#her being a cop even helps her to do that

[mysteriousauthor448]

What if Class of 09 Flipside was made by a Woman?

I liked Class of 09. I liked it's snappy dialogue, I liked it's social commentary of high school and women's experiences with creepy men and adulthood, I liked how it gave such a compelling main character where you know she's awful yet acknowledge that she has her reasons without justification. I like Class of 09, both the original and re-up. What I don't like though, is Class of 09: The Flipside.

Setting my personal disgust with the feet routes and the 'Palestinian slave trade' comment aside, the writing in Flipside just is completely different from the last 2. Instead of focusing on the biting social commentary of the woman experience, it instead prioritizes shock value with only some form of substance (e.g, jecka seeing nicole's suicide, jeffrey's death, the ending messages apart from the creator) And you know what else sucks? We never actually got to explore Jecka properly of who she is as a character, her relationships with her family, friends, former friends...Sure, we get doses of her life like her dad which does do what the game promised: Change how we saw the Class of 09 story before. We now understand why Jecka was terrified of the cop's yelling, not only because an powerful authority abusing his power but also experienced it before. See, this was the stuff I expected from Flipside. This was what the game should've prioritised in. Instead, it seemed like the creator would rather showcase his fetishes and spite people that don't like him or the game. From that there on, I keep thinking to myself: 'you know, this game would've been better had a woman wrote this.' But can they?

I'm a woman experienced high school before, even tried to fit the class of 09 writing style on my characters in my own personal time. Given how a lot of class of 09 fans are disappointed with the new game and I want to get into writing publically, I figure that I be the one to rewrite Class of 09 The Flipside in hopes of re-capturing the essence of the first two games alongside the game's intentions itself. Even though it's still in development, I've already outlined the routes/endings so far for you all to get a peek:

Route 1/Ending 1 - Invasion of MySpace: The foot route will be replaced by Jecka taking and making videos/pictures in order to make money after being fired from her job. Think of it like a late 2000s or early 2010s version of OnlyFans. This would help remain the social commentaries of men’s creepy behaviour to women alongside how their safety is affected. There’ll be an option of whether to go to the creepy man’s house or go home. If she goes home, she finds Nicole giving her dad a handjob with a dead expression. It ends with Jecka killing herself and implies that Nicole followed her too (not half naked though, just in regular clothes cuz I'm not a freak unlike someone)

Ending 2 - MurderSpace: If Jecka chose to go to the creepy man’s home, she gets murdered and placed like a doll in the man’s basement. 

Route 2/Ending 6 - Breaking the Wounded Heart: Jecka finds herself to work with Karen and Ari at Dominos. Overtime, they start to form a bond and Jecka herself starts to mature and finds Nicole to be unbearable. Jecka finally breaks off her friendship with Nicole and cuts forward to the future where Jecka currently lives a peaceful yet boring life, reflecting on the past with Nicole, wondering if she’s really better off without Nicole because while she’s now in a stable life without the chaos, it's the chaos that entertained her: Nicole entertained her. And now it’s all gone. But in the end, it suggests that things are much better with Nicole gone as it cuts to a phone beeping and Jecka looking down at it with a smile while Ari is by her side. Yes, this is the route where Jeckari is canon. I know this sounds too sweet for Class of 09 but I want it to still match the vibe with it being less shocking but more real in a way. Something too realistically depressing but still mundane. This is what I planned to be the saddest but best outcome of the game. The most real I should say. 

Ending 5 - Was it all worth it?: If Jecka chooses Nicole over her new friends, it ends with her and Nicole being homeless smoking drugs in an abandoned forest with Jecka reflecting on whether or not she made a good choice with Nicole before commenting on needing a Xanax to distract her from the regret and pain. 

Route 3/Ending 3 - Fuck Men!: Jecka gets into a relationship with a presumably kind-hearted gentleman. Nicole tries to warn her but Jecka won’t listen. She then is coerced by the man into doing sexual favours for his economic gain, making her become a sex trafficked victim.

Route 4/Ending 4 - Drunk Drive Delivery: Same route where Ari dies but instead the ending changed to Jecka being arrested for 6 months where the ending monologue would showcase her conflicted in anger and regret. Plus, it plays more to the idea of Jecka ‘dying at 21’ logic with being forced to work: adult party culture: that kind of thing. 

I'd be happy to hear any feedback or/and ideas for this rewrite.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Movie William judges Vanessa's friends..

[bluerosefox]

Possessed Pearl's

You know how in some ghost stories sometimes its not a person or a land that's haunted but the items?

Well what if, when looking for a mother's day gift for his mom, Danny is looking around a pawn shop and finds a necklace, it's missing some pearls but it's just enough to pass off as a decent gift. Danny humms but decides against it and goes to leave it....

That was until he gasped out blue frost and spots a ghostly woman appear out of the necklace with a somber smile. She isn't as seeable as the other ghosts in Amity though, meaning she doesn't have enough ectoplasm on her own (that might change the longer she's in Amity and around Danny though) and that right now only Danny can see her.

And Danny well... hes been doing his hero gig for a bit now, might go and ask if there was anything he can do to help.

And later Danny's good deed... bites him back. Oh boy. Because now he has the Bats looking into Amity Park... Wait what do you mean Martha is now strong enough to be seen?!

[californiaquail]

was hanging out with someone today and she was talking about how she would shoot the hawks and eagles if they went after her indoor/outdoor cat and i had to struggle to keep a straight face. there is an EASY fucking solution to this problem that doesn't involve killing federally protected wildlife OR your poor damn cat. who got in a fight last night and left fur all over the place.

[autistic-katara]

there r fics that make u insane (so amazingly good it’s removed ur sanity) and then there’s fics that make u insane (you need to fistfight the author for how they did a specific thing that caused u to rant for hours)

[lisbonsteresa]

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Based on @sillymanwithocs idea of Vicki Vale helping Talia clean her name from slander and bad representation and Joker clear his name from having a cause and good representation.

Penguin: Miss Vale, I have a proposal...

Vicki: Absolutly not. You are a capitalistic mob boss who once feed a guy to a penguin I'm not joining your P.A departament.

Penguin: You don't understand-

Vicki: The media is prejudiced against you somehow and you aren't actually that bad?

Penguin: No, no. I mean I would preffer if they stoped making mean coments about my apareance and focused more on my crimes but that wasn't the point.

Vicki: Oh I can do that.

Penguin: Help me look like a good guy because I paid you a lot?

Vicki: Hell no! I'm not Jack Ryder!!! But I could try to make so they stopped focusing on your looks?

Penguin: And how much would I have to pay?

Vicki: To stop assholes being capacists and fatphobics? Nothing. I'll do it hapilly!

Penguin: Thank you, Miss Vale. I do have another question...

Vicki: I have no idea where Jack lives or how much you would have to pay for him to help you with your schemes.

Penguin: Well thanks anyway. I'll look around.

[...]

Scarecrow: But-

Vicki: NO! I'm sorry but I can't even begin to think of a way to explain that even if I somehow was insane enough to want to help you there's absolutly nothing I could do to make your "research" peer reviewed!

Scarecrow: You could at least publish it.

Vicki: Why though? It's unetical, isn't reviewed and it literally starts with a creepy laugh and you screaming "fear me, mortals"!

Scarecrow: But you published the first one.

Vicki: I didn't published it. I mentioned it on the program BECAUSE it was an interesting, ethical and peer reviewed research. Is not my fault you went insane and became a maniacal chemical terrorist.

Scarecrow: I preffer improved my reshearch tecniques.

Vicki: Well when the rest of the scientific comunity agrees with you, we talk.

[...]

Jervis: Please!! Please! I could be mind controlling you but I'm actually asking isn't it enough to show I have good intentions?

Vicki: Look while I understand it must suck to be wrongfully called a pedophile if I just publish an article saying you aren't one no one will believe me. I can try to help you. But you will need to actually act less predatory.

Jervis: I'm not predatory!

Vicki: Well not intencionally...

Jervis: What you mean?

Vicki: You mind control people, mostly woman, to play tea party with you, has zero notion of personal space and calls everyone pet names.

Jervis: Okay. Gotcha. So all I need to do is be rude and kidnapp more guys, enbys and elders.

Vicki: That not ... you know what sure.

[...]

Waylon: *enters*

Vicki: Sure. I will totaly help you.

Waylon: Eh? I was going to ask if you know where Harley is... I hear you two are friends now and since it is apparently unsanitary to keep it on the sewers she has my coffe machine.

Vicki: Oh. She is on the apartenent upstairs with Pam, they're hidding from Batman.

[...]

Vicki: Pam, I love you but I can't.

Poison Ivvy: Why not?

Vicki: Because while I understand where you are coming from I can't just write a piece about how we should genocide the human race barr some people.

Poison Ivvy: But it would solve the enviromental crisis! That's not fair.

[...]

Riddler: Hello, Miss Vale.

Vicki: Look I'm really tired I have actual jornalism to do, I can't stop just so I can try to make people stop calling you "poor man Joker's".

Riddler: They are still doing that? You make a jokey riddle ONCE!! Stupid fucking people and their inability to distinguish really different concepts!

Vicki: I also can't stop them from calling you "fairy" and "weird" and "not a treat" or "not a real villain"

Riddler: That's so rude! Who the fuck is even saying that???

Vicki: Jack Ryder and his viewers.

Riddler: That moron can't even solve the riddle of the Spinx! How dare him??

Vicki: Uh okay is that about the recent mayor discourse after you went to Arkham using you as an example and calling you a manchild and insulting you outfit? Oh wait is it about that famous gotham tiktoker theorizing you are an incel?

Riddler: Now you're just being mean.

Vicki: Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out what you want me to clear in your image so we can finish this conversation quicker.

Riddler: I didn't want to improve my image!! This was supposed to be a hostage situation but you ruined it!! Apparently everyone just made a laughting stock out me...

Vicki: *ackwardly* Not everyone... Just a bunch of people on the internet... and on TV... and the mayor.

Riddler: *crying* It's been a really though month, okay? I just wanted one thing to work out. But noo is just another lost for stupid Edward. Guess I'll just go home. *to his hiding henchmen* Sorry guys no heist today.

Vicki: *even more ackwardly* You can still kidnnap me if you want to?

Riddler: *angryly* I don't need your pitty. *leaves*

Randon Henchmean: That was really mean of you! I hope you're happy.

Vicki: I didn't... what just... what is my life?

[twofivethreesix]

i hope that cut of the fnaf movie having vanessa witness her dad killing those kids was retconned with removal bc it's like way more funny if vanessa didn't know anything and wanted to become an officer to put 'bad people away' so that an incident like that would never occur again. but it's hard to uphold that justice when the 'bad person' turns out to be your own parent and now even as an adult she is still just an extension of him and his will

[motocompacto]

i saw renfield and im perplexed

[binders-and-beanies]

If u tell a trans disabled person to call the cops or tell someone else to call the cops abt them u do not care abt that person’s safety

[oveliagirlhaditright]

You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care.

[rafesgfs]

bsf!rafe who's wrapped around your finger, who doesn't care when his friends tease him about being whipped for you. who comes to your every beck and call, looking for any way to make your life easier, because that's his only reason for existing. to make your life better.

bsf!rafe who's hopelessly in love with you, always on the verge of confessing to you but never having the courage to do so. who spoils you with anything and everything you ever wanted. who makes a fool of himself following you around in the hopes that you love him the same way but always knowing you don't.

at a party, he spots you with your friends and he gets up, habitually getting you something to drink. he stalks closer to you with your favorite drink in a solo cup, listening to your friends.

"he follows you around all the time. i don't get how you don't get annoyed of him." your friend says, laughing.

"seriously, it's like watching a puppy begging for attention." another added, giving you a look. "it's pathetic."

and all you do is laugh in response.

he can't find it in himself to get hurt because it is the truth. he craved your attention so badly that he practically preened whenever you gave him a bit of it. rafe's so wrapped up in you that he couldn't even fault you for not defending him.

he waits a few minutes before he walks over and hands you the drink, pretending as if he's heard nothing. he melts when you give him a smile and a kiss on his cheek, mind blanking as your soft, soft lips touch his skin. you thank him, dismissing him with a hand and he reluctantly makes his way back to topper and kelce.

bsf!rafe who's bored at the party and somehow ends up talking to sofia, a waitress at the country club. he doesn't look at her when she talks, observing the party from the balcony, everything she's saying going in one ear and out the other.

he doesn't even register her touching his arm, pulling away when he sees you staring at him, your eyes drifting to the hand on his arm. he excuses himself from her, needing to be in your presence before his anxiety gets to him. needing you to soothe his worries away; worries that came from being away from you.

bsf!rafe who sees you talking with sofia instead, hides behind a tree like a creepy stalker whilst he eavesdrops for the second time that night, peeking from the side of the tree to look at you.

"do you like rafe, sofia?" you ask, voice sweet, smile even sweeter. your eyes glint with something unfamiliar as sofia nods.

"i mean, he's cute—"

you giggle, touching sofia's hair and for a second, he wonders if you were going to kiss her, jealously bubbling in his stomach. he hated watching you kiss other people, even if it was a pogue who didn't deserve a lick of your attention.

within a second, your smile drops and you glare at her. without a word, you brought your fist to your eye, punching it hard. sofia gasped in shock, unable to move as she watched you repeat the same motion three more times.

"help! someone help!" you call out with a saccharine smirk on your face, your tone not matching your words. you hold a hand to your reddening eye as people come.

rafe emerges from his hiding spot, concerned and shocked, taking you in his arms and examining your eye. people came, the music turned off as people rallied behind you, eyes glancing between you and sofia.

"that bitch hit me! someone call the cops!" you wailed out, burying your face against rafe's chest.

bsf!rafe who shields you with his arms, eyes narrowing at sofia as someone calls the cops. his mind is spinning, confused but mostly concerned for your wellbeing. he comforts you, kissing your eye in hopes it wouldn't bruise over, but with the big emerald ring on your finger—the one he had gotten you for your friendiversary—he knew it would turn blue by the end of the night.

bsf!rafe who holds you as you tell the cops what happened, sniffling and touching your eye. who listens as you tell them about sofia getting violent and hitting you until you called out for help.

bsf!rafe who saw the whole thing but lied, telling the officer the same thing you did, earning a soft smile from you. who watched you watch sofia getting cuffed and thrown in the police car with a small smirk on your lips and possessiveness in your eyes.

you stare up at him as soon as the police car is out of view, wrapping your arms around his neck. "thank you, rafey. for helping me."

bsf!rafe who will always look out for you, taking your side against others. who you keep on a short leash, never wanting his love but always using it to make yourself happy.

"anything for you," he replies, smiling.

[anotherpapercut]

just had an absolutely sickening conversation with a 20 year old I work with wherein I had to impress upon her that her and her friends need to be extremely cautious going to the gay clubs right now with increasing attacks happening. make sure any very young, very newly adult queer people in your life know that we're a family and community and part of that is being willing to fight for your siblings lives if they're under attack. even if it's a person you despise, you stick up for your family and they will stick up for you. we are all we have. the cops refuse to help, and so do most people outside the community. we cannot survive without each other

[ceilidho]

sundog

prompt: Simon comes across a girl when she's recently been evicted and takes her back to his place, despite her reservations (nsfw, 8.5k) [based on this old post] [on ao3 here]

-

The circumstances of your life change so abruptly that you lose sight of it for a moment. 

Then, you’re out on the streets with the clothes on your back and a suitcase packed so full that a sweater sleeve sticks out where the zippers meet. The locks to your apartment have already been changed. You know because you tried them anyway, desperately hoping that the eviction notice taped to your door might have been misplaced.

Evidently not. The keys don’t work. You contemplate chucking them on the walk out, but instead you keep them close like a talisman of protection, though it’s failed to live up to its purpose so far. 

You’ve got it under control for a day. If by ‘under control’, you mean experiencing a full body panic attack in the locker room of the twenty-four hour gym down the street from your old apartment. The staff gives you uncomfortable looks when you come in on the verge of tears with your suitcase rolling behind you, but they let you in because your membership is up to date. If you can count on anything in life, it’s consumerism. 

That doesn’t last long though, mainly because a locker and a wood bench won’t cut it in the long term. You sleep in the back of the local library until a stern-faced, if pitying, librarian threatens to call the cops on you. Pity isn’t sympathy, evidently. 

Gym management threatens to cut the lock on the locker you’ve been using as temporary storage space. Matter of fact, they say, you can’t be using the locker room as your quasi apartment between the hours of nine P.M. and seven A.M. just because everything else in the city is closed. Go home, they say. 

What home, you don’t say, before packing up your things and heading out on your way. 

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s capitalism. 

You didn’t think this kind of thing could happen to someone like you. Someone like you being an ordinary person. Homelessness always felt like a far away concept. But the world is cruel and life is brutal. What you didn’t realize before was that, at any moment in time, you’ve been closer to poverty than wealth, and here you are now, sitting in the park with your suitcase between your legs, the sun rapidly setting behind you, your phone at ten percent battery, and nowhere to go because your family is, frankly, nonexistent, and your friends, for lack of a better word, have almost entirely washed their hands of you.

Sorry, they’d say, the frown emoji expressing something like pity at a distance. We don’t have a couch to spare. 

I can sleep on the floor, you’d texted back. They’d gotten cagey after that. People like to be wanted only to a certain extent.

You can feel the panic rise up in you, too big to contain. It comes out in the form of blubbering tears and snot running from your nose. Big, hiccuping sobs. It’s not pretty. Passersby avert their eyes for the most part, save for the ones that eye you with something bordering on perverse delight and that’s what finally makes you get up and speed walk away, lest they feel compelled to approach you. 

But even in the tailwinds of summer, it gets cold outside at night. Worst of all, as the evening grows dark, the streets empty out until you can’t help but feel like a beacon with your little rolling suitcase. It clatters against the sidewalk as you try to hoof it down the street, looking for any shop still open to loiter in. Most close after nine though. You’ve googled homeless shelters, but the sheer anxiety keeps you floundering around up and down the streets instead.

It feels beyond helpless. You’re in a state like you’ve never been before, crying under a streetlamp because you needed a moment just to get your bearings. 

What you know now is that this world is a house of false bottoms. You thought the circumstances of your life could never change. You were never well to do, but you were doing well. The sight of the unhoused sitting with their backs to the brick and mortar stores on your walk home or congregated in a park in the middle of the city with their tents and shopping carts used to fill you with immeasurable pity, maybe even a quiet moment’s reflection; now, you see them as kin. 

Easy, isn’t it? To slip between states. To go from solid to liquid to gaseous. Easier than you ever could have expected. 

When it starts to rain, you almost close your eyes in relief. Anyone could’ve predicted this. 

You almost don’t respond to him at first, keeping your eyes trained on the sidewalk to avoid any bumps. Also, it never pays to look up at a man barking at you, especially not when he’s barking something like, Girl or Bird, turn around. 

Then he says it again, closer this time, and you’re forced to look up, if only to see who’s approaching you. Your suspicion melts away to distrust at the sight of the man stalking towards you. Distrust with a touch of trepidation—maybe outright alarm. Surely no man his size wearing a balaclava tucked into a hoodie straining around his arms would have innocent designs on you. 

He’s one of the bigger men you’ve ever come across. You look across the street to see if there’s a bar missing its bouncer, but all the shop fronts are dark like the ones on your side. 

You don’t bolt at the sight of him, but it’s a near thing. He appears from nowhere, and yet there’s nowhere for him to hide. Not with the size and breadth of him damn near taking up the whole sidewalk. His demeanour and stride evoke such a sense of authority that at first you mistake him for a plainclothes man, and wouldn’t that be just the icing on the shit cake of a week you’ve been experiencing. But something about him says otherwise. 

“Plan on catchin’ your death out here?” he asks, and you shiver. Not from the cold, but from the sound of his voice. 

You’re not used to talking to strangers. A month ago, you would’ve ignored the man lambasting you for being out in the rain; maybe crossed the street and hailed a cab instead. You don’t have those kinds of options anymore. The only thing left in your repertoire is to shout back. 

“I’ve got mace!” you yell out, your voice a hoarse rattle carved out from hours spent crying. 

“That’ll do ya fuck all out here,” he says, a touch condescendingly. “You lost or somethin’?”

“I’m not lost,” you sniff, rubbing the snot away from your nose with the end of your sleeve.

“Then get home instead of roamin’ the streets. You’re askin’ to get snatched up, bird.”

The threat of that has been lingering in your head these past few days, even stretching back to the very first moment that you noticed the sign on your door, but now it has its intended effect. You shake. 

“I can’t,” you whisper.

“Bloody hell,” he sighs. “Why the fuck not? Need someone to call you a cab?”

“I got evicted. I don’t have a home,” you say, and sniffle when your nose leaks again. Saying it outloud brings tears to your eyes again, a pressure building behind your orbital sockets and down to the tip of your nose. 

You must look like the saddest thing in the world standing there in the rain under the dim light of the streetlamp, the pole looped with graffiti and old gum. When the man berating you for being out in it takes a step forward, coming into the light, you can finally make out the bored depths of his eyes. A deep brown. Entirely unimpressed with the picture in front of him, maybe even a bit peeved. 

Your socks are wet and your shoes squelch when you take a step back. You pull the sheer sweater tighter around your frame, but it does nothing to protect you from the damp, frigid air. 

“You been out here long?” he asks, taking another step closer. Not tentatively either. His gaze sweeps over you proprietarily, taking stock; his arrogance comes as an afterthought. He’s not rubbing it in your face that he can do whatever he likes—he just does. 

You wheel your suitcase around in front of you to put something between the two of you. “…Just today. The gym kicked me out.”

You sound petulant, words chewed between your lips and teeth; begrudgingly admitting to the various pitfalls of your existence. All the bad luck. It’s shameful to admit to losing complete control of your life. 

“Haven’t ya got any family, girl? Friends? What’re they letting a girl like you stay out on the streets for?”

You could be sick on the pavement. “…That’s none of your business.”

His eyes go flat at that, unimpressed. “You always this nasty to people tryin’ to help?”

And you’re not. That’s the part that grates the most. You’re all soft underbelly; no bark, no bite. It’s inconceivable that this could’ve happened to you—inconceivable because your head is filled with false promises and mythologies. The myth of exceptionalism. This happens to other people. Not good girls that go to college and get their degrees and find a stable job. 

They’ve pulled the rug out from under you so fast that you haven’t even toppled over yet. That’s how quick it all happened. 

“What help are you?” The bite comes out of nowhere, fueled by bitter humiliation and resentment for the predicament you’ve found yourself in. “Are you gonna put me up in a hotel?”

“Think I’m made of money, bird?” he asks rhetorically. 

“You’ve probably got more than I have.” 

Now you’re weepy again at the thought. Down to your last hundred dollars and you’re in between jobs at the moment. It might’ve been easier to haul yourself out of poverty if applying for jobs didn’t require a mailing address. That’ll be your first priority once you find a place to live. But conversely, how are you meant to find housing with no proof of income? Landlords laugh in your face before slamming the door shut. The conversations are circular, but they always come to a grinding halt; that’s the only thing you’ve learned to expect. 

The worst part of this whole conversation is that it doesn’t follow any of the scripts you’ve previously memorized. When have you ever had to deal with a man interrogating you about your place of residence? It makes no sense. 

It’s inconceivable to imagine that this is happening to you, but it is. Life comes at you hard, with a razor’s edge. Sharp enough to cut, to lacerate. 

“You need a place to stay,” he states bluntly. 

“It’s fine. I’ll—I’ll find something.” 

“You could come home with me.” He says it so bluntly that for a moment all you can do is blink. Surely you misheard him. Surely a man of his size and breadth, dark mask obscuring his face, wouldn’t be daft enough to ask a woman he found on the street to come home with him.

The offer, as well-intentioned as you hope it is, puts you on edge. “No, that’s…that’s alright. I don’t want to…put you out. I was going to look up nearby shelters.”

“Shelters’ll all be full this time of night,” he says. “Never been on the streets?”

You clenched your teeth, nerves starting to get the better of you. 

“I can go to a church,” you say, voice terse now, frayed with nerves. 

He snorts. “Haven’t been to one in a long time, but pretty sure those close too, pet. It’s late.”

You sway on your feet, the suitcase at your side the only thing keeping your knees from buckling. Dead ends everywhere you turn. You’ve always thought of yourself as resourceful; that if push came to shove, you’d figure your way out of any sticky situation. That smacks of arrogance now. All your suppositions are dissolving right in front of you, your own self-image along with it. 

A heavy foot stepping into a puddle brings you back to focus. The masked man is closer now, within arm’s reach. Your heart jumps into your throat. He towers over you, monolith man; big as a sequoia, or other deadland creatures that vanish out of sight when you catch a shadow out of the corner of your eye and whirl around to look it dead on. 

“I can’t go home with a stranger.”

You know you’re not supposed to put your faith in strange men. Bad things happen to girls that go around trusting any man that offers up their help. 

The fist in your chest loosens infinitesimally when the man reaches up to pull the mask off his head. He’s every inch the brute you imagined in your head—blunt chin and crooked nose, a nasty scar running up his lip. There are scars all over his face, in fact—bisecting his left eyebrow and down his cheek. The blond hair on his head is slightly grown out, like he’s used to keeping it neat and tight but it’s been awhile since his head has seen a razor. His beard grows in a bit patchy, the burnish gold of a five o’clock shadow.

You frown. “Is that supposed to make me trust you?”

“Well, now we’re not strangers, are we?”

“That doesn’t—that doesn’t change anything! I still don’t know you.”

He shrugs. Takes a step back. “Suit yourself then. No skin off my ass.”

Your stomach roils, anxiety coming back with a vengeance. You hadn’t noticed it recede since the man started talking to you, but you notice its return. When he makes a move to turn back around, you lurch forward, your hand extending out and fisting in the side of his shirt. He pauses, then looks down at you. 

“…Where else am I supposed to go?” you whisper.

He tilts his head. “Could sleep on a bench in the park.”

You glare at him through tear-soaked eyes. “That’s not funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be. You’re shit out of other options at this time of night.”

“So, what? Now it’s-it’s my fault or something?”  

His eyes don’t exactly soften, but they lose their hard edge. 

“I’m not gonna ask twice,” he says. Not cautioning you, just stating a fact. “You coming or not?”

Disaster seems like a given at this point. At least you could pick your poison. 

Words are beyond you though, so you just bite your lip and nod, eyes downcast now. 

What else is there for you to do but follow him after that? You trail along after him like a sad, wet cat left out in the rain. 

He finds her wandering the streets with her pretty little suitcase rolling over every bump and crack in the sidewalk and there’s no fighting the urge to drag her home. 

She doesn’t look like a runaway. Just a poor thing down on her luck. Her cheeks practically glisten with her tears when she looks up at him with her big, pathetic eyes, and it makes his cock plump up against his thigh. 

That’s not what this is about though. Simon presses his hand against his dick to rub out some of the ache while she flutters around the bedroom and reminds himself of that again. He didn’t take her home to maul her like a dog. He dragged her back to his flat because she looked wounded and scared out of her wits. 

He can be good every now and then. 

“Sit down, will ya?” he grunts, tugging her down onto the couch when she flits across the room to grab more of her shit out of her suitcase, glancing down at him apprehensively on her way by. She yelps when he sends her sprawling onto the couch. 

His flat isn’t much. A one-bedroom above a laundromat; eggshell walls and torn up baseboards because he hasn’t gotten around to fixing the place up. It’s better than sleeping on the streets though, he knows that much. 

Simon’s no stranger to that; if being in the military taught him anything, it was how to survive regardless of circumstances. In the weeks after his medical discharge—his knees beyond busted, basically bone on bone, and even these days, though he works more to have something to do than to earn a living, they still scream at him when he puts too much weight on them—he wandered aimlessly for a bit, crashing on Gaz’s couch for a bit and sleeping on benches for a spell after that before finding his footing again. 

Simon ignores the way that she yaps at him though, used to tuning people out. He flicks on the television and flips to a show that looks vaguely entertaining before getting up and ambling over to the kitchen. 

“D-do you want me to help?” she asks from the kitchen, tripping over her words in her haste to get them out. 

She reeks of the need to please. Desperate; cloying, sickly sweet like flowering dracaena. It clings to her like a perfume, silk-wrapped and packaged just for him. It could give a man like him indecent thoughts. His thoughts already tend towards the impure. 

He must eye her like a ravenous animal because she flinches suddenly under his gaze, eyes flicking away nervously before meeting his again. Good girl, Simon wants to say. Eyes on me. 

“Sit down,” he barks instead, and relishes in the way she sits back down with her hands tucked under her thighs. 

She’s really a pretty little thing. A shame that he found her out wandering in the rain, out where any man with worse intentions could have stumbled across her. The thought alone could drive him to violence. Again he stares at the back of her head and the slope of her shoulders, evaluating. His bloodlust dulls to a simmer. It pounds in his ears like a dull drum, but at least now he can hear again. 

Anyone else could have found her first, but they didn’t. He did. That tempers the homicidal impulse thrumming in his blood. She’s in his flat now, freshly showered and skin still damp. When she looks over her shoulder, it’s him she sees. 

Poor bird with her clipped wings. She’s not in danger of flying off anytime soon. The thought placates him. Tucked away in his cage, he doesn’t have to rend anyone limb from limb.

It’s been years since he traded in his fatigues for a hi vis jumpsuit, but some days he misses it so acutely that his hands shake and his vision fades in and out. This is one of those days. He toys with the idea of reaching out to Price in the morning to learn more about her, but then discards the idea. Better if it comes straight from her.

Besides, he doesn’t like asking for favours anyway.

“Name’s Simon, by the way,” he grunts, nostrils flaring when he sees her flinch at the sound of his voice. “Riley.”

“Oh,” is all she says. He waits a beat.

“Gonna give me your name, bird?”

She does, voice squeaky like it’s said under duress. That pisses him off more. 

He's not much of a cook, but he can whip up something quick, so he tosses one of his frozen meals into the microwave and sits her in front of the TV while she shivers and shakes on the couch.

They eat in silence, the TV on in the background. It’s the only noise besides the soft sound of her chewing. Simon can tell she’s gone hungry in recent days by the voracious way she eats, unable to keep herself from shovelling the food into her mouth. She seems almost embarrassed by it after swallowing her last bite, looking over at him from the corner of her eye like a guilty dog. He ignores it, keeping his eyes on the TV instead.

He can tell she wants to say something. A shit childhood and two decades in the military have left him with the ability to sniff out tension, and it comes off her in waves. After putting her plate on the coffee table, she sits back against the couch and squeezes her fists over her lap. Gnaws her lip and casts furtive glances in his direction. When the tears build up on her waterline, his cock twitches. 

“What?” he barks after the umpteenth sniffle, twisting to face her. 

“I—um—I just wanted to say thank you,” she whispers, her head still tilted downward, trying to make herself small enough to go unnoticed. 

Simon stares down at her, unblinking. He half wishes she’d cry a little more, just a few tears to soothe the beast in his chest. It’s better for her that her eyes remain dry. He doesn’t think he could hold himself back if one slipped down her cheek right now. He’d have to grab her by the nape of her neck and twist her over the side of the couch, shove down both their drawers and feed his cock into the warm, wet slot between her legs. Pummel her little cunt until his spend leaks out in thick, viscous globs, until her thighs shake so violently that only his hands on her shoulders and his shaft shoved deep in her pussy keeps her upright. 

He can almost smell it from between her legs, throbbing with gratefulness. He stares down unabashedly at the spot between her legs. Let her say something about it. 

“Don’t mention it,” he says instead, tilting his head when her tongue peeks out to wet her lips. “‘Was nothing.”

“No, it was really nice of you,” she insists, speaking more forcefully after gathering up some of her courage. “What if I…—you took a stranger into your house.”

That gets the blood pumping. “Gonna gut me while I sleep, pet?”

It’s half deranged that his cock chubs up in his jeans at the thought of his little bird with a knife in her hands, hands dripping with wet, dark blood. He shifts, readjusting himself so the metal teeth of his zipper don’t bite into his dick. 

She frowns. Endearing. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Not really good at looking after yourself, are you?”

“I am—it’s just…” tears build up on her waterline again, “it was one thing after another. I couldn’t get it all together.”

Pity isn’t an emotion he’s accustomed to feeling. Simon’s not even sure if that’s what he’s feeling now. It’s more like the bastard child of pity. 

He lets her off to bed with a warning not to fuck with anything in his room. She skitters off quickly after that. Her cute little ass follows her into the room until she shuts the door behind her, hiding it from view. He huffs. Being good never gets him anywhere.

He lets her run away though because he can’t tarnish everything he touches. Some things deserve to stay polished. 

Instead, he brushes his teeth and washes the last of the dishes before turning in as well, getting a clean sheet out of the linen closet to drape over himself. The couch isn’t nearly long enough for him to stretch out on, not like the king sized bed in his room; there’s already a spring poking him right in the middle of his back.

Sleep won’t come easy tonight. 

Simon wakes up on the couch with a kink in his neck. He lays there for several minutes gritting his teeth until the worst of it passes. When he sits up, his back cracks and pops, joints loosening only reluctantly. His age is getting away from him again; the wear and tear on his body finally starting to catch up. There’s only so much abuse he can put himself through. 

The morning races on outside his front door and he has work to get to, but his body orients towards the closed door of his bedroom almost without his say. It creaks as it swings open. 

In the slowly dimming haze of sleep, he must have subconsciously thought he dreamt the night before because seeing the girl from yesterday curled up in his bed halts him in his tracks. Her suitcase is open on the floor beside the bed. She must have changed into her pyjamas after slinking away last night because he doesn’t recognize the little cotton shorts hugging the swell of her ass and the shirt riding up over her belly button. 

Despite the perfunctory morning jerk he gave himself just ten minutes prior, his cock twitches in his work pants, gaze locked on the underside of her ass, the flesh peeking out from beneath her sleep shorts. 

The hunger ebbs out of a deep, cavernous hole in him. A heavy, oppressive heat; lust so gnarled and twisted that he hardly recognizes it. He can see it play out in his mind—crawling over the bird’s prone form and turning her over onto her belly, his knees on either side of her legs, cloaking her. Tugging down the zipper of his pants and wrenching those slutty shorts down to mid-thigh before burying his shaft in her hole. Little bird that followed him home, sleeping in his bed. She should thank him for his help with a wet hole. 

Simon takes a step into the room and then stops. He won’t—can’t—

His teeth grind together from how hard he clenches his jaw. 

He stands in the doorway and watches her sleep in his bed for longer than he should. Only when he feels something ugly well up in his chest does he finally bark out her name, snorting softly when she jumps and nearly falls right off the side of the bed. 

“Get up,” Simon grunts. “And make yourself something to eat. I’ve gotta head out.”

He walks away before the befuddled look on her face makes him crack a smile. 

She tiptoes out a few minutes later, still in her PJs. Her wary glances tick him off. For the effort it’s taken him to keep his hands to himself, he deserves more than her shifty looks, scoring him like he split her little peach open in her sleep.  

Breakfast is an uncomfortable affair. It’s partly his fault, but he doesn’t apologize for it. They eat in tense silence until it’s time for him to head to work. 

“Don't think about leaving—any of my shit gets nicked and it's your ass.”

He leaves her with that warning, slamming the door behind him.

Your heart goes quiet at the dawning of your new life. 

Adjusting to your new reality takes a bit of effort. The first few days with Simon feel tenuous at best. You worry constantly about doing something wrong and finding yourself back out on the streets. You’re thankful to the point of pandering, apologizing for any sudden move or sound that you make. You can tell it annoys him. 

The real work is recontextualizing your perception of yourself. The world feels strange now that you’re outside of it; alien somehow. You used to think of yourself as somehow inextricably woven into the fabric of society. The thought of losing everything never even occurred to you. It never even presented itself as a possibility. You worried about homelessness the way people worry about quicksand—in some nebulous way touching on the real without being absorbed by it. 

And now you are cut from another cloth altogether; abruptly, without any warning. You used to feel like one with the rest of the world, a kind of kinship based less on parentage or ancestry and more on inner nature. Weren’t you the same as any of them? But now the drapery has been pulled down and you know—you are not the same. 

Your future used to shimmer under the surface like a bioluminescent fish, but now it’s just a ghost.

He tells you to stay put when he goes to work so you do, spending the days puttering around the apartment, watching TV, and cleaning. There’s not much else to do. It’s almost a relief, to be honest. You’ve spent so much time without a place to call home that the second someone offered you one, the outside world became anathema in your head. You couldn’t step foot out of the front door even if you wanted to. 

Tears well up at the smallest thing. You blubber over not being able to work the coffee machine in the kitchen. When the sound goes out on the TV, you cry so hard that it leaves you woozy. You’re lachrymose, downtrodden. Soul a startling verdigris; your waterlines might as well be white with encrustations of salt. 

He must notice the dark cloud following you from room to room, but he doesn’t bring it up. You’d find it tactful, but you know him a bit better than that. 

Then Simon brings home a cat after his shift one day and you don’t know what to say to that.

Thank you doesn’t seem to suffice. I love it doesn’t cut it close. The truth of the matter is that words only ever approximate the feeling; they can get close enough to give you a glimmer of what’s stashed inside, but you can’t pry them all the way open. So you take the off-white cat from him when he practically tosses the poor thing into your arms, and stare up at him wide-eyed, eyes already watering for reasons once again unbeknownst to you. 

“Thank you for taking him home,” you say, already on the verge of tears.

He stares down at you, unblinking. You’re learning to read into his silences though. 

“Don’t expect me to take care of it,” he says instead of accepting your thanks. “If you can’t handle it, it’s going back outside.” 

You hold the cat tight to your chest, staring up at him with horror until the little beast nearly scratches your eye out in an effort to squirm out of your arms. 

At first, you’re not sure what to make of it. It can’t be a peace offering because, apart from the rare occasions where you manage to get on his nerves (not wholly impossible, but you’re learning how to stay on his good side for the most part), you and Simon get along pretty well. You coexist, at least. He cooks, you clean. 

It’s likely a distraction, you finally realize, something to keep you from moping around the apartment all the time, listless and directionless. Despite the fact that you’re no longer in any immediate danger now that you have a roof over your head, misery still clings to you like a second skin. The relative safety of Simon’s flat has actually only given you a chance to really properly mourn the loss of your former life. 

Training the cat to wear a harness without tipping over (the little drama king) and taking him on his first walk outside (just a little turn around the block, though you half jump out of your skin whenever you cross paths with another person) gives you enough of a sense of purpose to propel you through the next week. 

You can tell that Simon thinks the cat is more trouble than it’s worth, especially when it decides to fixate on the one person in the flat that doesn’t pay it a lick of attention, but still it makes your heart melt to see it curled up by his side when you watch TV together at the end of the night. 

“Is this normal for you?” you ask, hands folded in your lap.

His gaze doesn’t move from the television screen. “Is what normal?”

“Taking in strays.”

He snorts, then takes a second to answer. “No.”

You wonder if he intends to sound as caustic as he comes across. The truth is self-evident though. Words only mask the real, and the real in this case is that Simon Riley is a man that feeds and takes home strays. He can grumble about it all he wants. It’s a bit demeaning to think of yourself that way, but once again, the truth is what it is. 

You study him from the corner of your eye until bedtime rolls around again. He’s become the most interesting thing in the world to you, through every fault of his own.

If he didn’t want you to fixate on him, he wouldn’t have left you home alone with nothing else to do. 

“Bird!” Simon roars from the other room. “The cat’s pissed on the floor again.”

You spring out of bed before Simon has a chance to toss it out onto the balcony. 

It feels temporary up until the first time you use Simon’s address on a job application. It stands out stark on your phone screen, black on glowing white. You’ve always preferred it to dark mode, though that preference has fluctuated in recent weeks as you’ve spent more and more time on your phone. 

This is the first time staring at the screen without blinking for a prolonged period of time that hasn’t left you with a throbbing migraine. 

He tells you to stop bothering him with stupid shit when you ask him if it’s alright to use his address. That answers that. Guilt lingers on the periphery of your mind the first time that you do, but then the application is submitted. An innocuous grey box that redefines your whole world in a way that [Thanks for applying!] doesn’t seem to encapsulate. 

Your old friends come next. They come back one by one, guilty, furtive looks aplenty. You Facetime the one who wouldn’t let you sleep on her couch while sitting on Simon’s bed. When she asks you about your living situation, all you tell her is that you found a roommate. It doesn’t feel right to give her more information than that. What has she done to deserve your honesty? 

You manage pleasantries and a half decent conversation, but truth again lingers at the back of your mind. The unspoken reality that this person—someone you trusted—could’ve been there for you in your time of need but chose to look the other way instead. Like taking you in would’ve been some big, terrible thing. 

The body forgets everything except what hurts it. The body remembers nothing except what helps it survive. 

Gratefulness lodges into your heart like an arrow shot from a castle’s ramparts intent on your demise. You could pull it out from the other side and succumb to blood loss, or you could push forward, lay siege to the man hidden inside its walls. 

And you do. You want to show him every grateful inch of you. Even when it only results in more upset. Simon comes home to the smoke alarm blaring and a small fire in the microwave before he bans you from the kitchen altogether. You only cry for an hour in the bedroom with the door shut before he drags you out to takeout on the table in the living room. It’s an improvement. 

“I’m sorry,” you sniffle into your veggie burger, on the verge of tears again when you glance into the kitchen to see most of the mess still there. 

“It’s fine.”

“I just want to—I wanted to make it up to you…for taking me in.”

“You don’t owe me shit,” he says brusquely, dismissing you. His tone tells you to drop it, but that seems as likely as you growing wings and flying away. 

“Yes, I do. You let me stay here when I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“If you want to make it up to me, take care of the cat and stop leaving your shit all over the bathroom. Found your knickers on the floor after you showered yesterday.”

Your face goes hot at that. You have nothing else to say. 

Your attraction is a banal consequence of living under the same roof as him. There are only so many times he can come up behind you while you’re making your morning cup of coffee and swipe your mug before taking a sip from over your shoulder, barricading you against the counter. Acutely aware of the size of him with the way he’s pressed up against you. 

You lose your train of thought whenever Simon wanders into a room. He lumbers in like a beast, steel-toed boots covered in mud and dust, ignoring the way you scold him for walking around the apartment in his shoes. Just cocks an eyebrow and stares down at you knowingly, like he can see right through you, knows that you’re only squawking and flitting around to hide the way your thighs rub together. 

“It’s my fuckin’ flat,” he says instead of pointing out that your pussy’s wet because she knows there’s a man in the house that could take care of her proper. You know it too. 

“I live here too, you know,” you huff. “I can’t wash the floors every time you come home.”

“Thought I was doing you a favour letting you live here.”

His words would fill you with righteous indignation, but they don’t because his actions don’t line up. You study him like a moth under glass, enthralled by the parts of him that used to frighten you. 

It’s more than that though. He’s wedged himself into the hurt place in your heart, holding it up like Atlas. 

You really do think that there’s something so special about him that you’ll never be able to articulate. Simon is everything you didn’t know you desperately wanted. The longer you live with him, the harder it is to deny how much you need him. 

You will show your gratitude though. Every tender, aching morsel of it. 

The little peach she grinds on his thigh is wet and ripe. Simon doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t need her gratitude; if he wanted it, he would’ve taken it already. But he doesn’t shove her out of his lap either. It’s not his problem if she thinks it’s necessary or not.

Maybe it’s not solely for his benefit, he concedes when she winds both arms around his neck and pushes her supple tits into his chest, climbing over his lap until her pussy is pressed right up against the cock fattening up in his jeans. She whimpers like she’s in pain. 

Must not come a lot; he knows she at least hasn’t in recent days. Simon’s always been a light sleeper—he’s sure he would’ve heard any desperate attempts to get herself off in his bed, the springs creaking under her weight, her hushed, bitten off moans leaking out from under the doorframe. The thought riles him up more than he thought it would. 

Still, Simon doesn’t lift a hand to help the poor bird in his lap as she grinds down on his length. His arms stay stretched across the back of the couch, hips canted just enough to give her a perch and nothing more. 

She gasps every word into his ear, voice all pitched and breathy. “Ah, ah, ah—thank you, thank you, I…—can I please have it? Please, please let me, Simon, pleasepleaseplease—”

It feels like everything they’ve been through so far has been leading to this. He’d smelt it coming like blood in the water. 

All week, his bird has been sitting on her hands and trying not to give herself away. Cloaked in a nervous, frenetic energy. Anticipatory. She’d doe-eyed him the night before and begged him to sleep in the bed with her instead of wrecking his back on the couch, but he’d ignored her in favour of watching Argentina decimate Croatia in the semi-finals. It must have not sat right with her though because she’d been broody from the moment he left for work until he got home, steering him into the kitchen and practically hand feeding him before coaxing him into the living room to watch a movie while she cuddled up beside him.

That hadn’t lasted long. 

“What’s gotten into you, pet?” Simon asks, hardly dissuading her when she presses petal soft lips to his jaw and nuzzles, breathing heavily. His heart swells. Desperate little slut. 

“Took care of me,” she mumbles, almost slurring her words. “Always taking care of me, Simon.”

There’s no denying how hard it makes him to think about being her protector. The littlest things make her smile. Even the bloody cat had her trailing after him for a week straight after the fact, eternally underfoot. Always trying to curry favour. Eager to please. 

Her worship leaves him unbalanced. Unstable even. A train careening off its track, the massive weight of catastrophe right behind it. The sense that life will never be the same after this. His surface level indifference is underscored by steeled self-control. He keeps his arms on the couch because he knows the second he puts them on her, it’s over. There’ll be no holding him back anymore, no possibility of him ever letting her go back out into the real world. Lock jawed, teeth sunk into her tender underbelly. 

“Told you, you don’t owe me nothing,” Simon murmurs, curling his hands under her ass. 

“Then—then…—I don’t know, pretend it’s just for me.” It’s a joke because they both know it’s not just for her. When her eyes sparkle with amusement, his cock throbs.

He lets her ruck the shirt over his head and struggle with his belt until she manages to unbuckle it like he has no say in the matter. She’s far less considerate with her own clothes, shucking them off and nearly ripping her knickers in the process, which almost prompts him to take her by the wrists and slow her down. He likes the lace and frills. 

It’s a fight to fit his cock into her hole, as slick as she is. Coin slot tight; he almost breaks and tells her to take it easy when she reaches behind her to line his shaft up with her entrance and sits down, just barely stretching around the mushroomed head of his dick before wincing, tears springing into her eyes. 

Simon does break when she tries to sink down another inch, thighs shaking violently. “Right, get off—you ain’t ready for this.”

“I am!” she insists, face screwed up in a scowl and a bead of sweat dripping down her temple. “Just—I can do it, Simon—”

“No, you can’t. You’re rushing and hurting yourself—”

“Wait, okay, wait, I can…just give me a minute, okay?” she begs, and he doesn’t tell her that he’d give her all the time in the world. Stay on this couch until the flesh fell off his bones. He’s waited so long; what’s a little longer? 

Besides, the sight of her stretching herself out with her fingers is reward enough. She whines into his shoulder and shudders when she has to force another finger in before she’s ready. Too eager. It could give a man a complex. His blood is already scorching him from the inside out, too hot for his veins.  

He considers helping her out, but watching her writhe and struggle in his lap is far more enjoyable. 

He stopped paying attention awhile back, too focused on cupping her tits and running his tongue around the budded areola, sucking her pert nipple into his mouth, but she couldn’t have gotten to more than three fingers before running out of patience and lining him up again. This time, she sinks a bit deeper on the first stroke, still choking on her breath but forcing herself to take a bit more. 

“You’re alright—you’re alright,” Simon murmurs, stroking a hand up and down her back while she impales herself on his length. She’s still too tight to take him comfortably, sweats and shakes over him. He pinches her nipple to distract her from the pain and smiles when she yelps. 

She melts all over him, slick drenching his shaft and lap, her tongue lapping at the sweaty skin of his neck. Honeysuckle fragrant; the sweetest thing he’s ever known. Silken, tight. Fits like a glove around him. 

He could lose himself in her. Piston into her until the thought of where he begins and where he ends dissolves into the tight warmth between her legs.

His bird is a greedy girl. She uses him like a toy to get herself off, bouncing in his lap and mewling into his ear everytime his cockhead nudges against her cervix. Too big to fit all the way in. 

“You do this a lot, pet? Fuck every man that lends you a hand?” he pants, taunting her.

“No!” she snarls in his ear, feisty and sharp-toothed. Her nails dig into his back, scoring white lines into his skin. The shiver that wracks him is so violent that his arms tighten around her waist reflexively, making her gasp. 

It doesn’t matter whether she does this often or not; the only thing that matters is that he’s the only man that gets to fuck her from here on out. Still, winding her up is half the fun. 

“Perfect girl,” Simon chuckles, breathless. “Made for me. Got m’self a pet right off the street.”

And he did, didn’t he? Went wandering out into the night and came home with a bird fluttering her wet little wings. 

His conscience is clean. He could’ve tied her down, kept her right where he wanted her (in his bed, his flat, the yawning cavity of his chest—) but his self-control remains unparalleled. Tough as nails. Strong as steel. And now look at what he has as a reward for his patience—a fever-hot cunt around his cock and delicate fingernails scratching the base of his skull. 

A pretty bird that’s made his chest a cage. 

The world goes vertical, horizontal. Fluid; sliding away from him. Something crashes in the background, so far off in the distance that he can hardly make out the sound. 

He opens his eyes to find the ceiling staring back down at him, and then her face, hovering over him on the carpeted floor, her hands kneading the muscle of his chest. Her brows are drawn tight now, pinched. She stares down at him, past him, gaze like a transparent veil. 

“Gi’me…gi’me…” she pants, barely able to pull herself off his cock. 

He has to dig his fingers into her ass and pull her off, ignoring the way she whines and begs him to fill her back up. Ignores it because he knows what’s best for her; knows how to take care of what he owns. 

When he bucks up into her, she chokes, fingers nearly yanking his chest hair out. 

“Fuckin’ hell, that’s pretty,” he breathes. Snaps his hips up into hers again, relishing in the way she squeezes tight around him, almost to the point of pain. 

His pleasure always comes jagged though. Whether the ache of his joints or nails tearing up the skin of his back and chest. Vicious and messy—how he likes it. She gives him everything he could want and more. The hand dug into his chest right above his heart could pierce right through the flesh and tear it out.

He pulls her all the way off his cock just for the pleasure of hearing her beg him again, then pulls her up his chest and eats her out until the beast in his belly calms down. 

He yields to her whining only after a good few minutes. Soft bastard. Drags her back down until her soaked hole mouths at the head of his cock and he thrusts back up inside. Home. It’s his now, whether she likes it or not. Simon guesses he’s lucky that she wants it too; if he had to convince her, he would, but her desperation is just another gift for him to savour. 

“Squeeze me good, bird. Say thank you—” thank you for taking me home, thank you for keeping me– almost spills off his tongue, but he reigns it in. She knows what to be thankful for. 

“Nngh, Simon,” she sings, fucking herself on his cock. The sweetest sound he’s ever heard. 

Simon’s never felt bigger than under his sweet bird. Thighs spread so wide around him that he knows she’ll ache in the morning. Brutish hands groping her thighs and waist and tits, rough against the softness of her skin. Stuffed full of a big cock, not even to the root; she bites right through her bottom lip when Simon pets at the thin skin stretched around his cock, her gaze wounded, overwhelmed. 

Nearly blacks out at the thought of cramming a finger up there too. Only faint concern for her well-being tamps down the urge. 

“Come on, fuck—that good, pet?”

“R-right there, oh god, ohgodohgod—”

He lets her ride him until she comes, until he comes, until his spend is blistering hot in her cunt, drooling down the length of his cock, frothy white with her cream and his come. 

It’s a sight to look at. Gets him right in the chest. Nothing like times of yore; this is something with meaning, with feeling. When he lifts her off, his seed trickles out of her soft hole in white globs and makes his chest ache. It doesn’t matter whether it takes root or not. All that he needs is already here. 

Beautiful and rare as a sundog; haloed by light. All this time, he dared not think this could be it. 

He thinks he’ll love her with the same ferocity Icarus had on his descent.

She shivers when he traces his fingers up her spine. “N’more. M’tired.”

“Wasn’t gonna, pet.”

The bedroom then. She twitches in his arms when Simon carries her to bed and pats his chest approvingly when he slides in beside her. 

He could’ve told her that it’d end up this way. He smiles indulgently when she shifts and splays over his chest, her nose nudging his nipple. Already fast asleep. 

In the morning, you sit across from him, half a grapefruit in a bowl in front of you and a mug of coffee, black. 

“I think I want to go back to school,” you say, apropos of nothing. The spoon clinks against the inside of the bowl. 

“Yeah?” he says, only half-listening. 

“I can always get a part time job on the days when I don’t have class. I never liked my old job anyway.”

“Do whatever you want,” Simon grunts. “Not my problem.”

Under the table, your cat’s tail curls around your ankle while he waits for you to sneak him the scraps. 

You smile.

[foone]

AAA games? Pfft. Indie games? Double pfft.

I only play games from the alternate history where Hillary Clinton was elected in 2008 and banned all video games. You can only imagine how weird their underground gaming scene is. People like to call unlicensed games "bootlegs" but they've got actual bootlegged games! I've played games about helping your grandmother in hospice care realize she's a lesbian by reading Sappho to her, at 2am in a speakeasy in Baltimore. The cops raided it the next night, hundreds of Gamers were arrested. They posted pictures all over Friendster of the Baltimore PD destroying the arcades with axes.

I nearly got busted once because I was imaging old disks from a 386 and someone tipped off the gaming cops that there was a copy of Commander Keen in there. I had to prove that I didn't know it, I was imaging the disks blind and then indexing them later, and I would of course turn over any contraband to the proper authorities.

I was already on a watch list because I'd been known to have some gamedev-related activities pre-ban. They can't arrest me for making games back in 2007 when it was still legal, but they do want to keep an eye on me since I have the skills to break the law.

Anyway that universe's bootlegs are mainly PC games. Can't really have console games if there hasn't been a console release since the Wii/PS3/360 era. At one point Nintendo threatened to release the Wii SDK so game devs in the US could make unlicensed games, but that didn't happen as there were quickly no functional Wiis left in the US, except for very rare holdouts that never move. PC games are easy to distribute samizdat and hide on a USB stick or CD-R labeled "nickelback".

Japan's games industry is still going, so the later Nintendo and Sony consoles still exist, but Microsoft got out of the business of course. They sold the franchise to Sega who were hoping to release the 360 successor (the Xbox One in our universe) as the Sega Phoenix but it never materialized, either through their own financial incompetence or because of pressure from the US. There's a lot of international treaties that the US has pushed "and this aid only goes through if you ban games" clauses into. That would have been an official UN resolution if the USSR hadn't vetoed it. For once, thank God for the security council, eh?

I mainly get my gaming news through Japanese gaming sites (through a set of VPNs, since they're blocked at the border firewall), and some tor onion site run by a weird guy in Minnesota who is obsessed with documenting all the underground US games.

There's a lot being worked on, but it's always a tricky trade off. Too much attention and the police might be able to track down the creators, and it's basically impossible to fund underground games, as the VISA/PayPal etc funds get seized immediately. There's a whole task force for that.

Anyway one of the weirdest differences between our two time lines is that they've gone back and edited out gaming from a bunch of movies. Those that they can, of course. War games was just banned because they couldn't remove the tic tac toe ending. The Net just removed the scene at the beginning where she's playing Wolfenstein 3D, by recording some new screen footage and a new voice over. She's fixing a spreadsheet in the new edition.

(Yes, I've seen The Net from this alternate timeline. On Laserdisc, of course. I'm just that kind of person!)

They even edited Star Wars. You know that scene where R2-D2 is playing holochess with Chewie? They edited it to be a board game instead of holograms, because that made it too "video gamey".

Technically it's not illegal to show gaming in a movie, but it needs to be an 18+ film and you have to show the deleterious effects of gaming and/or the gamesters coming to a bad end.

This has affected films less than you'd think, to be honest. They were never great about showing video games even before they banned them.

Anyway, go have fun playing your AAA games with hundred-million-dollar budgets. I only play indie games made by people under a constant threat of arrest for their art.

[onmyyan]

Ain't no sunshine

A/N: neglected reader x yandere batfam part one if y'all like this I'll continue it feedback always welcome 🤗 part 2

Your mother always spoke so fondly of your father, this certain warmth fell over her whenever you asked about him, as if he was the great love of her life, but even at your young age, you could also sense the heavy air of sadness around her whenever you brought him up.

As a child, your curiosity about the man seemed to be never-ending, it didn't help that your mom talked about him, about how you'd meet him someday. She inadvertently set you up, instilling you with this unfortunate expectation of him being just as excited to meet you as you were him.

Having the city's most famous bachelor as a father felt like some weird dirty secret. Seeing him on TV with his adopted kids- how happy they looked filled you with such a profound sense of longing, a feeling you were far too young to understand. TV was the only reason you could even put a face to a name, he was constantly in the news. Your childlike curiosity and fondness for the man soured with each view of him wrapped around some model or cutting some stupid ribbon where the crowd around him applauds every time he so much as shifts.

Your mother never badmouthed him despite the way he so clearly abandoned her, she had this fantasy where he'd come walking in the door declaring his undying love, over the years you learned to simply smile and nod, you knew it was a delusion.

She never allowed herself to move on, it was something you'd forever hold against the man. He'd ruined your mom in a way she was incapable of recovering from and that alone had Bruce on your bad side long before the unfortunate day you were dropped in his life.

The woman loved and raised you as best she could but a single mother forced to support herself through her pregnancy, could only do so much. In truth, you'd been forced to grow up long before you were dumped at Wayne's doorstep. Your sweet mother had been caught in the criminal underbelly of Gotham, something that seemed to happen to many good people in this town, she turned to unsavory means to provide for you and it caught up with her quickly.

She worked double shifts so most days you had to walk home alone, thankfully the local scumbags of your neighborhood had a soft spot for the woman and in turn, you. Despite how dangerous and crime-riddled your neighborhood was, you never felt afraid walking home, not until the day the firetrucks went screaming past you, something about them had your stomach sinking, your little feet pumping faster towards your home, you smelled the smoke before you saw it, and you'll never forget the sight, how dark it made the already grey Gotham skies, how horribly loud the sirens were, the way your neighbor picked you up, shielding your eyes as he pushes you into his chest. You can still remember the heat from the flames as they consumed your small home. You stood unmoving, unblinking as the roaring fire destroyed everything you'd ever known.

To make matters worse, Jim Gordon, the chief of police happened to be the cop on call, and because of that he inevitably noticed something in your eyes, something in your face so strikingly familiar, that despite this being your first meeting, he could feel in his gut he knew you. It bothers him so much that he follows his hunch and does a blood test the second they get you to the station, his theory is confirmed when your DNA comes back matching the Playboy of Gotham City

Jim tries to comfort you but he knows you'll never be the same after losing your mother. He takes you straight to Bruce's door hoping your Father could help soothe the unimaginable hurt you were going through.

Bruce had no idea how to deal with you. In his defense, you happened to come into his life broken, needing guidance and parental love, at the worst possible time, the same day you're plopped at his feet is the same there's a massive breakout at Arkham, the casualties are already in the fifties, not to mention how high that number would jump the longer he left his more worrisome foes out.

In this mess of emotional turmoil, the last thing Bruce needed was a kid plopped in his lap, but it's what he gets. He was seconds from suiting up when Jim dropped you off.

With some half-assed excuse, you don't even really register, Bruce ushers you inside by the wrist only to drop you off with Alfred, he bolts to the batmobile in an effort to not waste any more of his time, knowing he could be saving lives.

He swore to himself once he fixed this problem, he'd give you his full attention, after all, he knew exactly what you were feeling right now, all the confusion and guilt, the anger and despair, he knew he was the one to comfort you, who'd be able to give you the support you needed.

The thing is, problems in Gotham are never truly quite fixed, are they?

Alfred doesn't know anything about your situation other than that you were Bruce's daughter, he can tell you're traumatized by the glossy look in your big eyes, how you limply held his hand as he showed you to the kitchen, he treats you kindly, speaking softly and getting you settled in your too big room in your too big bed, it felt so bare, so empty, it made that hollow feeling in your chest deeper.

This is the first of many nights you cry yourself to sleep.

The next day Bruce officially introduces himself, sitting across from you at a large table, the distance feeling three miles long. You numbly eat, taking small bites, not truly hungry, but you didn't want to hurt the nice Butler's feelings after hearing he made every elegant dish before you. You're still quiet and don't look happy to be here but you respond when Bruce asks you questions, wanting to be cooperative, because, despite the hellish situation, you need a parent right now.

He can only offer you this brief moment of connection before he's called away, Batman's job was never truly over after all. He gives you a stiff pat on your shoulder before leaving, it's the most he's touched you since you've come here.

At that moment, swallowing how uncomfortable you were in your new situation, you stop him with a gentle tug to his arm, eyes teary and wet, your young mind needed the comfort of a trusted adult, needed someone to look at you with a warm smile and tell you it was all going to be okay, but you can't ask for it... The words dry and shrivel on your tongue, so instead you simply stare at him, eyes full of a mix of emotions, silently pleading for him to stay, to hold you, anything, other than walk away.

But he doesn't, what he does is give you that perfect T.V. smile, the one you grew up seeing him give at charity galas and somehow it felt warmer through the screen, he removes your hand gently, "I'm sorry (Y/n), I really have to go, if you need anything at all Alfred can help you out okay? I'll be home soon." The smile he sends you doesn't reach his eyes as he rushes to exit, this is the first time your father breaks your heart.

The second time he breaks it is when he introduces you to some of the rest of his family. Dick Grayson needed no introduction as his adoption into the Wayne family had been heavily televised, his face was the one you were most familiar with, despite this, it was still odd to meet someone you'd grown up watching on your old little television with envy in your (e/c) eyes, the feeling of otherness was only amplified as you walked into the manor's dining room on what looked like a sweet familial lunch, the dark-haired man opens his mouth to greet you but is cut off by Bruce's stern voice, "(Y/n),

The third time Bruce breaks your heart is when Damian arrives, he shows up a good year after you, by now your were closest to Alfred, you'd made a habit of texting Dick and Barbara updates on Bruce and the homes state, considering they didn't live at the manner like Tim, and only ever rarely received texts back from Barbara.

The moment you meet your younger brother you can sense the difference between the two of you instantly. He looks like Bruce, standing tall despite being shorter than you, he turned his nose up at you as Bruce introduces him. Dick is there too, which makes things worse because of the visible effort he's putting into Damian.

You do your best to try to befriend him at first, offering to show him around the large manner to which he scoffs. Like you've offended him with your question.

"As if I need a nobody like you to show me around my home." He never hid his feelings of disdain, often and frequently letting you know just how inferior to him he thought you were, granted at this point Damian thinks this about most people, but it still felt like a knife twisted in your gut each time he ruthlessly rejects you.

It doesn't help that Bruce seems so eager to spend time with him, how they're always together when you had to fight him to spare you five minutes, they bonded so fast, it made your insecurities bubble over each time they scurry off together in a rush, you once grew brave enough to ask them if you can join but the second the request leaves your lips, Bruce is shutting it down.

"I'm sorry, I have business at the office I need Damian for, next time." Bruce says as they leave, his smile just as empty as his promise, the smug look Damian gives you feels like gravel and dirt being smeared into your carved open flesh.

You try to talk to Dick whenever he comes around, one afternoon, the rain is so heavy in Gotham you decide to stay home, a small voice inside you cruelly reminds you it was also a cheap ploy for some kind of attention from Bruce, by the afternoon you figure the school has alerted him of your absence, deciding to face whatever consequences awaited you, you go downstairs, subconsciously keeping your footfall light, a nervous habit you picked up after Damian said you shook the whole house when you walked.

You overhear him talking with Dick in the kitchen when you tiptoe down the stairs, you were quiet, so quiet they don't hear you, "How's the case going?" There was always this audible warmth in Bruce's tone whenever he spoke to Dick, "Fine, I got a lead I'm pretty confident with, gonna-" He stops talking as you step on a creaky floorboard. "My department is pretty confident that is." You round the steps with a small smile, but only Dick returns it.

"Hello, how've you been?" you'd ask earnestly, "Good thanks!" he'd say, but that would be it, the friendly man was never mean to you per se, he just had this terrible habit of forgetting you. You kept to yourself a lot, seeing you so rarely it felt hard not to forget when he had so much going on, not only in Bludhaven but Bruce had been calling him to Gotham more and more to help deal with Damian, he had his hands full, not to mention the sudden rise of crime in Gotham.

Barbara likes you, she really does, but being Oracle took up every moment of her free time, she was a focused woman and people in this town always needed her help. She had a room in the manner dedicated to her vigilante work, the villains were getting bolder and more frequent in their attacks and Bruce needed her help constantly. And it wasn't just him calling on her skills, everyone was constantly asking her for things because they knew she could get them, that's just how she was, everyone but you.

Whenever she was in the manner working, you were always the one to tell her dinner was done or remind her to drink water, and bring her coffee when she hadn't left her office all day, you were reaching out in a way that didn't overwhelm her, like you could see she was stressed, but she was like a horse with blinders on.

Tim meets you while he's still neck deep in his search for revenge against captain boomerang, which unfortunately means he's short-tempered and stuck in a permanent work mode, he's cross with his close family, so it's no surprise he's even quicker to anger with you, you're intentions are as pure as can be, you see him awake late into the night, his bedroom door open, and say genuinely, "It's so late Tim, maybe you should try to get some sleep-"

"Maybe you shouldn't stick your nose where it doesn't belong?" He snaps back without so much as looking away from his screen, he was already on edge, defensive as Bruce had been nagging him all day not to overwork himself, he says this with pure venom, so much irritation and malice it makes your bottom lip wobble, he doesn't see the way you flinch at his anger, the way you sink into yourself.

It seemed like each time you tried to reach out to them, to bridge the obvious gap between you, it just made things worse. His comment hit you like a bus, only furthering the nasty idea that had been gnawing at you since you'd arrived, you didn't belong here.

You didn't belong with them.

When you meet Jason, it's about a year and a half into your stay, you were in the same uncomfy position in terms of your closeness with the Family, or rather lack thereof, and the day you meet, things are bright for the first time since you've moved in. You're in the kitchen making yourself lunch when he stealthily climbs in through the window, this scares the shit out of you, having never met him before, you brandish your peanut butter-covered butter knife towards him, "Woah! Easy there, I used to live here I swear." Jason says clearly amused by your fierce stance, he smiles at you with a warmth you'd grown unfamiliar with, "Shit- sorry I thought you were a burglar or something." You say laughing off your nervousness, dropping the knife in the sink as he leans against the counter.

"And if I was..you planned on buttering me to death?" He teases, you feel yourself snort before you can stop it, "Maybe, consider yourself lucky we never have to find out." This makes Jason chuckle under his breath, it still felt extremely weird for him to be back here, just recently becoming cordial with Bruce, but he enjoyed your company. nonetheless.

"You're (Y/n) right? Bruce's newest kid?" He notices the way your smile falls, how you turn to finish making your lunch, the mere mention of his name seems to deflate your once bright aura. "That's me." You seem to say this with a heaviness that doesn't belong on someone so young, "Who are you?" He scoffs lightly at your question, before leaning over, swiping half of your sandwich with a playful grin, "Wow, they didn't tell you about me? Figures, whatever, I'm Jason." He shakes your hand, and for the first time in years you feel good like you weren't on the edge of fucking something up, but then Jason's watch beeps and he leaves. He gently ruffles your hair, "Good to meet you kid, see you around yeah?"

Jason was like the sunshine breaking through the clouds of your new life, but eventually, his own life gets busier and busier, his monthly visits turn into a short call every once, and not long after, even that stops, he's busy ripping Gotham criminals to pieces, consumed by his rage. He just assumes you're fine, that everything is okay, after all, you never complained about it.

You know something is going on with them, their hushed conversations and seemingly never-ending parade of bruises and mysterious cuts start to add up, the way they disappeared at night, but it's only on your fifteenth birthday that you finally figure out what they'd been hiding. Bruce and Damian suddenly rushed away from your birthday dinner, you turn on the news as Alfred boxes up the mostly untouched food, watching you blow out your candles with a sad smile., Bruce and Damian's portions go cold and untouched.

Batman and Robin arrive on the scene just a few minutes after your father and your younger brother dash away. it's only then do you really notice how similar the dynamic duo looks to your two family members.

This is the final straw, when you realize what they've been hiding under your nose this whole time is.. infuriating to say the least, all of a sudden the isolation and otherness makes sense, of course they excluded you, you weren't a member of their little club. This night is the last you spend yearning for them, the bitter, festering anger that had been building over the years only intensifies as you stew in your rage.