put on this mood board

and then i was like well it depends on the content of the chapter and the pov of the board i guess

and then i remembered that if it were hunger games au anakin's pov (which is the pov of the chapter) it would literally be. nine pictures of obi-wan being pretty special beautiful man

[waywardangel-wilds]

In your opinion would Katniss accept other people besides her insulting or disrespecting hijacked Peeta?

We see this in canon. Nope.

Katniss hears Gale as well as the other soldiers say things about hijacked Peeta. There's a limit to what she'll let slide. 'Oh, he's a capitol mutt /we can't trust him,' passes but it is still stretching it. 'Let's kill him!' Now, motherfucker, you back the fuck up. That kind of thing.

She's not going to be okay with anyone outright antagonizing him for no actual reason, regardless of what state Peeta's in. She thinks she 'owes' him that much, at the very least.

But then, she also doesn't seem to want people agitating him. If there are moments where Peeta starts to struggle with his own mind and someone makes it worse, she's not going to like that. Think about when they're in the star squad or even the cafeteria scene, Katniss hates seeing him like that because it hurts her. She might be misdirecting her emotions towards being unfair to him, but that doesn't mean she gets any joy out of watching him suffer. It's the opposite, it makes her feel awful, like it's her fault.

So in short no, there's no universe where Katniss is okay with anyone treating Peeta badly, especially in front of her. It will always affect her because he's rooted himself somewhere deep inside of her and she can't seem to get him out. That's for life baby!

[magpie-trove]

It’s not nature or nurture it’s what you make of what you’re given that is what defines good and evil!!

[southsidewrites]

not me, writing frantically to finish my fic before the new Hunger Games book comes out an nukes it right out of canon compliance

[flofaiiry]

Washington's Finest — Bucky Barnes x Reader

SUMMARY: Congressman Barnes has heard the stories from his colleagues on committee, he knows the stereotype that politicians in Washington often hire women to pursue their extracurricular activities- but he never expected to be the one to be in the need of such... services, much less the kind of man who'd actually seek them out

WARNINGS: fem!reader, reader is a sex worker (referred to as a call girl & hooker), age gap (reader is in law school so mid/late twenties), reader's parents are dead, most likely incorrect info about nda's & how they're used, swearing, probably an overuse of italics oopsie, so much kissing, breast&nipple play, oral f!receiving, reader attempts to fake an orgasm (spoiler it does not work), fingering, mentions of masturbation, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, bucky is kind of condescending, teeny bit of dacryphilia, big dick!bucky, little bit of manhandling, unprotected p in v sex (don't do that!!!), creampie. not proofread!!!

WC: ~7k

NOTE: sorry to all my Pitt & Shawn Hatosy followers that this isn’t your regularly scheduled content, I just got this idea after watching one too many Bucky edits and had to write it !!!😁😁 also I apologize if I portray sex workers in a negative light at all, that is not my intention at all!! I heavily based reader on Laurie from The West Wing, which is admittedly a pretty old show, but I tried my best & I hope you enjoy!!!

Bucky, the junior congressman from New York, knows the reputation that politicians have cultivated. He knows the stereotype of the dead-beat husband who steps out on his wife with a prostitute when he's in D.C., then acts all lovey dovey back in the home state.

He thought since he was single, he could avoid this dilemma. This career ending adultery and solicitation scandal that so many before him had walked into. He thought that he could find some girl to take home at a bar and get his rocks off that way, but that proved to be a harder task than he thought. Everyone in D.C., knew him. Everyone in Brooklyn knew him. Everyone everywhere knew him.

It was nice at first, but now it was starting to get annoying.

Fucking his fist in the shower quelled off the physical urges- and even that was starting to lose its efficacy. But what getting himself off didn't satisfy were his mental and emotional needs. The need to be seen, to be felt, to be touched, to be loved. Bucky wanted that.

But he wasn't going to get it anywhere in this town- or this country for that matter.

He'd heard enough stories through hushed conversations outside committee rooms & caucuses to know that Washington's Finest was the best, most reliable high end escort service in DC. The preferred choice for most politicians on Capitol Hill who dabbled in the art of the extramarital affair.

So, one afternoon when he was feeling especially in need- he made the call.

"Washington's Finest, you've reached Elena, how may I direct your call? The woman's voice is sweet and almost robotic sounding. Bucky isn't sure if it's actually a real person or one of those automated recordings until it starts speaking unprompted.

"Hello?"

He clears his throat, "Yeah. Hi. Um- booking."

Elena makes a little sound of acknowledgement before speaking again, "Alright sir, your call is being transferred, I'm going to place you on a brief hold, please stay on the line!"

As soon as she finishes talking, a smooth jazz music floods through the phone and into Bucky's ear. It's nice, familiar. Just as he thinks he might recognize the song, he's met with another woman's voice.

"Good evening this is Washington's Finest, you've reached booking! I'm Paulina how may I assist you?" She speaks, that same sort of uncanniness present in her tone.

"Hi. Yeah, uh I'd like to book- I guess."

"Great! Well then you're in the right place, may I just get a name to make the reservation?"

He hesitates, wondering if he should give his real name. Paulina seems to notice this.

"It doesn't have to be your name, sir. Just any name that we can refer to you by for the booking."

He doesn't say anything. Paulina fills the silence again.

"Rest assured sir, we deal with many high profile customers, our privacy policies are top notch to ensure that your proclivities are kept-"

"Steve." He blurts.

"I'm sorry?"

"Steve. My name is Steve."

Why he just offered the name of his best friend? He doesn't know. But at the moment it's the only name coming to mind so it's gonna have to do.

The woman on the other end smiles almost audibly.

"Alright then, Steve. What service would you like to book with us?"

"Shit, I uh- I don't know. What... services do you have?"

There's a ruffling of papers, a click of a mouse, then her voice again. "We offer three main packages: the One Night, the Weekend Getaway and the Week Long All-Inclusive. Many first-time customers choose to start with the One Night, helps them to find a girl they connect with to book longer services with in the future."

Bucky nods, then remembers she can't see him. "Right. Okay, sure, yeah- the One Night sounds good, let's do that."

"Great! Sounds good, let's get you all reserved - when were you thinking to book your service?"

"I, um- whenever?"

"How about tonight?" She asks, tapping away almost violently at the computer.

He nods, once, twice- like he's trying to convince himself to go through with this. To stoop down to a level he swore he'd never reach. "You know what- sure, let's do tonight."

Paulina continues with the booking, going over various policies regarding payment and acceptable conduct with the girl he books. Then, she gets to the names. There are three girls with availability tonight:

Anya.

Peggy.

And you.

Peggy's out immediately- way too much baggage associated with that name. He eliminates Anya next, sounds too harsh to him.

Leaving him with you. A girl with a name that rolls of the tongue, who will be showing up at his brownstone in a little over three hours

You get the call a few minutes after Bucky hangs up, Paulina tells you that someone named Steve has requested your company tonight, and you're to attend an address in Alexandria at 9pm sharp.

You get ready as usual, wondering if this Steve will be another senator or congressman stepping out on his wife- citing the 'stress of the job,' for pushing them apart, or if he'll be some rich old guy with nothing better to do with his money, or maybe- a secret third option. What that is, you're not sure yet- but a girl can dream, can't she?

Either way- the routine never strays. Makeup, hair, lingerie under an unassuming outfit (men love it when they get to feel like they're unwrapping you). You're out the door by 8:30 and catch the bus to the address sitting in your email.

You get there a few minutes early, so you sit on a bench a few doors down until your phone reads 8:59PM. Then you start down the street to your assigned place of business.

You climb the steps then knock on the door a few times. A second later the door's swinging open. You recognize the face from the news, and from the museum, the former World War 2 hero turned Congressman.

Bucky Barnes.

Not Steve.

You weren't surprised. Didn't feel catfished. 90% of the time the name you're given isn't legit, but one given by the customer to maintain certain degrees of separation.

"Congressman Barnes," you say, nodding your head slightly to greet him.

He says your name in the same tone, but different- like it's more foreign to him. "Please, call me Bucky." He half smiles, stepping aside in the doorway though still terribly unsure of himself.

"Bucky," you repeat, stepping into the house through the open space next to him. "This is a nice place," you hum, kicking off your shoes while he shuts the door behind you. "Thanks," he replies.

"You want something to drink?" He asks, beckoning you to follow him into the kitchen. You do. "Oh, just water is fine, thanks. And ice if you've got."

He nods, filing your preference away then walking over to the fridge to pull out a pitcher, then a cupboard for a glass.

"So," you say, walking around to the opposite side of the kitchen island as him, "what got you calling up Washington's Finest?" He shrugs, sliding a glass full of ice water to you. You mouth a thanks before bringing it to your lips and taking a sip.

"What's anyone looking for when they order a hooker." He says, blunt as ever. You almost choke on the drink, setting it down with a thunk before coughing the water from your windpipe.

"Sorry- is that not what you're called?"

You shake your head, "no, I mean- hooker's not wrong it's just, we prefer call girl. Evokes a nicer image."

"Right. Call girl." He repeats, nodding his head.

You take one more sip, washing down any stuck remnants of liquid from your earlier near-asphyxiation. "So sex?"

"I'm sorry?" He asks.

"That's what most people are looking for when they order a hooker." You repeat his words back to him, earning a smile from the man. He nods, "can't argue with that logic."

He still hasn't answered your question.

"So... sex?" You try again

He coughs, like he was caught off guard. "Yeah, sure. I guess."

He says the words like they're true, but the look in his eyes says they're anything but.

"Right, okay." You reach into your purse and pull out a thin stack of folded paper. “Got a pen?” You ask, setting them both down on the counter: one in front of you, the other in front of Bucky. He quirks an eyebrow, “yeah,” then opens a drawer to retrieve one, “what’s this?”

“NDA,” you say plainly. He scoffs, “I’m not going to tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about-”

You cut him off with a shake of your head, “it’s nothing personal, just company policy.” You reach into your bag once more to take out your own pen, “it’s to cover both of our asses.”

He follows your lead, signing his name on the various lines and not bothering to read all the legal jargon. “Both our asses?” He questions, crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s.

You nod, not once looking up from the page. “Mhmm, that way if I get drunk and start blabbing about all the congressmen I’ve slept with and your name comes up, then you can sue or whatever.”

He watches as you flourish the pen along the paper, marking your name and initials down, then meets your eyes when you slide the forms away. His brows are furrowed, “you get drunk and run your mouth a lot?” He asks, tone half joking.

You smile, “I don’t, but some of the other girls aren’t as careful, like to brag about their customers ‘n such.” He hums, sliding his own papers forward to stack on top of yours.

“You good? Ready?” You ask, putting your pen and the papers back in your bag. Bucky replies with a borderline shaky sigh. You squint, not normally the reaction you get from customers. “Everything okay?”

He nods, slow and unsure. “How does this work exactly? Do we just… start?” You shrug. “It can work however you want it to work. We can do whatever you want to do.”

“What if I want to just… talk first.”

His behaviour is a refreshing contrast to the men you normally deal with- their minds are set on getting your clothes off the second you walk through the door.

“That’s fine,” you smile, “we can talk.”

He nods and exhales, like a weight’s just come off his shoulders. “So,” you start, “what do you want to talk about?”

“Right,” he says, like he forgot that having a conversation would require actual talking.

“Um. What got you into…” he trails off, looking for the right words, “this line of work.”

You laugh, “oh this is not my dream job, believe me. I’m just doing this to get through law school, only got one year left. I’m getting out of this business the second I pass the Bar.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows, he clearly wasn’t expecting that answer. “Wow, law school. You go to GW?” You shake your head, “Georgetown.”

“Damn. They've got a good program over there.”

“I know,” you nod, “and expensive.”

“Ah,” he mouths, “hence the…” he gestures between the both of you, referring to the situation at hand.

“Exactly.”

“Parents can’t afford to help you out a little?”

You shake your head, “it’s not that they can’t afford it, they-” you stop yourself with a sigh. Any other customer would get a rehearsed answer about why you’re in this business, but any other customer wouldn’t have asked the question in the first place. “My parents died a few years ago, bank gave me a hard time with the inheritance — not that it was a whole lot, and there wasn’t very much left over after I paid off their house & some debts.”

He gives you a sympathetic look, the same one everyone gives after you drop the dead parents bomb. You give him a look that brushes off whatever empathetic sentiment he's conjuring up before he can say it. You shrug, “wanted to go to law school, couldn’t afford it, found a way to afford it. That’s all it is.”

He still doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking into your eyes like they’ve got some answer he’s been looking for all his life.

“I’m not proud of it,” you add, starting to rationalize and he quickly starts to shake his head.

“Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you should be ashamed or anything- I mean, fuck I’m the one who- I don't know, hired you? if anything I should be ashamed.”

You huff, “don’t be, you’re... different.”

Bucky smiles at that. “Different?”

“Yeah, most other customers have one thing and one thing only on their mind when I’m around but,” you shrug, “I don’t know, you don’t? I guess? You care about more than just the sex, I mean. At least I think you do. I hope you do."

You add the last part under your breath- you're not even sure why you add it- you know better than to feel anything more than a tolerance for one of your customers.

“Call me old fashioned, I guess.” He jokes. Some of his nerves appear to slough off when you laugh.

“Yeah, something like that,” you reply.

The room falls into a sort of silence, coming about after your laughter fizzles out. It's not awkward though, just like you're both weighing the options of what to say next.

"How about you?" You fill the air with your voice, the question catches Bucky off guard. "What about me?" he answers.

"Why Congress?" You shrug, "being in the history book once isn't enough for you?" It's teasing, but the question behind it still stands: why politics?

He raises his eye brows, bringing a hand to his chest in mock offense. "Wow. Okay. Calling me an attention seeker?"

You tilt your head, "most of you are. I don't know why else anyone would chose a job where your employer is the fucking general population."

"First of all," he starts, corner of his lip raising in a challenging smirk, "they're called constituents- I work for the great people of Brooklyn, thank you very much."

You laugh, "right, right, constituents. I ask again, why spend your life doing such... thankless work? I'm telling you, 90% of these congressmen & senators have some small dick insecurity or something and need some big, powerful job title to make up for it."

Bucky scoffs, taking a few steps around the kitchen island to stand beside you now, you turn to face him, leaning your side against the countertop.

"Well, I definitely don't have that problem," he says, leaning in close against your ear. His voice sends a pulse down your spine that's received between your legs- husky and low.

He pulls away from you and spots the way your eyes had fluttered just barely shut in response to his breath against your skin. You blink- once, twice- trying to adjust to his new proximity to you. "I guess I had just spent enough of my life hurting people, and I wanted what life I have left to be spent helping 'em instead." He mutters the words, searching through your eyes like he lost something in them and if he looks hard enough he'll find it.

Then his eyes flick down to your lips, for a split second- like he's wondering if he should kiss you or not. But when he shifts just marginally away from you- it seems like he's decided against it. Your breath catches in your throat when he shifts, a jolt of borderline disappointment passing through you.

"Kiss me."

The words leave you before your better judgement can tell you otherwise. He wasn't expecting that.

"What?"

You swallow. "Kiss me," you repeat- more sure this time.

"Kiss you?" He asks like he's trying to make 100% sure he heard you right.

You nod once. "Kiss me. Please."

Bucky absorbs the words, then brings a hand up to push a strand of hair behind your ear. He drags his fingers down your jaw, before cradling his hand there at the nape of your neck. His calloused fingertips sit just at the back of your head, then he presses them into your skin and draws you towards him. He pulls you in until your lips are just barely brushing against his.

His lips are dry- not chapped, not rough- but dry like they're looking for something to quench their thirst. They're a stark contrast to your own, meticulously glossed over in that perfect shade that brings out your eyes just right.

Then he kisses you- finally, he kisses you. It's painfully soft, and you're immediately craving more. You bring your own hand up to the side of his face, tangling your fingers into his chocolate brown hair as you deepen the kiss.

He hums into your mouth as his eyes fall shut, and brings his other hand- the metal one- to your waist, pulling your body flush against him. You thought it'd feel harsh, mechanical even, but somehow his touch still manages to be soft.

Suddenly all you can think about is what those fingers would feel like inside of you.

You take your other hand up to the other side of his face, pulling him impossibly closer to you, taking a deep inhale when you do. The air you bring in is mix of second hand smoke and vintage cologne, it's undeniably him.

That snaps the last strand of Bucky's control, the last little thread that had him holding on to any chivalrous sense of decency. He's desperate for you. He thought he was in need of connection- of touch, but the second you walked in his door?

He needed you.

More than he'd ever needed anything else before.

He travels both of his hands down to the backs of your thighs, and picks you up in one seamless motion. You're shocked at his strength at first, but them remember who you're dealing with: Bucky Barnes, former Winter Soldier- he could probably throw you around like it was nothing if he wanted to.

And God, you really hope he wants to.

You wrap your legs around his waist once he's lifted you, and he starts to maneuver you through his house. Walking masterfully through the expanse of hallways within the brownstone without breaking away from the kiss for so much as a breath.

He pushes the door open with your back, taking one hand from under you to flick on the lamp just enough so he can see where the bed is. The dark orange light from the fixture floods the room, bouncing off every available surface & enveloping your bodies in an auburn blanket of warmth.

He lowers you down onto the bed with ease and crawls over top of you. He presses one last firm kiss against your lips before pulling away. His breathing is heavy and ragged, and you can't help but notice the faint blush on his cheeks when you open your eyes.

"Are you sure about this?" He asks, his tone serious, "I know it's your job to say yes, but- do you want this?" If you say no he'd stop, of course he would, but right now he is praying to every higher power that you'll say yes.

No customer had ever asked you that before- asked the woman beneath the call girl what she wanted. And even if they did- it always came with the silent expectation that despite whatever you might want to say deep down, the answer would always be yes.

You nod, still breathless from the exchange earlier- but that's not enough for Bucky. "Words," he whispers, ducking his head down to the crook of your neck. "Tell me you want this, want me," he says, words muffled against your skin as he kisses it softly.

"Want this," you say, still nodding furiously, "want you."

He groans against your neck, raw and desperate. The vibrations ricochet down your body, landing with a throb between your thighs.

Bucky roams his hands down your body, and slides them under your shirt, splaying his fingers against your stomach. One hand's warm, inviting, sultry. The other- cool and unnaturally smooth. But both are soft, and the juxtaposing sensations makes you squirm.

"Fuck, you are so beautiful," he mumbles, tugging at the hem of your shirt then pulling it up over your head. You raise your arms to allow him to slide it off of you, leaving your chest covered with just the skimpy black lace bra you picked out before you left.

He travels his kisses along your neck, down to your collarbone, and across to the top of your ribcage. He moves down your chest, following along the geography of your sternum until his face is buried between your breasts.

One of his hands comes up to cup over the material, inner knuckle of his thumb brushing perfectly across your nipple. You gasp at the new contact, desperate to feel more of him- everywhere.

That sound only encourages him, emboldens him, and before you know it he's tucked his fingers underneath the thin material and is ripping the bra in half at the front seam. He pushes it aside and you shrug off the straps.

This bra was in your all star rotation- it was by far the most flattering one you owned. You should be upset, should scold him with something along the lines of making him buy you a new one, but right now you could not care less about that.

You're yanked from your train of thought when you feel Bucky's lips close around your nipple. His tongue swirling around the bud and teeth grazing it ever so gently. You arch your back, heaving your chest against him by consequence

He brings his hand to your unattended breast, squeezing and grasping at the flesh in just the right spots before pinching at that nipple.

“Please, Bucky,” you whimper, rolling your head back into his mattress while your fingers tug at his long dark strands of hair.

You feel him smirk against your chest, before he picks back up his head and slots his lips onto yours again. “Wanna taste you,” he says through kissing you, “can I?”

“You don’t have to, I’m-“

“I want to,” he cuts you off, “please?”

You nod, slow- but incredibly sure.

“O- okay. Yeah. Sure,” you breathe.

He smiles- like really smiles, then kisses you again1 before descending once more down your body. He leaves wet open mouthed kisses down the expanse of your chest and torso, hands working on undoing the clasp of your pants so he can push them off once he reaches the waistband.

He tosses the garment haphazardly somewhere in the room, before hooking his fingers through the band of your panties.

“This okay?” He asks, eyes hooded with lust as he looks up at you for your consent.

You nod- pathetically quick. “Yes. Please.”

The ends of his lips quirk upwards as he pulls the thin lacy material from your legs. It’s too slow- painfully slow. You wish he’d rip them off like he did with the bra.

Once they’re off, Bucky kneels on the floor in front of you, and hooks his arms under your thighs and pulls you to the edge of the bed. He presses his lips to your clit, leaving a tender kiss over it, before licking a long steep stripe up your slit.

“Fuck,” you gasp, hands finding his hair again like there’s some kind of magnet drawing them there. You pull his face against your cunt, forcing his tongue into your hole and knocking his nose against your clit.

“Oh my god,” you moan, arching your hips off the bed and even further into him before he plants you by the hips back into the mattress. He delves his tongue inside you, prodding eagerly through your slick and fucking it in and out of you.

It feels good- feels so good- but it’s not enough.

Your instinct takes over though, months of experience in appeasing men and making them think they’re bringing you to the edge to stroke their ego.

You tone up the moans, raising your volume and repeating Bucky’s name like a mantra. All things to signal that you’re getting close. Your tugs at his hair turn to pulls, thighs pressing around his head, as you lean into the act of an impending orgasm.

It’s not that you didn’t think he could get you there- it’s that you didn’t want him to wait.

“Fuck, Bucky- ‘m gonna cum,” you whine, squirming under him relentlessly. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps lapping at your cunt with his tongue.

“Shit- I- fuck, I'm coming, Bucky I'm-" you cut yourself off with a pornographic moan. One perfected through numerous uses, it's always believable. Always makes the man feel good about himself that he 'made a woman cum.'

Bucky doesn't buy it though. Not for a second.

"No you're not," he says, voice stern and words getting muffled against your pussy. The stubble lining his jaw scrapes at your inner thighs when he speaks.

"Does this not work for you?" He asks, pulling away from you and caressing your thighs. You shake your head, "no- I'm sorry it's not that, I just- it doesn't matter if I feel good or not. You're the customer." You prop yourself up on your elbows to look down at him.

His hair is disheveled from your hands being rooted in it, his chin and lips coated with your slick.

"Who the hell told you that?"

You shrug, "just common sense I thought."

He scoffs, "yeah well fuck that. Tell me what you want me to do. What you need me to do to get you there- for real."

"To be honest- I don't really know," you start.

Bucky cocks an eyebrow, "you don't know?"

You shrug again.

He sits back on his heels, sigh heaving from his chest. "Well, how 'bout this- when you touch yourself, what do you do that makes you cum?" The question's awkward, but for some reason you don't feel opposed to answering.

He traces his vibranium fingers up and down your inner thigh. The cool metal makes your muscles tense. "I want to make you feel good," he says, "but I can't do that if you don't tell me how to go about doing it."

You release a shaky exhale before you speak.

"I need something... inside."

Bucky smirks, "yeah? What's something?"

You shrug, "anything, really. Fingers, toy, dick."

He laughs at that, shaking his head before looking back up at you and leaning back in.

"Well how about," he starts, voice dangerously slow and fingers inching back towards your core, "I give you my fingers now, make you cum on those 'n get you all stretched out for me... Then, I give you the other thing."

You swallow hard, the anticipation building like a knot in your chest.

"Deal?" He asks, tip of his index finger brushing right above your clit. Your breath hitches when you nod. He smiles, "good girl. Now let me make you feel good."

And with that he disappears back between your legs.

Bucky wastes no time and gets right back to business. He wraps his lips around your clit like he never left, and pushes one finger into your tight cunt. He watches eagerly for your body's reaction, indulging in the way your head tilts into the mattress and your eyes roll back in the socket.

"That feel good?" He asks, the vibration against your pussy adds a new layer of pleasure. You nod quickly, "yes- fuck, feels good."

"Good," he smirks, adding a second finger into your hole and curling them inside you, then sucking harder at your clit. The moans slipping from your lips this time are angelic- ethereal, Bucky thinks. They're that beautiful because they're real. The sounds are a tangible demonstration of how good he's making you feel.

You don't notice when he adds a third finger, or when he brings his thumb to rub little circles at your clit, your senses are too bombarded with all the other inputs to register those little changes.

What you do notice, however, is how quickly you come tumbling towards the edge this time- the real edge, the brink of orgasm, not the metaphorical one you created to stroke the egos of your other customers.

Bucky notices too. Notices the way that when you're really close, you don't get louder, but get quieter- your jaw dropped open but no sounds to be heard. The way you clamp your eyes shut and grip onto his hair and the duvet for dear life. The way your hips writhe under him, desperately and subconsciously trying to create more friction for yourself.

He notices it all.

But his favourite thing he's noticed thus far, are the pretty noises you make when you do cum. No showy, perfectly defined moans, but little breathy whimpers that bleed into louder cries of his name as your release gushes out around his tongue.

Music to his ears.

"That's it, just like that, good girl," he coaxes, working you through the high. He gets lost in the way you taste, the noises you make- all of it.

What he doesn't notice that you've already come down from your first high, and so he doesn't stop. Just keeps laving at your slit, sucking at your clit and pumping three thick fingers inside your cunt until he's sending you hurdling towards a second orgasm.

"Oh my- fuckingGodBucky," the last words tumble from your lips in a single syllable as you cum again onto Bucky's tongue. He dips his mouth down, lapping up every last drop of your release like it could grant him eternal life.

When he finally pulls away, hands resting on your thighs to stop them from quaking, he sees the wet marks down your cheeks, and the new crystalline beads forming at the corners of your eyes.

He stands up quickly, a little concerned and hovers himself back over you again. "Hey," he speaks, voice soft, "you okay?" He brushes the hair from your face and the tears from your eyes.

All you can do is nod, breathing too heavy to form any words at the moment. After a second you speak, "felt too good." Bucky laughs, "too good? That sounds like a challenge."

You raise your eyebrows before tracing your eyes down his body, settling on the very evident bulge between his legs. "You did promise me something..." You trail, dragging one finger against him through the jeans. He lets out a strangled sigh at the tiniest bit of friction.

You smirk at your effect on him, before tugging him down to press your lips to his. You taste yourself on his tongue when he slips it into your mouth, you should be a little grossed out- but you could not care less.

The only thing on your mind right now is getting him inside of you.

You pull him to lie next to you, then roll yourself on top of him, straddling over his bulge and grinding your cunt against him. You moan into each others mouths, Bucky's hands find your ass, squeezing and groping at the flesh while yours move to the buttons of his shirt. Undoing them greedily- unapologetically eager to see what he looks like with nothing on.

He moves his arms to let you slide the shirt off of him, leaving him in just a white tank top which he sits up slightly to take off. You can't help but gawk when he's finally topless. Your eyes wander shamelessly over the expanse of his chest and you trace your fingers along the grooves of his muscles, lingering on the little scars and marks like you're trying to commit them to memory.

"Kids these days don't learn it's not polite to stare?" He says, snapping you out of the trance-like state his shirtless figure put you in.

You scoff, "what's not polite is looking like this and expecting me not to look." You lean down and press a kiss against his lips, "I'm just a girl. I see pretty abs & arms and I stare." You sit back up, shuffling down his legs to sit over his knees, then bringing your hands to undo the button and zipper on his pants.

He raises an eyebrow, "I have pretty abs and arms?" He asks, bending his knees to let you slide the slacks down and off of his legs. You stop dead in your tracks, fingers hooked into his boxers but not pulling them down yet- not when he just said that.

"You're joking, right?" He doesn't say anything, just stares at you with an amused look plastered onto his face, "Jesus Christ have you ever looked in a mirror, Bucky?" You shake your head through a laugh and finally pull his boxers down to free his cock.

You sigh at the sight of him. He's big- this you could assume from the way he carried himself. The confidence he exuded. The way he acted like he didn't have any physical detriments to compensate for.

But he's kind of- obscenely big.

You lick your lips and sweep your hair behind your ears and out of the way, before ducking down to take him in your mouth- but Bucky stops you before your lips even meet his tip.

"Not tonight," he says, "another time."

You raise an eyebrow, "another time?" He smirks, then pulls you up for a kiss, "yeah. Another time," he breathes, before pressing his lips to yours. Just from where you're straddling him, you can feel the head of his cock hitting dangerously close to your clit.

"I don't mean to inflate your ego anymore than it already is," you tease, pulling away to look down at him, "but- respectfully- how the fuck am I supposed to fit that inside of me?"

Bucky rolls his eyes playfully, then brings one hand to your hip and the other to wrap around himself, tilting it slightly so it lines up with your entrance. "You can take it. Don't worry." He moves you down by the hip just barely, you gasp when the very first millimeter of his cock prods into your entrance.

"Just take it slow, yeah? Take it slow."

He loosens his grip on your hips, allowing you to take the lead and decide how quickly you want to sink yourself onto him. You nod and plant your hands on his lower abdomen to steady yourself, before slowly- so, so slowly- moving down his length.

The stretch is unlike any you've ever felt before. A string of profanities floods out of your mouth and your head rolls back. Bucky's eyes threaten to close at the feeling of your walls hugging so tight around him, but he keeps them glued on where your bodies meet- watching intently at the way you swallow every inch of him inside of you.

"Just like that," he drawls, sucking in a breath and resisting every urge to buck his hips up and shove himself the rest of the way in.

"Holy shit, Bucky." Your breathing is ragged once you've finally sunk all the way down onto his length. The pads of his fingers are digging into the flesh of your hips, you're sure they'll leave bruises behind but all you can think about right now is how it feels like his cock is about to split you open.

"I know, baby, I know," he stutters, trying to maintain his composure as best he can. "I can't- fuck- too full, I can't," you shake your head, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes once again.

He pulls you down by the arm, lacing his fingers through yours then kissing you. It's soft, but only for a second. Before you know it he's sliding his tongue in your mouth and rolling you both over so he's on top now. He braces his forearms on either side of your head, and pulls away from the kiss to rest his forehead against yours.

"You want this? Hm?" He pushes a strand of hair from your face, "want me to fuck you?" His tone is cocky, he knows you want him, but he wants to hear you say it.

"Yes, yes- fuck, please," you whimper, still wholly consumed by the feeling of his thick cock inside you. He smirks, "atta girl," he presses one last kiss to your lips- needy and desperate, before drawing his hips back, then slamming them back into you.

You practically scream at his sudden movement, the pleasure and pain of the stretch blending together and making your vision all fuzzy. The pace he sets is slow, but hard. Unrelenting.

Bucky drops his head to the crook of your neck, biting and kissing at your clavicle. Out of the corner of his eye he spots your hand, desperately gripping at the thin linen sheets to ground yourself. He takes it in his, before pulling it to rest on his back. You nails dig in to the musculature almost instantly, summoning a deep groan from within him.

With that same hand, he takes your leg to sit around his waist, pushing himself even deeper inside of you. The new tilt of his cock now knocks perfectly against the spot inside you that has you seeing stars, drilling into it with every thrust.

The room is hot, your bodies sticky with sweat. The only thing you can hear is the sound of Bucky's hips smacking against yours, his breathy grunts in your ear with every rock of his body into yours, and your repetitive cries of his name.

The pleasure is everything. It's all consuming, earth shattering- but somehow it's still not enough.

"Please," you breathe, "need- fuck, go faster."

He picks his head up to look at you, "yeah?"

You nod, desperate- begging. "Need more, please."

Bucky scoffs, "need more?" He repeats- almost mocking you. You just keep nodding. "Well alright then," he grunts, and you can hear the smirk playing across his lips.

His next actions happen in a whirlwind. He pulls himself out of your pussy, coaxing a whine from your throat when you suddenly feel so empty. Then with one strong vibranium arm he's flipping you over, your face smushing into the pillow before you turn your head.

He brings the same hand underneath you, cool metal fingers splaying across your lower belly as he slams all the way back inside you. Your eyes go wide, accompanied by a load moan of his name before they're clamping down shut again.

His new rhythm is cruel. He looks down and watches the ripples of your ass with every thump of his hips into yours. Bucky presses the hand he has under you against your skin, he can literally feel himself sliding in and out of you. Can feel how deep he is inside of you.

"Oh my- God!" You choke out the last word when he pushes on your lower belly, walls immediately clenching around him.

He hisses out a breath, "you wanted this, hm? So take it. Be a good doll and take it."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky 'm gonna cum." Right as the words leave you, all your senses melt into a white hot static as your orgasm rips through your body.

"Yeahhh, atta girl. Just like that- cum on my cock just like that, huh?" His low voice coaches you through it, never once stopping his unrelenting hips against yours.

His hips finally start to stutter, right as his high starts creeping up on him. You can tell from his thrusts getting shallower that he plans on pulling out to finish- while it's the sensible thing to do- it's also the last thing you want him to do.

"Don't," you gasp.

"What?"

"Don't pull out. Wanna feel you, please God, need to feel you."

He wants to ask if you're sure, but before he can form the words he's falling over the edge. He groans your name and shoots his spend deep inside you, marking you- ruining you for anyone else.

Bucky's thrusts into you turn lazy, then coming to a complete halt right before he pulls out of you. One last whimper falls from your lips, your hole feeling both so empty yet so full of him.

"Holy shit," he huffs, sliding his hand from under you and rolling to lie down next to you.

You turn onto your side to look over at him, your eyes still find a way to linger on his chest. Once he cracks his eyes open and sees you ogling him again, he can't help but laugh.

"You've really got quite the staring habit, huh?"

Your lips turn up into a smile, "can't exactly help it."

He shakes his head, letting his eyes fall shut as his breathing finally comes back to a normal pace. The both of you are too tired to say anything, but really- there's nothing that needs to be said.

He wasn't expecting a girl like you to be the one that knocked on his door- nor were you expecting a man like him to answer. Both of you know this was more than just a business exchange. Even though there'd be money deposited in your account after this, it felt different.

This wasn't just a hook up- it was a reckoning.

When Bucky opens his eyes again, there's a different look in them. And when he stares at you, searching through your own eyes for the answer he's been looking for all night- it's like he's finally found it.

He pulls you into him, moving you so that you lay your head on his chest. He presses a kiss into your hair, and traces his hand up and down your shoulder.

Neither of you say anything more, his eyes said it all already- stay.

And you do.

please let me know what you think!!! reblogs & comments mean more than u know!!!

[sweeterthanficstion]

— all the right reasons || l.s.k

pairing: older!rockstar!leon x popstar!fem!reader

tags: music au, set in 2011, leon is a rockstar (obviously), and reader is a popstar (think like, sabrina carpenter type). rivals to lovers, lots and lots of shitty banter, feelings are CAUGHT!, really bad music related puns, MDNI 18+, unprotected p in v, reader rides that dick into next weeeek, vaginal fingering, lots and lots of dirty talk too. sappy ending <3

summary: You're a sugarplum tabloid darling who's making headlines across the globe, he's a tried and true rockstar who's a household name. Leon S. Kennedy was just another thorn in your side. Until he wasn't. He’s older, meaner, and too good with his hands. You’re supposed to hate him. So why do you feel like you’re falling in love?

word count: 8.4k

a/n: omg... so like... hi again... it's been a while!! i dragged myself out of the depressive pit that is trying to date real men and reminded myself of what REALLY matters (writing fanfiction of men who don't exist) so that's how i'm back here, lmao.

also, BIGGEST thank you's to my gorgeous girls vivi and lea for offering to beta read and leaving the silliest, funniest comments and feedback

anyway enjoy asshole-older-rockstar leon, he's stolen my heart and i want to [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED]... i've been shot 47 times

playlist⭑masterlist⭑AO3

You never liked Leon Kennedy.

He’s always been bark and bite, broody and callous. All whiskey breath and tired denim and the kind of stubble that looked more like laziness than effort. Too jaded. Too old. His time has come and gone, and still, somehow, he was headlining festivals, charting on billboards, signing tits.

You’d met him twice before you ever really spoke. Once at an awards afterparty, where he didn’t even look at you when you said hi—just brushed past with a half-hearted “sorry, sweetheart,” before disappearing into a crowd of laughing industry men. The second time, backstage at some benefit concert. He’d been in the wings, watched you be hurried past in a blur of glitter and gold, murmured something you can only imagine was unsavoury under his breath.

So yeah. You weren’t exactly dying to be his friend.

Which is why it’s so fucking inconvenient that your first real single is now under the same label as his—why you pass each other in the hallway at Capitol every other week, the scent of his cologne arriving before he does, heavy and heady and masculine.

But you’re not stupid either. You knew who he was long before you ever stood in the same room as him. You knew the album that broke him, the single that went triple platinum, the first stadium he sold out. You knew the way critics talked about his guitar playing like it was something they’d never seen before. You might’ve even had a crumpled tour shirt buried somewhere in your closet from high school, but that was a long time ago. That was before you learned what it meant when people said never meet your heroes.

But still there were moments, little things that made you reconsider. Once, at the label offices, he held the elevator door open for you even though you were halfway across the hallway. He didn’t look at you when you stepped in. Just said, “You gonna hit the button or stand there all night?” but his voice had been warmer than you expected.

And maybe it’s all in your head. Maybe he’s not thinking about you at all. Maybe he’s just that kind of man—coated in disinterest, carved out of concrete. Still, there’s something behind the way he looks at you that you still haven’t quite figured out.

It’s midnight when Leon finds the fork in the road that decides his fate.

It’s the voice of an angel that seals it.

He’s not even supposed to be standing in the liminal space outside your door and wondering if he should go in. He’s not even meant to be thinking about you at all.

He was thinking about the rain. About how he’d failed to remember an umbrella, about how his car smells like mildew and the CD player is still shot. About how he hasn’t written a decent song in six months. His manager had so kindly told him to go home, sleep it off, stop showing up to the label’s building like a ghost to its haunt.

And fuck if he’s already had his fill with the shitty elevator. Leon’s busy jamming the buttons to the ground floor, stuck on the second, when he hears it.

A pretty litany of sun-soaked lyrics that spills into the hallway and the elevator the same way the light from the half-opened door does.

That’s how he finds himself here: standing outside your studio door, staring at the plaque with your name engraved in gold like it’s daring him to knock.

He doesn’t. Just opens it.

“Didn’t know they let you keep the studio past your bedtime.”

It’s a joke. Kinda. He winces halfway through delivery, like he hears it too late. Nose scrunching like he didn’t mean it, and truthfully he doesn’t think he did. God, Kennedy, didn’t anyone teach you to think before you speak?

You flinch—just a little—eyes snapping open as you pull off the headphones. The track dies in your ears, and the silence feels abrupt, almost rude, like it’s been interrupted mid-confession.

You glance over your shoulder. Leon stands in the threshold looking exactly like he always does—leather jacket, dark jeans, stubble that's a little more dirty than charmingly rugged. He could be anywhere else. He should be anywhere else. And yet.

Your brow lifts, unimpressed. “Didn’t know they let you out of the retirement home either. Should I call someone?”

Leon scoffs. “I’m not geriatric.”

“Sure.” And you turn back to the soundboard like he doesn’t exist.

He stands there, lips pursed like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“So… what was that?” he asks.

You sigh like it costs you. Slip the headphones off and let them settle around your neck. “A song. You’re familiar, yes?”

Leon rolls his eyes. “Plenty. You’ve got a smart mouth, kid.”

You grin, all teeth. “Thanks.”

He lets that hang in the silence for a beat, then has the bright idea to push off the doorway. He wanders in and makes himself at home in your space. His boot grazes a stack of scribbled sheet music, and he nudges it aside with his toe like he’s being polite. Then he drops onto your couch without asking—moves a cushion, spreads his knees, settles like it’s shared property.

You shoot him a look. “Comfortable?”

Leon shrugs. “Your feng shui needs work.”

“What do you want?” You finally ask, defeated.

He nods toward the board. “Play it.”

You blink. “What?”

“The song. Play it.”

“You’re really bad at this, y’know.”

“At what?”

“Basic human interaction. Hospitality. Small talk.”

He blinks, caught off-guard like he’s never been told that a day in his life.

“Sorry,” you say sweetly. “Too honest?”

“Play the damn song.”

You raise a brow. “Magic word?”

Leon just stares.

You sigh, press spacebar. The track tumbles out of the speakers, raw and half-finished. It holds for a moment, teeters, then collapses—unfinished and unsatisfying. You pull your headphones off with a huff. Leon thinks it's cute.

The weight of his gaze burns a hole into your back, makes heat crawl up your spine. You glance at him when it gets too much. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” he hums.

“Felt like you wanted to.”

He laughs a little then, like the meekness to your voice is amusing. “I was just gonna say it’s close.” He murmurs, “But it’s stuck.”

You exhale through your nose, lean back in your chair, swivel from left to right. “No shit.”

You don’t see him move as much as you hear him, the creak of the aged leather couch, before there’s the familiar dull ring of your guitar.

“You don’t mind, do you?” He asks as he slips into the second chair next to yours, you try to ignore the way your skin prickles when his knee knocks yours.

“Mi casa, su casa,” you sigh defeatedly, his lips quirk and you find yourself smiling against your will.

Leon decides your song just needs some weight to it. Typical of him. All his music has weight. A smoky, heady bass, a sexy guitar, heavy drums, but what he plays for you is none of that.

Yes, it holds weight, but a different one to what you pinned him for. It carries something gentler, softer chords that fill your lungs with exactly the type of yearning you were aiming for. 

You pause. “That’s…”

“Exactly what you wanted?”

You nudge his knee with your own, hit record on the soundboard, “do it again.”

And so it begins. 

You find that Leon isn’t so bad when he’s writing music with you. In fact, within the four soundproof walls of your studio, he’s almost nice. He listens when you tell him to change a chord. He lets you needle him, prod at his composure like you’re tuning a guitar string too tight just to hear it snap.

Most nights you’re in the studio until the twilight hours before sunrise. You stay until your voice is worn ragged, fingers blistered from overuse. Until your limbs give out and you’ve passed out in the swivel chair, curled up like a cat in the glow of LED strips and mixing boards. You always wake to something left behind—a lukewarm cup of coffee, a half-drunk energy drink, sometimes the old throw blanket draped over your shoulders. It’s a rhythm now, syncopated and strange, yet something you’ve grown fond of.

It’s only inevitable, the way you grow closer with time. 

“Don’t lie sweetheart,” he murmurs one night in the hush of your studio, “I think I’m growing on you.”

“Like black mold.” you shoot back, but the grin tugging at your lips betrays you.

And it’s just all too easy to think about him when he's not there.

You remember watching his set from the wings at that summer festival—the first time you’d shared a stage. The downpour had been terrible and insistent his entire performance, rain slicking his thread-bare shirt to his skin, turning his hair dark and wild. He’d looked like straight up sex appeal, sweat and storm and strobe lights, and you’d had to physically stop yourself from reaching for him when he walked offstage.

He’d smelt like a thunderstorm, heady as he’d squeezed your shoulders like he was grateful, damp and buzzing with leftover adrenaline. “How’d I do?”

“Not bad, rockstar,” you’d said, but your voice had come out all soft.

Now he lives in your notebooks.

That’s the real inevitability of it, you think. Unreleased verses tucked between grocery lists and studio appointments. Lyrics written in the haze of 2 a.m., voice notes left half-sung on your phone, songs you’ll never show him during your secret writing sessions.

They’re not the kind of songs you should be writing.

They’re laced with want—velvet and teeth, obsessive and desperate. They don’t sound like you, not the way your label wants you to. They’re darker, sultrier, leave you flushed when you play them back. 

It’s not like you mean to write them about him. They just come out that way. Something about the way his voice sounds when he's two glasses of whiskey in and recounting a silent film he’d watched three fortnights ago. They’re all pent up tension—the way he pretty much knows his way around your apartment now, well enough to find where you keep the good wine anyway, the way his fingers move over the fretboard of his Paul Reed Smith with a guitar pick between his teeth, the phantom weight of his palm on your lower back when he passes by you.

You bottle every look, every breathy half-laugh, every fleeting moment where you wonder what his hands would feel like if they dipped lower.

Your songs are about him, yes, and they’re for him, in all the infuriating ways you wish they weren’t.

So naturally, the smartest thing to do is keep them buried—demo files hidden in unlabeled folders, notebooks tucked behind equipment cases. Off-limits. Confidential. A bomb waiting to go off. 

At least, until tonight.

You’re curled up on the studio couch, Leon’s out at some fancy party tonight, said he couldn't write. There’s a half-empty bottle of wine and the glow of your laptop screen to keep you company, but it’s not enough not the same without him.

There’s a particular song that haunts you. It’s a confession wrapped in delicate ribbons of sultry melodies. Your voice a touch away from a moan, lyrics that dance around his name.

You shouldn’t have written it. 

Definitely shouldn’t have recorded it either.

And now you find yourself hovering over the file like it’s taunting you.

Maybe you can blame it on the buzz in your veins, or the way you’d caught his eye earlier that morning in the breakroom. He’d looked at you over the rim of his mug, winked at you like he could read you. You curse yourself under your breath at the memory. He totally knows he’s getting to you. You’d dropped the I-hate-you act three moves back.

So you drag-and-drop the demo. Chew your lip. Hit send.

Check and mate.

But by the time you’ve sobered up enough to panic, it’s already much too late.

Seven minutes. He texts back, and it sounds nearly like a threat.

Bad, bad, bad idea. No, actually, bad doesn’t even begin to encapsulate how horrific of an idea that was. A category-five hurricane of a mistake. 

What were you thinking? 

Well, clearly you weren’t.

You clamber to your feet, pace barefoot on the studio carpet, wearing a frantic path into the fibres. Back and forth, back and forth. Damage control is like a roulette wheel spinning in your mind, you could delete the message, a phone malfunction, yes, totally. Your label leaked it by accident, or it’s just one big elaborate joke.

Or, or— and this is the best one yet, you could change your name, dye your hair, move to another country where six-time award winning rockstars with stupid voices and stupid fingers on guitars don’t exist.

You’re halfway through plotting your escape through the window when the door clicks open exactly seven minutes later.

You startle like a deer in headlights, eyes wide when they snap up to the man of the hour—to Leon— and your stomach drops clean through the floor.

“You drive fast,” is what you manage. Leon clicks the door shut behind him.

His hair’s an artful mess, like he’s either run his hand through it a million times on the drive here, or just rolled out of bed. You like the former option so you pretend it’s that. His shoulders look tense, jaw tight, and his eyes—dark, sharp, dragging over you like he’s trying to see right through you.

His eyes flick to the littered coffee table, your notebook, the bottle of wine that looks at least a quarter drained.

Something strange flickers in his gaze, and for a minute you paint him as disappointed. 

Oh. You realise, with startling clarity, that he thinks you’re wasted.

It’s like a light at the end of the tunnel, a saving grace. It’d be an easy way out, wouldn’t it? Oops, Leon, sorry, wasn’t in my right mind, don’t even remember sending it, haha, how embarrassing!

But you’re not, at least not anymore, you’re standing in front of him with unfortunate sobriety. 

“Are you drunk?” He asks, voice low and rough around the edges.

Your mouth falls open, as if you’ve been scandalised. “Uh, rude?” You gesture wildly to the wine, then yourself. “I had two drinks, max. I am perfectly—” you take a dramatic step forward, stop, then another, arms out like you're proving a sobriety test, “—-fine.”

Leon doesn’t budge, stands there with his brows cinched like he’s in deep thought. It gives you space to take the upper hand back, if it was ever yours in the first place. “You, on the other hand,” you point an accusatory finger across the room, “are looking at me like I crashed your car or something.”

You might as well have with the way you have his heart hammering up his throat. He hates it, how you make him lose his carefully crafted cool. Being this nonchalant doesn’t come easy.

His tongue swipes over his teeth. And fuck him, because that shouldn’t be so distracting.

“Fine,” he starts, slow, “you wanna play dumb?’

“M’not dumb, it’s called being coy,” you hum, all too self satisfied.

Leon lets out a short breath of laughter, sharp, shakes his head and turns away like he needs to physically remove himself from you before he does something stupid.

And you should leave it there, because his buttons are officially pushed, yet you don’t feel familiar satisfaction curl around your chest like it should. “If this is about the song—”

His head tips, just slightly. “If?”

You swallow. “I mean—”

He scoffs. Sharp. Disbelieving. Runs a thumb over his lips. “If this is about the song,” he repeats, like he can’t believe you even tried that.

You open your mouth, then close it, then open it again. "I—"

“Don’t,” he mutters. “Drop it.”

Your jaw shuts, and it takes less than a second for Leon to close the distance between you, effectively stealing all the air from your lungs. You resist the urge to back away, to give him that satisfaction, even when your body screams at you to. Not out of fear, but because he’s looking at you like he can finally see right through you.

"You sent it to me first," he says, quiet, but sure. His eyes flick down, over your lips, your throat, back up.

Your stomach turns, and you force yourself to bite back your words, despite how hard they are to swallow.

“And I wanted to believe you were drunk when you sent it,” he says, voice rougher now than before, “would’ve been easier that way.”

You shift your weight, but don’t bow your head. “Easier?”

Your gaze flickers to where his jaw flexes. "Would’ve been a mistake, then. Would’ve meant I could just forget about it."

Forget about it. That shouldn’t sting.

You shrug, aiming for nonchalance, but your voice comes out quieter than you mean it to. "So forget about it."

His voice, that stupid calibre of his, drops to something even lower, something  barely above a whisper. 

"You really want me to?"

Your breath stutters. He takes your loss of words as an answer.

His fingers brush against your wrist, deft hands circle around the bone, his thumb brushing up against your pulse. Your skin burns where his finger’s graze. His other hand skims up your other arm, brushes against your jaw, and it’s so soft, tentative in a way that makes you shudder, an oxymoron to the storm brewing in his eyes. 

“Tell me,” he murmurs, “if I kiss you right now, are you gonna pretend you don’t want it?”

The question hangs in the space between, thick like tar.

It’s only when his thumb brushes against your cheek, that you feel your restraint, thin as hair, give. Slowly—so slowly—you tilt your chin up, just a fraction, just enough to close the distance so that your lips ghost over his, an echo of a kiss, but not quite one. Your move, rockstar.

It’s a thread-thin dangerous thing that sets his jaw tight, he inhales sharply, and you swear you see him tremble. 

You laugh softly at that, sweet as ever.

Leon caves.

His hand shifts, curls around the nape of your neck, pulls you flush and slots his lips against yours. 

The press of his mouth is warm, wanting, firm and demanding. 

But then you smile against his lips—satisfied, smug, victorious—and he groans something devastated.

It’s a low, deep, wrecked sort of sound, something that comes right from his chest, heavy with everything unsaid. His other hand finds your waist, squeezes tight, feels your skin give under his hold, like you’re finally his to keep and he can’t quite get enough. 

“Minx,” he mutters, breathless frustration bleeding into his words.

You revel in it, your skin erupting in goosebumps.

His hand tightens around the back of your neck, tilting your head just so—like he’s determined to kiss that satisfaction right off your lips.

Spoiler: he won’t.

Because you kiss him back just as fiercely, just as insistently, pressing up on your toes like you need to get closer, like you could crawl inside his skin if he let you. 

Your hands curl around his shoulders, move up to the junction where they meet the column of his throat, tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. You tug and he lets out something that sounds dangerously close to a moan.

And you wonder if he hates this, how easily he unravels for you, how easily you undo him. It’s like you’ve been sent right from heaven to torture him.

His hands find the curve of your waist, skate down the warmth of your skin, the swell of your hips, the back of your thighs, until he’s pressing in, guiding you backward—steady, steady—until the backs of your knees hit the couch. 

Your balance wavers.

“Careful,” he murmurs, half-amused like this is funny to him.

He doesn’t give you the grace of finding your footing, pressing forward until you’ve sunk into the cushions.

Leon stands there for a second, looking down at you, eyes heavy-lidded, dark with something that makes heat coil in your stomach. He drags a hand over his mouth, like he’s trying to wipe away whatever impulse is written across his face. Like it might be something reckless, ruining. 

Then, he exhales. Sharp and quiet, he sinks to his knees in the space between your legs, a sight so devastating you forget to breathe. 

Broad hands wrap around the plush of your thighs, fingers pressing half-moon divots into your skin. 

“Look at you,” he murmurs, half to himself, half to you, something dangerously close to adoration lacing his words. His thumb brushes absently along the sensitive skin just above your knee, gaze tracking the way your breath shudders. Ruining, indeed.

And then—oh, then— his palm slips to hook underneath your knee, pulls your leg over his shoulder. You suck in a sharp breath, unable to tear your gaze away from his; bright blue eyes that sparkle something wondrous in the low light. 

You try to handle yourself, lest he watch you fall apart from a simple look. “If you think I’m just gonna melt the second you put your hands on me, you’re—” Your breath unfortunately hitches the second his grip tightens around your thigh, makes your pulse jump.

He raises a brow, infuriatingly smug, like he’s daring you to finish that sentence.

You clear your throat. “—you’re sorely mistaken.”

Leon huffs out a laugh, low and knowing. “Sorely?”

You fruitlessly dig your heel into his back, a half-attempt at a kick, a half-attempt at saving some of your dignity. “Yes, sorely.”

His hands slide up in a wordless answer—dragging his nails back down your thigh, nosing at the soft fat, pressing his mouth against the skin. The brush of his lips alone unravels you enough that you can’t muster an appropriate response, shivering, sighing instead.

“Someone’s quiet,” he muses lazily, drags his teeth just barely along your skin before soothing the spot with his tongue. “Where’d all that attitude go?”

You scowl before you can stop yourself. “It’s recalculating.”

A shit-eating smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, “Yeah?” He does it again, open-mouthed this time, sucks supple flesh between his lips, bites, pulls away. “Let me know when it’s back."

Your chest feels like it’s on fire, so instead, your hands find the broad line of his shoulders, curl into the fabric of his shirt, and pull him up by the collar. He follows without much give, your thigh falls off his shoulder when he climbs up to press you into the plush cushion, cages you in. And fuck—you don’t think you should be this turned on by his weight atop you, by the heat of him, by that look in his eyes.

You can hear the way your heart pounds, blood rushing in your ears. Can feel it in your fingertips when you drag them down his chest, his stomach, until they catch the hem of his shirt. You push it up enough to reveal the hard muscle of his abdomen. He shudders atop you.

Leon’s lips are back on yours before you can even think to be smug about it, before the teasing grin can curl at the corner of your lips. It’s hotter now, deeper, tongue sliding against yours like he’s trying to drown you. And in the heat of it, his knee presses between your thighs. You’re not sure if he does it on purpose, if it’s a brilliant accident, but either way it makes you keen, a gasp of pleasant surprise tumbling from your lips.

He groans into your mouth, one hand tightening on your hip. “You sound better than I imagined,” he breathes heavily, and heat floods your face.

You swallow hard. Shut up, shut up, shut up. 

Your heart jumps at the thought of him having imagined this. Having imagined how you sounded, how he would’ve imagined you falling apart. It does horrible things to your head and even worse things to the slick heat between your thighs.

You should have a response by now, something sharp and devastatingly witty, but all you can really focus on is the way he looks at you. Like he’d let you ruin him and call it a privilege. And then he moves, pressing closer, knee pressing up between your thighs more purposefully than before, and whatever witty remark you had queued up promptly exits the premises.

The sound that leaves your mouth is embarrassing. Mortifying, even.

“Oh,” Leon murmurs, voice all smoke and velvet, “there it is.”

You absolutely despise how much you like that, refuse to let him have it. Can’t. Won’t. His ego is slowly swelling to the size of a stadium, and the last thing you need is for him to think he has you all figured out.

So, you do what any self-respecting, prideful person in your position would do: you take the liberty to push at his shoulders, and when he leans back, you seize the opportunity. Grip the front of his shirt, and push him down against the couch. He lets you, laughing under his breath, hands settling easy against your thighs as you straddle his lap.

“Don’t look so smug,” you warn, fingers sliding down, slow and deliberate. His stomach tenses beneath your touch.

“I’m not smug,” he argues, but he’s smiling something devilish—lazy, lopsided, thoroughly enjoying himself. His hands flex against your legs, and you let yourself believe he needs it to ground himself. “Just waiting to see what you’ve got planned.”

Your pulse thrums in your throat, but you play nonchalance better than he gives you credit for. “You got a request?”

“Don’t think I need one,” he says, watching as your hands dip lower, brushing over his belt buckle. “You wrote a song about it, m’sure you have ideas.”

If looks could kill he would be dead, because you’re glaring at him like he’s said something horrific. He is right, but you don’t let him have the satisfaction of hearing you admit it.

Instead, you hook your fingers under the leather, tug just enough to make him suck in a harsh breath. His eyes darken, and it’s thrilling—watching him unravel, shift beneath you.

“Aw, is that all it took?” You coo, pleased beyond words, leaning in close to brush your lips against his jaw. “Usually so put together, doesn’t take much to get you like this, does it?”

Leon huffs a laugh, but goes willingly, tilts his head to let you mouth down his throat. “You wanna talk about falling apart? What was that sound you made just a minute ago?”

You bite down, enough to make him hiss. “Stop talking.”

You can picture the smile that tugs at his thin lips, feel the way his warm, broad palms skim up, under your shirt, pressing into your back, fingers tracing the curve of your spine, slipping under the band of bra.

His belt slips free with a quiet clink, and you savour the way his muscles jump under your hands as you undo the button of his jeans, the steady sound of his shallow breathing when your fingers brush against the sharp line of his hip bone. 

He tries not to push, but you can just about feel the restraining in him, the way his fingers twitch where they rest against your thighs, jaw clenched, muscles tight like a wire pulled taut.

You drag your nails lightly over the plane of his stomach, card your fingers through the thin trail of hair that leads down from his navel, just to see what he does when you do.

Leon sucks in a sharp breath, his head tipping back against the couch, and the sound he makes—low and barely restrained—sends a rush of heat straight through you.

“You’re trying to kill me.” He swears, voice beyond wrecked, and for a second you think he might start begging for mercy. 

“No,” you hum, tilting your head, hands running up his chest, under his shirt. “Just having fun.”

Leon laughs—all breathless, shaky around the edges. But there’s something desperate in the way he exhales, in the way his hips shift up just barely like he’s fighting every instinct to meet you halfway.

There must be a devil on your shoulder, he thinks, because you make it worse.

Your hips roll down, testing, barely any pressure, but enough he feels it. His breath punches out of him like you’ve knocked the wind from his lungs. His fingers dig into your thighs, desperation in his grip.

His head falls forward, eyes flicking up to meet yours, and fuck, you really weren’t prepared for how he looks at you—half-lidded, dark with something simmering just beneath the surface.

“You enjoying yourself?” he asks, voice low and rough, like it pains him to think too hard.

A grin stretches across your lips, heart thrumming with satisfaction, you’ve won, you think, made him fall to pieces without even touching him properly. 

But then he exhales sharply through his nose, takes your hand.

He presses it to his chest, right over his heart—fast, heavy, pounding. 

“You feel that?” His voice is low, his other hand, still on your back, coaxes you closer. Close enough your lips brush. “You did that.”

You let out a shaky breath, Leon curses because he thinks he finally has you breaking.

You didn’t expect him to do that, to let his walls come down and show you just how much you affect him. Didn’t think he’d pull the rug from under your feet and admit defeat in one fell swoop. He looks at you like he actually wants you, not just the game of it, not just for the win.

He wants you. 

…You want him.

Leon watches your face like he’s waiting for you to stop him, but when you don’t, when your lips part like you’re about to ask for something, maybe even beg—he decides.

He leans up, closes the short space between you, and kisses you deep and slow. Like you’re the best thing he’s ever had the pleasure of tasting. He doesn’t rush, nor does he fumble. Just touches you like he means it. Like he really has thought about this more than he’s willing to admit.

His fingers push at the hem of your shirt, sliding up your ribs, pulls the fabric off like it’s nothing. And when your body trembles against his, he swears to himself he’d do just about anything for you.

He lets you tug his jeans lower, helps you. His hands are steady, careful when he presses against the fabric of your underwear.

Leon watches your face, watches the way your lips fall open, breath uneven, the way your fingers tighten in his shirt, and then—

Then you make a sound so sweet, so utterly wrecked that his resolve snaps like a thread pulled too tight.

“Christ,” he mutters, like it physically pains him, and then he’s kissing you twice as hard as before, deep and wanting, swallowing every breath, every soft noise, every shaky exhale.

His fingers press firmer, so, so eager, willing to coax any sound out of you that you’ll let him. Your hands curl at his shoulders, hips bucking deftly against his palm.

“Leon, Leon, Leon,” you murmur, breathless and shaking, spilling his name into his own mouth.

He stills just barely, and fuck, it wrecks him—he doesn’t know if it’s the way you say it, like he’s something sacred, or the fact that you’re coming undone just for him.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” he whispers, pulling away even if it kills him, pressing warm lips against your jaw. “Gotta use your words.”

You blink up at him, dazed. “Don’t baby me.”

His mouth twitches. “You don’t want me to baby you?”

You want to tell him everything. That you want him to touch you like this, and talk to you like that, but also see you, really see you. Want him to want all of it—not just your body, not just the thrill of it, but the gentler parts too. The parts of you that ache when he leaves the room. The parts that want to believe someone like him could care that deeply.

“I want—” you start, then stop, teeth sinking into your lip.

He softens. Just a bit. Just enough. 

“Alright, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Tell me how you want it.”

Your throat works around the words. You reach down, let your fingers trace along the waistband of his boxers, and look him dead in the eyes.

“Wanna ride you.” You whisper, voice is thin with adrenaline and want.

Leon groans like it’s been punched out of him. “Fuck. Jesus. Shit.”

You grin, all teeth, trying to ease the gravity in your chest. “Oh, c’mon, rockstar. I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve had a girl say that before.”

He huffs out something like a laugh. “S’different,” he says quietly.

You’re too scared to ask how.

So instead, you kiss him like it’ll shut out the question. Like you can pour your want into his mouth and he’ll take it, keep it, like your secret's tucked somewhere between your teeth and if he’s patient enough, if he presses hard enough, he’ll find it there.

Leon groans into it, hands dragging along the curve of your waist, your hips. His palms are firm there, like he’s claiming something, like he’s grounding you both.

“You ride me,” he murmurs against your lips, “and I swear I’m not gonna last long.”

“Aw,” you tease, all syrup and heat, brushing your nose against his, “poor baby.”

He bites your bottom lip in retaliation, gentle but pointed, and you gasp.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” you whisper, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt before finally, finally, dragging it up, over his head, revealing sweat-warmed skin that you wish you could lick clean with your tongue.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much more time to waste. Leon’s handsiness, you’ve discovered, is both a curse and a gift—he can’t seem to stop touching you, and you’re in no hurry to make him. 

He helps you shimmy out of your underwear, breath catching when you’re bare before him. He drinks you in, staring like a man praying for patience. Then you sit back slightly, thighs spread over his lap, and he does it again, that mouth of his.

“God, look at you,” he mutters, like he can’t believe his luck. “You’re unreal.”

It makes your head swim, the way he says it.

In hindsight, you should’ve taken more time, wish you’d used your hand to stroke his length until he was begging for more, but the heady haze of sex-soup your brain is swimming in doesn’t leave you much choice. You’ll get him next time, you decide.

So instead you hide the flush of your cheeks with the sink of your hips, and you think it just about does it. Leon groans like it knocks the wind from him, his head tips back against the couch, throat bared, lashes fluttering.

The stretch is deep, thick, just shy of overwhelming. It steals your breath and then your balance, and you fall forward, catching yourself on his chest. He’s warm there. Bare skin and heart beneath your palms, his pulse kicking against your fingertips like it might leap out and run to you.

“Fuck— God you’re warm. You’re so warm,” he mumbles, and it’s so hot and heavy it makes you blush hard enough you feel it in your ears, your chest, your thighs.

“Romantic,” you breathe against his jaw, trying for wit but inevitably melting into the moment.

He huffs out a laugh, half-amused, half-ruined. “Mouth on you.”

“You like it.”

“Unfortunately,” he grits out, squeezing your thighs. “You gonna move or just sit there lookin’ pretty?”

He feels you grin against the column of his throat first, then feels you roll your hips sickeningly slowly second.

“Christ,” he moans obscenely, fingers digging into your skin. “You’re—fuck. This is a bad idea.”

You pant, shake your head. “I think we’re way past bad ideas.”

Leon’s hand slides up your back, catches at the nape of your neck, forces your mouth back to his like he needs to taste your smugness. You feel him twitch inside you when you moan into the kiss—high and desperate, something wild climbing up your throat.

“You sound so sweet when you’re full of me,” he murmurs against your lips, and it’s awful, the way your body clenches down at the filth of it. “All that smartass attitude, but now you’re just—” he cuts himself off with a groan, “—fuckin’ whimpering.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

Your hand finds the back of his neck, you tighten your grip in his hair and drop your hips again, slower this time, grinding until he groans like you’ve punched the air out of him. You want to crawl inside him, disappear beneath his skin.

“Pretty girl,” he says, low and reverent. “You sound so fuckin’ sweet.”

You whimper at that. Your rhythm stutters.

Leon finds it really doesn’t take much to melt your poor brain. You’re already gone—thighs trembling, mouth open, whimpering nonsense between the slick drag of your hips. He takes advantage where he can, thrusts up into you with a force that makes you hiccup on a wet moan. Cute, cute, cute. 

“Leon,” you whisper, voice thin and cracked and ruined. You’re not sure what you’re asking for. More? Less? Everything?

“Yeah, baby,” he breathes, eyes glassy as they flick between your face and where your bodies meet. “Feels good, huh?”

God, his voice. You want to drown in the low timber that rattles through your head when he speaks like that. And of course, you nod. Desperate, mindless, somewhere between obsession and devotion. Your nails dig half-moons into the meat of his shoulders, your hips rocking pitifully.

“Can’t—can’t think,” you admit, a choked sound riding the edge of a sob.

Leon lets out a sharp breath through his nose, swears under it. “Good.” His voice is hoarse, fraying at the edges. “Don’t wanna hear you think. Just wanna hear you come.”

“Yours,” you whisper without thinking, tears burning and cresting your pretty lashes. “Yours, yours, yours—”

“That’s it,” he groans, “My girl.”

Your head jerks slightly, like the words ripple straight through you.

“Your girl?” you echo, dazed, like it floated up out of your mouth before your brain could catch it.

He doesn’t answer—not with words. Just thrusts up into you slow and deep, like he can fuck the truth back into you. Kisses you like you’ve ruined him completely. 

And just like that, it’s all too much.

The rhythm you’ve managed to keep starts to splinter, your movements losing precision. You’re clinging to him, breath coming in hot, wet gasps, thighs shaking, body screaming for that last push.

Leon feels it. Sees it in your face.

“You gonna come for me?” he pants, hands sliding down, down, gripping the back of your thighs as you lift and drop, roll and press. “You gonna soak my cock like a good fuckin’ girl?”

“Don’t wanna yet,” you whisper, but it’s fragile, a lie at best. You’re already falling apart.

He groans like you’ve stabbed him. “Jesus, you’re killing me. I haven’t fucked you stupid enough yet, huh?”

His hand slides down, fingers finding your clit, circling slow and punishing.

You arch into him with a cry, loud and unfiltered, every inch of you unraveling.

“There she is,” he breathes, reverent and wild-eyed, watching you fall to pieces on top of him. “God, baby. Just like that.”

“You’re bein’ mean,” You whine, words all slurred, as the tears begin to well and dribble down the pretty apples of your cheeks.

“Oh, angel,” He coos, and god you really do hate how smug he gets. “Me? Mean? You wound me, pretty.”

“Shut up,” you pant, whining high and rutting hopelessly against him. 

“C’mon,” he pants, thumb still working lazy circles against the throb of your clit, “I wanna feel you beg for it.”

It’s cruel. Cruel, the way he says it—rasped out like a curse, like it’s the last thing he’ll ever ask for. His hand is steady even as his breath breaks apart. He’s wrecked. Close. You can feel it in the way he shakes under you, in the stutter of his hips against yours. 

You giggle helplessly into the crook of his neck.

His thumb presses firmer, tight figure eights.

“Leon—!” your voice catches on a sob, you’re so close it’s dizzying, so wet and full and tense that your whole body tightens like a string about to snap. “Can’t—too much—”

“Too much?” he echoes, low and amused, and god, it shouldn’t sound so tender. “Thought you said you didn’t wanna come yet. Changed your mind?”

You nod before you can stop yourself, head lolling as your hips rut down in frantic little circles, chasing the friction.

He groans at the sight, palm spreading wide across your spine like he’s trying to hold you together. “Fuckin’ knew it. Talk big, but look at you now—makin’ a mess on me.”

One arm tightens around your waist, locking you down, and the other braces at your back as he thrusts up into you again—deeper now, sharper, fucking the air right out of your lungs.

You keen, and he laughs—breathy and soft and so fucking fond that it breaks you open.

“Look at you.” He noses at your cheek. “You’re outta your mind.”

You are. You really are. And it’s all him. The heat of him, the rough scrape of his voice, the way he touches you like you’re something to worship and ruin in the same breath.

“Gonna come,” you choke out, breath hitching as your thighs start to shake. “Please—Leon, please—”

“Fuck,” he groans, and his hips stutter. “Go on, baby. Let go. You’ve been so good for me.”

That’s all it takes. The words hit like a match to gasoline. Your whole body seizes—tight and trembling and gasping as your climax crashes over you like a wave, dragging a whine out of your throat that doesn’t sound human.

Leon holds you through it, rocking you through every pulse, every shudder. He murmurs something into your skin, something quiet and unintelligible, and then he follows—his body locking up beneath you, his breath catching.

“Fuck—fuck,” he hisses, head tipped back, mouth open. You feel the heat of him inside you, feel the full-body tremor that wrecks him. He’s still buried deep, still gripping you like he’ll fall apart if he lets go.

It’s a long moment before either of you moves.

You can feel his heartbeat against your chest, wild and unsteady. 

“You alright?” he asks after a minute, voice low and rough around the edges.

You nod, cheek resting heavy against his shoulder, still trembling even when he eases you back. Your body feels like it’s been rung out, soaked in sugar, nerves singing somewhere between pleasure and disbelief.

Your fingers twitch where they rest against his chest, and you murmur something against his neck—something nonsensical, vowels dragging like honey.

“What was that?” he asks, voice hoarse but amused, his hand smoothing over your back, tracing your spine like a secret.

“Dunno,” you mumble, “I think I saw God.”

Leon huffs a laugh. “You talk a lot.”

You don’t respond, just hum again, lost in the float of it—too far gone to be embarrassed, too fucked out to pretend you’re not still clenching around him. You feel him begin to shift, and what starts as a delighted little hum, turns to protest, a whimper slipping from your lips before you can think to stop it when you realise he’s pulling out.

“No,” you whisper, eyes glassy, fingers curling weakly at his wrist like maybe you could keep him there. “Wait—Leon—mmph.”

His laugh is breathy, wrecked. “That good, huh?”

You glare, or try to. It’s weak at best. “Don’t—don’t be mean to me.”

“You’re the one whining.”

“You made me whine,” you grumble, but it comes out slurred, a little dreamy.

Leon grins like he’s won the lottery. He’s still so close, and maybe the way his hands are smoothing over your thighs, up your hips, dragging the touch out like he can’t stand to stop can make up for how empty you feel now.

He has no shame when he cups between your thighs again and presses two fingers there, slow and lazy, you jolt. “Leon—”

He hums, smug. “Messy,” he murmurs, fingers slipping between your folds. “Look at what you let me do to you.”

You shiver hard, half from oversensitivity, half from the way his voice drips with possessiveness. You’re too blissed out to argue, too soft to push him away. Especially when he slides one of those fingers back in, just enough.

You gasp. “Ohhhhh,” you sigh, all delight and dazed affection.

You squirm against him a little helplessly, make a face when you feel him push a little deeper, like he’s guiding what’s left of himself back into you. Your head tips back with a helpless sound.

“Leon—what the fuck?”

He has the audacity to look smug. “What? Can’t let any of it go to waste.”

“Gross,” you whine, trying and failing to wiggle away. He keeps you right there, hands firm but fond, and you know, deep in your bones, that you don’t really want to go anywhere but where he is.

He offers you a real clean-up after your thighs have stopped shaking, drives you back to your place and walks you to the door like a gentleman. It feels all too sweet for the type of night you’ve had, and every part of you wishes this won’t be the last of them.

You half expect him to say something—to ask to come in, or kiss you goodnight, or at least promise to see you again.

But he just smiles. Nods. Taps two fingers to his temple in a lazy salute.

“Night, sweetheart.”

Then he’s gone.

And in the warm lull of dawn, with your sheets still cold and your heart beating somewhere between your ribs and your throat, you wonder what to do with the ache of him still lingering under your skin.

So when morning properly comes—sun high, coffee half-sipped, hair still tangled from the night before—you call.

Just to see if he’ll pick up. Just to hear the line connect.

It rings once.

Twice.

And then you hang up in a panic.

You curse under your breath. Call yourself a hundred kinds of idiot. Your thumb is still hovering over the screen when your phone buzzes in your hand.

Leon Kennedy is calling you.

Shit, shit, shit! You muster whatever dignity you have left, swallow, and answer.

“Sweetheart?” His voice is all sleepy, a little hoarse with morning, makes your heart bloom with warmth. You sink deeper into your mattress at the sound of it, curl into your pillow like it’s his chest.

“Yeah?” you say, like you’re afraid you’ve imagined the whole thing.

“You alright?”

“Mhm.”

“You called?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna say something?”

You pause to worry your lip between your teeth.

“…No.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. You can hear the rustle of sheets over the line, the sleepy shift of his weight. You picture him in bed—bare chest, tousled hair, phone pressed to his ear, eyes still half-lidded with sleep.

“Alright,” he murmurs.

And then he hangs up.

You stare at your phone, wide-eyed like you can’t believe he really did it. Then you hit call again before you can talk yourself out of it. He answers right away.

“Hi,” you say.

“Hey,” he breathes, voice quiet and curious like a secret. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”

You roll onto your back, smiling helplessly at the ceiling. “No.”

He chuckles, quiet and fond. “Me neither. Was already thinkin’ about you.”

You close your eyes. “I liked your voice just now.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“I like yours too,” he says, voice thick. “Sound all soft. Like I should be wakin’ up next to you.”

The room feels warm again, like the night before never ended, whatever figurative line that you’ve drawn in the sand between you seems thinner than ever.

“Maybe next time,” you say softly.

There’s a careful pause. You both hang in the quiet, waiting to see if the moment passes.

“Have you…” he starts, then clears his throat. “Have you eaten yet?”

You shake your head although he can’t see. “No.”

“You want me to bring you something?”

The question bowls you over. It’s too sweet, too easy. Like he’s asked it a hundred times before, like this is just what you do.

“You don’t have to,” you whisper, but the fond curl of your lips slips into your voice and gives you away.

“Didn’t say I had to. Just figured you might want it.” A pause. “Something hot and filling.”

Your throat closes up a little, an uncharacteristic flush to your cheeks. “You mean pancakes?”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Among other things.”

“Leon,” you say his name urgently, too much bubbling to the surface all at once.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“You’re being…” You trail off, plucking at the fraying cuff of your sweater, too afraid to name it how it is, to ruin a good thing.

Another pause, you can hear the soft rise and fall of his breath. “I can be soft on you.” He murmurs, “If you let me.”

You press the phone harder to your ear, eyes stinging. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Good.” He says finally. Then, “Any coffee left at your place?”

“Only if you make it.”

He chuckles, low and fond. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

likes n reblogs r very much appreciated <3

[starkeymeow]

❛ we make each other alive . .

does it matter if it hurts? ❜

I’M COMING, WAIT FOR ME.

PLOT you enter the hunger games a proud weapon of your district, only to find your sharpest blade is the boy beside you, and you’re not sure which one of you the capitol wants to break first.

CONTENT prologue, best read in dark mode, rafe cameron x reader au, blood, violence, murder, manipulation, grief, hallucinations, intense survival situations. HUNGER GAMES EEKEKEKEKEEK

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you practically volunteer for death with a smile on your face.

the sky is too blue for bloodshed. but the flags flap like they know what’s coming. red, black, and concrete gray, colors that mean order. control. victory.

your boots hit the stone square in time with a hundred others. it smells like sweat, steel, and the stale echo of war. no one cries here. they only clench their jaws tighter.

the stage looms. peacekeepers gleam like statues. the man with the mic is already smiling with his perfect teeth, slick voice. the reaping bowl is silver and deep, shimmering like a trap.

they call a name. not yours. but you step forward anyway. you say it loud, “i volunteer as tribute.”

your voice cuts through the silence like a blade. cheers erupt, not for you, but for the performance. and you grin.

you take the girl’s place, step onto the stage. raise your chin like your mother told you to. and then they call the boy’s name. and that’s when the blood begins.

another boy shoves forward. bigger. older. louder. he doesn’t want to wait to die. he wants the glory, the blood, the roar of the crowd.

but the name already belongs to him. the quiet one, the one with the sharp collar and colder eyes, the one whose father whispered into the right ears.

he doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask permission, just moves. and when it’s over, the bigger boy is choking on the stage, teeth cracked like glass, blood puddling under his skull.

the real tribute stands above him, bruised, breathing like a machine, lip split open and dripping down his chin.

you watch it all. you don’t blink once. this is what you signed up for.

the man with the mic stammers something patriotic, something rehearsed, and then,

“rafe cameron and y/n y/l/n, this year’s tributes for district two!”

you reach for him. he wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, smearing red across the curve of his hand. then he grips yours with that same hand, tight, unflinching.

you raise your arms together. blood paints the space between your fingers. the cameras catch it all.

the crowd goes fucking feral. you’re smiling like you’ve won already. he’s not smiling at all. and somehow, that’s worse.

you don’t look like heroes. you don’t look like victims. you look like monsters. and somewhere far away, on a train bound for the capitol, other tributes watch this moment play on a screen, and feel the first true pang of fear.

district two is coming. and it’s already soaked in red.

@nicholaschavezslut69 @iissza @snowtargaryen @yootvi @ariiwritess @spideysimpossiblegirl @skyslowalking @adribarbie @obsessionsarenotfortheweak @0-tatiana-0 @beebeerockknot @rafestar @drewstarkeyzwhore @drewsephrry @annaconscience @writtenbyhollywood @yourtypicalteenagegirl @daisydark @v4mpscrms

THIS SERIES will have literally teasing psycho rafe & silent killer reader probably. i wanna make it brutal, bloody, violent, but also raw and vulnerable eventually! theyre still humans at the end of the day. there are just a few things to know:

ONE theyre obviously from district 2. rafes dad is a peacekeeper, or something related to that. for the reader its undecided tbh but u guys can give me ideas if u want!! rafes family exists but i doubt we’ll hear much from them.

TWO reader is unfortunately one of the careers who are brainwashed into training to volunteer someday and represent their district. rafe has his own similar reason that we’ll get into in this series soon!!

THREE i might put up a poll for u guys to decide whether we pull the “lovers who die together”, “lovers where one dies and the other wins”, “lovers who win together because fuck katniss & peeta i guess” cards, so the ending is entirely up to u guys!!

LET ME KNOW if u would like to be part of this tag list, i’ll take a break from shameless to rewatch or reread thg idc. im having sm ideas now that SOTR came out LOL

[effieotto]

Sunrise on the reaping bellow, you know the drill

“I know that,” she says. “I’ve known who you are ever since you helped with my makeup box. And I know your position could not have been easy.”

It’s surprisingly touching. “Thanks, Effie.”

“But they really are for a greater good. The Hunger Games.” And now she’s lost me.

this scene really struck me, because…does she really think that? I find it funny how fast she recognized the anti-government edge of her speech, implying that “she knows his position could not have been easy, thus she felt sorry he had to go through it”, and how it went against the whole purpose of how it was all the great sacrifice she was supposed to believe, and just as fast made sure to reaffirm that it all was for a greater good. Even though it sounded out of place.

Stay with me —since the beginning, when she broke into the apartment with those outfits in hand, telling everyone they should work hard because “A lot of people lost their lives to guarantee peace and prosperity for their nation”, effie wasn’t giving her opinion on the matter, she was repeating the propaganda the government sold. Word for word.

which reminds me how she wasn’t clueless to the consequences of their acts during the first two books. How upset she was every time Katniss did something reckless, because she knew it was going to affect “all of them”. How she knew about Seneca’s not-quite-suicide, and was terrified to know that Katniss did know too…all of it doesn’t imply the sky-level of ignorance we usually associate with her.

the trinkets were somehow disgraced in society, hence effie had to do the double duty of clawing her way back into the high class to be respected in the field and still try to protect her sister’s reputation and, more likely than not, her safety. This was hard labor and it probably gave her some privileged knowledge of how it all really worked. She was the victim of a dictatorship, and i feel like she knew exactly what it meant…she did believe in the propaganda Snow sold, at some level,but she also knew she didn’t have a choice of supporting it or not

which brings us back to the scene— effie was in the bugged apartment of District Twelve with a dozen of peacekeepers standing right behind her, her little speech about her recognizing haymitch as a real person, and feeling sorry (or the closest thing of remorse she could afford) was risky (if you know how not-understanding a dictator is when it comes down to anti-government speeches, you know that she was in danger only for feeling sorry) and she knew that. she had a sister, she had a reputation, she had a family and friends, and years of life…is it really a surprise that she would jump right into her parrot-mood when she noticed she was that close to imply she didn’t really agreed with the whole ordeal?

Was Effie truly a loyalist who buys into the capitol propaganda, or is she just a person under a totalitarian regime who knows the boundaries of safety? She was terrified of the president, you can see that when she said “HE asked you to wear it”. she had people to lose, she had her own safety on the line, should she risk it all for a boy she barely knew?

I am not saying she didn’t have her controversial opinion, or that she didn’t believe in the idea that the games guaranteed her safety. What i am saying is that she saw it more like an unavoidable social dutty than a necessity, and she’s aware that she couldn’t speak against it if she wanted to see the sun rising the next day. She is a much more complex character than just “a selfish loyalist who truly buys the entire propaganda” or the “innocent daughter of Panem”

[etherealily]

same page? // f.odair

My other Finnick fics, if you have the time.

This was from my poll .

Finnick Odair + fem!reader. Warnings: Cuss words.

You do NOT have permission to repost and/or translate any of my fics.

Desc. : Panem's most publicized situationship.

════════════════════ ⋆⋅🌀⋅⋆ ═══════════════════

Make them speculate.

Make them wonder.

Distract them.

Entice them.

Convince them.

He tucked your hair behind your ear, kissing your temple as he did so. Your insides turned. "Are we on or off today?"

"He didn't say."

"Hm.", he murmured against your forehead. "It's up to us, then."

You took a sip of your champagne.

Listen, Finnick Odair was a fucking menace.

Seven years. Seven years of this shit.

"Do you never wonder what it'd be like if we actually did end up marrying each other?"

"The entire Capitol would burn down.", you scoffed softly, eyes running around the room.

"Snow would be pissed, for one. It's a will-they/won't-they until we do."

"Which we won't."

He pouted, shaking his head as he brought your hand to his chest. "You wound me."

Your whirlwind romance had swept Panem off its feet. According to their knowledge, you'd first met at a Post-Games party, after your first time as a mentor, and you couldn't keep your eyes off each other. Cue the mess.

On and off. Sometimes, never, and always. That was you and Finnick, in the eyes of Panem.

It wasn't exactly all false. In the beginning it really had just been you, Finnick, and a couple of nights that neither of you wished to label. But there was no sex, that was what was morbidly hilarious here. Just deep, drunken conversations.

In Panem, the most intimate thing you could do with someone was not sex, no, it was developing a true connection, and that's what had happened all those nights — what had scared you both.

So sue you if you didn't want to label that shit. It'd only end badly for the both of you.

Sure, Finnick might have thought he might, possibly, maybe want more. But that was only on late nights when he was watching the moon or nostalgic footage of District Four on the TV, but at the end of the day, both of you knew this decision was the best.

Toxic, definitely, but at the end of the day, although his long string of dalliances followed his reputation everywhere he went, he always came back to you.

Panem thought it was because no matter how twisted, he always loved you.

Snow thought Panem would like that.

You preferred that than actually discussing with him why he always came back.

"Off.", you replied.

"We've been 'off' too many times this year. Snow's going to freak."

He was right. "Fine. Is Caesar here?"

His eyes flicked around the room, scoping it out. "Yes."

You groaned. "He's going to lip read, then."

Caesar Flickerman was a dynamic host as well as an expert lip-reader. You'd only found that out on your second year of this charade, when Finnick had been talking to you about missing home - taboo topic around the Capitol - and Caesar had caught it.

All over the news the next day. He'd had to cover it up and say he meant you were his home. The Capitol went positively feral.

"Look at you, all sexy.", Finnick whispered, with his maddening smirk. "For me?"

"For me." He rolled his eyes. Wrong answer, his glare told you.

"Tell me, gorgeous.", he breathed, hands placed tantalizingly and strategically on your shoulders. "Do the cameras love you as much as I do?"

His iconic line. He'd come up with it three years ago, and it was a cop-out for when he was too tired to come up with any other segue, and besides, the Capitol loved it. It was basically code for you to chill out on the responses, because he was way too exhausted that day.

"Do the cameras love you as much as your family does? Or do you just live here, now? In the Capitol? In the limelight?"

Wait, what?

"I live in my district. Most of the year." The hell was he doing?

"Do you now, beautiful? And why is it you're always here?"

"Why are you always here?"

"Photo ops, of course. Snow needs his best out here all the time to make the Capitol as spectacular-looking as he needs.", he replied, eyes glistening.

"I'm here for the same reason."

"Yes, but you act like you don't give a shit where you are. Like you winning the Games was nothing. Like you being bestowed with riches - more than most, actually, because of the hot little outfits that you model- is nothing. Impassive, deadpan, nonchalant, innocent but too-cool-for-school Y/N.", he mocked.

No way was he actually letting anyone lip read this.

"Caesar's not here, is he?"

He chuckled, nodding. "You're right. I just needed an excuse for you to listen."

"I will not have you judge me."

"Let me kiss you, Y/N."

"What?"

"Please."

"I am not going to let you kiss me. We've got... we can't act as if we've had this conversation in private. It has to progress slowly. Every single moment of ours must be 'accidentally' captured, and jus—"

"Same page?"

He always asked you that before he did something he thought would get the cameras off your back for a couple weeks.

"No! No, no, not this time, what?", you hissed through gritted teeth, doing your damndest to work on your ventriloquism skills.

He rolled his eyes, his lips moving to your cheek. "Let. Me. Kiss. You. I swear, you'll understand."

Finnick's knuckles on your jaw, he tilted his head, as if to say 'come on, I'm already this close'.

You acquiesced.

He leaned in, pressing his lips to yours, before murmuring against them. "Kill Snow with me."

You didn't pull away, you didn't push him away, you didn't frown, you didn't scream. You just froze.

"Johanna— everyone, basically, is on board.", he said, in between kisses to your unresponsive lips. "And the Mockingjay. She... god, Y/N, please, I can tell you're two seconds away from killing me, but please—."

His kisses kept growing more feverish by the second, his hands cupping your face and using it to pull you closer. It was getting increasingly hard to ascertain whether he was addicted to your lips or the words he was corrupting them with.

"Finnick, Finnick, wait—"

"Please, please, Y/N." He was begging. He was pleading. "Just... shh."

"I'm not — stop.", you hissed, and he begrudgingly pulled away, though his lips lingered on your neck. "I'm not going to kill anyone. Not Snow, not you— though I should probably kill you for this. What if you're mic'd? Snow's done that befor—"

"You wouldn't be doing any of the killing, my love.", he smiled against your neck, his hands pulling you flush against his body, and something told you it wasn't even because this whole conversation was supposed to be a secret anymore.

He was drunk. You'd only seen Finnick drunk a couple times - the nights that had led you two to being friends (?) and being spotted talking (obviously fucking, according to the Capitol) - but it had never been this bad. He'd always had some form of control over his faculties.

"Finnick, there's cameras right now, we can't—"

"I'm in love with you, Y/N, more than the cameras."

One good thing about Finnick was that his words never slurred when he was psychotically, unforgivably inebriated. They simply hastened.

"Okay, Finnick, I'll get you back to your—"

"Like so much, and I—"

Before he could say something that could be picked up by the cameras around you and analysed by Caesar, you shook your head, covering his mouth with your palm.

He frowned, making unintelligible noises against your hand.

You rested your forehead against his as you whispered. "We'll talk about this later. Get some rest."

════════════════════ ⋆⋅🌀⋅⋆ ═══════════════════

Hours later, you knocked lightly on the door to his room before walking in gingerly.

He lay down, looking up at the ceiling as though it had every answer he could possibly need.

"Finnick?"

"I'm... a failure."

Shit. "Now, Finnick, remember what you have to do when you think like this? Think of your family. Who you're protecting."

"Oh, my god, princess, it's not himself he's disappointed at."

Johanna motherfucking Mason.

"Johanna?"

"In the flesh. But I won't be for long if you don't listen.", she reminded, elbow on her knee.

You closed the door behind you, locking it as you turned on the light. "You're in on this? It's crazy talk!"

"It's a rebellion. It supposed to sound out-there until you actually do it.", she snorted, hopping off the bay window and stretching.

"It's that District 12 Victor, isn't it? Everdeen-something? She's got you guys all riled up."

"Katniss Everdeen, yes. The Mockingjay."

"Jesus, you guys are all fuckwits."

"C'mon, baby, that's no way to be. I thought you were the polite, innocently sexy one? The one who could never even call someone stupid, let alone a fuckwit.", she pouted.

"Snow will kill everyone you've ever loved."

"He already is. Except it's slower, torturous. This way, we're nipping it at the bud so our kids don't have to go through this bullshit again. What about, uh, you two?", she teased, raising a brow as she gestured between you and a plastered Finnick groaning the headache away. "Your cute little Capitol-bred lovechild will still be made to go through the Games. You don't want that, huh?"

You groaned, yanking open the bedside drawer supply of water bottles, passing it over to him. "Jo."

She raised a brow, sitting next to you. "Y/N."

"You can't kill Snow."

"Watch me, sweetheart."

"Jo, this isn't even funny. She lucked out, alright? Katniss, you said her name was? She lucked out big time. Snow's seething. He's seething, and—"

"We know."

"Lie back down, Finnick, you're drunk."

"I'm hungover. This was a big deal for me, okay? I was nervous you'd react just like this and jeopardize it all, okay? Needed liquid courage. Cut me some slack."

"I'm leaving. I'm not going to fucking sit here and listen to you talk about a rebellion when the Capitol's at their strongest and Snow's at his angriest, it's your funer—"

"You're going back into the Arena!"

You paused at the doorway, your fingers on the frame like it was your only tether to reality. "What?"

"Heavensbee. He told us that the Quarter Quell will reap previous Victors."

"What?"

"Snow wants - needs - Katniss dead."

Your attempts to force breath to stay in your lungs proved futile when you realized exactly what that meant. "You guys are going to try protecting her?"

"We have to."

"No, actually, you don't. Finnick, please don't tell me you're going to volunteer if you aren't reaped."

He groaned, rubbing his face over his hands as he sat up. "There's one chance, and this is it. She is it."

Good lord, you were fucking surrounded by idiots.

════════════════════ ⋆⋅🌀⋅⋆ ═══════════════════

The moon was the only beauty you'd found in the Capitol.

Finnick had taught you to look at it. Especially when you were scared. Worried. Or feeling nothing. Or feeling everything. Or feeling too many things.

It worked, actually, but this time, you looked at the moon, and all you could remember was when eighteen-year-old Finnick pointed the moon out to newly-sixteen-year-old you.

"Beautiful, right?"

"Yes."

"Do you know it controls the tides?"

"What?"

"Yeah. That was my reaction when I first heard it, too!", he'd whispered. "It's your sweet sixteen, right? So just go ahead and pray that the tides change. Wish on the moon."

"Tides change?"

"You know, that this whole 'we're-in-love-spiel' can stop."

This had been the first ever year of this goldmine of a plotline for Capitol TV.

"I want to go home."

You'd said that some three times the past couple hours, but you knew Snow wouldn't let you do so.

"I know. Wish on the moon that you can do that, too. Wish on the moon you can spend all of your birthdays with the people you love. Well, besides me, of course.", he'd grinned, nudging your shoulder to make you laugh. "Just wish on the moon."

You'd closed your eyes to do just that.

"It'll take care of the rest.", he'd whispered.

Sweetest boy on Earth, he was back then.

Right now? Ugh. You wished on the moon that he'd get a brain.

A knock.

"What?!" Fine, snapping may not have been the best thing for you to be doing, as your blood pressure was already terrifyingly high.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah, Finnick. Sure. Come in.", you mumbled, rubbing at your forehead.

"I... I can't even begin to apologise. Um... that was—"

"No, it's fine, you're good, it's wh—"

"No, that was... there is no excuse for that. Springing all that on you, and giving you all but five seconds to... I— I don't even know what I was thinking."

"Johanna got in your head, it happens.", you shrugged, watching as he frowned, sitting down opposite you on your bed, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. Huh. Your tone was understanding, but your words gave him pause.

"Same page?"

"I'd say we are."

"I don't know.", he muttered, picking at his knuckles for a second before turning to you. "Are you with us?"

"Okay, we're not on the same page."

"I thought not."

"Finnick, this is madness. Snow is at his angriest because he got his ass handed to him by two kids from District Twelve. Twelve. Like...", you scoff-laughed, gesturing wildly to illustrate the sheer bizarrity of the situation. "That shit doesn't happen every day. He's got us both going on more calls because the Patrons need to be pacified. Hell, he's now planning to send us all back into the Arena?!"

"Exactly! Don't you think it's enough?"

"What? Finnick—"

"Enough bloodshed, Y/N, please! Yeah, we're Careers, but when has that ever meant we were safe from the bullshit of the Capitol? Hm?"

"This isn't about us being Careers. It's about the fact that you could die!"

"We're going to anyway! It's like Johanna said! He's killing us slowly! We won't be able to live with ourselves once we're old and not wanted anymore!"

"FINNICK!"

"What?!"

"The first rebellion caused the Hunger Games. What the fuck do you think a second rebellion is going to bring? Hm? Mass genocide of the Districts? An arena with even younger kids? Every rebel and their families becoming Avoxes?! Are you fucking insane?!"

He paused at that. Silence. Good. At least he wasn't deluded enough not to consider the probability of failure.

You stared at him for a little while, before sighing. He wasn't weak, far from it, but you had just violently burst his bubble, the only thing he probably had going for him. And it must have been huge -and have been on his mind for a long time, a perfectly formulated plan that he was very excited about - seeing as he hadn't said anything to you.

He had a habit of doing that.

He never wanted to give you anything that wasn't just perfect.

He'd brought you back this seashell one time. From District Four. It had taken about five months for him to find the perfect one, with the best weight, the best colour, shape, texture, girth, whole shebang.

He stored your return-gift of a trident - you were masonry and weaponry district, after all - in a literal vault in District 4, until you gave him a tiny charm-version. He wore that around his neck.

Another time, he'd decided he'd write you his impression of your district from his Victory Tour. But that day, he'd been incredibly nervous, so he didn't look anywhere but his feet, and oh, how they longed to be home! In the sand, with waves kissing at his heels.

He figured he'd pretend he'd seen you in the crowd, all those years ago. In reality, you'd have only been about twelve, though you were raised above your parent's heads, so it was possible he could have seen you.

He hadn't, though.

For the case of this very humble birthday present, however, he pretended like he did. He took the wildest guess he could, that your hair was not tied up that day, and began to talk of your home.

How lovely everything had seemed.

How excited you looked.

You loved it. You really had. And he loved that you loved it.

And this whole rebellion thing was no different. He knew you'd be reluctant, but he also knew you'd secretly pray on the success of it, and he'd meticulously spent ages going through everything, every single thing, to make sure it was absolutely perfect for you, to make sure you could never call it anything but the best gift you'd ever gotten.

This, though? This argument had thrown him for a loop. You had a point. One he hadn't thought of.

"I'm—", you sighed once more, shaking your head. "Hey, I'm sorry, I... that was harsh."

He bit the inside of his bottom lip. "Mm."

"Finnick, I really am."

"Yeah, I know. I just... what if we don't fail, though?"

Wish(on the moon)ful thinking.

"Then great. But is that a chance you really want to take?"

"What if it is?" It's quiet in your room, and his response is almost engulfed in the silence, but you manage to catch it.

"Don't you think that's what the First Rebels thought?"

You were just dynamite today, weren't you? Finnick loved it when you were like this, but a tiny bit less when it was directed against him.

At least he knew he was an inch closer to receiving your amazing hugs.

"Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure."

You nodded softly, and then he kissed you.

And once more, corruption blossomed on your lips. "But you're deluded if you think when we're in that arena, I'm letting you kill Katniss."

"I won't have to if my theory is right."

"What theory?", he scoffed against your lips, pulling you closer as his hands crept up into your hair.

"That Snow will do things specifically to kill Katniss, and the only way anything will ever work is if you, I dunno, find a way to save Katniss and yourself and Peeta and Joha—"

"We're hacking into the arena."

He really hated kissing you when you didn't reciprocate, but he had to for the next few seconds when you froze, before pulling you away. "What?"

"We're... I can't tell you, but we've got District 3 in on it, they're going to get a wire and basically, like—"

"What, blow up the arena? Are you sure you're feeling okay? Are you still hungover?", you asked, placing your palm on his forehead.

He rolled his eyes, taking it in his and kissing it once. "I promise, I am perfectly fine. And yes, we have a solid plan—"

"Holy shit, this is what you meant by 'the Capitol Patrons give me information' ? I figured it was about the next Games, so you could help your tributes win, not... fuck, Finnick! This is treason!"

"I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!"

You glared at him as he stood in sheer fury. "I'm sorry for yelling."

Wow. Sweetest boy on earth and you'd made him miserable. How do you do it?

"It's alright."

"I don't care that it's treason, alright? But we need to end this bullshit. Okay? So I will ask you for the last ever time, Y/N, because you know that whatever you say next will affect whether we see each other again. Are you with us?"

You licked your lips, picking at the duvet. "Can I have some time?"

"Reaping Day."

"Reaping Day?"

"Reaping Day. I'm not even kidding."

Yeah, he almost never was.

Fuck.

"I'll tell you by Reaping Day."

"Okay."

He didn't leave. It was a long moment of either meeting or vehemently avoiding each others eyes.

"I'm sorry about the yelling.", he repeated.

"You're not volunteering."

"What?" He was halfway out the door when you said it, and he was this close to slamming it.

"If you're not reaped, you take it as the odds being in your favor and shut up. Alright?"

He turned to you, slamming the door and leaning on it with crossed arms. Incredulity painted his face. "Are you kidding me?"

"No."

"Who are you to order me around? Fucking Snow?"

"I'm—"

"Who?! My on-screen-propaganda-lover?!"

That stung more than you'd expected it to.

"Fine. Fuck you! Go ahead and volunteer. Like a fucking dumbass. Go get yourself killed because you can't handle the truth! This is how it is and how it'll always be!"

"It doesn't have to!"

"Yeah, tell that to District 13!"

"Oh, if only you fucking knew!"

"Knew what?! That your half-baked 'plan' is bound to fail?!"

"If you're such a fucking loyalist, go tell Snow the big 'half-baked' plan!"

"Maybe I will!"

"Yeah, go! Go right now, scurry off, become the fearless Savior of Panem, the title of the Most Loyal goes to you!"

You stood, attempting to shoulder past him, but honestly, you should've known better. He grabbed your arm. "If you're going, stay on your knees in front of him so we can shoot you in the back of your head when we storm the Capitol." Pretty picture he could paint, you'd give him that. He could paint a dazzling romance and a grisly murder all just with words.

"That's if you do it. You won't."

"Yeah? Watch us."

You mirrored his clenched jaw. "Let. Go."

"You don't like me holding you?", he asked, tilting his head in mock curiosity.

"No."

"In the Snow regime, in the Capitol, sweetheart, that word has no meaning.", he spat.

"Does treason? Does murder? Does anarchy?"

"Snow gave you a comprehensive list of his favourite vocabulary, how cute."

"Oh, fuck off, Finnick, alright? Let go."

"Are you with us?" He shook your arm.

"No!"

"Are you with us?" More desperation this time. But he knew you, and his eyes held a calm that suggested he knew exactly where your heart lay. With him. With the idea of a free Panem.

"I'm not!"

"ARE YOU WITH US?!", he snapped, finally yelling once more.

"YES!"

The silence had snuck back in unnannounced.

"This is why I love you. You're a fucking trip."

Great. You were not only having to play an innocent, his lover and now a rebel, but you were also, evidently, to play jester for him, since he thought you were so fucking amusing.

"Do the cameras love you as much as I do?"

Oh, my god, he was being funny now, was he?

"Don't die.", you scoffed.

"Not if you won't. Same page?"

You scrambled to come up with a plan. Rig District 4's reaping? Fucking how? Beg Heavensbee for a glimpse into the arena? You barely knew if he was actually on your side, no matter how much Finnick seemed to trust him. Tell Snow and not include Finnick or Johanna or Katniss or — okay, too many variables. Oh! Wait! When he was busy protecting Katniss in the arena, you'd be busy protecting him. Okay. Could work. Right, okay.

He kissed your temple, looking down at you expectantly. He had no idea what he'd do if you hated his gift. "Right.", he muttered, after a little while of watching you play with the hem of his shirt. "I gave you till Reaping Day."

You nodded, and he whistled lowly, looking out at the window, his eyes brightening. "But... you know it's Full Moon Day today.", he grinned.

So you two sat there watching the moon for... quite a while, actually.

Wishing that the other would just fucking listen for once.

Finnick Odair was a fucking menace.

But he was also the sweetest boy you knew.

So, if you had to be on the same page, you would be.

"Same page.", you affirmed, finally, when it got too late and his hands went slack around your shoulder, and your eyes started getting heavy. You were truly, in entire honesty, unable to fathom a future where the rebellion worked and Panem was free.

But your plan was at least still intact. No matter how this clearly poorly thought out rebellion went.

At least, with your plan, he'd be alright, either way.

At least he'd live.

[lucilleslore]

coriolanus snow with a wife who’s just a little bit spoiled. who’s just a little bit of a brat. who likes to spend his newly acquired money just as much as he does. who can’t be told the word no ever. who always has the newest clothes, the prettiest jewels. who has whole rooms in the mansion dedicated to her pretty things. she’s got exquisite taste, a capitol jewel all in her own right with the way she sets trends, the way she commands attention.

and you’ve always got his. your coryo, your president. who comes home in the evening and happily watches you try on all your new things. who’s eyes glint with hunger when you show him your new lingerie or your new satin slips for bed. he practically starts drooling, shifting his hips uncomfortably until you drop down to your knees, crawling towards him on all fours because of course you have to thank your provider. have to take care of him for working so hard just so you can have pretty things :(

he’s riveted by you. by those doe eyes and pouty lips and the cute scrunch you get between your brows when you don’t get what you want right away. never did coriolanus think he’d be brought to his knees by love of all things or even if he did he thought he’d be with someone docile, pliant who lives to please him but with you it feels like it’s reversed. when you start palming him through his slacks, blinking prettily up at him; he has to admit that he’ll keep you forever, no matter what it takes.

‘i’m obsessed with you,’ he’d murmur under his breath. he thumbs at your bottom lip, over and over again as if under a spell. you’re only half paying attention; hands wandering over his zipper to get his cock out, mind wandering to how good you look in that shade of blue and what else you can get in that colour. you hum, leaning forward to press a wet kiss to the leaky head of his dick. you ignore the way coryos hips buck, the way his head tips back. ‘there’s this new bag i’m obsessed with. it’s so beautiful coryo, you have to see.’

‘you can have it baby.’ the words come out broken as you take him into your mouth and he can’t help but chuckle darkly after at the way your eyes light up, the way you moan around him and the way your thighs tense together. spoiled brat, getting off on getting her own way. coryo forgets about it all though when you take him deeper, saliva starting to drip down your chin and he likes it when you get like this. so appreciative and grateful, showing him what a good girl you really are.

‘there’s something else i want,’ you say sweetly, eyes flickering between coryos baby blues and the hot length of him in your hand, wet from your mouth. now it’s you who’s drooling, eyes practically begging him to fuck you. you’re sliding your underwear to the side needily, fingers already playing with your puffy clit.

‘you can have that too,’ coryo agrees, hands already there to grip you when you scramble onto his lap. you’re immediately lining yourself up over him, whining when his tip slips inside. ‘you can have all of it.’

[humaling]

Two Victors, One Closet II

pairings: finnick odair x reader

summary: it's the 70th hunger games victor party and somehow, finnick manage to convince you with his stupid deal.

warnings: finnick being a lil shit, usual hunger games, mentions of death and blood

word count: 4.5k

author's note: ask and u shall receive! i'm thinking of making this into a mini series but idk

part one

It’s another Capitol party—loud, garish, and painfully predictable. The air is thick with artificial scents, laughter that doesn’t quite reach the eyes, and the clinking of glasses filled with glittering drinks. The people here are draped in some twisted imitation of District 4 fashion—ocean-inspired, but exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Flowing fabrics mimic the movement of waves, bodices are studded with pearls and seashells, and someone even had the audacity to wear a shimmering shark tail. You caught a glimpse of it earlier, just as you were picking through some poor excuse for District 4 delicacies. The sight was ridiculous enough to make you pause, but you chalked it up to a trick of the light and moved on.

The newest victor is Annie Cresta—you think that’s her name. You didn’t bother to check again after your tributes were slaughtered at the hands of her partner. As soon as the cannon sounded, sealing their fate, you turned off the screen and went home. Their screams had already burrowed deep into your skull, breaking through walls you thought were impenetrable.

You were sure they would make it. You had done everything right this time, every lesson tailored to the arena’s secrets. You got wind of the dam that would break midway through the Games and planned accordingly. You pulled strings, demanded swimming training, and drilled them relentlessly until they could navigate a flood with their eyes closed. How do you know that skill so well? That’s a secret you don’t share.

Finnick caught on quickly. He always does. He didn’t ask outright, just gave you that knowing look before offering his help. On one condition—his tributes got the same training. You agreed, of course. You even went a step further, teaching Marcus, his male tribute, a few hand-to-hand combat tricks.

And then he used those very tricks against your tributes. Killed them with techniques you had burned into their bones. The betrayal of it gnawed at you, but what ate you alive was the way Marcus died. Drowned, unable to swim through the flood. The very skill that should have saved him—would have saved him if he'd actually listened—became his downfall.

You should have felt guilty. You should have mourned him, the way you mourned your own tributes. But when you heard how he died, you felt nothing but relief.

You click your tongue the moment you spot the familiar Capitol couple—Cecilia and Felix, striding toward you with their usual air of forced familiarity. No matter how many times you've brushed them off, ignored their greetings, or given them the coldest of stares, they always come back. Like flies to a corpse.

At this point, you’ve stopped trying. You’re too drained to care, too weighed down by exhaustion to put up a fight. The sleepless nights have piled onto your shoulders, pressing down until even standing upright feels like an effort.

“It’s a shame none of your tributes made it,” Cecilia chirps, voice light as if discussing the weather. She’s smiling. Smiling. You learned her name recently, when your escort wouldn’t shut up about some designer and their latest collection. Two of the featured models were—of course—this couple.

Felix, her husband, nods in agreement. “I heard you went out of your way this time. I am very sorry for your loss,” he says smoothly, reaching out to pat your shoulder. His gloved hand lands gently, but the touch burns. It’s mocking.

Your body tenses instantly, throat tightening. The phantom sounds of your tributes’ screams claw at the back of your mind, but you push them down. Your hands ball into fists at your sides, nails digging into your palms.

You force yourself to swallow, then clear your throat. A small, polite smile stretches across your lips—perfect, practiced, empty. “Thanks.”

The word is flat, dry, hollow. It doesn’t match the sweetness of your expression, but you don’t care. Let them figure it out. Let them stand there, picking apart the mismatch, trying to decide whether or not to pry further. You’re done with this conversation before it even begins.

Everything feels artificial. The lights, the music, the laughter, the meaningless conversations. You just want to go home and hope the sun never shines on you again.

Felix’s hand finally lifts from your shoulder, but his presence lingers like a stain. He and Cecilia don’t move on, don’t take the hint. Instead, they exchange a glance before launching into whatever pressing Capitol affair has them so invested tonight.

“I heard President Snow is hosting a private gathering next week,” Cecilia hums, taking a sip of her glittering drink. The liquid glows under the chandelier light, swirling like molten gold. “Very exclusive. Only the most influential guests are invited.”

Felix nods, feigning casual disinterest, but his chest is puffed slightly. “Naturally, we’ll be attending.”

Their voices blend into the background almost instantly. Muffled, meaningless, unimportant. The words reach your ears, but they don’t stick. They slide off, fading into the constant hum of Capitol chatter, the clinking of glasses, the laughter that isn’t real.

Because suddenly, everywhere you look, they’re there.

At the buffet table, a girl reaches for a platter of oysters, her sleeve sliding up to reveal a delicate wrist. Too thin. Too familiar. Your chest tightens. It’s the same kind of wrist your tribute had, small and bony, barely strong enough to hold a weapon but fast—so, so fast yet not fast enough to evade an attack from behind.

To your left, a young man throws his head back in laughter, his golden curls catching the light. The same golden curls that were matted with blood when the cannon fired.

Your breath hitches. Your grip tightens around your glass.

The marble floor beneath your feet tilts, just slightly, but enough to make you dizzy. It’s like the world is shifting, bending, pulling you somewhere you don’t want to go.

Cecilia keeps talking, oblivious. “And have you seen the latest trend? Surgical gills! The idea is simply revolutionary.”

A woman nearby brushes past, her perfume suffocating. The scent—saltwater and something sharp, metallic—copper?—hits you like a fist to the ribs. It drags you back, plunges you under.

You see your tribute’s face—eyes blown wide, mouth gasping for air that will never come. You remember the way she clawed at her throat, the way her hands, small and trembling, reached for help that wasn’t there.

You blink rapidly, forcing the image away. Your throat is too tight. Your vision is too blurry.

A gentle laugh flutters through the air. A girl passes by, no older than fifteen. The same age your tribute was. She smiles, bright and careless, utterly safe in the Capitol’s embrace. She will go home tonight, climb into bed, and wake up tomorrow alive.

Your tribute did not.

Something inside you cracks.

“—don’t you think?”

You snap back to reality. Cecilia is looking at you expectantly, waiting for a response. Felix raises an eyebrow, like he already knows you weren’t listening.

You swallow. Your drink sloshes in your glass from how hard you’re gripping it. “I… yeah.”

Whatever the question was, the answer doesn’t matter. Nothing does.

Cecilia beams, pleased. Felix chuckles, exchanging another glance with his wife before smoothly shifting the conversation forward. They don’t notice the way your hands tremble. The way your eyes dart around the room, bracing for the next ghost.

The party continues. The music plays. The Capitol sparkles. The world continues to rotate and you’re stuck in the middle of it, drowning.

“I’ve been looking for you, sweetheart.”

The words pull you out of your thoughts like a hook to the ribs. You don’t want to turn around. You already know who it is.

Slowly, you turn your head, and there he is. Finnick Odair.

Finnick stands just behind you, a glittering orange drink in hand, posture relaxed like he has all the time in the world. The party lights catch on his hair, styled in deliberate curls tonight, instead of its usual effortless mess. There’s a faint dusting of blue makeup on his eyelids, making his sea-green eyes stand out even more than they already do. He looks like something out of an old District 4 bedtime story—a prince of the sea, dressed in ocean treasures.

His outfit only adds to it. A white dress shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show his chest. Black sleek pants. Pearls and seashells strung across his wrists, around his throat. Designed to be looked at.

Your jaw tightens, fingers curling slightly at your sides. Out of all times to approach, he chooses now? Right here, in front of everyone?

Felix and Cecilia have already turned their attention to him, entertained by the sudden shift in the conversation. They’re Capitol-bred—meaning they thrive off tension, off the undercurrents of something unsaid. And there’s plenty of it between you and Finnick.

You haven’t spoken to him since that night in the common room. Since the Games ended. Since everything went to hell.

Finnick tried. He had stood there, hands on his hips, voice low and steady, trying to get through to you. He wanted to talk. Wanted to explain. As if there was anything to explain. As if any of it would bring your tributes back.

You didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t.

So you walked away. And Finnick, for once, let you.

But now he’s here again, standing in front of you like the past few weeks haven’t stretched between you like an open wound. His gaze flickers over your face, searching, reading, picking apart the things you don’t say.

Cecilia lets out a soft laugh, tapping a manicured finger against her chin. “Oh, Finnick, what a sight you are tonight,” she purrs. “I do wonder, though—who exactly were you looking for?”

Finnick doesn’t blink. Doesn’t miss a beat when responding.

His gaze stays locked onto yours as he says, “You.”

“Now,” Finnick shifts his gaze to the couple, effortlessly slipping into the role they expect of him. He flashes a charming smile, the kind that makes Capitol hearts flutter, as his hand slides to the small of your back. His touch is light but firm, a silent warning.

“Mind if I sweep my sweetheart away tonight?”

Cecilia lets out a delighted laugh, waving a hand as if she’s granting permission. “Oh, of course! She's all yours!”

Felix nods beside her, grinning as if he’s in on some great secret. He gestures for you to go, ushering you away with Finnick, who wastes no time guiding you toward the dance floor. His hand stays steady against your back, his usual signature grin stretched across his face like this is all just a game to him.

Behind you, the couple is already whispering—giddy, thrilled, utterly convinced.

“Oh my god, did you see that?”

“They really are together!”

Finnick hears it too. You can tell by the way his grip tightens, just slightly, like he’s holding back a laugh.

“You really are trouble, Odair,” you hiss, tilting your head up to glare at him.

Finnick only grins, entirely unbothered as he spins you onto the dance floor, the motion forcing you closer. His hand stays firm at your waist, the other clasping yours with practiced ease, like he’s done this a thousand times before. And he probably has. The Capitol loves their golden boy. Their charming, untouchable Victor.

But you are not one of them and right now, you do not want to be in his arms.

“Trouble?” Finnick repeats, amused, swaying the both of you in time with the elegant Capitol music. “I just saved you from the worst conversation of the night. I’d say that makes me more of a hero, wouldn’t you?”

You scoff. “You are the last person I’d call a hero.”

He tsks, spinning you smoothly under his arm before pulling you back in, his voice dropping to something softer—something that feels too familiar. “That hurts, sweetheart. Really, I think I deserve at least a little gratitude.”

You want to snap at him. Want to pull away. But the room is watching, eyes glued to the spectacle of Finnick Odair and his supposed lover twirling across the dance floor. You can feel it—the weight of their attention, the whispers, the way the music almost seems to slow as if accommodating for you.

So you stay. You grit your teeth, keeping your steps in sync with Finnick’s, because the alternative—making a scene—is worse.

“Gratitude?” you echo bitterly, gripping his shoulder tighter than necessary. “For what, exactly? For making me the latest Capitol headline? For dragging me into whatever mess you’ve made this time?”

Finnick hums, tilting his head as if considering. His fingers press slightly against your back, guiding your next step. “Mm… no, I was thinking more along the lines of saving you from the couple of the year's horrible attempts at sympathy.”

Your jaw clenches. He’s not wrong, but that’s not the point.

His expression shifts slightly, the usual playfulness in his eyes dimming just enough for you to notice. “You looked like you needed an out,” he says, quieter this time. “So, I gave you one.”

You stiffen, and Finnick must feel it because he exhales softly, like he already knows what’s coming.

“You don’t get to act like you care,” you murmur, barely moving your lips as you step in time with him. “Not after what happened.”

Finnick’s grip tightens—not painfully, but enough to make his frustration clear. “You really think I don’t care?” His voice is still light, still laced with that ever-present charm, but there’s something else beneath it now. Something sharp. “Come on. You know me better than that.”

You shake your head. “Do I?”

Finnick exhales through his nose, a faint smirk ghosting across his lips, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You really are determined to be mad at me forever, huh?”

You glare up at him. “My tributes are dead, Finnick. Killed by yours. And you think this is something I’ll just… get over?”

Something flickers across his face. Guilt, maybe. Regret. You can’t tell. But then he smiles, because of course he does.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” he says, twirling you again, his voice just as smooth as before, “mine didn’t make it either.”

You stumble slightly at his words, and Finnick, ever the performer, corrects it effortlessly, making it seem like nothing more than an intentional dip.

The music swells around you, but all you can hear is the memory of cannon fire. The screams. The sound of rushing water.

Finnick pulls you upright again, his hand still steady at your back. “See?” he murmurs. “Now we both have ghosts.”

Your brows furrow, his words throwing you off balance more than his stupid dance moves ever could. "What do you mean, 'yours didn’t make it either'?" You glance around the room pointedly. "Annie Cresta is right there, alive and… well."

Finnick laughs—not his usual, full-bodied, Capitol-winning laugh, but a quiet, disheartened chuckle, like he finds something deeply amusing and tragic all at once. "Oh, sweetheart," he muses, spinning you again just to keep up the illusion of a perfect dance. "You think Annie made it out of those Games?"

You frown, confused. "She won, didn’t she?"

Another dry chuckle. "Sure. She won." His voice is light, almost teasing, but there's something hollow underneath. "And when they pulled her out of that arena, they got… well. Something that looks like Annie. Something that breathes and blinks and smiles at the cameras when they tell her to. But the girl I mentored? She drowned in that flood just like yours did."

Your stomach twists uncomfortably. You've seen Annie since the Games ended—seen her standing beside Finnick, silent and distant, her expression always unreadable. But you'd assumed… well, you don't even know what you assumed.

Finnick must notice your expression, because he grins, the picture of effortless charm, even as his fingers tighten at your waist. "They really should’ve let her die, you know. Would’ve been a lot kinder."

"Finnick," you warn, heart pounding.

But he doesn’t stop. "Oh, don’t look at me like that," he says, tilting his head. "You think I don’t know what you were thinking when you saw Marcus' cannon? When you found out he couldn’t swim? I bet you were relieved."

You tense, throat tightening, but Finnick only smirks, dragging you effortlessly through another step. "Come on, you can admit it. Just between us."

"You're disgusting."

"I'm right."

You hate him. You hate how he always knows.

"Why are you telling me this?" you murmur, voice tight.

Finnick exhales, his smile dropping just a fraction. "Because you think I'm the villain here," he says, dipping you slightly, the movement forcing you closer to his face. "And I think it's only fair you know—I'm just another casualty, same as you."

His lips quirk, just slightly. "Only difference is, I make this look good.”

You grimace. "I don’t think of you as a villain, Finnick," you retort, your voice softer around the edges now.

"Then what?"

"I just…" You hesitate, eyes dropping to his exposed neck, the way his pulse flickers beneath his skin. "I welcomed you and your tributes in. My tributes didn’t deserve that."

Finnick lets out a small scoff, the sound barely audible over the music. "Honey, no one deserves any of this," he corrects, his grip firm as he sways you through the rhythm, leading with an effortless grace that makes the whole room believe this is nothing more than a dance. "Not even you. But we don’t really have a choice here, do we?"

The lump in your throat grows tighter. The burn behind your eyes intensifies, and you can feel a sob creeping up, threatening to spill past your quivering lips. You bite down on it, hard, forcing your expression into something blank, something indifferent—but Finnick sees through it.

He always does.

For a second, his mask slips, and there's no teasing smirk, no playful glint in his sea-green eyes. Just quiet understanding.

Without another word, he pulls you in.

Your body stiffens at first, caught off guard, but then your forehead presses against his chest, the warmth of him bleeding into your skin. The steady rise and fall of his breath grounds you, his arms solid around you as the music continues to play.

“Don’t cry. Not in front of everyone,” Finnick whispers, his lips barely moving as his eyes scan the room. A few pairs are watching, their gazes hungry, dissecting your every move. The Capitol lives for this—the spectacle of it all.

You nod against him, focusing on the steady rhythm of his breathing, matching it with your own. No way in hell are you going to let them see the cracks in your wall. The dam threatening to break.

Finnick lets you have that moment, just long enough for you to collect yourself. And then—because he’s Finnick, and he can never let a moment sit without ruining it—he exhales dramatically, as if burdened by the weight of your existence.

"Well," he muses, voice tinged with amusement, "as much as I enjoy holding you like this, sweetheart, I have to admit—you're a terrible dance partner."

Your eyes snap open, brow furrowing as you pull back slightly to glare up at him. "Excuse me?"

Finnick grins, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. "Don’t get me wrong," he continues, voice dropping into that signature, lazy drawl. "I love a good dramatic moment. The tragic lovers, the tears, the emotional tension—very poetic. But you’re clinging to me like a barnacle, and it’s kind of killing my vibe."

Your face heats. Oh, you want to slap him.

"You absolute—"

"Ah, ah," Finnick interrupts, smoothly spinning you away before pulling you back in, his hand pressing lightly against the small of your back. "Careful, sweetheart. You wouldn’t want to ruin our perfect little romance in front of our adoring audience, would you?"

Your fingers dig into his shoulder hard enough to bruise. "I hate you."

Finnick's smirk deepens. "See, now that’s just hurtful."

You resist the urge to stomp on his foot. Barely.

"Oh, come on," he drawls, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Admit it. I’m making you feel something. Would you rather go back to being sad, or do you want to be mad at me instead? I know which one I’d pick."

You grit your teeth, but you don’t argue, because damn him, he’s right.*

Finnick Odair, with all his ridiculous antics and unbearable smugness, has successfully pissed you off just enough to push the grief aside, if only for now.

You know why Finnick is here. Dancing with you, holding you close, spinning you around like you’re both part of some grand performance. There’s an edge to the way people are watching—something sharper than usual. Their eyes track your every move, lips curving in whispers, anticipation practically humming in the air.

Something’s up. And Finnick knows exactly what it is.

Like he can read your mind, he leans in, voice dropping low enough that only you can hear. “Word got out about the closet.”

You shoot him a sharp look. “No, it didn’t.” The words come out flat, a firm rejection of the very idea. Because there’s no way.

Finnick grins, the picture of smug amusement. “You can keep denying it,” he says, as if he finds your resistance adorable. His arm stretches above him, effortlessly twirling you around before pulling you back in. His lips brush your ear as he speaks again, voice firm this time.

“But the second Snow asks you about it, you tell him it’s true.”

And then, before you can protest, he dips you.

Your breath catches, body tensing as Finnick pauses mid-movement, holding you suspended in the air, his grip steady at your back. Your arms instinctively tighten around his neck, anchoring yourself.

He doesn’t pull you back up. He just waits.

You narrow your eyes. “Absolutely not, Finnick.”

Finnick rolls his eyes like he was expecting that answer, like you’re being difficult on purpose. “Honey, it’s a do-or-die. So, you either date me—” His grin widens. “—or die.”

You deadpan. “Dying sounds better than dating you.”

Finnick sighs dramatically, as if you’ve just wounded him in the most tragic, irreversible way. "You really know how to hurt a man, don’t you, sweetheart?"

His voice is teasing, but you don’t miss the undercurrent beneath it—the way his fingers press just a little tighter against your back, the way his eyes flicker with something unreadable.

You swallow hard. “This is a terrible plan.”

Finnick tilts his head. “Yeah? Well, you got a better one?”

Your fingers tighten around the fabric of his shirt, grip firm against his shoulders as he finally pulls you upright. You barely have time to regain your balance before Finnick is leading you through another slow turn, his hand pressing just a little too smugly against your back.

“You know,” he muses, voice low and smooth, “if you stopped fighting this so hard, we might actually be kind of convincing.”

You scoff, leveling him with a glare. “Convincing? Finnick, the only thing you’re convincing people of is that you have terrible taste.”

Finnick grins, unfazed. “That’s rich coming from the person who got caught in a closet with me. Sounds like you’re the one with terrible taste.”

Your nostrils flare. “That was an accident.”

“Sure it was.”

You swear you could kill him. He’s enjoying this way too much, the smug glint in his eyes practically daring you to lose your temper.

You step in a little closer, just enough to make it look intentional, enough to make it seem like you’re leaning into whatever ridiculous act he’s trying to sell to the Capitol. He doesn’t pull away. If anything, he welcomes it, smirk deepening as he raises a brow.

“If we have to sell this, Odair, let’s make one thing clear,” you whisper, voice sharp despite the fake sweetness laced into it. “You’re the one chasing me, not the other way around.”

Finnick chuckles, tilting his head like he finds that adorable. “Sweetheart, if that helps you sleep at night, I’ll let you believe it.”

Your fingers twitch at his hold, itching to punch him, but you force yourself to keep up the act. You roll your shoulders back, composing yourself as you take a slow step back—just enough to put some distance between you.

Finnick watches you, amusement still dancing in his eyes, before leaning in one last time.

“Just remember,” he murmurs, lips dangerously close to your ear, “if Snow asks, you’ve been hopelessly in love with me for months.”

You don’t even hesitate. You stomp on his foot.

Finnick hisses, the grin finally slipping from his face as you yank yourself free from his hold. “I hate you.”

Finnick laughs through the pain, barely even phased as he takes a step back, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve like nothing happened. “Yeah, yeah. Keep saying that, sweetheart. It only makes the act more believable.”

You don’t just storm off. You march across the dance floor, teeth clenched, pulse hammering at your temples. The absolute audacity of Finnick Odair. You can still hear his laugh trailing behind you, light and amused, like he’s delighted that he’s gotten under your skin.

He’s insufferable.

You barely make it three steps before Finnick’s voice chases after you. “Come on, don’t walk away so soon. You didn’t even let me dip you dramatically a second time.”

You whip around so fast he nearly collides into you. “Finnick, I swear to—”

He raises his hands in mock surrender, expression gleaming with pure mischief. “Relax, sweetheart, you’re making this way too easy for them.” He tilts his head ever so slightly toward the crowd.

You don’t want to look. You really don’t, but you know exactly what he’s talking about. The Capitol’s eyes are still on you, their expressions ranging from intrigue to outright glee. Some of them are whispering to each other, exchanging looks like they’ve figured something out.

Finnick sees the realization flicker across your face and smirks.

He leans in, voice dropping to that annoyingly smooth, lazy drawl. “That’s right. We sell this, or we’re both dead.” His grin widens. “So, if you want me to stop annoying you, then act in love.”

You inhale sharply, resisting the urge to wring his neck. Instead, you plaster on the most sickeningly sweet smile you can muster.

“You’re right, Finnick.” Your voice is sugary and poisonous all at once, dripping with an exaggerated affection that makes his eyebrows twitch. “How could I possibly resist you? You’re just so—so—”

You grab his collar, yanking him forward, just enough for your lips to hover dangerously close to his. Finnick’s breath hitches for just half a second.

Then, in the smuggest voice imaginable, he says, “Speechless? Happens all the time.”

Your roll your eyes. “I was going to say infuriating.”

Finnick laughs. Loud, genuine, eyes gleaming with absolute delight. “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs, placing a hand over yours, effortlessly prying your fingers from his collar, “if you think this is infuriating, just wait until I start courting you properly.”

Your stomach drops. Not because you’re flustered, obviously. Just dread. Absolute dread.

“You wouldn’t,” you whisper, already regretting this entire night.

Finnick grins, the kind that sends a chill up your spine. “Try me.”

You might actually have to kill him.

part three

[ghostfacd]

I BET ON LOSING DOGS.

pairing: young!coriolanus snow x fem!reader

PART TWO

summary: you were the epitome of sunshine, and coriolanus? he was like the storm, the rain, and the everything in between.

warnings: SPOILERS from the movie & book, SMUT (protected cause we wrap it before we tap it! p in v), losing virginities to each other, snow (cause he himself needs a warning), toxic relationship, coriolanus is only in it for himself, mentions of losing virginity, you practically giving everything to snow and getting zero in return

author’s note: erm this is kinda long idek where tf i was going with this, first time writing smut on this account LOL so it might be bad. also this isn’t proofread so there might be mistakes, just ignore! as always, reblogs and comments are so greatly appreciated, enjoy reading + kisses 💓

You were the epitome of the sun itself, the sparkle, the light, and most importantly, the brightness. Despite being filthy rich, you were still that sweet sunshine Y/N everyone grown to love, the heir to the Cicero family.

Coriolanus Snow hated that about you. Not only were you everything he was not, but you lived such a lavish and easy lifestyle that it made him sick. Why was he stuck eating cabbage while you were off eating the finest thin slices of meat in the Capitol made by your chefs? It wasn’t fair, it just simply wasn’t.

“Well, Coryo!” Your sickeningly sweet voice fills his ears like a mantra.

He turns around, a smirk plays on his face. “My Y/N.”

Hearing him call you his made your heart flutter. You loop your arm through his, passing through the other academy students who were engrossed in their conversations

“Finally the star pupil.” Arachne Crane says, a glass of posca in her hand. “Lovely shirt you’ve got there. What are these cunning buttons? Tesserae?”

He looked at the shirt, shrugging. “Hm? Are they? Must’ve why they reminded me of the maid’s bathroom.”

You held his hands in yours. You knew of Coriolanus’s home life, how he wasn’t so lucky like you to have a gigantic home filled with lovable parents. His mom had died during childbirth, Coryo mentioning to you once how he was supposed to have a little sister. His father—died in the hands of rebels.

“Have you tried this lamb? It's scandalous.” Felix suddenly spoke up, taking a bite of the food that was currently on his plate.

“Didn’t daddy teach you table manners?.” Festus sneered, watching the other boy in disgust.

“Maybe he would have if he wasn’t so busy running the country.” Felix snapped back

Coriolanus took a deep breath in, already feeling overwhelmed by his classmates arguing.

After the announcement of the assigning of mentor to tributes, you could tell Coriolanus was upset. Although he wouldn’t let anyone see, he was visibly anxious and quite frankly, annoyed.

“I mean, cmon, how could it that I got the worst district?” Coriolanus says, head in his hands. “He hates me. He really does.”

“Who hates you Coryo?”

“Dean Highbottom! Isn’t it obvious?” He cries out, hands flinging into the air. You slightly flinch back, never seeing your boyfriend in such state. “He hates me Y/N. He adores you.”

“He doesn’t adore me,” you say, feeling like you were stepping around eggshells talking to Coriolanus.

“He does!” Coriolanus screams in anger, getting up in a hurry.

“Wait, no Coryo, I’m sorry.”

But your words aren’t enough, they’ll never be for Coriolanus Snow, so he walks out without a second thought.

- - -

The next day, Coriolanus apologizes. It’s a breathy, quick 5 second apology, but you being so you—accepted it without a second thought.

You loved Coriolanus, so it didn’t matter how much he hurt you.

“I’ll make it up to you tonight,” he says, placing a soft kiss on your lips.

You felt quite excited, you and your boyfriend hadn’t exactly gotten to that stage in your relationship, so thinking about sharing an intimate moment with him filled you with giddiness.

His tip had entered carefully through your folds, making you slightly wince as it bullied its way to your walls.

“Coryo..” you breathe out hazily, doe eyes coming to meet his. He sucked in his breath at the sight, never has he felt anything as good as this.

He tries so hard convincing himself he doesn’t love you. That this—it meant nothing to him. He was just here for your money, your possessions as the only daughter of Cryon and Hermione Cicero. But as he felt your nails claw its way into his back, he lets out a slip, a tiny whimper that makes your head foggy.

He spilled into the condom, pulling out with a hiss. Although you told him you were clean, and it was fine if he didn’t wear one, he simply couldn’t risk it. He wasn’t going to accidentally bring in a child into the world, having no intentions of taking care of anyone besides himself—maybe Tigris, and his Grandma’am.

“I love you,” you say quietly as you sat up, watching him discard the plastic into your trash bin.

“I’m hungry, aren’t you?” He says, putting his shirt on. It kinds of pains you at his total ignorance of the intimate words you just shared, but you nod your head.

“I could use some food,” is all you say, putting on your pajamas from earlier. “What’re hungry for Coryo? I’ll ask the chef.”

- - -

Dr. Gaul and Dean Highbottom had allowed all the mentors and their tributes roam the arena for about 15 minutes, letting them think of ways to win the game.

You were talking to Bobbin, a boy from District 7 whom you’ve had become closer with these past few days.

Suddenly, the loud scream of Felix catches your attention and before you knew it, loud bombs filled the air as tall lights fell to the ground near you.

“CORYO!” You scream, coughing loudly at the dust filling your lungs.

“Quick Y/N, we don’t have time!” Sejanus screams, grabbing ahold of your hand.

“But Coryo—”

Meanwhile, a tall pole had crushed Coriolanus’s arms.

Well, he thought, this was it.

This was how he was going to die. His girlfriend and best friend hand in hand as they ran out of the arena, the sickening feeling of betrayal filled his guts.

“What’re you doing?!” One of the tributes screamed at Lucy Gray, who was struggling to get the giant metal off Coriolanus’s arm. “Run while you can you idiot!”

But she doesn’t bother, only focusing on getting Coriolanus out. And she does, successfully, before all went black.

- - -

“Coryo? Oh Coryo!” You say, hugging him softly to ensure you weren’t hurting him.

You had felt so guilty after everything had happened. You should’ve never ran off with Sejanus, Coriolanus was your boyfriend, you should’ve saved him.

“Is Lucy Gray okay?” Is the first thing he croaks out, which makes your heart slightly crack.

“She’s—she’s okay Coryo.” You say, brushing a few blonde curls out of his eyes.

“And where were you?” He says, gaze slowly turning into anger. “I was going to die, Y/N.”

“I know! I was going to—”

He cut you off. “But you didn’t, now did you?”

His bitterness towards you makes you want to cry, tears already forming at your lash line.

“Oh now you’re crying?” It seemed like everything you did seemed of inconvenience to Coriolanus, but he opens his arms, letting you reside in them as you let out a few tears. “Always the crybaby, Y/N.” He says, hand holding your head as you buried your face into his chest.

- - -

Coriolanus Snow never believed in love. Not when he used to look at his mother and father when they were still alive, and not when he found himself a girlfriend, you.

Your relationship was merely another step stone towards success, Coriolanus viewed it. You were the heir of your family, you had countless amounts of money, and you were easily fooled by his advances. To Coriolanus, he had hit the jackpot, regardless of loving you or not.

So why did he feel so weird watching you interact with Sejanus? Sure, he considered the former district 2 boy his best friend, but it was only because Clemensia had been spending time at the hospital. The flu, Dr. Gaul described it; but Snow knew better. He was there when she had gotten bit by the snakes, and to be completely honest, if she hadn’t, he’d probably have dated her instead of you.

Clemensia Dovecote was way more smart, and he knew he wouldn’t fall inlove because they were both after the same thing. Power.

But with you, you were head over heels for Coriolanus. It almost made him sick, if it weren’t for your family name.

He clenched his jaw as he saw you throw your head back, hitting Sejanus’s shoulder as you hysterically laughed at something he had said.

What was so funny? Nothing was funny in the Capitol, not now. Maybe he was bitter, he should’ve never cheated in the games. It was stupid, and now he was getting the punishment of getting sent to 12 as a peacekeeper for 20 years.

Fuck, he really shouldn’t have cheated. And now he couldn’t even use his girlfriend’s family name as a way out.

He really should’ve known better. He knew you loved him, but he didn’t think you’d love him so much so that you begged your father to let you stay in 12 for a while to be with Coriolanus.

If there’s one thing about you—it’s that you’re a Daddy’s girl by heart, and of course, your father had once again served your request with a silver spoon. He hated that about you. He hated it. You got things too damn easily.

“Hi Coryo!” You say, making your way to him. Your beautiful sundress made him gulp, and he wanted nothing more but to snatch you away, pulling it off so he could get inside of you. But he couldn’t—he was in 12, much to his dismay.

“Y/N,” he says, placing his peacekeeper gun to the back. “Talking to the scums?”

“They’re just people from the district,” you say, frowning at his rudeness. “They’re nice, Coryo. Real nice, you’d like some of them.”

Coriolanus scoffs at that. How oblivious and stupid you were. Him, Coriolanus Snow, liking some of the district 12 citizens? What a fucking joke.

“Go along now Y/N, I’ll see you later.”

You nod, giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek before you left, leaving the other peacekeepers to whistle at Coriolanus who only responds with an eye roll.

When later eventually comes, he was packing away the Jabberjays in their metal cages, Sejanus being right next to him.

“I saw you earlier,” Coriolanus says nonchalantly, “talking to that woman in the window. What are you playing at Sejanus?”

Sejanus scoffs, shaking his head. “They’re gonna escape Corio. Leave the districts. And I’ll be helping them.”

Coriolanus sucks in a breath, “is Y/N all in this too?”

God, he hoped Sejanus said no. But then again, it’d give him an advantage if he had said yes.

“She is,” Sejanus says, continuing to tell Coriolanus of the plan.

Without Sejanus knowing, Coriolanus had tuned the jabberjay so it could record back the whole conversation. When Sejanus finally leaves, Coriolanus sneaks to where the train bringing the birds back to the Capitol stood, placing the jabberjay in it to send it to Dr. Gaul.

If anything, Sejanus was a blocking point in Coriolanus’s way, and getting rid of him and you were like killing two birds with one stone.

- - -

The next day came and you were peacefully talking to one of the younger girls in the district when you’re suddenly pulled away along with Sejanus.

“Hey! What the hell!” You scream, thrashing in the unfamiliar peacekeeper’s hold. “Get off me!”

You and Sejanus struggle, and Coriolanus almost wants to step in and get you out of his fellow peacekeeper’s arms. Almost.

“Coryo! Tell them they’ve been mistaken!” You cry out, locking eyes with your so called lover.

“You two have been charged with treason towards the Capitol.” The peacekeeper says, his cold gaze and strong hold on you makes you let out a whimper.

“Treason?” You say, “there has to be a mistake! Call my father! Call my father!”

“I’m afraid your father can’t get you out of this one, Miss. Cicero.”

He drags you and Sejanus up the main stage of the district. “Everyone! Pay attention! This is what will happen if you are disloyal to the Capitol!”

Another peacekeeper points a gun behind Sejanus’s back as the peacekeeper who was holding you earlier pokes your back with the cold metal. You felt terrified gazes of the citizens of District 12, including Lucy Gray, stare at you.

“CORYO! TELL THEM!” You scream, begging with your eyes. “Coryo, please. Please.”

But Coriolanus Snow stands still in his spot, not budging a thing.

You thought he had loved you—or at least, cared for you. You gave him shelter when he was at his worst, you gave him your virginity, you held him when he cried about how unfair Dean Highbottom was, you let him into your home, and you always were there for him. You practically did everything for Coriolanus Snow. And what did you get? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“Your Coryo won’t save you.” The peacekeeper snarls, before firing the gun.

Two gunshots go off, and the body of yours and Sejanus fall to the ground in an instant.

Coriolanus Snow almost wants to barf, his eyes closed for a minute before reopening them again.

Had it really been worth it? Ratting you and Sejanus out so he could get home to the Capitol faster?

He thinks so when your family and the Plinths give him their fortune as a thank you for being such a good boyfriend and friend towards their son and daughter.

If only they knew, though. But Coriolanus would never let that happen, because no matter what, Snow lands on top.

And this? It was just the beginning.

[qqueenofhades]

been seeing some responses to the many many lawsuits and other actions taken against trumpet and munkfruit that fall along the lines of "this isn't enough, it's already too late, you can't fight fascism with the law, we're all gonna die." i understand the fear, truly, but i'm curious as to your thoughts on it, as to me it seems like this sort of behavior/posting doesn't do much beyond embolden the narrative that everyone actually likes these bastards and they're too powerful to be stopped.

Welp. This is the kind of question that requires me to write a long and complex sociopolitical/critical/historical/Discourse-esque analysis that will take a while and which I am trying to do only selectively, but I'm at home on Saturday morning, I don't have anything else to do right now, and it does present me an opportunity to address some things I've been thinking about. So. We'll give it a shot.

The first thing that has struck me is that in a few short weeks, we're getting a sharp empirical disproving of two common online-leftist fallacies: one, the old "both parties are exactly the same" chestnut, and two, "the only resistance that matters is Violent Glorious Revolution" (which somehow and conveniently never happens). We had months and months of "Biden is just as bad as Trump!!!" being spread as gospel truth in online-leftist circles, and then when Harris took over, it switched just as seamlessly into "Harris is just as bad as [or even worse than] Trump!" Now, as I have said before, there were plenty of legitimate criticisms to make of Biden, particularly the Gaza policy (upon which Harris notably differed). But it's quite telling that the keyboard warriors who spent all of last year howling for The Righteous Punishment of Biden-Harris (regardless that the obvious ancillary consequence was letting Trump come to power) have either disappeared completely when it comes to dealing with the results of that rhetoric, or have switched to "everything is doomed so I guess we shouldn't bother anyway." Like. Trump is now proposing to fully ethnically cleanse Gaza and either blithely hand it over to Israel or build Jared Kushner Beachfront Resort Disneyworld, and what do we hear in protest? For the most part, crickets. These are not serious people. Their opposition is not morally consistent, and it only depends on how they can make themselves look good. I thought that Trump was somehow supposed to be magically better than Biden particularly on the Gaza issue, and that was why it was worth letting him get elected? Or something? Something!?!

I'm curious as to whether those people still legitimately think that Harris would have spent her first few weeks in office dismantling USAID, signing weekly anti-trans executive orders, unleashing ICE across the country and terrorizing immigrant communities, putting the Project 2025 guy in charge of the Office of Management and Budget, letting Elon Musk run rampant with Treasury data, nominating the likes of RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to Cabinet posts, trying to freeze all federal funding, stripping DEI initiatives, dismantle the Department of Education -- etc. etc. The thing is, as ghoulish as it is, none of this is a surprise, because it is literally what Trump and his people spent the entire presidential campaign loudly, openly, and repeatedly promising to do. However awful they were and are, they were not remotely secret about their intentions. That information was out in the open every time they opened their mouths. But too many people didn't pay attention, rationalized it away, decided that "he won't actually do that" (despite the fact that he launched a literal violent coup attempt on the Capitol the last time he was in office), or just made up their minds that Trump Will Reduce Grocery Prices and refused to listen to any information that countered that view. What do we get now? Trump laughing off the grocery-prices issue and insisting that it's "not a priority" and Musk managing to claim that the real problem is government spending, not corporate greed. Again, this was completely predictable, because y'all got willingly suckered. It was not hard to see it coming.

That said: if the Glorious Online Leftist Revolution is still coming, and by some lights we might now legitimately need it, where the fuck is it? Are they still out there banging the drum against Trump and his "let's ethnically cleanse Gaza" policy and anything else that they insisted, they swore up and down, was functionally equivalent or possibly even marginally better than Biden-Harris getting another term? No. They're either dead silent, offering weak excuses, or completely giving into "we're doomed there's no point fighting back through weak shitlib institutions that are obviously terrible and will fail" blubbering that makes no fucking sense. One, because they move the goalposts so constantly that there's not even any attempt to reckon with the last effects of their damaging bullshit, and two? As I said, where's the fucking Revolution magically coming to save us and install a perfect leftist utopia (which is never how revolutions have ever worked) and sweep away Government Tyranny? Is that only for when a Democrat is in office and you can have confidence that the government is not going to come after you in the middle of the night for talking about it? Now that there's an actual fascist in power, it's somehow too hard to resist at all, even in small, institutional, and everyday ways that are often far more effective at practically confounding the bad stuff instead of empty and useless online echo chambers, so guess we should all just give up??!

Fuck. That.

This is also why we have to talk about the catastrophic lack of information literacy and critical thinking skills in young leftist spaces. A good example is the recent migration of TikTok users to the Chinese app RedNote. It was sweet for a little while as there was cultural exchange and friendship and memes. But then, predictably, it dove hard into "ah, once again The Evil US Government Has Lied To Us and there are no problems at all in China!" I have seen posts float by on my dash that unironically claim this is the case and China is truly great and Americans should want to move there and clearly all that business about authoritarian control and mass repression was just a ruse by, again, The Evil US Government. If you are so utterly devoid of basic information literacy and research abilities that your standard of proof for "is the Chinese government repressively authoritarian and totalitarian" is "a random Chinese person on an app in a country where the Internet is viciously controlled and voicing the slightest criticism can make you disappear told me that it isn't," then for Christ's fucking sake, you need help. For one, it wasn't just the US government saying this. It was, y'know, Chinese dissidents, the entire nation of Taiwan, historians, academics, researchers, the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang, etc etc. If your only standard for believing or supporting anything is "the opposite of what the US government thinks," then you are perfect targets for authoritarianism. Hey, a person living under an authoritarian regime who will punish them if they speak out against it told me everything was fine! Clearly there's nothing to worry about and we should want it here in America!

Come on. Come on.

This is also the case because uneducated young leftists like to unironically label themselves "communists" or "Marxist-Leninists" as if it's cool and hip and has never been involved in anything problematic in all of history, so anything that calls itself that must be supported. Shoutout to the idiot in my notes recently who reblogged a several-year-old post just to shout at me about how historical communists NEVER worked with or collaborated with fascists, because something something The Communists Were The Pure Shining Good Guys! (Uh, nobody tell them about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.) Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party is good and beneficial, end of story, no more criticism or caution needed! Obviously, yes, official American policy toward China has often been driven by basic Sinophobia, and the determination that nobody can change American hegemony or unipolarity or its ability to call the shots how it pleases. But if that is the literally only criteria you're using, then yeah. If you're so unaware that "the Chinese people are ordinary human beings" and "the Chinese government is repressive and authoritarian" are statements that can and in fact do coexist, then apparently you've missed the situation you're in right now, where "the American people are ordinary human beings" and "the American government is repressive and authoritarian" is also the case. Because online leftism is essentially devoid of a consistent moral principle and will just blithely switch up to support Bad Things as long as they're being done by governments with the correct ideological label, here we are.

Anyway. This is getting long, but the main takeaway is that the "all resistance against Trump is doomed and I guess we just gotta die :(" line is now, somehow, often coming from the same people who were constantly yelling that the only hope was a Glorious Revolution against Biden-Harris, and it is somehow even stupider. So you'll trumpet about Gloriously Overthrowing The Government all the day long as long as a Democrat is in office, but the instant a Republican gets in there instead and starts acting like an actual fascist, welp, time to just shut up and accept our doom and not even bother to struggle? Please tell me how any of that makes sense. Especially when actively confounding the Trump/Musk Axis of Evil is already working. There is also the fact that the establishment-media types are supporting this narrative for reasons of their own; witness the fact that the entire US corporate media is owned by oligarchs who hastened to bend the knee and pledge fealty to Trump 2.0. They obviously also have a reason for inculcating hopelessness in you, and that the only recourse is to shut up, accept it, and let them continue to rob you blind. Because American democracy will never matter as much as money, power, and control for the Billionaire Bros.

The point is: this is a bad-faith narrative on all sides. Whether it's coming from the online leftists in their latest head-spinningly hypocritical volte-face, the oligarch-owned corporate media that wants to feed you constant Bad News to keep you clicking and worried and distracted and unable to resist, the Trumpist power that wants people to quit making this pesky stink about all their authoritarian fascist adventures, or anyone else. There is nobody who has your best interests at heart if they are telling you that everything is doomed and the only thing to do is lie down and take it. There is no logical reason you should listen to them. Go forth and keep resisting, in whatever way presents itself. Those cumulative small actions are far more effective than any Splendid Revolution that never, ever materializes, while the people who preach it just sit back and whine about how things are so bad now so clearly they couldn't. Shut up.

It is always important. It always matters. It will make a difference.

Courage, etc.