#maybe one day... with my other wips out of the way...

[matt-murdockk]

request for spenceeeee (literally my boyfriend)

bau!reader and spencer are dating now, and they're just like talking about how they met and stuff casually and he's like you know i sorta tried to ask you out when we met? she's like what? you're telling me we could've started dating years ago??? he's like hey it's no big deal, ig you just weren't really into me back then and she's like not into you??? my brother in christ i stuttered and rambled for 3 entire minutes when we met what made you think i didn't like you

a whole lot of fluff badically thanks x

helloooo <3333 thank you so much for the request!!!! i had a WIP with sort of a similar theme as the ask so decided to combine them, i really hope you like it xo

Um, actually

pairing: spencer reid x fem!bau!reader words: 2.0k summary: A flashback to when you first met spencer helps you realize just how oblivious you were. But so was he, so it's all good. warnings: fluffffffff, possibly incorrect etymology facts, Spencer being a horrible cook for funsies, minor Brooklyn 99 reference (if you caught it i love you so much), glasses spencer !!!!! (not really all that relevant to the plot but i am a sucker for glasses!spence <3), established relationship

"Beeves? Really? Come on, that cannot be a real word."

Dinner conversations were always lively with Spencer. More often than not, it involved facts about the recipe, the origins, the historical significance, different interpretations of the same dish in other cultures, and whatnot. Today, it was etymology.

"It is!" he exclaimed, pointing towards you with his fork, way too excited about beef etymology in the most endearing way possible.

"You see, in the context of 'meat from cows', the plural of beef would just be beef. If we're talking about fights, disagreements, that kind of beef? It would be beefs. But beef also refers to an adult cow, steer or bull. So in this case, the plural would be—"

"Beeves?"

"Bingo."

"Huh, the more you know. You got more weird plurals?"

"Well,"

"Of course you do."

"There's moose, whose plural is actually—"

"Meese, obviously."

"Oh, no."

Eventually, dinner was done, dishes were put away, and you were now cuddled on the couch, his arm around your shoulder, absentmindedly rubbing circles on your bicep over the sleeve of your sweater.

It was quiet. Silent. But not the kind of silence that came with warnings and omens. It wasn't the kind of silence filled with premonition that you had so gotten used to with your job. It wasn't uncomfortable, and it wasn't foreboding. It was the kind of stillness that settled like morning fog over a quiet lake. Gentle, unmoving, and content to simply exist. The air bore a sort of warmth and hope that neither of you had been familiar with in years. Ever, if you're being honest. Beautiful thing, domesticity. Naturally, you were reminiscing.

"Spence?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Remember how we met?"

He tilted his head thoughtfully, lips pressing together as though deep in concentration. “Hmm… you know, I have an eidetic memory, but I can’t say I do—”

You smacked him with the throw pillow. He laughed, pulling you a little closer. “Of course I do. It's one of my favourite memories of us," he admitted, kissing your forehead. He smiled into your hair. “Crazy how much has changed, huh?”

You nodded, eyes still on the soft knit of his sweater sleeve. “Yeah. Feels like a lifetime ago.”

“You know,” he said, suddenly bashful, “I tried to ask you out that day.”

Wait, what? Your head snapped toward him. “You did not.”

"Oh yeah. Crashed and burned splendidly."

"Spencer, honey, I feel like I would remember that."

“Um, actually,” he said, adjusting his glasses with mock seriousness, “that’s literally the first thing I did.”

You stared at him, slack-jawed. “Wh— what do you mean? We… we could have started dating ages ago?”

He chuckled lightly, shrugging one shoulder. “I mean, maybe? I thought I was pretty obvious about it. But you didn’t seem interested, so I figured—”

“No, no,” you interrupted, practically sitting up. “Believe me, I was interested, alright? Spencer, I stuttered and— and rambled for like three entire minutes when I met you. I forgot to tell you my name. I—I asked you if you wanted the extra ticket to—"

His eyes widened as he realized where this was going. “Wait, wait. That was supposed to be flirting?”

"Yeah!?" you exclaimed, so exasperated it almost sounded like a question. "Honey, what else did you think it was?"

"I thought you were being polite! And I— I definitely flirted back," he promised, clearly going through that memory inside his head as he spoke.

"Sweetie, when?"

"You know, when I said there was someone I'd like to go with?" He stressed on the word someone far too much, waiting, hoping you would catch his drift. You finally did, after 10 really long seconds.

"Me? You meant you'd want to go with me?" you asked, still incredulous at what he had implied.

"Uh-huh!? Honey, who else—"

"Spencer, Oh my god, I thought you were telling me you had a girlfriend."

"...Oh."

You both sat there for a moment, letting that truth settle between you like dust in late-afternoon light. You couldn’t help but laugh softly, shaking your head. “Wow. Can’t believe we missed out on years.”

“I know,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, eyes trained on the space between you, like he was watching the shape of time itself. “We're idiots, aren't we?”

"Possibly, but at least we're idiots together now," you responded, leaning further into him, leaving no more space between you, if that was even possible with how close you were sitting in the first place.

"Agreed. If anything, I think our love makes me a better person. Remember when I boiled that egg last week?"

"That was really big. I'm proud of you," you affirmed, your voice sincere.

"Crazy how much hasn't changed, though."

"What do you mean?" you asked, head tilting to look at him. His eyes were already on you, fond, like he was enamoured with you. Like he was going to tell you he loved you, and even after you had already heard it a hundred times by then, it still made you nervous.

"You still don't double-check the mail, even after I specifically—"

Another throw pillow found him, this time directly across his face, muffling the rest of his declaration. He laughed in response to that yet again, smug bastard that he is. You feigned offence at that and attempted to push him off of you, and sat a couple of feet away from him, hands crossed across your chest, face neutral.

But he knew what you were expecting to hear. He also knew that he didn't have to say it loud for you to know. It went without saying how much you loved each other. With every word you ever exchanged, every sentence ever spoken, the unspoken part? The subtext? It was always there. I love you.

He sensed that he had to make it up to you now. He also knew that you weren't really mad, probably loving the banter just as much as he was. Still, he always enjoyed making it up to you way more than he'd ever care to admit, so if it meant he had to come up with an elaborate ruse to rile you up first and then pretend to ask for your forgiveness, then so be it. His arms were around you in record time.

Bonus— a flashback: how our idiots actually met

You were grasping the tickets tight. There had been an oversight. On your part, mostly (entirely, if we're being honest), but you had to fix it as soon as you can, nonetheless. The tickets in your hand did not belong to you. And the longer you were holding them, the more it started to feel like they were burning a hole in your hand. You had to give it to the whoever was expecting it, apologize, and get out of their face before you started sensing their judgement. The tickets belonged to one Spencer Reid. Who the hell was Spencer Reid?

A small part of you wanted to get to know him immediately. You don’t find a lot of federal agents who take Halloween seriously, let alone someone willing to spend Halloween weekend at Phantasmagoria. Someone with that good of a taste? Sign me up, you thought.

Your eyes scanned the bullpen of the BAU, searching for any face that might look like it belonged to a “Spencer Reid.�� You didn’t know what he looked like. But there was a tall, lanky guy— glasses, brown hair, cardigan layered over a dress shirt, tie slightly askew, gun holster hanging off his waist like it had no business being there. (Is that even allowed?) He was holding a cup of coffee and making his way toward a desk.

Unfortunately, the first thought your caveman brain was able to come up with was— cute. Nope. You were on a mission. You had to focus. Focus, damn it. You figured, if this nice, fine (really fine) and distinguished gentleman, whoever he was, wasn't Spencer Reid, at the very least, he looked approachable and helpful enough to point you in the right direction. Personally, you didn't want haphazard gun holster guy to be Spencer Reid. Hell of a first impression you'd be making, if that were the case.

“Hi! Sorry— um, where can I find Spencer Reid?”

He paused, blinking. “Hmm? That would be me.”

Well, shit.

“Oh? That—It, uh. You?” Brilliant. Very eloquent today, evidently.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, a little amused.

You nodded like that would help shake your embarrassment off. Be normal, you thought. You're a normal person. Words are easy. Speak. Say things.

“Right. Cool. Hi. I’m Sex Crimes. I mean— I work Sex Crimes. The division. Of the FBI. I don’t— I don’t go around committing sex crimes around town. You already knew that. Obviously. Why am I explaining this?” Oh, sweet Jesus.

He was staring politely now, wide-eyed and politely stunned.

“Anyway!” you barreled on, desperate to claw back whatever dignity you had left, if any. “Lester, the mail guy, yeah, he came in today with this orange envelope? With the pumpkins on it? I assumed they were my Phantasmagoria tickets, so I just took them. To be fair, he tried to, um, stop me, but I was sort of way too excited to listen, and it wasn’t until I got back that I remembered I’d asked for mine to be delivered to my house, not here. So then I looked at the envelope— which, yeah, is what I probably should’ve done in the first place—and surprise surprise, they didn’t have my name on them. They had yours.”

You shoved the envelope into his hands like it might bite you if you held onto it any longer. “So yeah. Sorry. These are yours, is what I am trying to say with way too many words than necessary. I took them by accident. Please take them away from me. Thank you.”

You were looking down at the ground, waiting for it to open up and swallow you whole. The seconds of silence that followed your very passionate ramble were not helping. Any time now, ground. His voice snapped you right back into reality.

“Firstly,” he said, smiling, “thank you. Seriously. And secondly, you don’t get a lot of FBI crowd at Phantasmagoria.”

He glanced down at the envelope. “You said tickets? Plural?”

You nodded. “Yeah. I booked them in August, thinking I’d go with my boyfriend. And, well, come October… I am yet to find him. August me was a little too optimistic.” Exactly why you trauma dumped about your love life to this stranger, you may never know. But he didn't seem to mind all too much, so yeah, what do you know?

He smiled again, warmer this time. It made your stomach flip in a way you did not have time to examine. NO. Nuh-uh. You promised yourself no workplace crushes, and you meant it. Did you mean it? In retrospect, maybe you weren't all that serious. You could make an exception, right? For him? Oh, absolutely. Well, that was a quick change of heart.

“But now that you mention it,” you continued, “there’s an extra ticket. I don’t really need it. So, if you know anyone who might want to go with you…” Smooth. Real subtle. Oh, yeah. Asking him if he's single? You were so smart, you should've been an FBI agent or something. You should've gotten a raise.

“Well, actually…” he started, almost sheepish. “There is someone I’d love to go with. But I have a feeling she already has a ticket.”

Of course, Halloween Jesus wasn't single, you thought. He was too good to be true, right? Your sweet, foolishly sweet brain, interpreted his advance as— Oh, he's taken. Well, couldn't blame a girl for trying (you would later be upset about this for a while).

“Oh. Right. Okay. Well, if there’s anyone else who might need a ticket, I’m two floors down.” You offered a tight smile and turned to leave before you could make it worse. His face contorted in confusion, a hint of disappointment flickered across too, before he quickly recovered.

“Hey— Sex Crimes?”

You turned.

“You got a name?”

a/n: this is all so how i met your mother to me hence the song, in this house we stan idiot4idiot romance, we ♥️ imbeciles, hope you liked it lol<3333

[quintessenceofdust88]

Wip Wednesday

I was tagged by the incredible @bidisasterevankinard @laundryandtaxesworld and @owlgirl495 (thank you darlings! ♥) and my brain has been a big tease lately, telling me 'Ohhh you have four wips you wanna work on? Too bad, here's a new one instead.'. So this is the start of a new story that, for now, I have named Sunny days, and it's after season 2. It's an alternate first meeting but I haven't gotten to the meeting part yet lol. I hope you guys like it ♥ (thank you @unhingedangstaddict and @agentpeggycartering for listening to me yap about this idea and help me make it take shape!!) DISCLAIMER: I'm taking medical and legal liberties with this. I've done some research, but I am sure there'll be inaccuracies regarding limb loss and the process for getting a service dog in LA.

For the first few weeks after losing his leg to a crushing accident with a fire truck, Buck's days are stormy and gray. Maybe not on the outside—though he couldn’t really say, since he spends most of his time indoors. First at the hospital after the amputation surgery, then at the rehab center, and finally, after eight long weeks, at the new ground floor apartment Maddie picked out for him, because the loft he'd just rented was no longer an option and he didn't want to go back to anyone's couch.

But inside? It's pouring. Constantly. It rains when phantom pain sears through him at night. It drizzles when he breaks up with Ali, because he knows she won't do it now, even though it's very clear that she wants to, that his is a lot more than what she signed up for.

It positively thunders when he sees the guilt in Bobby's eyes the first time he looks at Buck's stump, the way his captain's voice thickens when he promises Buck's place at the station will be waiting for him even though neither of them knows if he'll ever be able to take it back for now. It howls when Buck lies awake at the rehab center, and then at this alien home that's supposed to be his now, staring at the ceiling, wondering if his life will ever go back to normal. If he’s lost more than just a leg.

It’s a storm in his soul, and he doesn’t know how to send it away.

Until the day his personal sunshine arrives, wagging her tail and blinking up at him with the sweetest golden eyes he’s ever seen. Her name is Sunny, and Buck thinks she might just help him to find joy in life again.

She was a suggestion from Buck's physician when he noticed Buck wasn't really keen on the idea of living with his sister, or anyone else, really. Not when he had just taken the first steps towards having his own place.

"Well, if you're planning to live on your own, you'll need at least some help. Have you considered the idea of a service dog?"

And Buck had jumped into the idea right away. Bobby, who had seen him smile for the first time since the surgery when he was looking at the pictures of dogs in the organization website, had jumped even faster, and he was the one to drive Buck there to choose the best candidate.

Sunny had been right there, a yellow bow clipped to her ear, her golden hair well brushed under a neon 'IN TRAINING' vest, and she had looked at Buck as if she'd been waiting for him all her life. The other dogs were very cute, but to him, there was no question. Sunny was meant to be his.

Np tagging @unhingedangstaddict @agentpeggycartering @dark-alice-lilith @aesthetictarlos @trombonechurchill and whoever else would like to play ♥

[falafels]

Partaking in WIP Wednesday!!

I don’t actually know what that means but anyway here are all of my aftg fic ideas that I either have in progress (material document) or in the incubation stage (intangible string of concepts that sometimes flashbang me in the mind while i’m out)

-Seeing Double: Nicky POV with some snippets or stories from when he became the twins’ guardian. this one i have actually posted a chapter of over on ao3 and chapter 2 still in progress but aaron threatens to kill himself to a customer on his first day ever having a job and andrew punches a hole in a load bearing wall so he can use it as a climbing foothold to reach the rum and chocolate nicky keeps on top of the cupboard

-Leave tonight or live and die this way: Mary Hatford story!! so named for tracy chapman fast car because i love tracy chapman fast car. follows mary from about 6 months after she and nathan got married, lore on inner circle, lola malcolm bashing, nathan wesninski playing jump rope with the line between diva and deranged (hints of Lestat if im being quite honest), mary believing herself to be the sole brain cell possessor while in fact having 30% custody of it at best, and french bashing.

-kevin post psu fic where he moves to boston for his pro team and doesn’t know anyone, gets hammered at the first bar he finds and it turns out to be a college bar near harvard and there’s a trivia night going on. even face down on the bar kevin still grumbles corrections and someone there is highly amused by this so insists he join their team. and they like him so he’s invited to their library study session that week too. and kevin likes them so he goes along to it and realises they’re all harvard nerds and don’t have a clue who he is. and he makes actual friends based on something other than exy, but they all think he’s also a student and he doesn’t correct them. eventually they’re at a bar for a trivia night kevin couldn’t make and see a tv on and an interview of some sports thing and one of them squints and is like holdup. is that KEVIN?? scared of mice, sends emails to authors about typos in their books, probably needs glasses, drinks milk by itself KEVIN? anyway yeah don’t know what to call that one or do with it but i will get to it

-another kevin post psu idea, this time by a few years. again it’s just me inventing friends for kevin. so this one is he gets traded across pro teams (as happens) and it wasn’t that he particularly likes where he was before or who he was with, but he knew the city and he knew the deal, even if his teammates didn’t really like him. anyway, he gets traded across the country and swapped with another player, maybe a USC graduate or at least someone who would have fit in there. and that person reaches out to him to see how he’s settling in or adjusting or any of that, which is very nice but kevin would usually give the fine thanks 👍 or ignore, but he’s drunk and alone enough that he responds and calls them back. and they end up on the phone for hours. that seems to be the last of it and kevin is like ok one (1) person knows i am Cringe and i Feel but we’ll never speak again it’s fine it’s fine until the person checks in again the next week and kevin finds that it’s actually quite nice to have someone know you a little bit and genuinely care how you are, and they talk more about the transfer and kevin tries to impart wisdom about the city he was in (bookstores here and here, gyms here and here but don’t go to that one it’s shit, they sell good smoothies on fifth but don’t walk back down west ave. or you end up in a sea of high schoolers ditching and they are so so mean). and maybe eventually there’s some kind of pro exy event they’re both at and they get to hang out? epilogue where they’re traded to the same team? idk this is again just indulgent that i want kevin to have a friend

-Renee fic! untitled but it’ll probably be an ethel cain lyric when i find one suitable. one of the people incarcerated following the trial against the gang she grew up in is released on parole, disappears, and suddenly three little girls turn up dead. and she knows it’s him, of course it is, but nobody seems to be doing anything. and he’ll be working his way over to her, she’s part of the reason he went to prison, but he’ll kill a path there. so renee sets aside her crucifix necklace and decides to kill him first. god’s sword arm? or a matter of hunting? she doesn’t like to think of it as either, but she leaves palmetto with her knives and a look on her face nobody but andrew has seen before, calmly assures them she’ll be back in a few weeks at most, and dives headfirst. it’s like one of those moments where you hit the water so hard you think you’ll never breathe again, and it slows down a bit, and something changes. after grappling with the ‘healed way to kill someone’, renee gives herself more and more permissions to shift back into natalie shields behaviours, but catches herself before she catches the guy. she recognises that she’s doing that formulaically, but that ultimately what she’s trying to achieve here doesn’t actually conflict with any one of her values, and when she kills him it’s with a bible in her rucksack and a sparkly purple cat charm on her keys. idk a lot of the specifics of that might change but i chew on renee a lot and i think we all should.

-aforementioned jerejean au where jean is a firefighter and jeremy is at the seminary training to be a priest. not quite fleabag shit because i could never do that to jean, but very unlikely and somehow working. jeremy im giving you religious problems because i think they would suit you. jean im giving you being hot and sweaty and saving people because im a pervert. also something i like there about first responder/last responder. and how that’s kind of what each of them need? jeremy is the final breath and the calm reassurance, but there’s something in him that wants to run and scream and yell and have the stakes be as high as they can, be able to do something with an instant material result. jean is always under the most pressure he possibly can be, trying to keep everyone alive, and sometimes secretly wants a moment of quiet that he doesn’t think he deserves and would feel horribly guilty if he got. anyway jean being vaguely amused by closet adrenaline junkie trainee priest and jeremy fascinated by the tall french firefighter who refuses to forgive himself for being alive.

and i think that’s all of them for now!! my notes app is just this with various scenes and lines that i want to put in each one but would need to write 6 chapters to get to. bummer ANYWAY if you made it this far i am sorry and ily and i hope u have a great day <3

[jinglyjangly]

Howdy howdy!

I've written up the WIP first chapter for my fallout OCs. Calling it “Moon River” for now!

I just really want to write about them before the second season of the show before it ruins more lore. It's set a year before FNV in California… again still a wip, still working on more, still not super satisfied but I’m happy I got this much done tbh

When the sunlight begins to bleed into the horizon, everything in the Mojave shifts. That last stretch of dying light stains the sands a burnt orange as the distant mountains catch its highlight on every ridge. The heat that clings to your skin during the day suddenly retreats, replaced by a bone-deep chill that slips in through your clothes and sinks into your core. Dimitri knew that sensation all too well. He’d felt it a thousand times before, traveling the endless wasteland between Death Valley and the Colorado river. Out here, nothing cared about war, not even him.

He’d been scouting the junction where the 127 and 178 met, once a spot that once pulsed with life. Merchants, caravans, and wanderers all visited creating new livelihoods. Now, it lay buried beneath an unrelenting sandstorm, the air thick with grit and blinding white haze. It wrenched at something in his chest to see it reduced such violence so suddenly. No one even seemed to know how it happened, only vague myths and rumors. One day it was bustling, the next it was swallowed whole.

He relayed everything he saw to the nearest outpost, and was greeted instantly with new orders. The crumpled papers were handed off to him by a weary trooper. Her dust-caked face betrayed the exhaustion that hung on every soldier posted in these outer areas. It said something about a captured legionary prisoner having important intel. He noticed who sent it and realized exactly why he was the one who got it.

It had ended up taking him much longer than he expected to to get to Havasu. Every broken down outpost along the way seemed to tug at him, asking for one thing or another. Fix a busted generator, clear out a nest of bloatflies, find a missing kid — always something. One favor turns into two more, and before you know it, you’re knee-deep in nonsense you never meant to be part of. It's the wasteland method he both resented and relied upon, for as much as it delayed him, the caps jingling in his satchel proved it was worth it in the end.

The resort stood before him now, after what felt like an endless trek. The front doors creaked as he pushed them open, and a stale, musty scent of mildew and aging wood greeted him. Soldiers crowded around ancient terminals repurposed for military duty, their faces pale in the sickly green glow of monitors. The rapid clatter of keystrokes mingled with the steady echo of his footsteps on cracked tile, filling the dimly lit lobby as he made his way through. Faded murals of the pre-war paradise peeled from the walls, and forgotten lounge chairs lay rotting in a corner, making way for stacked crates of ammo, rifles, and armor. It felt like a graveyard of luxury, the bones of a fanciful life repurposed for the business of survival.

“Here’s the report.”

The voice snapped him out of the haze. A manila file filled with a stack of papers was shoved into his chest. Lieutenant Cruz. She looked even more tired than the last time he’d seen her — eyes shadowed, lines cutting deeper into her face. The war with the Legion wore on everyone, but some seemed to carry it heavier than others.

“Our prisoner is Legion, no doubt about it,” she said, planting a hand on her hip. “He’s only said maybe two things since we found him passed out on the 95. Mostly screamed like hell when we treated his wounds.”

Dimitri thumbed through the packet. No name. No rank. Nothing but a few notes on his injuries and a location where they found him.

Dimitri paused for a second and huffed under his breath, “screaming isn't really words.”

“He eventually said words, alright? Figure of speech. And now you’re here to do your thing. Says he won’t tell us anything unless we cut him loose.”

“How would that work?”

“It doesn’t. It’s why you’re here.”

Dimitri grimaced. Interrogations weren’t his style. He could talk his way through most situations, but trying to pry answers from men too stubborn or too proud to break gets exhausting.

“I’m not going to tell you to be careful,” Cruz said, eyes narrowing. “But stay sharp. There’s something about this one. He’s… strange.”

Dimitri grinned. “What, got a crush on him?”

She snorted a short laugh. “No, you idiot. I just know you. You’re persuasive… but you can be persuaded. Get me anything on Blythe. Or the dam. Or hell, Caesar’s grocery list. Anything.”

He paused hearing the town, his grin fading, brow furrowing as a flicker of unease crept in. “Blythe? What’s going on there?”

She shot him a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “Did you even read the brief?”

“I skimmed.”

“Goddamn Rangers…everyone of you are practically allergic to paperwork.” She shook her head and continued, “Blythe went dark a while ago. There were reports about random legion sightings, and then nothing. You were supposed to check it out before Mr. John Doe showed up.”

“Think he’s connected?”

“No idea. That’s why you’re here. He’s in the cell down the hallway.”

“You’re not—”

“I’ve got shit to do. Good luck.” She clapped a firm hand on his shoulder, handing him the key and disappeared down the hall.

Dimitri lingered a moment, a knot of unease coiling in his gut. Blythe being silent was bad. The faster he wrapped this up, the faster he could see what waited for him downriver.

He walked up to the door and nodded to the soldier guarding, opening the door with the key she gave him. The “cell” wasn’t so much a cell as it was a repurposed laundry room. Broken washing machines lined the walls like rusted tombs. Snapped ironing boards and piles of rotted linens cluttered the space. A single figure sat among the debris facing away from the door, handcuffed to a dented folding chair beneath a flickering overhead bulb.

Dimitri frowned. The prisoner didn’t fit the usual mold of a hulking brute in Legion armor. He was slender, tall, with unkempt black hair and a scattering of old scars across sun-worn skin. The tattered scraps of clothes baring red barely clung to him, and fresh blood darkened the bandages around his midsection. And then there was the bull, branded into the back of his neck.

He poked his head back out the door, “This is the guy she wants me to ‘interrogate’?”

The guard shrugged. “Only Legionary here.”

“He’s not… the usual-”

“Is there a problem?”

Dimitri clenched his jaw. “No.”

He stepped inside, locking the door behind him. The man stared at him with unsettling clarity, pale eyes glinting in the dim light. Dimitri sat opposite, the sun’s last light slashing through the grimy window and reflecting off a dented metal table, forcing him to squint.

“Not the typical interrogee,” he muttered, flipping open the file, clicking his pen. “Name's Dimitri. Do you have a name? Or do I have to call you John? You really don’t look like a John. Johnny maybe, or JJ. Jr?”

He got a dismissive eye-roll in response.

“I should be guessing Roman names, huh? Although I don’t know a whole lot. How about…Alexius. That sounds cool.”

“That's Greek.”

“Is there a difference?”

That made him turn his head, and Dimitri greeted him with a smug look at the break in the prisoner’s silence. The voice did catch him off guard, low and crisp. He leaned back from the glare of the window, idly tapping the pen against his jaw, a thoughtful glint in his eye. Cruz was right about him being a bit strange. He noticed a shift in the prisoner's jaw as he went back to looking at the clock on the wall. 

He sighed and realized this wasn’t going to go very far. Dimitri tilted his head and looked at the same broken clock on the wall. 9:47 like every other single one. Why doesn’t anyone ever fix them? He opted to look at his watch. 17:02. He doesn’t really have the time to keep doing this if what Cruz said was true.

“Look, since you’re not talking, I’m left guessing. So, I'm guessing you have no rank either by exile or by choice, so you have no allegiance. Here, right now, you're a prisoner, but you're safe. If I'm right, that means if the legion does find you, you're worse than dead. If you’ve got something useful, now’s the time. Talk, and maybe things get a little easier for you. Cruz said you wanted free, but you have to talk first.” 

He stayed perfectly still, though his gaze slid back to Dimitri’s with the slow, deliberate weight of sizing him up.

“I have nothing.”

Dimitri stared into the man’s pale eyes and saw nothing but an unbroken calm. No fear. No desperation. He sighed, closing the file. Whether he did know anything or not, there was no point in wasting time. Dimitri pulled back and got out of the chair.

“Alrighty. Thank you for your participation.”

He left the room, the soft scrape of the door dragging against the warped tile floor, and locked it behind him with a metallic click. The key felt heavy in his hand as he passed it off to the guard. Without a word, he turned and made his way down the dim hallway, each step echoing alongside the steady chorus of keystrokes from the command post terminals. The combined rhythm of hurried typing and his bootfalls filled the air, a sharp, hollow percussion against the crumbling rafters of the old resort.

The kitchen sat at the furthest end of the hall, repurposed tables cluttered with ration tins and dented canteens. A few soldiers loitered there, faces drawn and weary, savoring the illusion of rest. The stale scent of scorched mirelurk meat hung thick in the air, mingling with acrid wisps of cigarette smoke. Dimitri’s stomach gnawed at him, a sharp reminder that if he was going to cover ninety miles of wasteland, it wouldn’t be on an empty gut.

He sat down to a plate of half-burnt potatoes and stringy mirelurk tail, barely tasting the briny, overcooked flesh as his mind churned. Lying to Cruz would be easy, a simple mercy for everyone involved. Blythe was likely already ash, overrun by Legion, and this entire interrogation had been a pointless inconvenience. Confirm her fears, get a handful of troopers, maybe a truck or jeep, and the mystery man gets buried in paperwork and eventually let go. The Legion mark was the only thing keeping him here, and if Dimitri spun this right, he might wrangle something better than a rusted seat at NCRCF.

The clatter of dishes and dull murmur of conversation broke suddenly as Cruz stormed into the room, her palm slamming against the table hard enough to rattle his plate.

“Did you lock the fucking door?”

Dimitri blinked, fork halfway to his mouth. “Uh… yeah?”

“Well, he’s gone.”

He frowned, glancing down the hall as if he might see the escapee lurking in the shadows. “He couldn’t have gone far.”

“I know that, smartass. Just—ugh!” She spun on her heel and stalked off down the corridor. Dimitri let out a long sigh, abandoned his plate, and stacked his dishes onto the cart with a dull clatter.

The hallway felt colder now, an undercurrent of tension tightening around him. He double-checked his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the utility room. The door hung ajar, the dim overhead bulb throwing a wedge of light across the cracked tile. The cuffs lay discarded on the floor, dull against the grime. Cruz was already inside, pacing in a tight line, gnawing at the edge of her thumb.

“It’s like he vanished,” she muttered. “And so did my soldier.”

Dimitri’s eyes swept the room, past rusted washing machines and sagging shelves. One of the larger machines had its door slightly ajar. He approached, dread creeping up his spine, and tugged it open to reveal the missing trooper crammed inside, stripped of his uniform, with a bruise forming on his head and unconscious.

“Shit—”

He pressed two fingers to the kid’s throat. The pulse was weak, but there. Dimitri exhaled in relief, pulling the soldier free from the cramped metal drum.

“Oh god—”

“Relax,” Dimitri grunted, laying the kid down gently and turning him on his side. “He’ll wake up with a killer headache, but he’ll be fine.”

A deep rumble rolled through the air, the distant sound of an explosion blooming somewhere beyond the walls. Dust sifted from the rafters. Cruz and Dimitri locked eyes.

“Go,” she ordered. “I’ve got him.”

Dimitri bolted, boots pounding against tile and wood, the sharp echo of each step chasing him down the dim hallway. The night air hit him like a slap as he burst onto the porch, dry and cool, carrying the bitter scent of gunpowder and burning wood. The beach was in chaos—troopers shouting over one another, scrambling for weapons, smoke curling skyward from a fresh crater near the supply dump. But out on the docks, one figure moved with eerie calm. A tall man in a trooper’s helmet and mask, no armor, just a standard-issue uniform. That alone made Dimitri’s interest pique. The cool night air carried the harsh, acrid scent of scorched timber from the explosion and diesel fumes wafting from the nearby motorboat, thick and bitter as it filled his lungs.

Without hesitation, he snatched his helmet from his pack, jamming it onto his head as he crept through the shadows, keeping low. Waves slapped lazily against the pilings, a grim, steady heartbeat against the wood. The muffled crunch of his footsteps on sand mingled with the ghostly echo of his own breathing inside the helmet, every sense sharpened by adrenaline.

As Dimitri reached the end of the dock, words failed him. No clever speech, no rehearsed demand. Just raw instinct.

“You really don’t need to do this.”

The figure froze mid-motion, halfway through tossing a canvas bag into the boat, and turned to glare at him. That same cold, calculating stare from earlier. Dimitri’s fingers tightened around the grip of his pistol.

In a flicker of motion, a small butter knife whirled through the dark, catching a glint of moonlight before striking Dimitri’s chest with a dull, metallic thunk, deflecting off his armor. He grunted, instinctively recoiling — and in that heartbeat, the man surged forward. A boot swept his legs out from under him, and Dimitri hit the planks hard, the rotting dock shuddering beneath his back.

The figure was on him instantly, wrenching his pistol free with a swift, practiced jerk. The butt of the weapon cracked hard against the side of Dimitri’s head, a flash of light bursting behind his eyes. Dazed but fueled by sheer stubbornness, Dimitri lashed out, driving his fist into the man’s gut. He felt the impact in his knuckles, hearing a grunt.

He twisted, grappling for control, and managed to knock the pistol loose, sending it skittering across the dock. Gritting his teeth, Dimitri shoved his forearm against the man’s throat, straining to flip him. As he tried to pin the other wrist down, he could feel a hand reach around his back. A sudden, hot sting bloomed in his thigh — a knife, buried deep. He screamed in protest, and his grip faltered.

He then felt a force to his chest as he was kicked back onto the boards. He hissed in pain, eyes darting to the gash on his leg where blood welled up, dark and thick in the dim light. He propped himself up on his elbow. It was deep, but didn’t hit any major arteries. He gritted his teeth , clutching the wound. He wasn’t winded, but close combat had never been his strength.

Across from him, the man had retrieved his bowie knife and now toyed with it, flipping it idly in one hand testing its balance on his finger. That smug, practiced arrogance in his stance made Dimitri’s blood boil.

“Are you afraid to die?” The sound of his voice made him pause again.

“No," Dimitri snarled, forcing himself up on his feet.

“No?” the man echoed, his head cocking in faint amusement.

“Because I know I won’t.”

The knife’s tip lifted, beckoning. “Then take off the armor.”

Dimitri’s eyes narrowed, jaw tightening. He was done playing games. “No.”

The man’s expression darkened. Without warning, he bolted for the boat. Dimitri lunged after him, but the other man was quicker, ducking low and driving an elbow hard into the back of Dimitri’s neck. His balance crumbled. A forearm clamped around his throat, powerful legs kicking out his knees. The dock blurred around him as the world lurched sideways.

He fought the hold, hands clawing at the arm crushing his windpipe. Darkness gnawed at the edges of his vision, his ears filling with the roaring rush of his own pulse. Desperate, he twisted, but the strength drained from his limbs.

Then everything slipped away.

Dimitri came to with a sharp, throbbing ache behind his eyes. The world was hazy, shapes and colors bleeding into one another until the full moon cut through the clouds. Blurred moonlight smeared across the river’s surface, turning the water into rippling glass. His head pounded with every heartbeat, his leg ached, and his throat felt raw where the man’s forearm had crushed it.

He groaned, pushing himself upright. Sand clung to his bloodied hands and the back of his neck, and sharp splinters bit into his palm from the dock’s weathered boards. Around him, the beach had settled into an uneasy quiet. Smoke still drifted in thin, lazy plumes as lights flickered on as the night settled in. 

At least no one was around to witness him sprawled in the dirt like a rookie.

He limped back toward the resort, each step sending a hot lance of pain through his thigh. He found Cruz outside the infirmary shack, leaning against the battered frame of the door, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. The soldier from earlier lay on a cot inside, pale and glassy-eyed, an ice pack balanced awkwardly against his temple. Another patient was curled on a second cot, groaning softly.

“Injury from the blast?” Dimitri rasped, voice rough from the chokehold.

Cruz didn’t look up. “Nope. Food poisoning. Bad mirelurk. The explosion was a goddamn dumpster. Distraction.”

Dimitri scrubbed a hand over his face and let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah… he took the boat.”

Cruz sighed, dragging a hand down her face. “Damn it. That was our only one. Mead’s got the rest.”

“Why?”

“Recon runs. Repairs. Supply hauls. Take your pick.” She flicked the spent cigarette into the dirt and fished another from her pocket. The lighter’s flare briefly lit the wear on her face—new lines, old exhaustion.

Dimitri glanced upriver. “I guess that means I’m walking.”

“Sure as hell does,” Cruz muttered through a drag. “No jeeps, no trucks, no soldiers to spare. You’ll have to hoof it to Blythe the old-fashioned way. And pick up the pace while you’re at it. Feels like a timer’s running out for that place, if it’s not already gone.”

Dimitri grimaced, jaw tight. He could feel it too. A creeping weight in his gut and he murmured, “yeah… At least you still have soldiers.”

“I doubt he went upriver,” Cruz went on. “If you move fast, you might even catch him.”

Dimitri arched his brow. “You want your boat back?”

“You gonna carry it?”

He smirked despite himself. “What about your prisoner?”

She snorted, a dry, humorless sound. “You gonna carry him too?” A thin smile ghosted across her face. “I don’t need any more Legion bastards hanging around. If he didn’t give you anything useful, let the river take him. Boat’s worth more to Blythe.”

Dimitri gave a slow nod. “Yeah.”

Before he could brace, Cruz whipped a stimpack from her belt and jammed it into his thigh.

“Shit! Little warning next time.”

“Baby.”

Dimitri grunted, adjusting his pack as the sting dulled to a lingering heat. The desert night unspooled before him, cold and endless, the low murmur of the river threading through the hush. He set out along the bank, his boots scuffing over cracked stone and brittle earth. Somewhere out there, the current carried both a stolen boat and unfinished business.

[thatrandomsarahchick]

I can just imagine Duke coming to the manor and being like: this is my partner, Danny, and this is our daughter, Chelsea.

And just getting shocked pikachu faces in return.

For the ghostlights drabbles: “Say my name” with a favor being called in?

Duke had saved Phantom years ago, back when he was just out of high school and working to take down a branch of the government that was kidnapping and experimenting on people, targeting magic users and metas. Phantom had been working on his own to take them down, and they met in the middle, trashing a lab and freeing as many people as they could.

They had managed to shoot his back, knocking him down and making him bleed a glowing green. Phantom couldn’t move, protecting two kids with his body, and Duke couldn’t reach them in time before they were taken away by another swarm of agents. 

He was able to go after them in time, free Phantom and the kids, and evacuated the victims before Phantom rained hell down on the facility.

At the end, standing in the background as they watched paramedics treat the victims and take them towards the nearest hospitals, Phantom had turned towards him and thanked him.

Or rather, he thanked the Signal and offered him a bracelet with a rounded orb of ice, glowing faintly in the dark. If you ever need me, he had said, Hold this, and call me name.

Phantom vanished once the last of the victims were transported to a safer location, and Duke hadn’t seen him since.

He’s kept up with news about Phantom as best he can, but from what he could tell, Phantom is based primarily in Amity Park, Illinois, and the town is fiercely protective of their hero. News rarely leaks out of there, and with them running on their own servers and independent internet, it was nearly impossible to get in from the outside. 

Phantom remained a curious and distant figure in Duke’s life. He holds onto the bracelet still, guarding it carefully and sometimes running his fingers over the ice that never melts.

But he doesn’t call in that favor. He’s never to.

At least, not until now.

Sucking in a breath, Duke prepares himself and holds the orb of ice in the palm of his hand. He’s in civies, unable to hide his identity for this, and closes his eyes. “Phantom,” he says.

For a moment, nothing happens. Duke blinks his eyes open and frowns, mind already forming new plans to contact Phantom. Then the ice goes bitingly cold, almost painful, and the temperature in the room drops dramatically. The ice lifts up from his hand, floating in the air, then cracks open.

White-blue light spills out of it, growing brighter as it seems to swallow up the room entirely. Duke hurries to back up, an arm thrown up to protect his eyes. His breath mists out before him and he shivers as the sound of ice cracking fills the room.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, the light disappears and the cold fades away like a bad dream. 

Slowly, Duke lowers his arm and looks up at Phantom, floating in the middle of his living room with a crown made of ice, engulfed in blue fire, hovers above his head. He looks older, more regal, holding his head high. 

He regards Duke carefully for a minute, then tilts his head and says, “Signal?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Man, I’m so glad you came.”

“You… need help with something? You’re calling in your favor now, right?”

Duke nods. He understands Phantom’s confusion; being in the hero business means that favors like these tend to be used only during the most hopeless of times, when the world is close to ending, when the chances of getting out of a situation alive is close to impossible. It’s exactly the kind of thing Duke was expecting to call Phantom in for.

Not the kid sleeping on his couch.

“You’re a ghost, yeah?”

Phantom blinks at him. “Ghost king, now. Why?”

“Well…” Duke rubs the back of his neck, nervously. “I didn’t really know who else to call, and I can’t do this on my own since I’m not a ghost. But this kid got attached to me and won’t leave, so now I’m taking care of her and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I don’t know why you think I have any experience with kids but—”

“She’s a ghost.”

Phantom stops short. “Ah. I see.” He floats down until his feet touch the floor, and then he’s standing like any other person. “Where…?”

Duke looks past Phantom’s shoulder, and Phantom turns to follow his gaze. Chelsea, the ghost girl, looks to be around nine years old and is fast asleep on the couch, curled up under Duke’s softest blanket.

“Signal,” Phantom says quietly, “What, exactly, is the favor you need from me?”

“You can say no,” Duke starts. “I get that this is a lot. But I need help raising her. And since you’re a ghost, I figured you could help me learn about the ghostly side of things. You don’t have to raise her with me or anything! Just… I would appreciate any help you’re willing to give me.”

Phantom doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares down at Chelsea, an unreadable expression on his face. 

On the couch. Chelsea shifts in her sleep, brows furrowing as she makes a choked noise in the back of her throat.

Moving on autopilot after so many nights of this routine, Duke kneels next to the couch, fishing one of her hands from beneath the blanket. He gives it a few reassuring squeezes, keeping it a slow rhythm to pull her gently from her nightmare. She settles down in just a minute, brow smoothing out as she continues to sleep. 

The silence grows and Duke is all too aware that his heart is the only one beating. 

He doesn’t hear Phantom move. Doesn’t realize he’s right next to him until he sees Phantom’s hand reach out towards Chelsea. When Duke looks, Phantom is sitting on the floor next to Duke, looking at Chelsea with something soft and devastated in his eyes. His hand hovers about her head for a long moment, then slowly lowers to rest on her head. 

The touch looks gently, barely putting any pressure on her head, but it’s enough to make Chelsea’s eyes snap open, suddenly wide awake. She stares at Phantom with wide eyes, then sits up and looks between him and Duke.

“Who are you?” she asks in a small voice that makes Duke want to stand against the world to keep her safe. 

Phantom smiles. It’s casual and charming and makes him look like anyone else, as if he’s not a powerful king from a realm unreachable to humans. “Hi there,” he says, “I’m Danny. I’m a ghost like you. Signal called me and asked me to meet you.”

The Ghost King is good with kids. Who would have thought?

Chelsea looks at him for confirmation and only relaxes when he nods. “I’m Chelsea. What do you mean ghost? I’m not dead.”

Both he and Phantom tense, carefully keeping their expressions neutral. She hasn’t told him much at all, just that her parents were gone and forgot her and she got hurt, so she wanted to stay with ‘Mr. Signal’ because he’s a hero and heroes keep people safe and he was the only one who was Black like her. Duke hadn’t had the heart to say no, and began searching for her family, only to find that her parents had fled the state, and likely the country, after killing their only child through neglect and a dangerous environment. 

It was then that he realized that her powers were not because she was a meta, but because she was ghost.

It still hurts to realize how young she is, how much of her life had been stolen from her in an instant. Duke hadn’t been brave enough to broach the topic with her, instead choosing to let her grow comfortable in his presence, get them both settled into a routine now that he was her primary guardian. 

“I know it sounds scary,” Phantom says, “And you may not want to believe me, but it’s true. I’m sorry that you died so young, but that just means you get to hang out with me and other ghosts from now on!”

Chelsea crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. “I am not dead,” she says.

“Cici, I’m sorry to say this, but you are,” Duke cuts in. “That’s why I called… Danny. You have new powers as a ghost, and he can help you get used to them.”

“I’m not dead!” she says again.

“Kid,” Phantom begins, but Chelsea shakes her head hard and hops off the couch.

“I’m not lying! Watch, I’ll prove it to you!” She closes her eyes and scrunches up her nose, concentrating. Her hands curl into tight fists by her sides, and the glow around her grows dim. Two faint, stuttering rings of light appear around her waist. They flicker and wobble in the air, as if weak and uncertain of their own existence, then split apart, one moving up towards her head while the other falls to her feet.

Beside him, Phantom sucks in a sharp breath, but Duke can’t turn to see what’s wrong when he’s trying to take in the sight of Chelsea suddenly full of vibrant color, looking more solid that he’s ever seen her, very much alive.

“See?” she says proudly, lifting her arms and doing a spin to show off her right she was. “I told you I’m not dead!”

“No, you’re not,” Phantom agrees, sounding shell-shocked. When Duke is finally able to look away from Chelsea to check on him, he looks awed. There’s the smallest smile on his face, just the slightest upturn of his lips, but it makes him look softer.

Duke turns his attention back to Chelsea before he can be caught staring. “Cici, can you come here for a second?”

She goes before he’s finished speaking, crossing the space between them in a single jump, then grins up at him. Her hair is a bit of a mess, the two buns he managed to get her hair into falling askew. He makes a note to visit the old aunties in the Narrows later to ask them to teach him how to do hair. For now, he holds out a hand and Chelsea drops an arm into it.

It seems to good to be true, having her be alive, but her pulse is steady and strong when he presses his thumb against the inside of her wrist. 

“Well,” he says, leaning back and letting go of her arm. “You certainly proved us wrong.”

Chelsea doesn’t have much time to look smug before PHantom quietly says, “You’re like me.”

“What?”

“You’re like me,” he tells Chelsea. “A halfa.”

She tilts her head to one side. “What’s that?”

“Someone who is half human and half ghost. Both dead and alive.”

Duke blinks, taking in the words, then turns to face Phantom so quickly he’s worried he might give himself whiplash. Halfa, he said. Like me, he said. 

And sure enough, two rings of light, bright and strong, appear around Phantom’s waist before splitting in half, moving over his entire body. 

Gone is the Ghost King, all powerful and adorned in dark clothing with a crown of ice above his head. In his place is a guy who looks to be Duke’s age, eyes a deep blue and his black hair messy, feet set solidly on the floor. He looks completely normal, completely human, and no longer an impossibility.

“You still up for learning how to use all your new powers?” Phantom asks.

Chelsea grins. “Yeah!” And then, with a quick flick of her eyes going from Phantom to Duke that he almost misses, very innocently asks, “Are you going to stay with us then?”

“I… don’t know?” Phantom looks to Duke for an answer.

Already, Duke can see this going two ways. The correct way forward, the normal one, has Phantom popping in every so often, taking Chelsea out for a few hours to work on training her and her powers. It’s easy and routine and they can keep their boundaries uncrossed and be professional. 

The other path is what Duke wants most that he shouldn’t impose onto the literal Ghost King. He could have Phantom living with them while he’s on Earth and out of Amity Park, having a place at the table, a section in the closet for his own clothes, a quietly domestic night together while Chelsea sleeps where they can get to know each other more, get to know each other outside of news reports and texts on a screen.

“You can stay with us if you want,” Duke offers, casually, “It might keep my apartment safe from her powers acting up on their own again.”

“Are you sure? I could always just fly in on the weekends or something.”

“I’d appreciate having you around. So you can help Cici.”

“If you don’t mind,” Phantom says, looking away. Like this, fully alive with a beating heart, it’s easy to see the blush steal away across his cheeks. 

“I don’t.”

“I don’t either!” Chelsea pops in, looking far too gleeful by their awkward conversation.

Duke can’t help but laugh, feeling lighter than he had in ages. The relief of knowing that Chelsea is alive, for the most part at least, eases the guilt of thinking he had been too late to save her, that there was no chance she could have made it out and had a future, makes him feel weak. All the exhaustion of the past few weeks hits him all at once and he wants nothing more than to collapse in bed and sleep for twelve hours.

“Alright, squirt,” he says, reaching out to pat her head. “It’s late. We can talk more in the morning, so go to bed. In your actual bed this time, not on the couch.”

Chelsea stands up taller, ready to argue, but Duke gives her a Look™ and she quickly shuts her mouth, nods, and drags her feet back to her room (the former guestroom he can never give any of the other Waynes ever again, once they find out about her). 

Sighing, Duke collapses onto the couch once he hears the door shut behind her. Phantom joins him after a few seconds, sitting tentatively on the edge of the couch. The cushion moves beneath his weight, another reminder of how solid and alive he is right not.

Duke wants to touch him, to reach out and feel for himself his pulse, the warmth of his body, his chest lifting with each breath. 

He doesn’t move. He stays where he is, hands carefully still, and tries to think past the dizzying thoughts of she’s still alive, I’m not too late, he’s still here, he’s alive.

“Rough week?” Phantom asks, voice purposefully light.

“Something like that.”

“You should get some sleep too.”

“I don’t think I can. Not after everything. My mind’s too loud right now.”

Phantom shifts closer to him, hesitant in a way that Duke has never seen before in him, and asks, “Want me to stay with you until you mind quiets down some?”

“Yeah. I’d like that. Thanks, Phantom.”

“You know, if I’m going to be around so often as Chelsea’s halfa mentor, then you might as well call me Danny.”

Truth be told, Duke didn’t think that was his real name. He’s glad to know it’s not. 

“Then call me Duke.”

“...Are you sure? You could still hide your identity from me.”

“Nah, I trust you. A name for a name, yeah?”

Danny smiles. “Duke,” he says, testing out the name, and it’s never sounded better than when it falls from Danny’s mouth.

“Danny,” Duke returns. He belatedly realizes that they’ve leaned towards each other, drawn together like gravity, stuck in each other’s orbit. It feels natural. It feels like this is where they’re meant to be.

Maybe he should be more cautious. They’ve only meant once before, after all. But he’s read all he could on Phantom and has seen how Amity Park loves him. He’s stressed and exhausted and trying to figure out how to look after a half-ghost child that’s already been dealt a bad hand in life. He should be keeping Phantom at a distance, watching over him carefully to ensure he isn’t a threat to Chelsea.

But Duke saw how he acted with Chelsea, so gentle and understanding and kind. That’s all he needed to see.

He may not know much about Danny, but he knows this: he is trustworthy.

Enough to entrust his identity to him.

Enough to entrust Chelsea to him.

It’s more than a favor; it’s a promise to walk this road together. 

There’s no one he’d rather do this with. 

“Thanks,” he says again, “For all of this. I know it’s a lot.”

Danny shrugs. “I don’t mind. Really. It’s nice to know there’s another halfa out there, no matter how she came to be one. Makes things feel less lonely.”

“Will you tell me more about halfas?”

“Later. Once you get some proper rest. We’ve got time, haven’t we?”

“We do,” Duke agrees, affection settling warm in his chest. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Learning how to control her new powers won’t be easy for Chelsea. Learning how to take care of her won’t be easy. Learning how to do things together, as Duke and Danny rather than the Signal and Phantom, won’t be easy. But Duke knows with a certainty he feels in his bones that they’re going to be fine.

So long as they’ve got each other, they’ll be fine.

[sysig]

Is this small and pixely enough that it’s not a spoiler

[raiiny-bay]

today's progress: i think i'm done with the face

[crossbackpoke-check]

nosy anon again making a return because i think what my brain did was read that i helped find some kind of writing and then did not fully process what the writing was?? but upon rereading i am very intrigued if you ever get the urge to share i will be all eyes/ears/senses required to enjoy things!!

I GET TO DO WIP WEDNESDAYYYYYY!!! the writing exists mostly in the form of a tag (fantastic! 'verse) and also a thirty-two page doc of snippets and planning, so the sense you will be using most is imagination:

don't think i have ever actually formally written out anything about fantastic! 'verse but! the tl;dr of it is that it's a semi-college au: joel is still a hockey player for the lv phantoms, but morgan is a college student-athlete. it's incredibly relevant to the plot that joel falls in love with morgan in the check-out line of a wegman's, lies a little bit, and ends up going back to get his degree.

most of it is just good fun about college kids growing up, but i think there's a lot of parallels between making your way through a development system where traditional "success" isn't always guaranteed (ahl -> nhl, completion of higher education -> pursuit of a career) because that development system isn't always designed for you to "succeed" or have opportunities. heavy quotation marks around success because part of that struggle is learning what you want in life and how you define success. are your dreams achievable? are they still the same dreams you always used to have? it's infinite branching universes of would you still love me if i was a worm (ahl player forever) (a college dropout) (a college graduate) (older) (realizing the fallibility of your body) (uncertain of the future) (human).

silly little snippet:

[asiatic-apple]

The colonel's uniform

Caleb x female reader

Words: 5.1k (pls forgive me)

Content: reader has a thing for uniforms, a few dog metaphors to describe caleb, CMNF, slightly jealous caleb, mean-ish dom caleb, but also switchy/sub caleb, his hat used as a blindfold, evol used as restraints, some unserious roleplay, one instance of “attagirl”, gloves on while he teases you, pussy spanking!!, safe word check-ins, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), multiple orgasms

a/n: thank y'all for voting in my wip poll! this was inspired by his cafe dialogue when you say you prefer his hat from the fleet; the line is used verbatim (you’ll know it when you see it) Read on AO3

A few months ago, when Caleb had just come back into your life, you blamed your inexplicable feelings toward his new uniform on the fact that you wanted to see beneath all the layers. You were desperate to peel back the restricting outfit—only metaphorically, you convinced yourself—and see what secrets and hidden pain laid under it all.

But even after that feeling passed and you worked through your complicated emotions surrounding what Caleb had become, you were still left feeling…tense whenever you saw him in that damn uniform.

It takes you a few more weeks of inadvertently acting all flustered and shy around the colonel before you realize what your problem is. You notice it every time he tips his peaked cap down over his stormy eyes. Every time he adjusts the aiguillettes draped in front of his chest or runs a gloved hand down the length of his body to smooth out any wrinkles in the fabric.

Caleb in full Fleet regalia is your Kryptonite.

Even though you two have long since confessed feelings for each other, you keep this little secret to yourself. You master the art of subtlety. With stolen glances, you quietly admire the winged accents along the broad back of his coat and the way his gloves fit snugly on his long, slender fingers.

It’s easy to believe you might get away with your depraved thoughts and your silent, simmering obsession. Maybe Caleb will never find out how much you dream of grinding yourself on him without taking a shred of his clothing off.

That plan goes straight out the airlock when you let your guard down one evening.

You’re just visiting him in Skyhaven for the week. It’s about time for him to return home from work, and you anticipate the usual: Caleb half-changed already—his coat, gloves, and harness folded over his arm when he enters.

Instead, the sound of the door clicking open reveals the length of his coat, all his gear still carefully arranged on his tall body. You’re officially screwed.

After a long day at work, he somehow looks even more devastatingly handsome. The strained smile on your face twitches when he flops down onto the couch beside you, apparently too lazy to change out of his clothes just yet.

Work seems to have left him in the mood to rant. And really, you don’t mind listening to him vent. Even if he only mentions endless paperwork and frustratingly stupid mistakes from subordinates who should have known better. In fact, you cherish this moment.

There aren’t many opportunities for Caleb to share details about his work with you—always claiming confidentiality when you know he’s mostly doing it out of some twisted sense of protectiveness. So you’re grateful he’s confiding in you a bit right now, finally revealing what’s on his mind instead of keeping it close to his chest.

And you swear, you’re listening to him. You’re trying to.

But how can he expect you to pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth when he’s sitting so casually beside you in his slightly rumpled uniform?

It looks like the day wore him down. His tie hangs a bit loose around his neck, and the crisp lines that usually define his coat and pants have now softened into feathered creases. His colonel’s cap is thrown haphazardly on the coffee table in front of you, and you have half a mind to beg him to put it back on.

Your eyes travel the expanse of his chest, following the strap of his leather tactical harness before getting lost in the shiny insignia on his left breast. What would it look like if he proudly bore your mark instead of the Fleet’s?

“Helloooo,” Caleb says as he leans closer to you with an amused smile. “Ground control to Major Pip-squeak. Have you even been listening to me?”

Heat flares across your cheeks, embarrassment blooming as you blink like you’ve just snapped out of a trance. Hopefully he didn’t catch the exact direction your eyes had wandered—or magically guess the thoughts that went with them.

“Huh? Oh, yeah…yeah, I was listening,” you quickly reply, trying to hide the lie in your voice. “You were saying something about paperwork, right?”

“Pips, that was ten minutes ago.”

He sounds unimpressed, but you know he's not really upset you zoned out. There's only concern and curiosity on his face. The latter half is what you need to shut down quickly. It’s time to switch tactics.

“Oh, right. Silly me.” Your chuckle sounds less carefree and more nervous than you want it to. “Hey, shouldn't you change into something more comfortable? I’m sure that uniform is stifling, yeah?”

Shit, that sounded too suspicious.

You're about to backtrack, but Caleb catches on quickly.

“Y'know, you've been actin' real strange lately,” he says slowly.

He's not necessarily accusing you of anything, but his brows are furrowed in that way they always are when he thinks you're keeping things from him.

A thousand curses flood your panicked brain. Changing the topic made things worse, so now it’s time to act stupid.

“Hm? Strange?” Your voice cracks, but you soldier through it and hope he doesn’t notice. “Nope, nothing strange here.”

Throwing in a small shrug for good measure, you hope the casual act will somehow cover the way your entire body has gone rigid.

It’s not really surprising he sees right through it all.

His playfully narrowed eyes inspect you carefully as he leans in even closer. “No, you’ve definitely been acting weird,” Caleb argues. “And it's only when I'm wearing this uniform.”

He's hit the nail on the head, and you make it way too easy for him to see it. His knowing response is a simple chuckle, but it doesn't have its usual lighthearted lilt.

There’s a familiar, faraway look in his eyes now. You’ve noticed it more and more often, ever since you reunited with him. But you still haven’t figured out what it means.

When his gaze finally returns to you, his voice is eerily calm, but there’s a shine of unshed tears in his eyes. “Do I scare you when I'm dressed like this?”

The question catches you off guard, knocking the breath from your lungs. You two have had this conversation before. Caleb can be terrifying when he’s hyper-focused on certain things—like protecting you, whatever it takes. But fear is not at all what you’re feeling right now.

Scooting closer to him, you cup his face, desperate to erase that strange, sad look in his eyes. “No, that’s not it,” you say sternly. “You could never scare me, baby.” The first half of your statement is true, at least.

Even if he catches the slight hitch in your voice that gives you away, he seems to take you at your word. He breathes a sigh of relief and nuzzles into your hand, the tension dissipating from his body with your gentle touch.

For a second, you almost forget your previous embarrassment at where this conversation was headed. But Caleb’s mind is a steel trap when it comes to anything involving you—especially if he suspects you’re hiding things from him.

He lightly tugs your hips, carefully maneuvering you to straddle his lap. “Then what’s been bothering you?” he asks, his voice a soft whine. He’s pulling out all the stops to get you to confess, giving you those big puppy dog eyes of his and even pouting cutely. “C’mon, you know you can tell me anything.”

You want to deflect. Want to keep telling him nothing’s wrong, but the words never make it past your parted lips. Because now you’re on the colonel’s lap, and the heat of his body is searing through all those layers of fabric you’ve spent far too much time ogling.

Thought abandons you. All that exists is the coarse weave of his coat beneath your hands, the faint creak of leather as his harness shifts with each breath. There’s a sharp trace of gunpowder clinging to him, cut through by the familiar, grounding scent of the cologne you love.

And then you catch the way he looks up at you. So willing and ready to fix whatever is troubling you. It’s like all you have to do is snap your fingers, and he’ll heel like a good boy.

He’s the colonel of the goddamn Farspace Fleet, but you’re the one pulling his leash. That thought has arousal heightening in your body, its greedy chokehold so tight you can practically taste your own need.

Your breath shudders at the same time your self restraint cracks.

It’s instinct causing your fingers to curl slightly into the lapels of his coat. Worst of all, your hips roll. Just the slightest movement, subconscious and slow. But god, you feel it—the tiniest bit of friction.

Caleb feels it too.

He stills. One brow lifts ever so slightly.

“Pip-squeak…” His voice is a low warning that makes you want to keep testing him.

His hands settle at your waist, thumbs pressing into your sides not in restraint, but in silent acknowledgement. He doesn’t push you away, doesn’t scold you. He just waits, assuming you’re only trying to distract him from his earlier question.

But it's exhausting denying yourself what you've wanted for so long. It’s easier to just show him what you need with trembling hands.

You slide your pointer finger beneath one fold of his lapel and glide it down to the center of his chest. When you switch your attention to the metal tip of one aiguillette, you can’t help but tug experimentally, entranced gaze locked on your colonel’s large frame jolting a bit from the motion.

Now it’s clearer what you want. No more hiding from Caleb’s eyes as they darken with lust and amusement.

“Well…would you look at that?” he whispers to himself, realization dawning on his gorgeous face.

You feel the shift in his body. The way he draws in a shaky breath. The way his posture straightens like he’s readying himself to stand at attention. He grins, wide and wicked and entirely too pleased with himself.

“And here I thought you were just shy.” His voice drops further, low and teasing—like you’re back in college and Caleb is the big meanie who caught you looking at something naughty and wouldn't let you live it down. “Turns out you’ve been tryin’ not to pounce on me every time I wear this, haven’t you?”

That smug look on his face pisses you off. But your pussy loves it. He leans in, nose brushing your cheek while he waits for a reply you stubbornly don’t want to give him. 

It doesn’t matter if you don’t admit it out loud, because Caleb’s observational skills are always sharp around you. You don’t need to use that pretty mouth to form words when he knows deep in his bones that he’s right.

He rocks his hips ever so slightly beneath you—just enough to make your breath stutter and your eyes flutter closed. There’s only a second of delicious friction before he’s ripping it all away from you with a chuckle.

A surprised yelp escapes you as he effortlessly lifts you from his lap only to toss you right back down onto the couch—so you're seated where he was a few seconds ago—legs parted just enough by the fall.

Not a second passes before he slips down to the floor in front of you, settling on his knees and pressing lazy kisses to your neck, over the thin fabric atop your chest, down the curve of your stomach. His hands rest heavily on your thighs as he leans in closer, trailing even lower with each kiss, until he’s fully nestled between your legs.

His affection is relentless—a steady, simmering thing that never quite lets up. Even now, with his lips brushing the waistband of your shorts, he can’t resist toying with you. The way he pauses there is deliberate, maddening.

Caleb has never been one to rush moments like this.

He eases your shorts down with aggravating leisure. The fabric kisses its way down your thighs, making you shiver. He keeps his eyes locked on you the entire time, watching your breath hitch and your hips shift restlessly under his touch.

The moment the shorts reach your knees, he dips his head and presses a single, reverent kiss just above the band of your panties. Then his hands shift, curling beneath your thighs. He lifts your hips just enough to slide your shorts down and off. The fabric falls to the floor, forgotten, while his gaze never leaves you.

Tugging on the hem of your shirt, he murmurs, “Take this off too.”

Where Caleb is all slow patience and eager to drag this out, you’re the exact opposite.

You don’t even think. There’s no hesitation in your limbs. No self-consciousness. Just an urgency that makes you tear the shirt over your head and toss it into some far-off corner.

Your chest rises and falls in a rush of breath, completely bare to him. The sight of your exposed skin has his jaw tensing and pupils dilating.

He always does this—looks at you like it’s his first time seeing you. You normally find it incredibly endearing. But right now, you nearly whine in impatience.

“Goddamn,” he mutters, not even trying to hide the way his gaze drinks you in.

But he doesn’t pounce yet. Instead, the cool leather of his gloves tickles your legs, stroking in slow, reverent passes that leave goosebumps in their wake.

One hand trails upward, pausing at the edge of your underwear. Then it dips just low enough to brush against the growing wet patch at the center—and he groans when your legs instinctively spread wider for him.

You’re burning beneath his stare, almost every part of you laid bare and aching for him. And he’s still fully clothed. But for once, you don’t want him to take a stitch off.

He hums in smug amusement and brings one thumb to press over the soaked spot on your underwear, rubbing a slow circle before gliding upward until he nudges your clit through the fabric.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asks, his voice laced with that perfect mix of tease and tenderness. “Is this really all because of what I’m wearing?”

The soft brush of lips against your thigh feels like a brand. Like he’s staking his claim on you before looking up again with a cocky tilt of his head.

“Do you like the colonel’s uniform,” he murmurs, "or the guy wearing it?"

Is he seriously jealous right now? If you weren't so high-strung with need, you’d laugh. Only Caleb could be jealous of his own damn clothes.

After all this tension and the way he drags out your pleasure at a torturous pace, you might as well let the green-eyed monster fester inside him.

You pretend to think it over with a quiet hum, as if his question requires careful deliberation.

His fingers still, and one brow arches in mock disapproval. But you see the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth—he’s amused, even as he clings to the role of the cold colonel.

“You're cruel, baby,” he growls, pressing his thumb to your clit with firmer pressure. “If it's that hard to decide, maybe I should give you some private time alone with my uniform.” His voice is lower now. That usual trace of playfulness is gone. “But first…I think you need to be properly disciplined for keeping secrets from your commanding officer.”

He snatches his hat from the coffee table behind him before obscuring your field of vision with it, angling the brim so it’s half on your face and down low enough that you're plunged in darkness.

“Wha– ugh, Caleb!”

You reach for the brim, intending to yank it off so you can glare at him. But he stops you easily. Gravity tugs at your wrists until they're pinned loosely at your sides.

There’s a soft tut of disapproval, and then comes the sudden sting of your panties being snapped back against your wet heat.

“Don't move, soldier,” he warns smugly, as if you even could. “You're under the colonel's command now.”

The pressure of his Evol fades, but he clearly expects you to stay obedient. And for now, you do. You know better than to test him—at least, not yet.

Still, in case you forget, he reminds you with icy authority, “Insubordination will not be tolerated. Understand?”

This is unfair in so many ways. All you want is to see him, to touch him. But the hat, the rules, the aching need between your legs—it’s all too much.

You can only reply with a frustrated huff, and the sound soon melts into a whimper as he finally hooks his fingers in your panties and begins tugging them down your legs.

Once they’re off, there’s a deafening beat of silence before Caleb finally breaks it. “If you need me to stop, you know what to say, yeah?” His voice is gentle now, a jarring shift from the commanding edge it had a moment before.

You’re grateful for the check-in, but right now all you want is for him to keep going. You nod eagerly, but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for the colonel.

“Say it out loud, pip-squeak.”

“Apple juice,” you reply breathlessly, repeating the safe word you and Caleb have used in the past.

“Attagirl.” His praise curls around your spine like a hot wire, setting every nerve on edge.

You can’t see his face beneath the hat still shading your vision, but you can feel his eyes on you. You’re willing to bet they’re dark, hungry, focused entirely on what’s between your legs.

He proves you right with the slow, deliberate stroke of leather gliding up your inner thighs and brushing against your quivering heat. He’s touching you again, finally. But it’s frustratingly soft, every sensation dulled by the smooth barrier of his glove. The feather-light contact makes you twitch, hips rolling instinctively, desperate for more.

The chuckle that rumbles from his chest tells you he’s clearly pleased with how responsive you are. “You’re so wet for me already,” he murmurs, lazily dragging his fingers down your slit to collect your slick and smear it against your clit. “Bet you’ve been like this since the moment I walked through the door in this uniform.”

It’s addicting when Caleb gets like this—so drunk off the sight and feel of you that he can’t stop yapping about everything he wants to do to you. It’s as if touching you sets something loose in him that was hiding beneath the surface before. You try to bite back your moans, straining to hear every delicious word he spills against your skin.

More of your arousal gets captured between his fingers. You can hear it clearly with each obscene squelch from your cunt.

Caleb groans in appreciation of a sight only he can see. “You're makin’ such a mess for me, baby,” he says, voice rough with desire. “Maybe if you hadn't lied to me, you could have seen the way you’re soaking these gloves you seem to like so much.”

You can't stop yourself from huffing out a retort from beneath his hat. “But I didn't lie–”

Smack!

Your whole body jolts at the sudden, delicious sting of his palm landing hard against your swollen pussy. The seams along his gloved fingertips brush against your clit on the way down, and the sharp tingle of pain mixed with pleasure nearly unravels you. His name tears from your throat in a yelp, and he just laughs like this is the most amusing thing he’s ever seen.

But even though you can practically hear the sick smile on his face, he’s still Caleb, still careful. “Was that okay?” he asks, voice soft and grounding despite the burning heat between the apex of your thighs. “Do you need to use your safe word, baby?”

You shake your head fast, too desperate to want this to stop. Your clit throbs, greedy for more of that delicious sting. And your thighs tremble where they press around his kneeling body.

He gives you a moment anyway, even if you’re trembling with need instead of nerves. And then, finally, he strikes again.

The second smack is sharper, leaving a slightly more intense sting in its wake. Heat blooms across your pussy with startling clarity—and that’s when you realize he’s taken off his glove.

The next hit comes just as quick. His palm against your soaked, sensitive flesh makes your toes curl. With each spank, blood rushes to your clit, making your cunt slicker, hotter, and hungrier than before. It doesn’t take long for the pleasure to build during each frustrating pause when Caleb juxtaposes the pain with tight circles rubbed against your aching bundle of nerves.

The feeling soars higher and higher in the pit of your stomach…and then you anticipate the tension about to snap in a sudden rush.

It’s overwhelming and unstoppable all at once.

“Fuck, I’m going to–” is all you manage to cry out before his fingers are inside you. Two thick digits plunge deep into your pussy and curl hard against your g-spot like he knows you’re about to come undone before you can even warn him properly.

Your orgasm crashes over you so violently you convulse. Your thighs squeeze around his broad torso, the harsh fabric of his uniform lightly scraping your smooth skin like a possessive claim: you’re his to break apart, and his to hold together.

That familiar, magnetic pulse of his Evol clings to your body again. It keeps the hat firmly on your face and pins you down as your slick gushes around his rough fingers. There’s no escaping the intense pleasure he pulls from you.

You whimper through the aftershocks, mind spinning, body trembling. But even now—blissed out and soaking wet—your cunt still clenches helplessly around his fingers.

It was all too soon. Too fast. The sweet release you were craving just minutes ago now feels like a hollow ache, a need left open and begging to be filled.

“Calebbb,” you whine beneath the hat, too wrecked to deliver the scolding he deserves. “That…that was so mean!”

Condescension drips from his voice as he coos in reply, “Aww, poor little thing.” The mocking lilt of his words makes you throb on his fingers all over again.

Luckily for you, he’s nowhere near done yet. You've barely caught your breath and he's already moving his fingers again, sliding them in and out at a lazy pace while his other hand—still wrapped in cool leather—snakes up your trembling body to play with your pebbled nipples.

“Want me to kiss it better, sweetheart?” he asks before shifting closer and blowing a gentle stream of air right on your clit.

His mouth just hovers there for a few painstaking seconds, taking his sweet time in getting you all riled up again while you squeeze his fingers with your cunt.

When a fat glob of spit lands on your heated skin and drips down to meet his fingers, you struggle to keep your hands by your side like he demanded. The added lubrication only amplifies the sounds coming from your greedy pussy. It’s sucking his fingers deeper inside with loud squelches—and you’d be embarrassed if you weren’t busy getting your brain turned to pleasure-filled mush.

But Caleb doesn’t waste the opportunity to keep being a big meanie.

“Ohhh, listen to that,” he purrs through a satisfied groan. “She’s practically singin’ for me.”

That infuriatingly smug tone seems impossible for him to keep at bay. His fingers curl inside you with pinpoint precision, nudging your g-spot in a rhythm so calculated, so perfect, it has you twitching for him.

“At least this pretty cunt never keeps secrets from me.” The words are muttered so close to a growl that you can barely tell if you actually heard them or imagined them, lost beneath the growing sounds from between your thighs.

You’re going to lose your mind like this. You’re seconds away from being locked up in a padded room if he keeps this up without putting that sinful mouth of his where you need it most.

Clawing helplessly at the couch, your voice breaks with desperation. “Please, Caleb! Stop teasing me.”

Some merciful god above must take pity on you because finally, Caleb decides you’ve been punished enough.

His Evol yanks the hat off your flushed face and throws it to the other end of the couch. You’re relieved to be able to see him again, but slightly annoyed he’s not putting it back on himself. Your disappointment only lasts a second though, because the sight you’re greeted with nearly makes you come on the spot.

As soon as your gaze meets his, he smirks. And then his mouth descends upon your clit like a man possessed. His mouth latches on with zero hesitation, tongue flicking with terrifying accuracy. One deliberate stripe, then a harsh suck that rips his name from your throat in a breathless cry.

And all the while, he watches you.

Bliss is written all over his face, and he moans against your sloppy center like this is all he ever needs in his life. Caleb doesn’t just eat pussy to make you feel good. He eats it like he never wants to part from your glistening folds. And when he enjoys a meal, he makes a mess out of it.

With each curl of his fingers inside you, you’re dripping more of your arousal across his chin and down his damn wrist. And he is smearing it all back on your twitching pussy with a depraved moan, eager to make you feel more, so much more pleasure than you can imagine.

He only parts from your clit for a second to demand that you keep your eyes locked on him, no matter how good he’s making you feel. After all, your attention should be trained solely on him while he licks and sucks on your swollen clit. He wants to look into your eyes and pinpoint the exact moment you come because of him—and only him.

You’re so close to giving him what he wants, your hips jerking as you start to grind against his mouth and hands at a more feverish pace. He gets the hint immediately, moving faster to match the rhythm you desire.

Any control the colonel had a few minutes ago is gone. It’s washed clean from your wetness and from the way he melts into the soft, needy heat of your cunt. Now, all he can do is look up at you in worship while he whines a whole damn symphony against your flushed skin.

You try to hold out for him—god, you try—but your body’s already a trembling mess, wound so tight it only takes one more flick of his tongue to unravel you completely. Your second orgasm of the night tears through you with a cry of his name as your hips roll against his mouth in a final, desperate grind.

Caleb doesn’t let up.

He keeps curling his fingers, keeps moaning against your drenched pussy like he’s savoring every drop of your pleasure. The intensity leaves you shaking—mind hazy, body spent, nerves frayed in the best way.

By the time you slump back against the couch, sweaty and panting, he’s already surging up to steal a kiss from your lips. It’s all desperation and greed, his tongue curling past your lips to share the taste of you and swallow your sweet whimpers.

When he parts for air, you find yourself suddenly boneless in his arms as he lifts you like you weigh nothing at all. His Evol helps him along and caresses your skin as it ensures you don’t squirm in his hold.

You expect him to tease you about how wrecked you are—maybe even throw you right back onto the couch and start again. But instead, he carries you deeper into his home, feet moving with purpose.

It’s clear where he’s taking you without even needing to ask. Of course it's the bedroom. Of course he wants more. So do you.

There’s a beat of tense silence as he crosses the threshold, the anticipation burning in your veins. He could take you against the nearest wall, could push you into the mattress and ruin you completely, but he doesn’t. Not yet.

Caleb once told you he likes to take his time when he shows his affection. And he’s always stayed true to his word. But you’re still getting used to the way he drags out every moment of pleasure between the two of you.

When he finally sits down on the edge of the bed, he keeps you in his lap, cradled but not restrained. The pull of his Evol has faded now, but you don’t make any move to leave his arms. You simply shift to straddle him, legs settling on either side of his hips.

Even after your intense orgasms, you still want more. And it doesn’t take a genius to know he’s going to fuck you now.

You wait—for his hands, for his voice, for anything. But he leans back to lie on the soft bed. You watch in confusion as he folds his arms behind his head. And does absolutely nothing.

One blink. Two. He’s still just lying there.

“Well?” he drawls, voice low and unbearably smug. “You said you like my uniform so much. I’m givin’ you your alone time with it.”

Your breath catches at the implication. That cocky bastard.

Alright. Two can play at this game. You just need to persuade him with the gentle rock of your hips. It seems to work for a second, causing his cock to twitch beneath you. But he still doesn’t budge.

“Caleb,” you whine, “stop playing around.”

He only smiles wider at your plea, eyes sliding half-closed like making you squirm is better than any other pleasure you can provide.

Desperate to convince him to do something, you ask, “What happened to you barking out orders and calling all the shots, hm?”

Still not even a flinch from him.

“We both know you’re always the one in charge, baby,” he says so simply it makes your jaw tick in annoyance. “So go ahead. Use me.”

It seems he’s settling in for the show, arms folded behind his head as if he has all the time in the world.

This isn’t just him being a tease anymore. It’s a full surrender wrapped in a smirk.

And then he promises, “I’ll follow any orders you give me, Colonel Pip-squeak.” He knows you can’t pass that up.

The uniform you’ve been obsessed with is all yours now, but the man beneath it has always belonged to you. Maybe it’s time to remind him of that.

I'd like to give a big shoutout and HUGE thank you to @walleeli for beta reading this and giving me fantastic feedback And I'd like to thank my bff @sirianisrock for dealing with my usual antics, indecisiveness, and listening to me rant about this fic for days LOL ~ Creds: mdni banner by @/cafekitsune glove/apple dividers by @/thecutestgrotto

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[rockwoodchevy]

Cold

Jackson!Joel Miller x F!Reader

summary: after an attack by raiders, you end up lost in the dead of winter. Joel doesn't take the news very well.

Word count: 2.9k

warnings: mentions of death (no actual death though), some swear words

a/n: hi all! this is my first piece of Joel workings so please let me know what you think! i have some WIPs that i am excited for as well so look forward to those as well! thanks for reading!

_________________________________________________

You’re smart enough to know that the fact that you no longer feel the cold isn’t a good thing.

The shaking has stopped, so have the pins and needles in your body. Your breathing is shallow and little puffs of what seems like fog come from your mouth as you exhale. The ripped up puffer jacket on your body is no longer keeping your body heat in, the thick leggings barely helped in the first place but now helping even less with the rips. In all honesty, you’re slightly surprised that you’re still alive or at least conscious. You know that you’ve probably lost quite a bit of blood from the stab wound in your upper thigh and maybe the laceration on your head. You can’t feel if the beanie you were wearing hours ago is still there but that thing was pretty itchy anyways so you don’t necessarily mind. The only thing you can feel right now is the pressure of your body pressed against the ground, your eyes locked on the sky. What seems like thousands of stars staring back at you almost taunting you, waiting for you to join them. You can’t feel it in the slightest, but a tear rolls down your temple. It’s a beautiful way to go, numb and looking at the galaxy above your head. 

You aren’t completely positive what happened, all you know is there was a yell from one of the others on patrol behind you and suddenly you were on the ground, head ricocheting off of something, what it was you aren’t sure. It took a second to come to, but everyone was a blur. The only person you could really recognize was Jesse who was fighting off some raider. In your attempt to help him, one of them stabbed you deep in your thigh. The last thing you remember is Jesse telling you to run and you didn’t second guess his words. You took off in the first direction that you saw, running until your leg could no longer hold you up anymore. You were losing too much blood and the cold was no help. You had no idea where you were or what your surroundings were. No idea how far away Jackson was. All you knew was that you were going to die here. No warmth. No pain. 

No Joel.

God, you almost want to pray to whatever deity was listening that your body would rot away out here after you die and nobody, at least nobody from Jackson, would ever find it. You would hate for Joel to have to see you like this. You know that he isn’t a very emotional man, but good God, does he love you. You’ve heard it from multiple people in Jackson; Ellie, Tommy, Maria, even people that you have never even talked to before. You can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. You’ve never had to worry with him, knowing that you were safe, appreciated and loved every second of every day. You couldn’t bear the thought of him having to see you like this; broken down and dying if that is what this is. Knowing that he’ll be in pain once you go, that is the worst part of all of this.

What you don’t know is that Jesse spent the better part of an hour searching for you. He began panicking once the sun went down and decided he had to make his way back to the town and gather a search party. He feared having to explain to Joel and Tommy why he was alone. As he rode up to the gates on one of the horses that was spared in the fight, he could hear one of the gatekeepers yell out ‘lone rider!’ and his heart dropped. He knew that Joel waited for you after every patrol shift that you had and that he most likely heard the keeper yell. As the gate opened, he could see multiple people, including both Joel and Tommy, run out to him. While a couple of the people including Tommy helped tend to Jesse’s wounds, Joel immediately started questioning him about your whereabouts. Jesse could only babble out what he could about the raid as he broke down into tears, explaining the attack and him telling you to run so you wouldn’t get more hurt all the way up to his search for you in the surrounding wooded area. Joel’s heart fell completely out of his body, freezing as it landed in the soft pile of frosted grass beneath his feet. He didn’t hesitate to help drag Jesse back inside the safety of Jackson’s walls, not to ensure their protection but to question the hell out of him as to where he looked. Jesse told him everything he could. After Jesse was brought to the infirmary, Joel looked to Tommy who was already looking at him wearily. 

“Joel-“ Tommy began, but Joel didn’t let him finish his sentence.

”I’m going whether ya like it or not. With or without ya.” 

In 20 minutes time, a search party of about 10 people, including Tommy, Maria and Ellie, had gathered together to search for you. Joel’s heart couldn’t stop its rapid beating in his chest. Jesse told him about your hit to the head and injury to your thigh. They didn’t know the severity of them both. The party headed off in the general direction of where both you and Jesse were attacked and spread out from there. Joel started to yell out your name in hopes that you would be able to respond to it. Tommy immediately began to shush him.

”Joel, we can’t just start screaming her name out here, there could be more raiders in the area-“

”I don’t give a fuck who else is out here,” Joel interrupted Tommy. “My girl is out here and we are gonna find her tonight.”

They agreed, much to both Joel and Ellie’s dismay, that an hour-long search would happen before they would all have to retire until the next day. They all separated in 5 groups of 2. Each with weapons to defend themselves, whistles around their necks and first aid in the hopes that they could find you.

But you had already given up mentally and almost physically. You couldn't ask for better company in death than the stars. The crickets. The wind. The trees. Death would be peaceful, painless, easy. The only thing you wished was that you could say goodbye to Joel. Kiss him one last time. Hold him one last time. The only heat you’ve had in a while bursts in your chest at the thought of him. You close your eyes, the heat dissipating. 

Maybe you’re dreaming or maybe you’re just hallucinating, but you think you can hear someone calling your name. You think it could be an angel calling you home or some religious shit like that, but no, you know that voice. You open your eyes, looking back at the stars. You hear it again and another familiar voice echoes behind it. 

Tommy and Maria are here.

You could cry, out of happiness or sadness you don’t know. Happy that you could be rescued and brought back to your home, regardless of either it was Jackson or Joel. Sadness because you know that there is a bigger chance of you not making it than there is that you will, and either they or Joel will have to watch it happen. But regardless, you’re happy it was them and not Joel. 

Your name is called again, slightly closer than it was before. You know that you won’t be able to speak, to call out that you’re here, so close yet so far away it seems. You worry that if you don’t make noise soon, they’ll turn the other way and your fate will be sealed. You think fast, remembering that small handgun Joel likes to shove into your pack. You muster up all the strength that you can and search for the pack without turning your head. Feeling the zipper, you undo it and slip your hand in, feeling around until you grasp the handle of the gun. Pulling it out, achingly slow since the burn in your muscles is agonizing. Tears fall down your temples again as you hear your name once more, now further away. Using all the strength you can, you aim the gun away, cock it and shoot. The sound of it is almost deafening, the shot making your arm fly back some. That shot is all it takes.

Tommy and Maria both turn towards the sound of the shot, both of them reaching for their weapons. They’re confused when they don’t see another raider but continue towards the area. Maria gets there first, gasping and throwing herself off of her horse and falling to her knees at your side. She touches your face a few times and says something to you, but you can’t hear it through the relief that floods your brain. More tears fall as Tommy slips off his thick jacket, laying it on top of you. Maria rubs her hands along your arms to attempt to warm you as much as she can. 

“We gotta get her back to town. She’ll die out here.” Tommy says hastily. 

They both aid each other in helping to lift you up and onto Tommy’s horse. He straddles it behind you, praying Joel will forgive him for doing what he has to in order to keep you both warm and alive. He pressed his front to your back, resting his head on your shoulder and immediately began to ride back towards Jackson as fast as he could. He was speaking to you, telling you that you had to hold on, that you had to fight because he didn’t know if Joel could take another heartbreak like this. He had one hand on the reigns of the horse, the other one rubbing against your thigh to try and help you gain your heat back. His hand felt wet and he pulled it back to see it covered in crimson. His stomach churned and he attempted to get his horse to ride faster. He couldn’t let you die, Joel wouldn’t be able to come back from this. He barely came back from Sarah, he couldn’t imagine what this would do to him. 

Maria rode back towards where the party originally separated and blew her whistle as loud as she could. She did it for a few moments before turning back towards the town while still blowing it. As she left the wooded area, she could see a few of the other riding back towards Jackson as well. Mostly, she could see both Joel and Ellie riding as hard as they could back to their little sanctuary. They all reached their within the same small time frame. Maria, Joel and Ellie all stormed towards the infirmary and saw Tommy’s horse abandoned outside. Maria could see the fear in Joel’s eyes as they stormed inside, pushing past the doors and into the main room. 

Joel pushed past a few people to get to the back room that they usually keep unoccupied for emergencies. When he pushed the door open, the doctor was hovering over Tommy who had her huddled in his lap, hands gliding up and down whatever inch of skin he could reach. Joel promised himself that this was the one time he would let that slide, especially since her life depended on it. Tommy made eye contact with Joel as he stormed over to them, subtly sliding her over to Joel as he sat next to them. Joel could feel her weight press down on him and first the first time that night, the tightening in his chest loosened just a little bit. He immediately started to run his hands up and down your body through the two blankets that were tucked around you. The doctor was speaking to him, but he wasn’t listening. He called your name a few times, hoping that you could hear him. 

“C’mon, honey,” he begged, “I need you to open those pretty eyes for me. Lemme see them.”

He was practically talking to a statue, the cold almost becoming you. Joel didn’t cry very often but he figured now would be an exception. They ran down his cheeks rapidly as he held back a small sob; he couldn’t care less that Ellie, Tommy and Maria were there to see it.

”Please, baby. I need you to look at me.” He sniffled some. “I can’t do this without you. I’m so sorry; I should have been there. I should have protected you. You… you’re everythin’ to me. Please don’t go. I promise I’ll do anything as long as you stay. I won’t… I won’t make it through this.” Joel shook his head, pulling you closer to him. “I need you to stay with me. I’m beggin’ you.”

Ellie had to turn and leave, she thought she was going to be sick. Maria left with her, not wanting to interrupt this moment, whether it ended good or bad. Tommy stayed with Joel, assisting in trying to get your body heat back to somewhat normal. 

You, on the other hand, felt like you were floating. You could hear Joel’s words, the pleading in his voice, the urgency in his and whoever else’s hands were brushing up and down your skin. You thought that the stars were the perfect company in death but now, you realize that if there was something you’d want to look at as you go, it would be Joel. You wanted so badly to let him know that you were here with him, that you could hear him but your muscles were so tight, so tired. All you could get out was a deep hum from the back of your throat that you weren't sure was even your voice, you couldn’t recognize it. But Joel did, pulling you tighter against him. 

Joel turned to Tommy quickly with an urgent look in his eyes.

“You gotta leave.” He told him.

Tommy looked at him oddly. Joel shook his head.

“Body heat. She needs body heat.”

Tommy finally understood, standing and exiting the room to go and find both Maria and Ellie. The doctor excused himself as well, standing outside the room in case there was some sort of emergency. Joel wasted no time in stripping off any layer of clothing that he could get to. It didn’t take much to rip off what was left of the leggings that you wore but he struggled a bit with your jacket. He laid you down on the small bed, taking off his clothes as fast as he could; he didn’t want you away from him, worried that even a second not near you could do more harm. He laid himself on top of your body, both of you now only covered in your undergarments. He knew that you would most likely complain about the fact that we were practically naked in a public place but at this point, he couldn’t give a shit. All he cared about was making sure you stayed alive. He covered as much of your body as he could while still whispering sweet nothings into your ear, trying to get some sort of reaction from you.

It took about half an hour but your body temperature was coming up slowly. You almost wished you were still numb because the pins and needles were returning, causing some discomfort. You found your voice a little while later, moaning out of pain. The dull throbbing in both your thigh, now stitched and covered up, and your head (which surprisingly wasn’t busted open like you thought it was) was hurting. Tears developed in your eyes and for the first time that night, you could feel them running down your face. You could feel a sob rising in your chest quickly before it came out of your mouth. And though it was a sign that you were in pain, Joel was ecstatic. Because it meant that you were warm enough to feel again. 

“I know, I know honey. I know it hurts. I’ll get you taken care of.” Tears rose in his eyes. He never thought he would be excited to hear you crying, but here he was. He continued to warm your body as he held you while you cried. You genuinely thought that you were going to die out there, alone with the stars and sounds of nature. You never realized how you had taken being held by Joel for granted and boy, did he know how to hold you. 

Once you could feel your limbs again and had full control over them, you slowly lifted an arm to warm around Joel’s middle, holding you to him as tight as you could. Joel released a sob at the touch of your skin on his. Like you, Joel started to realize how he had taken holding you for granted. The world was a scary, uncertain place. Every day, people walked a thin line between life and death and today, you almost crossed it. You were both so close to never being held by each other again and Joel couldn’t handle the thought of that. 

“It’s alright, honey. I gotcha. I always have ya.”

And you believed him. Because he saved your life. 

And unbeknownst to you, you had saved his too.

[lovelywritinglady]

For our little writers' Art Trade...! Gyomei has no idea how much his small Fem!Reader lover enjoys seeing her beloved show his strength like he does during the Training Arc... Honestly, it's a HUGE turn-on to see him move a boulder with ease or stand in the middle of flames while balancing heavy weights over his back... Or see him hugging kitties. Sadly, Reader is weak and can only help train Demon Slayers by feeding them, much like Tengen's wives do. She is kinda motherly and that in return turns Gyomei on SO HARD. Where she is weak, he is strong, and vice versa. Maybe some smut? Maybe they sneak out to take out the NEED they lit in each other? I would be eternally thankful!

I shall do my best!!

Strength and Weakness

Gyomei Himejima x Fem!reader

In which you and your strong lover cannot contain the burning love for each other even in important times.

Fluff, SMUT, size kink, praise, outside sex, desperation sex, maybe out of character Gyomei.

It’s been nearly four weeks since the training with the Hashiras began. You had been working with your husband, Gyomei, to wip these young demon slayers into shape. However, most of them have yet to show true promise and the few who you think could are still training with the other Hashira. Knowing that the only reason that they are even going through such rigorous training is because of Muzan. The mere thought of Muzan would make anyone here shiver with either anticipation for a fight or pure fear.

Today marked the third day that this batch of young demon slayers were attempting to push the massive boulder that your husband had told them to move. It’s size was impressive to say the least but to your husband it was child’s play. He was strong and was considered the strongest Hashira around.

You could definitely attest to that as through out your relationship with the strong man, you had seen him push boulders nearly five times the one that he’s making these young demon slayers push, and for much longer. He was truly an impressive man and you knew that you had been blessed to have him as yours and only yours. However, it’s had been nearly four weeks since your husband last touched you.

Four weeks since you had felt his strong arms around your body in glorious passion. You were beginning to get antsy and it didn’t help when you saw his strong arms and ripped muscles flex as he pushed boulders or showed how to say his mantra at the waterfall training area. Your body flowed with desire for him and you could tell he felt the same. Seeing him being so soft and kind to the students ignited a fire within you. Not to mention the time he was absentmindedly holding a small black and white kitten while he was giving instructions. It didn’t feel fair but you knew that waiting was the right thing to do as you didn’t want any of the students to see the two of you in such a way.

Just as you were trying to think of anything else the very man in question passed by you pushing a boulder. His face calm as he chanted his mantra. While his muscles were in full display as the veins in his arms were bulging out. God you loved him. God how much you needed him. You were glad In that moment that he couldn’t see as the look you were giving him was simply sinful. Your body felt hot as your pussy ached with the absence of his cock. You needed him, your craved him and you knew it was only a matter of time before you were going to snap. You heard footsteps behind you and turned around to see one of the young demon and quite tired demon slayer students.

“Mrs. Himejima, I’m sorry to ask you this, but when do you think dinner will be ready?” One of the young demon slayers asked you with a strained voice as politely as he could manage.

“In about five minutes, tell the others for me will you?” You responded giving the poor tired boy a sweet smile as you did your best to push down the burning desire you had for your husband.

Meanwhile…

Gyomei had just wrapped up the waterfall demonstration as he noticed some of the young demon slayer students practically sprinting to the area that he knew his sweet wife was in. He decided to go there himself needing to hear your sweet voice after a long days of hearing the complaints of others. He sighed wiping the tears that had recently streamed down his face doing his best to look presentable to you. Soon, he had made it to you as a smile was present on his face.

To him, you were the very definition of perfection. Despite your physical weakness, you were kind. And to him, that was the greatest strength that anyone could have. He admired you for that and your kindness was one of the many reasons that he fell in love with you in the first place. He may not be able to see you but his soul knew that you were his and he was yours. And like you, he was getting very impatient for you. Hearing you day and day out being so sweet to these poor kids and how much you wanted to help him made him incredibly grateful and not to mention horny. He neeed you and he knew you needed him too. Now, he was probably the most patient man out there but when it came to you, it was though all reason and logic left him completely.

The thought of the way your smaller body sucked him in like it was meant to make him take a deep breath. His cock was beginning to grow and he tried his best to rid himself of such impure thoughts but hearing you now speaking so gently, so motherly, make him want to take you into the woods and make you the mother that he knew that you wanted to be. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Honey, would you like some too?” You asked suddenly as Gyomei had realized he was just standing here lost in the sinful thoughts of you.

“Yes my dear, thank you.” He responded after a few moments taking the massive plate of rice balls that you had made shivering slightly at the warm touch of your fingers brushing against his.

“You’re welcome! I made those just for you. I know you’ve been working really hard!” You beamed at him doing your best not to lose control at the mere sight of your husbands tall godlike stature in front of you. His sleeves were pulled up to his elbows as you had full view of his muscular arms still wet from the waterfall as his veins were in full view. You were doing your best but were practically drooling from just his arms. “Fuck.” You breathed out

“What was that, darling?” He asked putting one of his very large hands on your cheek, stroking it softly.

“N-nothing!” You chirped feeling slinky embarrassed for not keeping it together. “I hope you like them!” You quickly added

“I’m sure I will! If they are made by my sweet wife, then I know I’ll love them.” Gyomei spoke as pure adoration was lacing every word.

“Love?” You whispered

“Yes?” He asked bending down as he knew you needed to tell him something that only he needed to hear.

“I need you.” You whimpered finally admitting the thing you’ve needed to for four weeks now. “I know that we need to be professional but I can’t stand it anymore, I need you my husband. I need you. Please.” You added sounding so desperate so needy and who was Gyomei to deny you.

Without so much as a word, he set his plate gently down on a long and grabbed your hand as softly as he could and began walking into the woods a little too quickly. You began stumbling on your feet, barely tripping. Because of this, your husband quick as he could picked you up bridal style and now quicker than before, carried you far into the woods where he was positive that no one would wander. The very last thing he wanted was for someone’s innocent eyes to see what sinful acts he was about do upon his sweet wife.

Soon, he had found a suitable spot and had gently put you down on the soft grass. You hadn’t stopped looking at him the entire time as your mid was swimming with hundreds of scenarios that could happen in this very forest. Pussy was now soaking due to your excitement and impatience. Gyomei knew this as he could feel your wetness as he carried you earlier as his own make a sizable spot on his pants.

Gyomei then kneeled down and hovered over your smaller frame. He then without warning latched himself onto your neck. Kissing it roughly then softly allowing for you to fully grasp the sensation. And grasp you did as your whole body jerked with every kiss and every nip he was giving you. Your moans were loud and it was evident that he was doing well but could tell you needed more.

“Oh god, Gyomei please I need you.” You moaned out solidifying what he already knew.

“I know my love, I know.” He breathed out as he decided to start kissing down your chest more leaving a massive trail of love marks and kisses making your head spin as you grabbed a massive fistful of his spiky hair causing him to loudly grunt. He began sucking the skin on your hip making you buck up in response.

“Please!” You whined out needing more than this.

“Patience darling.” He whispered pressing kisses down your pussy causing your back to arch.

Without warning, he pushed your panties to the side and latched himself on your clit sucking it softly. His tongue began circling it making you moan your husbands name louder. Gyomei then proceeded to insert one of his large fingers into your needy hole and began pumping it in the way he knew you loved.

“Yes, yes, don’t stop. I’m gonna cum soon.” You moaned out pushing his head down against you as you began impinge is face softly.

He hummed in response as he inserted another finger slightly picking up the pace as he began scissoring your hole so that you were ready for him. Gyomei was content in his work as being intimate with you like this made him feel so accomplished. Knowing the he was the one to make you feel this good make his cock ache in his pants even more than it already had. Feeling bold, he decided that it was best to insert one more of his thick fingers.

“Gyomei!” You screeched as your climax had finally reached it peak. Your juices flowing into your husbands mouth as he greedily drank then with pleasure. Your then squeezed his head from the overstimulation you were feeling. You moaned his name over and over again as your vision went blurry and body numb from your orgasm. When he finally finished his meal, he lifted his head and gave you a sweet smile, his face covered in your pleasure.

“You did well, love. Would you like to continue?” He asked making sure you were going to be okay taking him.

“Y-yes. I need you.” You whimpered coming down from your incredible high that only Gyomei could give you.

“Good.” He spoke as his voice suddenly got deeper.

“Would you like me to take care of you?” You asked sitting up slightly as you watched him take off his clothes.

“I just need to feel you as you are. I’m getting rather impatient now my love.” Gyomei said as he suddenly picked you up as he latched his lips hungrily onto your own. You wrapped your arms around his strong neck as your boobs pressed against his hard chest.

Your eyes widen at the ferocity of his kiss. His tongue mixing with yours without warning. A moan escaped from his throat and that very sound sent shivers or pleasure down your spine. His arms gripped your smaller body as one of his hand heals you against him as the other gripped your ass firmly. You were shaking from this needing more.

“Honey..” you whined out.

But as soon as your spoke, your husband took his hand off your ass and desperately undid his pants, freeing his hard and sensitive cock. He the, rather boldly, grabbed your panties and ripped them off of your body like he was picking a flower.

“G-gyomei.” You stuttered shocked at his eagerness.

“Just need you and they were in the way of you.” He grunted and you whimpered my his show of strength. “Are you ready, dear?” He added making sure to take time to make sure you were comfortable.

“Mhmmm.” You moaned out

“Use your words sweet one.” Gyomei calmly asked.

“Yes! Please fuck me!” You cried out desperately feeling more and more desperate the longer this gets drawn out.

“Good girl.” He whispered in your ear as he lined himself with your pussy.

You felt the thick tip of his cock beginning to push in. You were more than ready to take him, wet from your previous orgasm. However, your husband, was not a small man. Meaning his cock was huge and no matter how long you prepared yourself, it would always be a slight challenge to take him. You were a smaller woman after all.

The burning sensation as his cock entered you made you suck on your breath at the pain. You gripped onto his shoulders digging into his skin. He grunted softly feeling how tight your pussy was against him a small smile graced his scarred face as the sensation he was longing for, praying for, was finally here after so long. Soon, after taking his time, his cock filled you up completely making you moan out his name. He stayed still allowing for you to adjust even more.

“Y/n, my darling, I’m going to move now. Is that okay?” He asked you softly as you felt his hands drift down to your ass once again.

“Yes!” I cried out with clear frustration in your voice.

“Good.” Gyomei responded

He then moved his hips slowly making sure that he wasn’t going to hurt you. Hearing your whimpers make him feel slightly crazy but he knew going too fast now would make you not be able to walk the next day. And he certainly didn’t want to embarrass you. However, your next words surprised him.

“Gyomei,dammit, stop being so nice to me and fuck me. I need it.” You cried out almost angry.

And that was the very encouragement he needed. Gyomei then pulled his cock out, only leaving the tip in making you whine in response before snapping his hips hard.

“Oh fuck!” You cried out as tears began pricking your eyes.

Your husband gripped your hips and ass as he began fucking you relentlessly. His pace was quick as his cock was hitting your cervix hard making your eyes roll back. He then began kissing and sucking on the most sensitive part of your neck making you moan loud. Your body was completely and utterly his in this moment as he was fucking you like never before. His grip on your ass would leave bruises and you knew that, not that you minded. Gyomei was grunting loud as he was pounding you in the air. Holding you like you weighed nothing. Using your body to his liking and god you loved it. You let him know how much you loved it scratching his back and moaning his name like a mantra. As you scratched you made sure not to hurt him.

“Harder my love, dig into my flesh!” He yelled out before crashing his lips hungrily onto yours.

And so, you did. You dig as deep and hard as you could as your husband went even faster than before making your mind and body feel like it was floating in ecstasy. The pain you felt before was long gone but you need for your husband grew and grew with each of his powerful thrusts. You began to cry due to overstimulation and the fact that you loved your husband so dearly.

“I-I love you so much.” You blabbered out as your tears poured out from your e/c eyes.

“I love you too, my darling.” Gyomei spoke out as his own tears started to flow as well. It wasn’t uncommon to see him crying but on this occasion it solidified his feelings for you. He was crying because of how much he loved you, how good you felt, and how thankful he was to have a woman like you in his life. And as he was pouring you he makes a silent prayer to God thanking him for you.

His grip on you increased as he felt himself close to cumming. His pace was erratic as the anticipation to his release was overwhelming. Your pussy was so tight, warm, and made perfectly for him. As for you, your own climax was soon as well. He was overwhelming all of your senses as you had already cum. Your body was far more sensitive than it had been in a long time due to waiting so long. You began to shake as you were getting weaker and weaker. However, you knew that even if you let go completely, your husband would hold you up due to his strength.

“Honey, m’gonna cum soon.” You blabbered out looking at his pleasure filled face.

“Me too, my darling, me too. I’m going to cum inside of you. Is that alright?” He asked quickly as his breathing became ragged.

“Y-yes. I want it.” You wined taking your turn to capture his lips with yours as you stuck your tongue in his mouth as your hands found new strength and gripped his hair roughly. His pace quickened as did his breathing. And soon you husband came as he held you closer to him as his dick was inside you fully.

“Oh my y/n, my one, my love.” He moaned out like he was praying a mantra.

You felt his thick cum filling you up like a warm embrace. You felt so full, so warm, so content. And as your husband held you, he brought one of his large hands yo your clit and began rubbing it in small circles, in the way you loved. He used the mixture of his cum and your slick to bring you pleasure. And just like that, you came hard. Your orgasm wracking your body with indescribable pleasure. His cock still stuffed deeply inside you as Gyomei could feel you tightening around him causing him to grunt as he decided to hump you slowly, enjoying the overstimulation that you were giving him.

“My love. Oh god!” You cried out still shaking from your high.

“I love you.” Gyomei whispered in your ear as he brought his left hand up to wipe the sweaty hair off your face as he placed a loving kiss on your forehead.

“I love you too. I’m so glad we did this.” You told him still in his embrace with his cock still inside you.

“Me as well. And as much as I’d love to do this again, we have students to attend too my darling love.” He said hesitantly as he gave you one more forehead kiss.

“Yeah, even if we did have time, I’m not sure my body could handle that again.” You admitted feeling tired. You laid your head on his chest taking deep breaths basking in the after glow of sex.

“Are you tired now?” He asked as he slowly pulled out making you gasp at the empty feeling.

“Yes, very.” You responded doing your best to sad on your own as he put you down. The feeling of his cum running down your legs made you shiver with the memory of recent events.

“Good I know you’ve been more restless recently. So I suggest you nap for awhile. I’ll tell the students.” He suggested as he put his clothes back on, doing his best to look at leafy semi presentable.

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” You yawned taking his arm to balance yourself. “But first I think I need to clean myself first.” You acknowledged feeling a bit gross due to the amount of sweat that was just on your body.

“It’s as though you read my mind, my love.” He spoke with a smile as he hoisted you up again. You were more than accepting of his gesture as your legs were too wobbly to walk properly. “There is a spring near by so we’ll go there and cleanse you, my darling.” He spoke softly sensing you were falling asleep.

“Thank you, my love.” You sleepily replied as you closed your eyes and snuggled into his warm embrace.

Gyomei then took you to that spring and clean you up all while you were too tired to do really anything. Your husband didn’t mind whatsoever as he loved doting and taking care of you. He was a lucky man and he knew that. Once you were all clean, he put your clothes back on your tired body and walked back to camp. As he did some of the students were questioning why you were in his arms and if you were okay. But he simply replied that you needed rest. Soon, he found a nice shady tree and place you under it. The grass was soft enough and this he kissed your lips and said a silent prayer to the gods for you. He then went back to the students and resumed his training to make sure these young demon slayers were ready for the fight with Muzan.

Thank you so much for reading!! I did a trade with @petitelepus so be sure to check out their content too!! 💜

Click here to see what I’ll write for and HERE for my master list.

Please feel free to like, comment, reblog, and request!

•I do NOT own any characters except y/n•

-L.W.L

[seiwas]

₊˚⊹。take my time (i’ll spend it all on you) | gojo satoru

wc: 1.6k

summary: gojo sees you in lingerie for the first time. 

contains: f!reader, suggestive almost nsfw (they make out… maybe a bit steamy), 18+ just in case, reader is in lingerie, shy feelings!! gojo down bad!!

a/n: i hc that the first time gojo sees you in lingerie, it’s like seeing you walk down the aisle—he’s a bit sappy like that! i also think that he’d love seeing his lover in pink! idk! it’s just the vibes! (col reader would look cute in pink too i think hehe complements the personality!); takes place later on, around col #4 (wip)

collection masterlist: conversations on love 3.5b. —will i ever bring you peace? <- you are here -> +04b (extra). if you're ready (let me) + 04. these traces of love, they outline you

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

There are few things in life that have earned Gojo’s double take: 

A sign for a newly-opened gelato shop with ‘exclusive flavors for the first 30 customers!’ written in fine print; Megumi, back in middle school, being confessed to with a sweetly handcrafted box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day; a small cut, right at the tip of his nose from that time you sparred with him and he let you get too close (or so he says). 

And now you. 

In something pink—

—that if he backtracks just a bit, steps one foot behind the other to glance again at the space left open by the bedroom door, and squints—

He’s certain, 200% sure. 

It’s lingerie. 

He blinks once, twice, rubs at his eyes even as his mind attempts to catch up to whatever it is–you–he just saw. This must be what wires feel when they short circuit. 

You know he’s home, right? You have to, you just told him to rinse the dishes after snacking.

And he was in the middle of doing that—walking across your apartment from couch to kitchen, stopping only to do a double take at the sight of pink in his periphery, at you, once he looked again, clearly. 

Or were you doing this on purpose? Did you want him to see you? 

He gulps, warmth spreading from the tips of his ears down to his neck, lingering. 

There’s only one way to find out, really. 

He walks down the hallway leading to the bedroom, keeping his footsteps light so as to not startle you.

If he’s being honest right now, his mind is full to the point of feeling empty—too many thoughts swirling around the fact that behind this very door, he’s about to find you in pink lingerie. 

And when he takes a deep breath, fingertips pushing on wood very slightly as he calls out, “Bab—“

“S’toru!” you squeal from the other side, panicked as you instantly push it back closed.

So you didn’t do it on purpose. 

“Sorry, give me a minute!” you call out, and he can hear your footsteps from the other side, frantically walking around for what he can assume is you looking for something to cover yourself with. 

But he doesn’t want that. 

Not when he already has the visual of you, pretty in what he suspects is pink lace.

Not when the way you said ‘S’toru’ sounded so much like ‘‘Toru’, your ‘‘Toru’, the way you usually say it pressed against bed sheets, under him, expression blissed out from—

Do you have any idea what that does to him? 

“Are you wearing lingerie?” 

You freeze. Gojo can tell from the other side of the door, and you think, damn it, because he isn’t supposed to know you bought a set, much less see you in it. Not yet. 

You could try to lie, but Gojo always sees through you, through every change in inflection, the way your eyebrow twitches before speaking. 

“Can I come in?” he asks softly, almost hesitantly. 

How can you possibly resist him when he speaks to you like this? Asking permission as if this space you live in isn’t as much his?

You sigh, flustered at being caught this way, “Can you close your eyes first?” 

He follows, laying one hand over his eyes for good measure before knocking on the door. You open it slowly, wood creaking as he steps inside. 

You feel a little naked right now despite how he isn’t even looking your way, opting to face the side opposite from where you’re standing. It’s on purpose, you know, he can tell where you are—Six Eyes and all. 

There’s a smile that he’s hiding, biting his lower lip to stop it from showing. His toes are wiggling from the excitement coursing through him.

You know Gojo will like you in anything; in fact, he’s made it very clear that he prefers you in nothing—but still. Your stomach feels queasy and you can’t get rid of how nervous you’re feeling. 

And you guess, it’s really just because this was meant to be a surprise for him—the design you’ve chosen, how it looks on your body, how it looks to him, especially. You’d ordered the lingerie set months in advance to leave a lot of time for returns, whether it turned out ill-fitting or just unflattering.

You didn’t expect him to catch a glimpse of it now, months before his birthday, before you were even ready. 

“I’m waiting…” he teases, voice sing-song in that way he usually does to annoy you. It always makes you smile though, and it’s an odd form of comforting with how it dulls your jitters right now, just a little bit.

“Okay, you can look.” 

As soon as he turns, you squeeze your eyes shut, hands on your sides as you fiddle with your fingernails. Seeing, knowing his reaction in real time is still nervewracking, regardless of every reassurance you tell yourself—because, what if this is the off-chance that you’re wrong, and he doesn’t like it? 

Or worse: what if he has to pretend he likes it?

You frown a bit—it doesn’t help at all that Gojo isn’t saying anything.

But—

How can he, when there are no words, no adjectives, no possible descriptions to articulate what he’s seeing—what he’s feeling?

If he didn’t die then, in every instance he’s brushed with death: by Toji’s hands, locked up inside that box, in that final moment with Sukuna, nearly halved—

He thinks he might have just died right now. 

Because this? You? In lingerie as pink as all he’s feeling—his cheeks, his nose, flushing down his neck, maybe even his chest if it were exposed. 

It’s heaven. 

You’re a sight. 

While Gojo has certainly seen you in much less, and done with you things much more than just stand with you like this, he’s never seen you in lingerie.

And you’re so pretty. Sexy. All his, he can’t believe it.   

He’s noticing all the little details on it–on you–its shade, almost salmon with a bit of baby pink; its material: sheer net as the base for everything—it’s practically see-through save for the delicate floral lace running across the bra cups and panty front.

The set itself is nice, sure, but he knows he only likes it this much because it’s on you. And he knows he’ll always like anything on you. 

The heat in his stomach is building, spreading, to the single part of him that—

“Is it that bad?” you scrunch your nose, eyes still closed. He looks at you confused, before he realizes: he hasn’t said anything.

He chuckles and you open your eyes, pouting. 

And God, he wishes you didn’t do that. That look on your face—what it does to him.

“I ordered it in advance for your birthday,” you start, pout deepening as you ramble on, “it was supposed to be a surprise, but if you don’t like it, I can still–” 

That’s enough. 

He can’t believe that you actually think he doesn’t like it. 

Gojo steps into your space, close enough to grab you by the waist as his other hand reaches up to slot itself in the area between your ear and your jawline, tilting your head up slightly as he leans in to kiss you. 

It’s rushed at first, almost desperate—hungry, the way he releases his breath only to take you in; your lips, soft in the way he knows them to be, his hand on your waist squeezing. Your fingertips trail to his cheek, almost cupping as his kisses turn deeper, more languid, lips moving against yours slowly, savoring. 

Gojo is a fast learner, and he shows it best in the way he kisses you, as if he’s memorized every way to build that familiar heat within you. You lay your other hand against his chest, gripping at the fabric of his t-shirt as he pulls you closer. 

You bite his lip and suck, just a little bit, the way he likes it, and he moans, lowly, vibrations rippling through your mouth as he holds you steady. He’s hard already; you can feel it pressing against your lower belly. 

And you realize, as a small laugh tears itself away from you, how ridiculous it was for you to even worry. 

You break the kiss, leaning your forehead against his as you keep your noses touching. It’s impossible to tell how Gojo looks, but you have a hunch with how he’s breathing so heavily; the skies in his eyes must be darker, almost gray, turned on by desire—the same one settling deep in your stomach, aching, needy. 

“It’s perfect,” he whispers, lips grazing yours. He traces hearts by your shoulder, something born out of the many times you’ve lain in bed together, playing with the strap of your bra before pulling, a short snap! as he lets go. 

“You like it?” you whisper back, a lilt in your tone, teasing. Your fingers come up to trace his lips and he holds them in place, nipping. 

“Mhm,” he grins, smoothing his hand over the lace details on your bra, his thumb rubbing, “so pretty.” 

He leans in again, a small peck, before asking, “Does this mean I can get my gift now?” 

You laugh, hitting his chest, “It’s not your birthday yet!” 

“Yeah, but what is time anyway?” 

And you know, with the way he’s trailing kisses down your neck, licking and sucking—you’re going to have to find another thing to surprise him with on his birthday. 

.

Later that evening, with your head lying right on his chest, you remember. 

“Oh yeah, the set also came with one of those belt things. Garter, I think? But I wasn’t sure if you’d be into–” 

You’ve never seen Gojo get up from bed faster.

thank you notes: for that anon that asked about whether col reader wears lingerie! + @stellamancer @soumies @crysugu for validating me that pink is in fact col reader's colour ᰔ i also just luv u guys 🥺

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

[luludeluluramblings]

SugarBaby!Reader (Neglected!Bat!Sibling) x Tony Stark - Falling in Love

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Part Two

A/N: Someone wanted more fluff of this and I had thoughts about it last night. Tony isn’t my favorite, but I kinda wanted to challenge myself with this and see if I could try it writing some romance.

A/N: Smalltown!Reader is still coming. Pregnant!Reader will be getting a part 2 at some point. Might post another series, the one army dreamer inspired, because why not? Gonna have sooo many WIPs. But, maybe they’ll give y’all some delight.

Warnings: GN!Reader, Mentions of bedroom activities, fluffy, not edited, hardly anything Yandere. Intended to be

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

When you and Tony started dating it had been after he had wooed you at some gala. Something for a long forgotten charity. You had initially been hesitant, knowing his play boy reputation. The one so eerily similar to your father’s Brucie Wayne persona.

Still he was charming, good looking, and had convinced you that one night wouldn’t hurt.

And, it hadn’t. The next day when you were about to crawl out of bed and begin your walk of shame, he had dragged you back. Taking his time repeating the night before and with an encore.

By the time you had finally been allowed to leave the bed, your stomach had let out an embarrassing growl that made your cooling skin flush once more.

Of course, Tony wasn’t going to let anyone he spent such a good time with go hungry. Ordering the two of you room service and a giant spread of breakfast.

It’s in that moment things start to shift. You were a good lay for Tony. A young pretty little thing that was some of the best he had had in a while. (Due to him mellowing out with age, not that he’d ever admit that.) But, it’s the way you look at him, shyly and with such genuine gratitude just for him buying to brunch that makes him stop.

Not pause. Because pause means he’ll end up playing again. And, he’s fairly certain he’s done playing. Because, when you happily sit in his button down shirt, munching on the food he bought you, and listen to him talk about an old project (he wasn’t dumb enough to share anything new he’d been working on) with such bright eyes and enthusiasm he realizes this might be trouble for him. It’s even cuter because he knows you don’t understand a single thing he’s saying, but you’re trying. You’re trying so hard and it’s so cute.

It keeps going on like that. Passionate nights and slow talkative mornings that morph into date nights and fun trips and days lounging together. You’re still honestly convinced it could all end at any moment. Nothing good last in your life. And, despite how desperately you want this to last you know it probably won’t. Still you swear to hold on. To take everything he’ll offers. Even if it’s not much and he leaves you in the end. You’re going to appreciate how full and fulfilled her makes you feel.

For you, you fall in love slow and overtime. It a soft and startling realization when you realize you love Tony. You love him dearly and he could break your heart into a million pieces. But, it would be worth it.

You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Loving him and waiting for him. To leave.

For Tony, it’s similar. He spoils you he does. He loves the way you look at him when he does. But, as he unknowingly starts to settle, the realization that he’s not showing you off in public as much anymore and that he enjoys just being near even when there’s nothing to talk about hits him in the chest. And, in a Tony Stark like fashion, he spirals for a bit.

It causes him to spend three full days in his lab avoiding the world and his problems. Not sleeping, hardly eating, ignoring Jarvis.

When he finally does emerge, he’s covered in sweat and grease. He aches. He’s tired. He’s irritable. His fully expecting you to be mad he missed your fancy date he had planned. But, when he looks up at you and see’s that exact same grateful look in your eyes, it clicks. You give him that same look of gratitude and adoration every time he does something for you. He’s not doing anything other than being here with you. And, that’s enough for you. You’re in love with him, and he’s in love with you. And your willing to love him as his is and with what ever he gives.

Tony doesn’t confess though. To cliche. Instead he proposes. With no ring, no plan, and covered in grease. But, completely serious. It isn’t long until you understand he really means it, that he wants you for you and you’re leaping in his arms crying, yes. Yes. And the. You tell him to shower, because despite the love you feel and your happiness, he smells ripe.

He chases you around instead, before dragging you into the shower with him.

It isn’t until you both have a small private court house ceremony and he’s dragging you on to a luxury honeymoon that he leans over and confesses. Casually. Like it was a stray fact.

“Oh, hey, by the way, I love you.”

It makes you squawk that he has the audacity to do such a thing, but you lean into him and say it back.

“I love you, too… Silly old man.”

“Hey! That’s not what you were saying when I-“

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

You hadn’t even thought about you family with Tony. Hadn’t thought to invite them to the wedding. You did call Alfred as soon as you got back though. Telling him the good news with so much happiness that the old Bulter cried when the call ended. You had sounded radiant, and it broke his heart.

Broke his heart that no one in the family had seen just how beautiful your joy was and that they had never bothered to cause it.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Based off this ask.

[itgetsdark-x]

are you ready for it?

summary: in a couple of days, you would be gone from this town; across the country with your dad. so what if you sent a risky text to his best friend during a round of truth or dare. it didn’t matter, right?

warnings: 18+, MDNI plssss!!, unprotected PiV, oral (f receiving), use of ‘good girl’ and generic praises, use of ‘daddy’, choking, hair pulling, some mild dubcon, pussy slapping, mild degrading (use of the word slut), dirty talk, age gap (unspecified but everyone is legal & consenting). probs forgetting some, flag if I have <3

characters: dbf!joel miller x (f) reader

word count: 8k (I’m sorry)

a/n: been sat on this wip for like a year??? lol what a mess!! any comments, reblogs and likes are all truly appreciated. the fact that anyone reads my work means a lot to me, thank u <3

“Girl, if you don’t hammer back that shot right now I will force feed you it, quit your moping!” Your friend, Claire’s, voice rang loudly in your ear, the music of the bar drowned out in the background as she spoke.

You rolled your eyes with a groan and took the shot from her nimble fingers, you brought it to your lips and knocked back the straight liquor; the burning sensation almost instantaneous as you swallowed it back.

“I am not moping, for the record. It’s perfectly reasonable for me to be pissed when your father wants to move across the country for a new job.” You grumbled, frowning at the thoughts of the life you were due to leave behind once you move.

Sure, you were in your twenties but that didn’t mean you had the perfect life you had planned out all those years ago when you were a kid. In your fantasy land, you would have been married, maybe even with a kid and living in a beautiful home all whilst you were running your marketing company.

But no, your reality seemed much bleaker; you were living with your single father, in your childhood home, working for a shitty, old white-man in a large corporation that made you miserable. Oh, and to top off your misery; you were pining after the one man you knew you could never have.

Joel, he was your father’s friend, one of the closest people to him and you pined after him, pathetically. You knew he would never look at you in that way, he was a decent man and you knew it was wrong to lust for someone who was almost double your age.

“Hey,” Your friend’s voice honed you back into the bar. “It’s shitty you’re having to move and you know for me, it’s going to feel like I’m losing a limb. We have been besties since we were born. Cradle to grave, remember.” She smiled sweetly, the alcohol causing her words to slur together and she held out her pinky finger for you to take.

You took it firmly and shook it with your own, nodding in agreement to her words.

“Hey, we are gonna miss you too! Just because I don’t have that weird freaky sibling thing going on with you.” Your other friend, Jess, teased, jabbing your side causing you to push her away with a hearty laugh.

“You’re just jealous.” You grinned after sticking your tongue out at her. “Now, if I can’t beat you bitches, how about I join you? Round of shots, on me?”

Your friends cheered in unison and you swiftly ordered the round of drinks for you all.

—

The night wore on, drinks flowed but you had stopped a little while ago; you had to start packing tomorrow and you couldn’t bare the thought of doing it hungover, especially knowing that Joel would be there to lend his best buddy a hand in a time of need. 

“Okay, okay!” Claire shushed you all, you and your friends were huddled round a table in the bar, many a scattered glasses and drinks covering its sticky surface. “I propose a game of… Truth or dare?!”

��Claire, babe, we are all grown women do we really have to play this? Especially here, it’s cringey!” You whined petulantly, almost immediately disproving your maturity. 

She shot a smirk at you, a menacing look settling onto her face. “You know what… Ms. Snarky, for that, you can go first.”

“No! No way!” You huffed, sitting back in your seat and pouting at your best friend. You shook your head and she just raised a brow at you in question. “Fine…” you sighed reluctantly with a roll of your eyes.

“Ha! Knew I would win you over.” She smirked. 

“Bitch.” You muttered and finished off your soft drink. 

“Yeah yeah, right back at ya. Truth or dare?”

“Ugh fine. Whatever. Truth.” You sighed deeply, looking at your friend with annoyance.

“Smile for once, it won’t kill you, I promise.” She teased, nudging your leg with hers. “Okay, ummm, what happened with Connor? That time on the school ski trip. Did you lose it to him?” She giggled, knowing it would embarrass you.

“Oh my god! Did I call you a bitch already? Oh I did?” You groaned as your friend’s giggled in your direction. “Nope, not going there. No one will ever know what happened, I am taking that embarrassment to the grave. I’m changing… Dare!”

“I mean technically not allowed but fine, you can change your mind… Hmm, dare… I dare you to text Miller, something stupid but a little sexy. Lay all your cards out on the table.” She quirked an eyebrow up in challenge and you flopped your face into your hands.

“Tonight is the worst, remind me why I’m not calling an Uber right now and leaving you all here? Snakes. What if he tells my dad?” You whined.

“Girl, you’re moving in a what? A week, even less than that!? What have you got to lose? Sure your dad may stay in contact with him but realistically when are you gonna see him again after you move?!” Claire reasoned.

You didn’t know if it was the alcohol comfortably thrumming through your body or just plain naivety but Claire’s logic was making sense.

“Fine.” You mumbled from behind your hands and your friend’s cheered in celebration. “What the fuck should I send him?”

“I don’t know… just do something dumb like some songs lyrics? Ooooh, what about ‘…Ready For It?’ By Taylor? You love that song and let’s be real, kinda suits your situation.”

“Oh fuck me,” you groaned as you pulled your phone of your pocket with shaking hands and found Joel’s contact card, you pressed on messages and began typing to him.

‘Hey Joel, been thinkin’ ‘bout you and well ‘bout me moving and stuff… I have some stuff I feel I need to say before I do move. You can totally ignore this message if you want… I get it…’ 

You hit send on the first message and began typing again before the two ticks even identified whether it had been delivered or not.

‘If you touch me, you’ll never be alone. Lights down low, no one has to know. In the middle of the night, in my dreams, you should see the things we do, baby. In the middle of the night, in my dreams, I know I’m gonna be with you, so I’ll take my time… Are you ready for it? ;)’

You hit send again and immediately locked your phone before throwing it onto the table.

“That was gross and possibly the cringiest thing I’ve ever done. Claire, I sincerely hate you and cannot wait to move.” You grumbled, she just shot you a middle finger as the girls continued to go round the table playing the game.

After a few minutes, you picked your phone up to peek at the screen, there were no new notifications but you unlocked your phone anyway; there it was, the two ticks had turned blue and under his name read the small ‘online’. You swallowed roughly, trying to calm down your racing pulse before it changing to ‘typing…’. Your hands shook as you watched the screen, waiting for his message to appear. What was he going to say? Was he going to screenshot the message and send it to your dad? Was he going to berate you for trying something on with him?

“He’s typing!” You announced loudly, causing your friends to whip their heads round to gawk at you. “I’m gonna fucking throw up. Claire, I hate you.”

“Yeah… You mentioned that already. What did he say? Oh my god!” She all but screamed.

Joel’s message appeared and he remained online as your eyes skimmed over the words.

‘Hi darlin’, uhh, think you may have the wrong number here? It’s Joel… Miller? Dunno if it was meant for another Joel. J x’

You swallowed back the dry feeling in your mouth and blinked a few times, relief washing over you as you realised he wasn’t angry.

You read the message out to your friends and chewed on the edge of your thumb as you flashed the phone to them to read.

“Wh-what the fuck do I reply with?!” You whined.

“Okay, okay, deep breaths. This is good!” Jess chimed in with an encouraging smile.

“Right… What you’re gonna wanna write is something along the lines of… Nope, knew it was your number, Miller. I want you. You should see the things I think about when I’m alone. The thoughts of us.” Your other friend Izzie piped up.

“That’s so-so, I don’t know, just seems so obvious!” You replied, staring blankly at your phone as your thumbs hovered over the keyboard. 

“Duh, that’s the whole point, do you wanna fuck him or not?!” She grinned proudly.

“Well… I mean, yeah but it’s more than that y’know. It’s not just sex…” You sighed, a pang of sadness striking your heart.

You shook your head and typed out your reply, agreeing that you had nothing else to lose and maybe this would lead to Joel seeing you in a different light.

‘Nope, Miller, knew it was you. That’s why I sent the message. It was intended… I’m just saying, you should see the things I think about when I’m alone… the thoughts that I have about us. It’s probably enough to make anyone blush.’ 

You hit send and immediately you felt your own cheeks heat up; you had never been this blatant or transparent with a guy before and it felt alien.

“I’m gonna go get some air out front.” You announced to the table.

The girls nodded and smiled in your direction before they went back to their conversations.

As soon as the night air hit you, you felt your cheeks start to cool and you rested against the wall of the bar as you slowed your breathing down again.

*Ping*

You stared down at your phone and blinked a few times to ensure you were reading the words correctly.

‘Make anyone blush? Is that right, darlin’… I highly doubt that. You at home? Where are you texting me from? J x’

The heat creeped back up your neck and you shivered simultaneously as you read his message.

‘I’m out at the local bar with my girls, it’s my leaving party… Had a few drinks and thought what the hell… What are you up to?’

‘Typing…’ flashed across the top of your screen again as soon as you sent the message.

‘Stay right there, coming to get you. Be 10 mins. Be good. J x’

You swallowed, your throat felt dry and scratchy as you read his words. Tingles ran through your body and sparked through your core before the nerves settled in. What the hell did Joel have in mind? Surely he was just going to pick you up and take you home, it was getting late after all.

You quickly shot a text to Claire to inform her of your plans and all she sent back in reply was an eggplant emoji with water droplets. You laughed fondly at your phone and shook your head at her playfulness.

The cool air of the evening started to prickle at your skin, you wrapped your arms around your waist tightly to draw in some warmth and shivered as you waited for the familiar rumble of Joel’s truck. This was such a stupid idea, you knew it was, part of you just hoped that he would drop you home, lecture you about messaging him inappropriate things and then never mention it again. 

You were seconds away from turning your back to the road and hiding in the bar, with the safety and familiarity of your closest friends but before you had another to think, you heard a faint honk behind you. The air felt like it had been knocked out of you and you looked up to see Joel in his truck, one of his eyebrows was raised at you and there was a look you couldn’t quite place on his features. 

“Get in.” He said curtly, winding his window back up. 

You nodded and headed to the other side of his truck to climb in; you not so gracefully clambered into his truck and pulled your short, sparkly black dress down to cover the modesty of your upper thighs. 

“Hi Mr Miller.” You said politely, fastening your seatbelt and staring down at your hands in your lap. 

“Oh drop the act, kid.” He huffed and pulled away from the bar. 

“So uh… bit chilly out there this evening, pretty weird for this time of year, huh?” You muttered, ignoring the tension in the air. 

“Seriously?” He laughed dryly. “You’re talking about the weather? Seriously. Not such a big girl now, huh?” He smirked, his eyes flashing over at you before reverting them back to the road. 

“I — uh, I, um. I can explain?” You tried to sound confident but there was an evident tremble to your words. 

“Yeah? You can? Well go ahead darlin’. I’m all ears.”

The words died in your throat, you swallowed roughly just to try and get some moisture back into your mouth. At this point, you were sure that the Sahara desert had more moisture to it. 

“Well?” He barked, making you jump slightly. “Explain away.” 

The gruffness to his voice took you by surprise and you couldn’t even pretend to hide the way it went straight to your core, you pressed your thighs together and bit on your bottom lip, still barely looking at the older male. 

“Pathetic.” He tutted as he saw your legs rubbing together. “You getting turned on baby girl? Like it when an older man raises his voice at you?”

“Joel…” you gasped, one of your hands gripping the door of his truck, anything to distract from the aching wetness between your legs. 

Joel’s truck pulled into a street and before you fully clocked it, you realised it wasn’t your dad’s house, it was his street. You would have known it a million miles away, it was a second home to you. 

“What’re you doing? Why aren’t you driving me home?” You mumbled, looking at the male with slight panic. 

“Well sweetheart, you wanna talk a big game on your little phone, why don’t you show me all about what you’ve been talking about. I think I recall you said you could make anyone blush, ain’t that right?” He cooed, looking over at you with a quirked eyebrow as he parked his truck on his drive. 

“You don’t have to… I was just, well, I was being stupid. I had a few drinks with my girlfriends and they were teasing me about me liking you and it’s so dumb, you’re my dad’s friend, I’m moving next week and well, Joel, you don’t have to okay. You can just drive me home and we never have to speak about this again. I’m… I’m sorry.” You mumbled, the words rumbling from your mouth so quickly you couldn’t stop them if you tried. 

Joel sat there, nodding at every word you said, with a smug smirk on his lips. He took your face into his hands and pulled you in for a kiss; it was clashing teeth and neediness, pure lust. 

“Right, now that you’ve shut up. I would very much like to go inside with you and give you my goodbye present.” He muttered against your lips before kissing you again. 

“Goodbye present?” You questioned, watching as Joel just winked at you and got out of his truck. 

You followed the man, your legs trembling as stepped closer to his house; somewhere so familiar yet right now, it felt like it was somewhere brand new. It was brand new territory. 

Joel held open the door for and you stepped into the warmth of his house, you stood somewhat awkwardly in his hallway as he took his shoes off and locked his front door. 

“Are ya gonna just stand there or do you maybe wanna take your shoes off? I mean, free will is a thing but you may be a bit more comfortable without those stupid heels on your feet.” He smirked, looking up at you as he finished untying his shoes; his eyes roaming the vast expanse of your legs as he did so. 

“God, you’re so bossy tonight. This usually only happens when you’re grillin’.” You muttered, rolling your eyes at him. 

“Oh darlin’ you have no idea just how bossy I can be.”

You felt your cheeks burning at his statement, you had never seen this side of Joel before, you didn’t even think he could be like this and the fact that he was speaking like this to you? It felt like the world had gone mad. 

As soon as your shoes were removed, Joel was all over you like a burning rash; he had you pressed up against the wall, his hands weaving their way into your hair to kiss you roughly. You breathed shakily against his lips and gently pressed his chest to separate the both of you. 

“Joel—“ you breathed, his hungry lips already making their way down your neck and exposed cleavage. “I’m being serious… what about my dad?”

“What about your dad?” Joel questioned, his large palms moving from your hair to stroke down your dress. “He’s not here is he?”

“I feel like you’re fucking with me.” You replied deadpan. 

“I’m not darlin’, feel, feel what you’re doing to me.” He whispered, grabbing your wrist to position your hand on his swollen cock in his jeans. “See, I want this. I’ve wanted this for the longest time but fuck, you’ve been forbidden, I didn’t wanna fuck anything up. You’re my best friend’s kid, you’re half my age… didn’t think you would want an old man like me.” Joel whispered, his lips still kissing over your cleavage like a man possessed as he spoke. 

“Are you kidding me?” You replied, pushing him away, creating a defined space between the two of you. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you, when I was seventeen, I felt so stupid ‘cause I was just a dumb kid lusting after an older man.” 

“Right, well now we’ve established how much we both want this, get up those stairs right now. Get into my room, I wanna get you out of this sexy little dress.” He hummed, slapping at your ass as you walked away. 

You yelped and ran away from Joel’s playful hands, this didn’t feel real, you honestly believed that you were going to wake up, alone and in your bed, throbbing and sweaty. 

You entered Joel’s room, you had been there millions of times before; mainly after long days with the rest of Joel’s family, or with your dad when they were watching a game and drinking too many beers; you were always allowed to come up here and crash but now? Those days were long gone. 

You stood awkwardly by the bed, one arm hugging your frame, you didn’t quite know what to do or how to act, you were just waiting. 

“C’m here.” Joel murmured, unbuckling his belt and undoing his jeans. 

You closed the distance between you both and Joel span you around so your back was facing him; he kissed softly at your shoulders as he gripped your zipper and slowly undid the sparkling fabric. 

You sucked in a deep breath as the material began to fall to the ground, exposing your bare back and small, lace thong. From behind you, you could hear Joel let out a small growl; the noise shocked you, it was animalistic. His hands pawed at your back, rubbing your skin softly before his palms gripped at the doughy flesh of your ass. 

You whimpered and couldn’t help the way your back arched so he could grip you harder. 

“Going out without proper underwear? No bra and just this tiny little thong to cover your modesty?” Joel tutted disapprovingly. “Bet you were hoping some guy would take you into the bathroom at the bar and fuck you, bet you would be thinking of me and wishing it was my cock. Am I right?” Joel whispered into your ear, his teeth nipping at it roughly. 

You shuddered against him, you could feel his hard t-shirt clad chest pressed against your bare back; his hands sliding around to the front of your thighs. 

“I said,” Joel spoke as he span you around so you could face him; your breasts bouncing before him. He wrapped a hand loosely around your throat and couldn’t help but enjoy the way your eyes filled with panic. “Am I right?”

He inched his face closer to yours, you could feel his warmth breath on your lips; a faint smell of smoke and coffee lingering. You nodded under his grasp and opened your mouth to speak but only a small whimper left your lips. 

“Thought so. Bet your daddy doesn’t know how filthy his little girl is; bet he doesn’t know how bad you’ve wanted his best friend’s cock.” Joel laughed, pushing your frame onto his bed; your breasts bouncing with the force once again. 

“Joel —“ you whimpered, with a low trembling voice.

“What’s the matter baby? Cat got your tongue? I thought you were a big girl, thought you were gonna tell me all about what you dream about?” He smirked, pulling his old T-shirt over his head and shirking off his worn jeans to reveal his tented boxers. 

Your mouth salivated at the sight; Joel’s broad chest was peppered with greying hairs, his slight tummy protruding above his waistband and god, his cock, even in his boxers you could tell it was heavy and thick. You rubbed your thighs together and it took everything in you to not trail a hand down to your throbbing cunt. 

“Lay back and spread your legs for me.” He hissed, watching as you obliged; you positioned your back against Joel’s pillows and willingly spread your legs for him. 

Between your legs, Joel could see how the pink fabric of your lace thong darkened with your evident arousal. 

“Oh fuck, look at you, so pretty for me, so wet. Take your panties off and show me that little cunt. Bet it’s so tight, gonna wanna bury myself in it forever.” 

Your cheeks flushed at his crass words but once again, you obliged and shimmied out of your thong and you threw the damp discarded fabric at Joel’s feet with a raised brow and gentle smirk.

He shot the same look back to you and bent down to pick it up, he grasped it in his fingers and brought it up to his nose to inhale deeply, his cock twitching as his senses were flooded with you. 

He stuffed the small piece of fabric into the pocket of his discarded jeans and just as you opened your mouth to protest, he smirked at you menacingly. 

“I’m gonna give you your leaving present, think of that as mine. Gonna need something to remember you by when you’re gone.” He shrugged as his eyes drank your body in. 

Joel towered over you from the edge of the bed and watched intensely as you spread your legs for him; his eyes roamed over your body and drank it in like it was the finest wine anyone could ever offer him. 

“Now, how about you play with yourself, show me how you touch yourself when you’re alone. Tell me what you think about. Make me blush.” He whispered, stroking his hand up your thigh before he sat at the foot of the bed and removed his boxers. 

You swallowed back a gasp when Joel freed his cock from his boxers, it bobbed up as the waistband freed his length and you fluttered around nothing; suddenly feeling impossibly empty. 

“Joel, I —“ you whispered. “I’ve never done this before, I… I feel stupid.”

“Oh sweetheart, there’s no need to feel embarrassed, come on, show me how you play with yourself and then, if you’re a really good girl I’ll give you my cock. Isn’t that what you want? Hm?” He cooed, his hand stroking his length as he spoke. 

You bit onto your bottom lip and nodded eagerly at the male. You felt so exposed, so vulnerable and you weren’t used to it; normally in hook ups, you were the confident one, the one with all of the control. 

You closed your eyes and slowly let your fingers travel down your body; they briefly paused to pinch at your hard nipples which made your back arch with a soft moan. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, you allowed your fingers to travel lower until they reached your wet slit. You rubbed two fingers through your folds with a whimper and let them settle on your clit, your eyes were still closed and you moaned into the silent room. 

“Oh fuck, Joel…” you whined, imagining you were alone in your room all worked up and pretending he was there with you. “Mhm, fuck, just like that. Love it when you touch me.” 

Joel watched on with lust-filled eyes, his hand was steadily pumping his length as he listened to you moan his name; your cunt wet and sticky for him. 

Your fingers circled around your clit, you kept your movements tight and fast. 

“Oh —“ you whined loudly, daring to open your eyes and watch Joel. “F-fuck, I imagine you fingering me under the table with people around. I imagine you getting so worked up over me that you take me to the nearest bathroom just so you can stuff your cock into my mouth and get your release.” You continued to speak and finally let your fingers stuff into your aching hole. 

“That’s it, just like that. Good girl.” Joel groaned, squeezing his cock as his eyes were fixated on you. “Bet you would look to pretty with my cock fucking your mouth, cum spilling out until your cheeks are stained with your tears. Tell me more, what else do you think about?”

You whined at the thought of Joel fucking your throat roughly, making you gag and cry and it drove you crazy. You pumped your fingers quickly and brought your free hand to play with your clit. 

“I —“ you whimpered. “I think about you choking me whilst you fuck me; wrapping your big hand around my throat and making me beg just so I can cum around your cock. I think about you bending me over so I can just be a hole for you. Fuck I want you to use me so bad, daddy.” You whispered the last word, it tumbled from your lips before you could take it back. 

“Shit.” Joel groaned. “You’re filthy, princess. Fuckin’ filthy. You this dirty for other boys? Or am I just extra lucky.” He teased. “Call me that again.”

“I — daddy, fuck, I’m gonna cum. Please can I cum?” You pleaded, looking at Joel with wide, begging eyes. 

Joel nodded, watching your wet fingers pleasure yourself. “Call me that and cum for me, baby girl. That’s it. Faster.” He instructed. 

You nodded, your bottom lip clamped between your teeth painfully as your fingers worked yourself to your impending orgasm. Your mouth fell agape, your lips creating a perfect “O” as your orgasm crashed through your body like rough waves lashing a shoreline.

Your back arched and you moaned loudly, a soft ‘daddy’ falling from your plush lips as you worked yourself through your intense orgasm. 

Joel jerked himself off quickly, groaning with each pass of his hand over the tip of his hard length; he was already leaking precum, the clear liquid beading at his slit before his rubbed it down, using it as his own personal lube. 

“Such a pretty girl, such a good girl.” He purred. “You fuck yourself like that at home and think of me, pretty girl? So naughty.” 

Your eyes fluttered open as your chest heaved. Your cheeks were softly flushed and you laid there, exposed and messy for Joel to admire. That’s what he did, he admired every dip, curve, felt and bump of your body as if you were the most expensive piece of fine art.

“I’ve thought about you too y’know.” He hummed, his large palms sliding up over your calf’s to land on your thighs. 

He dragged his dull nails over your flesh roughly which caused a gasp to tumble from your mouth as you stared at him dumbly. 

“I have, princess. So many nights been laid right there where you are.” He spoke softly, his voice barely above a whisper as he laid on his front between your legs, his fingers still stroking over your thighs. Slowly edging up, up, up. 

“I’ve laid there, my fist wrapped tightly around my cock and fucked it, thinking about how your pretty cunt would look hugging him as you bounce in my lap. Makes me cum so hard, every single time.” Joel’s breath fanned over your soaked folds, his lips threatening to kiss you there. 

You looked down at the male, trying to piece together what he was saying. You still couldn’t believe this was real life. 

Maybe it wasn’t, you thought, maybe you were in a coma… a really sexy coma. Or maybe you had drank too much and blacked out… wouldn’t have been for the first time either, embarrassingly. 

You were harshly brought back down to earth, to the moment when you felt the tip of Joel’s tongue lick through your slick. You couldn’t help the pathetic whimper that vibrated through your chest, your hand immediately found its way into Joel’s hair and like a woman possessed, you tried to grind your hips down onto the males face. 

“So needy.” He teased. “Don’t worry baby girl, I’ll give her what she needs.”

“Please.” You managed to squeak out, your voice barely recognisable to yourself. 

You held Joel’s hair roughly and pushed your hips forward, trying to bury his face into your greedy heat which only made the man laugh menacingly. 

“Look at you, pathetic baby.” He growled. “Trying to grind onto my face like a horny little mutt.”

You bit your bottom lip as your cheeks flared with embarrassment. He was right. You were pathetic. You were sure come tomorrow, come the clarity of a new day and undoubtedly a small hangover as a reminder of this evening, you would be wholeheartedly ashamed of your actions. But right now? Right now, you couldn’t care when Joel Miller’s face was millimetres away from your pussy, with a hard cock between his legs and he was admitting to lusting over you. 

Not for the first time, you were harshly dragged away from your thoughts as you felt Joel’s finger pushing into your tight heat. A moan roared from your throat as he twisted his hand upward and curled his finger in a come hither motion, right at that second, his tongue lapped over your already-throbbing clit with fervour. 

Your fingers tightened in Joel’s salt and pepper hair, tugging at the soft locks roughly which only seemed to spur him on and encourage him. He pumped his finger steadily before adding a second and suddenly, you were seeing stars. Your back arched with intense ecstasy and Joel looked up at you with those darkened brown eyes as his face was buried in your cunt. 

You already knew another orgasm would be taking over your body soon. Already you were worked up, your body barely having time to recover after your first orgasm and here Joel was, licking at your clit like a starved animal and his fingers pumped into you perfectly. It was the perfect assault on your senses. 

Joel performed like it was the most natural thing in the world to him and you knew that would come with his age. As a man in his fifties, this was nowhere near his first rodeo and somewhere in your pleasure-filled mind, you cursed all the women that got to experience this before you and jealousy thrummed through your veins at the thought of anyone who would get to experience this after you. 

“Come on baby, come on baby.” Joel growled lowly, his tongue leaving your body momentarily to speak. “Give me another one, come on, that’s it. You can do it. So good for me.” He whispered before his lips sucked around your clit gently. 

The praise made warmth bloom in your chest and your eyes squeezed shut as your fingers pulled at his hair; you knew it was probably hurting him but you couldn’t bring yourself to care about that. 

Joel pressed his fingers into your hole as deep as they could go and curled them upwards repetitively as he sucked at your clit, his tongue swirling the bud as his spare hand pressed down on your lower tummy.  

“Look at me as you cum, I need to see your pretty face. Need you to remember who this cunt belongs to now.” He groaned before attaching his lips to you once again, his eyes were hooded with pleasure but he kept his gaze locked upwards on you. 

You noticed the way Joel’s hips were rutting against the bed as he pleasured you and it was the thing that sent you tumbling over the edge. You came, hard. With Joel’s fingers buried deep in you and his plush lips on your clit. Your walls clenched and pulsed around his digits and your eyes fluttered as you looked down at him. It wasn’t a slow build up of pleasure, it wasn’t a soft romantic moment; it was an instant snap of intensity and lust. A stream of explicits tumbled from your lips as his fingers worked you through your pleasure. 

“Such an obedient little girl for me, aren’t you?” He hummed, leaning back to rub his fingers through your folds. 

“Joel.” You breathed, trying to suck in more as the aftershocks of your orgasm rippled through your body.  

Your thighs shook with pleasure and you rested up on your forearms to look at him better. 

“That…” you murmured. “That was incredible. What the fuck.”

Joel laughed, his fingers still idly playing in the wetness of your folders. He occasionally ran the pads of his fingers over your sensitive clit which made you jolt with overstimulation. 

“See you’re trouble,” he hummed, kissing over the soft skin of your inner thigh, his teeth nipping at you playfully. “Got me all obsessed on your taste, your smell, the way you feel and now you’re gonna go and leave me?” 

You chewed on the inside of your cheek as sadness puckered through you sourly. Joel was right though, you were being shown a glimpse of heaven and soon enough, it would ripped from you as you left with your father. 

“Promise me something,” Joel said, still kissing over thighs tenderly. “Promise me that this pretty little pussy belongs to me. Fuck, dunno how this’ll work but the thought of any boys being near you, being near this, driving me mad. Need you to be mine.” He hissed, his voice oozing with possessiveness. 

You just nodded at the male, dumbly. You had no idea how on earth it would work but right now, you didn’t care about logistics. You weren’t even positive Joel knew or meant what he was saying.

“Say it.” He snarled. 

“I belong to you.”

“Good, now tell me, who does she belong to?” Joel’s hand roughly cupped your mound, his fingers pressed roughly against you. 

You gasped out a weak, “You.”

Joel chuckled darkly and lifted his hand to place a slap to your spread pussy; the way your fingers gripped tightly at the sheets made him smirk. 

“Say it again.” He demanded. “Who do you belong to? Who does she belong to?”

“You.” You whined, watching the male. 

Joel slapped your pussy again, rougher this time and you moaned as the vibrations hit your sensitised clit. 

“You… who? Tell me.”

“Y-you, daddy. Fuck. I belong to you.” You spluttered out as a sob. 

“Ain’t that right, doll.” He hummed, feeling pleased with himself as he slapped your pussy once more. “I’m the only one that’s gonna fuck this tight little cunt. You’re only gonna be a hole for me. No more silly little boys, you just need daddy’s fat cock. Ain’t that right?”

“Yes.” You sobbed, pleasure toying with your emotions as your whole body shook. 

“Good girl.” He cooed, coming up to press his lips to yours in a quick kiss. 

You sighed happily as your lips locked, you could taste yourself on the male which only fuelled your pleasure. 

“How ‘bout I make baby girl’s fantasy a reality?” Joel cooed, pressing his forehead to yours as one of his large palms pawed roughly at your breast. 

His skin was rough, fingers calloused from his work and age. It sent shocks of arousal through you. 

“Hmm?” Joel questioned. “I can’t hear you? You want me to bend you over, choke you as I drill my cock into your cunt?”

“Yes. God. Yes. Please.” Every word that fell from your lips felt less intelligible than the last. 

Joel pinched roughly at one of your nipples before he took your hips into his hands and flipped you onto your stomach. You yelped in shock as you pushed yourself up to be on all fours, your back arching to allow the male better access. He flipped you like you weighed nothing and once again you were reminded that Joel felt so much larger than yourself, so much more mature. So much more in charge.

“Good girl, getting in position for me without even asking.” Joel hummed. 

The praise made the same warmth spread through you and you realised that was the only thing you ever wanted to hear going forward. 

Joel took the base of his engorged length and positioned the tip of his cock right at your entrance. He fought every sense inside himself to just bury himself to the hilt and instead he notched his fat cock head inside of you. It felt like he entered you with a pop, your intense heat and tightness hugging the head of his prick. 

Before Joel was even halfway inside of you, your fingers gripped at his sheets below and practically threatened to rip the soft fabric. 

“How does it feel?” Joel asked, his hand stroking up your spine tenderly before he brushed your hair away from your face and over your other shoulder. 

“I feel so full.” You breathed, relaxing under his touch. 

“Yeah? Not even halfway in right now baby, still got some way to go. Think you can take all of daddy?” His hand stroked over your neck, his fingers tickling over your pulse point. 

You nodded eagerly. “Yeah, I want all of you, daddy. Please give it to me. Just use me as your little hole. Need it. Please.”

Joel could have wept at that. The way your usually-soft spoken voice was ripping from you in pleasured sobs made his cock twitch and his heart beat a little faster than before. 

One of his hands gripped your hip, his fingers dully pressed into your skin hard enough to bruise you as his other hand wrapped around your throat; his thumb resting at one of your pulse points and his fingers on the other side, he gave you a testing squeeze which elicited a drawn out moan from you. 

That was all he needed as confirmation. Joel squeezed your neck harder as he thrust into you roughly, stretching you around him. Your mouth fell open, no sound able to escape as you tried to adjust to Joel’s size. Joel groaned deeply, the sound coming deep from inside of him as he drew his hips back to push into you once again. 

He started a steady rhythm; his hips snapping feverishly. The empty room was filled with the sounds of your wet cunt squelching with each thrust and the echo of Joel’s heavy balls hitting your mound. It was pornographic. Downright filthy. 

You were in love. 

“So wet for me, aren’t ya doll?” Joel groaned. “Wet for your dad’s best friend? Filthy little bitch.”

You whimpered, tears were rolling down your cheeks as Joel squeezed your throat. 

“Fucking talk to me.” He demanded. “Tell me how much you love my cock. Come on, you’re not that cock-drunk already are you? Silly little slut. Poor little girl. Barely had me and you can’t even speak?”

You shook your head to say no as a sob fell from you, the noise proof of the raw intensity of pleasure. 

“Oh it’s okay baby, it’s okay, I know.” Joel cooed. 

He removed his hand from your throat and you wanted to grab it and put it back instantly. Instead, Joel knotted his fingers roughy in the back of your hair to pull you up so you were purely knelt as Joel thrust into you; your back was flush against his chest. 

Joel’s hand found its way back around your throat once again as he thrust up into you and you wailed in pleasure; his cock nudging at the soft spot inside your spongy walls. 

“Oh I know baby, that’s it. Taking me so well. Ya reckon ya could cum on daddy’s cock?” He breathed into your ear. “Looking at you now, all spent and drunk on my cock… fuck, I keep imagining how you would look half asleep and swallowing my cock, bet ya wouldn’t mind if that’s how you woke up. Bet ya would be thanking me for waking you with my cock down your throat.” He groaned, his dark fantasy playing out in his mind deliciously. 

His fingers still gripped your hip tightly and his hand squeezed at your throat. You gave a weak nod.

“I’m not gonna last long baby girl, needa get another one out of you. I need to know how you feel cumming on my cock. Bet you feel heavenly.” He purred. 

“I-in.” You cried out. 

“Huh?” Joel groaned, his hips snapping up in a rough thrust. “In?”

“Cum,” you whimpered against him. “C-cum inside me. Please”

That was Joel’s undoing.

He wasn’t planning on finishing inside of you, no, he had planned to spill his hot seed across your tits, ass or face, like a gentleman. You hadn’t discussed birth control, protection or anything safe; like adults should. No, instead you were both so clouded by your blind arousal. 

Joel’s cock twitched inside of you, he pressed himself deep into you; your bodies flush together like if there were any gaps, you would both die. He held you tightly and your name fell from his lips as his cum coated your insides. 

You shook against Joel, his hand was squeezing your throat harder than before to the point where your head became light, you clenched around him and as he came inside of you, you came around him. Your body was spent, you were wrecked and you were sure if Joel wasn’t holding you so tightly, you would have just fallen onto his bed in a pile. 

“Good girl. Fuck. My good girl.” Joel bit onto your shoulder roughly as he gave a final few thrusts to work you both through your orgasms, letting you ride that wave of pleasure for as long as possible. 

You couldn’t speak, even if you wanted to. You were sure Joel had scrambled your brain with his skilled tongue and punishing cock. You were a ruined woman and you were sure you wouldn’t feel the same again. 

“Gonna pull out now, I’ll lay ya down and get you a cloth to clean you up, baby girl.” This time the pet name rolled off his tongue like it was the most normal thing to say. It was safe, it was tender. 

“Uh-huh.” You breathed, your eyes feeling heavy with sleep. 

Joel did as he said, he laid you down gently and disappeared for a moment. You didn’t even hear him come back, next thing you knew, you were being cleaned up by the older male. 

-

Your eyes opened, it took a second to come around before you sat up abruptly with a deep gasp. 

You were fucked. 

Your eyes scanned the room, it was Joel’s room. Okay, not a dream then, you thought to yourself absently. 

You squinted in the dark and saw the clock on Joel’s bedside table. 

3:48am. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” You hissed, standing up and stumbling across the room to try and find your strewn items of clothing. You found Joel’s shirt and pulled it over your body to cover your modesty as you looked for your underwear. 

Then you remembered, the way Joel shoved your panties into his pocket and all at once, the activities of hours previous flooded your mind. 

You perched on the end of the bed and breathed shakily. You were so fucked. 

“Darlin’?” Joel groaned sleepily, his voice thick with tiredness. The kind of sound that only made your heart ache.

He flicked his lamp on and sat up. He was clad in his boxers and he shifted down the bed so he was sat next to you. 

“You okay?” He asked softly, looking at you carefully. 

“Joel,” you sighed, tears pricking your eyes. “What the fuck have we done?” The tears fell and trickled down your cheeks. 

They were a shocking contrast to the pleasured tears of earlier and your chest shook with panic. 

“Oh fuck, I knew it was a bad idea. Fuck. Should’ve been better, darlin’. I’m sorry. God, this is gonna make me sound like such an asshole but please don’t tell your dad. I’d be a dead man walking.” Joel pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I don’t…” you breathed, placing a calming hand to your chest. “I don’t regret it.”

Joel’s heart fluttered, like a little girl with a crush, it fluttered at your words. 

“Then… Then what’s the matter?” Joel questioned. 

“What’s the matter?” You laughed bitterly and looked at the older male with wide eyes. “Joel, I’ve been pining for you for fucking years. To the point where I couldn’t even get a boyfriend because it felt wrong. And here I am, finally, had sex with the person I’m in love with and I have to leave, I have to walk outta this house. Go home and leave with my dad across the fucking country. I’m — I don’t regret it but fuck it, I’m broken.” As you spoke your admission, the tears fell quicker and freely over your cheeks. 

What was the point in hiding it anymore? You had already crossed that boundary when you stepped foot into his house tonight. 

Joel took your chin in his fingers gently and tilted your head back so he could kiss you. It was tender, soft and the most natural thing in the world; like you had both done it a thousand times before, like you would be able to do it again, and again, and again. 

“I don’t have the answers right now. Fuck, I’ll be damned if I could even pretend that, princess.” Joel said softly, tucking hair behind your ear as he pulled away. “But… I meant it earlier, might sound a little different now considering we’re not y’know… but seriously doll, I’m obsessed with you in all the ways that matter.” He took your hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. 

You blushed, hard. You assumed earlier Joel was rattling those words off in a haze of intense arousal, not out of sincerity. 

“We’ll make this work, you go with your dad and we’ll stay in contact. We’ll text, call and video chat, might need to help an old man out with that part but we can make it work. Your dad is my closest friend, I’ll come visit, you’ll come visit with him and we can sneak off and share time together then.” He said surely, smiling at you. “I’m not saying it’s perfect baby girl, but we can figure it out as we go. And well, if things don’t work out, it’s fine, you’re young and you’ll go off and live your life. You don’t have to worry about that.” He kissed your hand again before you fell against his chest and he wrapped his arms around you tightly. 

You kissed his bare chest and breathed in deeply, trying to ingrain the way his arms felt as he held you, the way he smelt and the way he looked down at you like you were the most precious gem in the world. 

“We can make it work.” You hummed, agreeing with him. 

“Now, how ‘bout I give you one more leaving present before I take you home.” Joel teased, his fingers tickling your sides. 

You giggled and playfully slapped his chest, looking up at him. 

“You’re a dirty old man, Mr. Miller.” You laughed. 

“Ain’t that the whole reason you love me?” He bit back. 

Joel caught your lips in another kiss, his large hand holding your jaw tenderly. 

Yeah, you were so fucked. 

———————————————

a/n: thanks again for reading, my loves! if you liked this, please lemme know cause I’m already scheming for a second part… which may or may not see peepaw tryna use a laptop for a fun video call. 

[luvergirl-535]

clean up nice

pairing - paige bueckers x azzi fudd

word count - 2.3k

c/w - fluff, no smut sorry :( but no not forget that daddy!paige is still on its way so you’ll be getting smth spicy soon.

a/n - got a random burst of creativity, and what did i decide to do with it? work on finishing one of my many wips, you ask? no. instead i dug into the depths of my inbox and found an old ass prompt to write for, lol. you can find the prompt here.

azzi is, quite frankly, over it.

the weight room had been brutal, the team group chat has been blowing up with nonsense, and her econ professor had assigned a surprise pop quiz that was neither surprising nor a quiz—just a pure academic crime. by the time she trudges across campus toward paige’s dorm, her shoulders are tight, her jaw hurts from clenching, and she’s two seconds away from chucking her water bottle at a freshman just to feel something.

all she wants is to shower, collapse into a hoodie, maybe read the same page of her book eight times before giving up, and fall asleep next to her girlfriend. preferably with her favorite pillow—paige’s arm—cushioned under her head.

she lets herself into the dorm, ready to ignore any of her other teammates who might be lurking and head straight to paige’s room. she gets inside and toes off her shoes, pulling off her hoodie to try and cool down—

but then she stops cold.

paige is on the floor.

and not in a playing-video-games, or making-a-ridiculous-tiktok kind of way. no. she’s kneeling in a sports bra and loose basketball shorts, scrubbing something on the floor with determination. her hair is up in a messy bun. the speakers are playing slow r&b, the window is cracked open, and light is streaming in just right to make the whole thing look like a thirst trap with cleaning supplies.

azzi blinks once. then twice. her lips part slightly.

“yo,” paige says without looking up, “watch out, i just mopped.”

azzi stares. she might have stopped breathing.

“…what are you doing?”

paige’s head pops up at the sound of azzi’s voice. “oh, hey, mama. sorry, thought you were jana.” she gestures around the room. “it was gettin’ gross in here. and since nobody else fuckin’ cleans, figured i should probably take care of it.”

azzi looks around. the place is spotless. floor shining. sheets changed. even the window track—the window track!—is wiped down. azzi looks at the sink and swears it blinds her.

paige sits back on her heels and wipes an arm across her face, leaving a streak of sweat—glistening and enticing—on her forehead.

azzi’s soul leaves her body.

“you okay?” paige asks, going back to her scrubbing. azzi looks closer—she’s cleaning the baseboards. and her back is flexing as she does it.

azzi inhales sharply. “uh-huh.”

paige shifts, glancing back over her shoulder. “you look surprised.”

“i…did not know you got down like this.”

“yeah, well, last week you saw me make a protein shake in a blender bottle that hadn’t been washed since pre-season. so consider this redemption.”

azzi opens her mouth to respond and then pauses. she has nothing appropriate to say, to be honest. not when she’d walked in expecting a nap and is now watching her girlfriend crawl across the floor like a navy seal.

“how was your day?” paige asks nonchalantly. sun streams through the windows, hitting her arms in such a way it perfectly contours her muscles. “you wanna snack or sum’?”

“no,” azzi says slowly, settling herself down onto the couch without taking her eyes off paige’s back. “i want you to come over here.”

“yep,” paige says without hesitation, dropping her washcloth into the bucket and walking over to azzi. azzi reaches up, prepared to pull paige down and never let her go again, but paige doesn’t give her the time—just goes in for a quick kiss before leaving again.

“paige!” azzi says. “i want you to snuggle me.”

paige smiles, sweet and oblivious, as she kneels back down. “we can snuggle all you want as soon as i’m done. i just gotta hit the closet first.”

azzi blinks hard. “how long have you been at this?”

paige shrugs—shoulder muscles. “i’on know. a couple hours? but i haven’t cleaned my closet in forever. there’s, like, dust on some of my shoes. it’s nasty.”

“wow. okay. you’re really…” she waves a hand at paige’s whole situation, “doing the most.”

paige beams. “you noticed! i even used vinegar on the mirrors. no streaks. drew’s mom taught me.”

azzi just stares at her. “cooool, coolcoolccoolcool. that’s super cool.”

paige stands up and stretches her back with a groan, revealing an infuriating strip of boxer below her waistband. “shit, my back is killing me. i’ve been crouching for like two hours.”

“i can help with that,” azzi says, far too quickly. “you want a massage?”

“nah, i’ll do some stretches after this,” paige says casually, walking to the kitchen to grab some clorox and wiping down the counter. “you look exhausted, though. go lie down, i’ll be done soon.”

“or,” azzi says, getting up and trailing her, “you could stop cleaning now. and we could do…other things.”

“like what? i already asked if you wanted a snack.”

“jesus christ,” azzi whispers to herself.

“huh?”

“nothing, babe.” azzi plasters on a smile. “i’m just… really impressed by your…cleanliness.”

paige snorts. “what does that mean?”

“it means watching you clean is making me…feel things, paige.”

“ohhh,” paige says slowly, like she’s catching on. azzi perks up.

“yeah?” azzi asks, hopeful.

“you’re saying you want me to clean your dorm next time, right?”

“no!” azzi shouts. “i’m saying i want you to push me up against a…” she gestures wildly, “very clean wall.”

paige frowns. “you okay? you seem, like, really high-strung.”

“i wonder why,” azzi deadpans.

“bad day?”

“you could say that,” she mutters. “considering i walked in on you looking like a really hot mr. clean commercial.”

paige makes a face. “is that a compliment?” then, “you’re being weird.”

“i’m being turned on, paige. i feel like we’ve been together long enough that you know what me turned on looks like.”

paige raises her hands in surrender. “okay, okay. sorry. i thought you’d be cool with the cleaning.”

“i am! it’s impressive! and hot! i love it, actually!”

paige pauses. squints at her.

“…wait. are you into this?”

azzi massages the bridge of her nose. “oh my god.”

“i just thought you were being supportive,” paige says. “like, ‘oh yay, my girlfriend’s being productive.’ not ‘oh yay, my girlfriend’s making me all wet with the windex.’”

“you are so fucking stupid.”

“am i wrong?”

azzi pretends to consider this, then turns on her heel, marching toward paige’s bedroom.

“hey,” paige calls, following her. “where you goin’?”

“somewhere i can protect my peace,” azzi calls back. she turns to close the door, but paige gets there just in time, sticking a foot in between the doorframe and stopping her.

azzi opens the door slowly, met with paige’s smug grin. “you’re enjoying this.”

“maybe a little,” paige leans in, voice suddenly lower. “you want me to keep my hair up?”

azzi lets the door swing open the rest of the way, smoothing a hand up paige’s shoulder. “you don’t get to tease me after getting me all worked up.”

“baby, i was just cleaning.”

“exactly!” azzi says. “you were on your hands and knees, paige.”

paige takes her by the waist, backing her slowly into the bedroom. “so what—you were suffering that whole time?”

“i’m two seconds away from wrecking your perfect little chore schedule.”

paige’s eyes darken slightly, like the teasing has officially run its course. she pauses when the backs of azzi’s knees hit the mattress, then pushes her down, a hand around her back keeping them connected as paige follows closely after.

“well,” she murmurs, hand settling beside azzi’s head on the pillow, “room is clean.”

“uh-huh.”

“laundry’s done.”

“mm-hmm.”

“guess there’s only one mess left to make.”

azzi rolls her eyes, but wraps an arm around paige’s neck, pulling her in for a kiss. “hair stays up,” she demands, urging paige into the crook of her neck.

paige obeys, licking a short stripe up the column of azzi’s throat, all heat and thin restraint. “yes, ma’am.”