#what a great thing to work on instead of writing

[astrolook]

🌌 Retrogrades in a Birth Chart - Some Roots Take Time To Grow 🌿

Note: These are all my personal observations and patterns I've noticed over the years. Take what resonates with you more and leave the rest. Lemme know in the comments if it hits home! A single placement or aspect isn't enough to conclude and the whole chart has to be analyzed!

Mercury Rx - I think in essays, speak in tweets. 🧠✍️

Mercury Rx natives sometimes overshare or say nothing at all. They think fast, speak slower. They edit their sentences in real life. These natives pick things up quickly but lose focus just as fast. Their projects start strong, then get abandoned or revisited later with a whole new mindset. Mercury Rx can have grand ideas in mind but struggles to put them into words or into reality. Usually, Mercury Rx natives are better at texting, writing, and drawing than talking. Two Mercury Rx people can either understand each other on another level or be completely out of sync with each other and can talk in circles. Mercury Rx natives can change the topic mid-convo and go on like nothing happened. Mercury Rx natives can be good at stirring the pot for entertainment. They are good at negotiating, convincing people to believe their ideas. Can make money out of thin air. These natives have selective memory.

For example: Mercury Rx in 6th/8th/12th natives are so good at twisting narratives to suit their needs and are good at lying. You don't even know whether they're telling the truth or not. Their opinions can change like seasons, and they can struggle sticking to a certain mindset. However, this is a great placement for fantasy writers, journalists, bloggers, media-related jobs in general, lawyers, filmmakers, actors, programmers, etc. Mercury Rx in 5th/11th natives are bad at lying. They can be involved in too many things at once only to abandon them. Mercury Rx in 3rd/9th loves to prank others or the other way around. they love DIY and crafts and might follow niche communities. Online trolls.

Venus Rx - I ghost myself before I ghost you. 👻😅

Venus Rx natives are either impulsive in love or avoidant. These natives give mixed signals to their partners. One day they're warm and giving, the next they're building walls and won't let anyone in. Love either comes too soon, or when the timing is off, or never comes when they need it the most. These natives will remember how the other made them feel, whether it's rejection, not being enough, unwanted, too much, or ignored. It lingers in their mind, and it shapes how they view love. These people don’t “date around” easily. They wait for people to choose them. They test their partner to check if they're worth it! Late bloomers in love. Sometimes, they might even lower their standards and expectations just to feel any love, only to end up feeling drained and exhausted. They might choose partners who treat these natives like a backup plan. However, these natives will remember it and instead of letting go, they carry that disappointment into the next person, the next connection, the next version of themselves. Depression. They sometimes would be loyal to the wrong person just because they have "history."

For example, Venus Rx in 6th/10th can attract envy from women, discrimination in the workplace, judged by their appearance or clothing styles. People might underestimate them or won't take them seriously. So, these natives overcompensate and work overtime to prove themselves that they deserve it. Still, their co-workers/ peers would think they slept their way to where they are or not that talented. Venus Rx 1st can be the target of harassment or could have been called crazy for their lifestyle choices. People tend to attack these natives more easily than others, whether it's racism, appearance, religion, ethnicity, or other factors. They could be either old-fashioned or into niche fashion.

Mars Rx - I argue better three days later. 🕒😐

If a dormant volcano were a person. People think these natives are calm. But no, they're holding it in. Sometimes for years, until their anger turns volcanic and their words spew out like lava. Unfiltered. Their regret shows up in action, not words. They might look or seem lazy, but they often feel stuck between wanting to act and being unsure how. They second-guess their instincts. They might want something badly, then sabotage it out of fear or confusion. In conflict, they’re unpredictable. Either they avoid it completely or burn the whole thing down. Some pick fights just to feel something, others disappear to avoid hurting anyone. They don’t always know the difference between defending themselves and attacking. Sometimes they hurt people with words, then feel guilty forever. Sometimes they say nothing and carry resentment for years. Desire is complicated. Some of them feel numb to it. Others have urges they don’t understand and would be chasing people, projects, or things that don’t make sense. Some isolate when they’re mad. Some turn pain into action like breaking things, quitting jobs, and blocking people. Others turn it inward and self-destruct first. When they finally stop holding back, when they choose action over avoidance, their energy becomes exact. Focused. Intense. Unstoppable. The storm clears, and they learn how to move without destroying everything in their path.

For example, Mars Rx in 8th/12th bury their anger six feet deep. They definitely hold grudges quietly and would strike at the worst time for the person who hurt them. The other person won't even know that the native is behind it. Mars Rx in 2nd can either overspend or hoard things. These natives might not get a reward for their work, or it may be delayed. Mars Rx in 7th can attract passive-aggressive partners or become one themselves. When snapped, they can go from silent tolerance to full-blown blow-ups over small things.

Jupiter Rx - I left faith on read. ✝️📱

Jupiter Rx natives practice 3 different religions within a year and still feel unsure. Teenage crisis. What people call expansion, they call noise. Their lessons come from within, not from gurus or traditions. They don’t believe in blind luck. They believe in trial and error, and mostly error. Wins feel delayed. Guidance shows up late. Things eventually work out, but rarely in the way they are planned or wanted. Once they let go, things would happen to them in the most harmonious way possible. When good things happen, these natives won't give a happy or butterflies-in-the-stomach reaction. Instead, they would be suspicious of it. After believing it's for them, they would still maintain a composed posture. These natives are liberal minded, agnostic/irreligious/atheist, and can still be spiritual. These natives come off as skeptical, cynical, or too “in their own world.” They hold on to past decisions too tightly or judge themselves for outgrowing past beliefs. They often feel like they're behind their peers until one day, these natives get 10 levels ahead of them once they surrender and let things happen. The beauty with Jupiter Rx is that luck doesn't knock on their door. They're the luck. It just takes them years to find that out.

For example, Jupiter Rx in 5th natives' children would be lucky to have the native as their parent. Jupiter Rx in 7th or as 7th lord, their spouse would be lucky to have the native as their spouse. Jupiter Rx in 4th can mean that the native's family would feel lucky to have the native as their child or having them as their family member.

Saturn Rx - I work smart. Or not at all. 🛋️🧠

Saturn Rx natives don't trust authoritative figures, including their own. These natives learn early that rules don't always protect you. they might have a figure in their family who was basically a "rules for thee, not for me" type. Grow up too fast. Responsibility was either too much too soon or avoided until life forced them to deal. Afraid of failure. One thing with Saturn Rx is that when these natives are scared, they would never admit it. They don't want to feel weak. Some might even avoid crying in front of others, including their family. They would go to great lengths to hide their weakness instead of working on it. Build walls instead of asking for help. They stay in jobs, habits, even relationships way past their expiration date just to feel safe. They don’t like being seen trying. Effort is private. So is shame. If they fall, they do it behind closed doors. Smart workers. Knows the shortcuts to achieve success in life, but some won't take them. Impostor syndrome. Can be unemployed for months at some point in their life. Once their career takes off, these natives become unstoppable. Saturn Rx here is protecting these natives from troubled career paths and only gives them the right path at the right time.

For example, Saturn Rx in 7th can mean an absent father figure. Their older spouse can be laid back or take a back seat in their career after marrying the native. Attract partners who are serious and long-term and have little to no options for dating here for many with this placement. Saturn Rx in 10th can mean that these natives can have long gaps in resumes or even unemployment. Might get into jobs that don't reflect their real skills. For some, their career takes off in their 30s or even 40s. Saturn Rx in 2nd can mean that these natives can come from a low-income family or a household with financial struggles. Might get into connections with people just to feel secure. Money grows after 30 and only after they have learned to earn the right way.

Uranus Rx - I forget on purpose. Or do I? 🤫📂

Uranus Rx natives can look traditional on the outside but rebel on the inside. One may never know what these natives are capable of, as they're good at deceiving others. They can easily blend in with the crowd and seem agreeable. Deep detachment, sudden rejections, and quiet cut-offs are their recipe to stay chill. These are the people who smile at the dinner table while silently unsubscribing from the whole dynamic. A Uranus native doesn't trust "the system". But a Uranus Rx native won't even trust their own family, community, co-workers, religions, and even themselves at times. A lot of them appear to follow the rules, but only because they’re rewriting them behind the scenes. These people outgrow people fast. But they don’t always let them know. Instead, they disappear or would make it impossible for them to reach the native. Distance becomes their protection. It’s easier to vanish or become out of reach than to explain their evolution to someone who wouldn’t get it anyway. Their memory is selective but sharp. They forget what they ate for breakfast, lose their keys, ignore calls, but remember exactly what you said five years ago during a fight. Hard to pin down, but impossible to fool. One may never know what they're thinking, but that's what these natives want. When they snap out of the blue, these natives end friendships/ relationships, move cities, shift careers, or even move countries without mentioning a word to anyone. These natives' relationships are either all-consuming or ice-cold. Freedom matters more than comfort. Their unique trait is that they can be loyal and distant at the same time. They’ll ghost you and still think about you every day for a year. Wrong them once, and they will get over you within 30 seconds and never look back. You're already dead to them.

For example, Uranus Rx in 5th can have a crush on someone and obsess over them for months, only to change their mind after finding out that their crush did something they don't like. Would break up with someone over text and not look back. They would reject the same person they fell for before it even begins. Uranus Rx in 7th can be unpredictable in love. Do they even have a type? They long for stable relationships but routine feels like a trap. Uranus Rx in 4th could have had a tough home life or been unconventional. Single-parent households, stepdaddy/ mommy figures, stepsiblings, etc can be seen here in some cases.

Neptune Rx - I’m softer than I look. Colder than you think. 🧊🫀

Neptune Rx people are hard to fully know and half the time, they don’t even fully know themselves. They second-guess what they feel, what they see, and who they are on the inside. Reality blurs. Memory twists. They’ve been gaslit or emotionally manipulated, sometimes without even realizing it. These people learned early how to hide. How to escape. How to shape-shift into what was needed. Truth became flexible, and so did identity. They have powerful inner worlds. Too powerful, sometimes. They’ll fall in love with a fantasy version of someone and ignore all the signs. They’ll convince themselves they’re okay when they’re drowning. They might cry alone and then act totally fine in public. They pick up on energy they can’t explain. Can have imaginary friends or talk to self in private. They talk, sing, and dance when no one's looking. They can actually fake their persona depending on the person they're with. They don’t show the full truth until they’ve seen yours.

For example, Neptune Rx in 4th always dreams of the perfect family, home, and everything since they didn't get it in reality. These natives often move countries/cities and stay away from family members to live their dreams. Might live in a toxic family household where everyone thinks they're fine and happy. Neptune Rx in 8th natives has intimacy issues. They don't know if they're the victim or supposed to feel sorry for the one who hurt them. They're good at reading others, bad at reading themselves. Neptune Rx in 11th natives never feel truly fit in anywhere. There’s a pattern of feeling invisible in groups or being part of social circles that don’t reflect their actual self.

Pluto Rx - I outgrow myself annually. Stay tuned. 🔁🖤

Pluto Rx natives are always going through some kind of inner death. You may not see it, but they’re constantly burning bridges inside themselves. It's like they burn their old versions, dead emotions, people they haven't spoken to in years, and toxicity every year like a ritual. These are the ones who don’t show their breakdowns. They disappear, transform, and return new. The world never really sees their mess, only the rebirth. They upgrade themselves each year. These natives would keep secrets, even from the people they love and trust. They're deep, but not always emotionally open. They fear being exposed, especially when they’re vulnerable. So, they test people. Push them. Watch how they react before deciding if they’re safe. They either face their wounds fully, or they run until life forces them to. Their biggest breakthroughs happen in silence. One year, they’re one person. Next, they’re unrecognizable even to themselves. Physical transformation is possible too. They outgrow people, places, even entire identities, like it’s an annual process. Some might change their name or have a "stage" name in their career.

For example, Pluto Rx in 1st natives are either obsessed over by others or hated by others. Always in survival mode. They rebuild their self-image every season, and no one's ever truly met the real version of these natives. Pluto Rx in the 3rd natives can be good at coding, writing, drawing, etc. Can be cryptic in the way they speak. Ghost friendships out of the blue and would never look back. Pluto Rx in 5th natives pour their trauma into art or through their creative outlets.

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[blank-potato]

A Special Surprise

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Reader

Summary:

“What’s going on?” he asks, brows raised. You say wearily, “It’s been shaking all morning… almost dancing?” You both look at it. The plant is doing a slow, rhythmic shimmy like it’s listening to music, only it can hear.  It was no longer sad, that was for sure.  You watch it…it’s almost hypnotic in its movements. Going round and round and round and— you look away, shaking your head.  “Not today, horny plant, not today.” Bob tries and fails to suppress a snort. “Did you just…. call it horny?” Or Since the plant attack a month ago, you and Bob haven't had sex, agreeing that you should take things slow. But your plant sees how pent up you both are and changes your plans.

Tags/Warnings: 18+ Explicit Content, plants being freaky asl, Bob using his telekinesis for horny reasons, orgasm control/denial, tentacle handjob (tentacle job?) oral sex (female receiving), p in v sex, hair pulling, bondage via tentacles and telekinesis, established relationship

WC: 5.8k

A/N: This is part 2 of Something Special linked below. This was another really fun one to write, more plant action as promised, hope you enjoy it!

Part 1

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Since the great plant incident, the two of you had decided to take things slow. 

Really slow.

It had been almost a month, and you guys had just worked your way up to holding hands, kissing and the occasional makeout session. 

Even though you guys had had sex, it probably wouldn’t have been the natural progression of your relationship. You would have kept awkwardly not quite flirting with each other until one of you made a move. 

So, taking it slow seemed to be the best course of action. It was fine, you were both okay with it… kinda. In all honesty, you wanted each other bad.

You’d be completely normal, working on something, and you’d feel his arms wrapping around you from behind, and that is all it took. The rest of the day, you’d think about you and him in many different compromising positions.

But you had to be normal and chill, and that is something you definitely know how to do. 

Bob enters your office, and you smile up at him. You could never resist your daily dose of Bob Reynolds. “Morning, I brought you cinnamon rolls. I figured you haven’t eaten yet?

“You know me and my bad habits so well,” You say before leaning up to peck him on the lips. You taste sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. “You’ve already eaten yours?”

“Couldn’t resist.”

He rounds the table to settle next to you, the smell of his cologne and shampoo already making you feel at home.

“How’s it looking?” he says, nodding at your flower.

You look at the plant in the corner of your lab, which has lost a few petals and curled in on itself a little. It’s looking out your window, all forlorn like it’s wishing for better days. “I swear I’ve been taking care of it, giving it enough water and sun, but it’s…”

“It looks a little sad,” Bob finishes.

The plant had taken to Bob over the past few weeks, probably because Bob was always in your lab, hovering nearby under the guise of helping or waiting for you to finish up.

It was oddly endearing, watching the way the plant seemed to lean toward him whenever he was around, as if it had claimed him, too. It was very cute how it would do a little shiver whenever you ruffled Bob’s hair or laughed at one of his awkward jokes, almost like it was rooting for you.

Sometimes, when Bob got too close to your workstation, the plant would nudge toward him, its leaves twitching like it wanted to be involved in whatever the two of you were doing.

He turns away from the plant and observes you instead. Instantly, he sees that you’re looking a little tired. “You alright?”

You mumble as ‘yes’ but honestly, without your second coffee of the day, you’d be curled up underneath your desk, asleep.

“Just didn’t sleep well last night.”

And that was the truth. You didn’t sleep well last night, he didn’t need to know that it was because you had a dream about him fucking your brains out. Another shitty side-effect of not having sex with your hot boyfriend. 

“Anything I can do to help? I could… organise your notes, or bring coffee, or I don’t know…” Bob offers, clearly trying to come up with anything useful. “I just don’t want to see you burnt out.”

You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him close, resting your forehead gently against his. “I’ll be okay. I survived med school, okay? I’ve been more tired,” you say with a soft smile, “You’re so sweet, wanting to take care of me…”

You loved it when he got like this, all cute and tender. And the way he’d be doting on you even when you insisted you were fine. Like when he found you passed out at your desk, surrounded by papers and coffee cups, and you woke up in your bed and had a sparkling lab by the next morning. 

You glance up at his worried eyes, framed by the faintest crease in his brow. He’s so beautiful when he’s like this; it makes you want to melt into a little puddle on the floor.  There’s even a smudge of sugar on the corner of his lip from the cinnamon roll, and you just wanna kiss it right off. 

Just then, you’re overcome by that aching kind of affection, the kind that just demands an outlet, and you start pressing kisses all over his face: his cheek, his temple, the bridge of his nose.

He bursts into laughter, leaning back just slightly as you continue your playful assault. “What are you doing?” he laughs.

“This’ll keep me awake,” you murmur against his jawline.

He wraps his arms around you and lifts you in his arms like you weigh nothing.  You lock your legs around his waist like a little koala. You have no idea what has you both feeling so bold, but you like it. 

“You’re so perfect,” you say, as you move to the other side of his jaw. He lets out a moan, quaking under your praise. You knew just how to make him feel good, just how to make him feel special. 

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, his voice dipping even lower. Your lips leave his skin, and you look up at him to see his eyes glowing gold. All that does is turn you on even more, the fact that you got him so worked up…

Then, like that, as if you realised you weren’t exactly going slow right now, you break apart. 

“We should probably…” 

Bob hums in agreement, and you reluctantly release your python grip on his waist. It’s a near-impossible task, and you miss having him hold you as soon as he plops you down on your desk. 

You fan yourself a little and fix your shirt, trying to look composed even if you were the furthest thing from it. 

But when your eyes sweep the room, you notice the plant now turned away from the window and right at the two of you, like it was watching. 

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By the next day, the plant is going wild.

Bob stops by your office, hoping to take you out to lunch, only to find you locked in a tense staring contest with the plant, before you turn and he sees why.

“What’s going on?” he asks, brows raised.

You say wearily, “It’s been shaking all morning… almost dancing?”

You both look at it. The plant is doing a slow, rhythmic shimmy like it’s listening to music, only it can hear.  It was no longer sad, that was for sure. 

You watch it…it’s almost hypnotic in its movements. Going round and round and round and— you look away, shaking your head. 

“Not today, horny plant, not today.”

Bob tries and fails to suppress a snort. “Did you just…. call it horny?”

You nod profusely before pointing an accusatory finger at it. “I know that look. I’m telling you, something isn’t right.”

“Do we have any idea why?” Bob asks, but you shake your head. 

“I’ve called a specialist, but they won’t be here by next week.” Shifting away from it, you hold onto Bob’s arm. You needed to be ready to bolt just in case, it went crazy on your asses again.

You knew exactly what this plant was capable of, the flashbacks to your completely destroyed office coming back to you all at once. You still missed the shirt that it obliterated. 

You sigh. “You still wanna get lunch?”

Bob smiles. “Only if we’re not bringing the third wheel.”

You shoot the plant a final stern look. “Stay.”

The plant, as if in response, gives another aggressive little shimmy.

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Lunch was perfect, but moments with Bob often were. You shared jokes and a meatball sub from the corner shop and sat together in a nearby park. 

How could someone look so cute with sauce on his face? You wiped it off, brushing his lips with your napkin. Pretty lips, lips you wanted to devour.

You almost didn’t want to get back to work. 

Once you get back to the Tower, it’s quiet as the rest of the Avengers are now halfway across the country, fighting dangers unknown.

Like a big weighted blanket, he wraps his arms around you, walking with you in a slow, sleepy sway.

“Do you have to get to work now?” he murmurs against your temple.

You nod, sighing as you both waddle down the hall like two sleepy penguins, still tangled in each other’s warmth.

“See me after?”

“I will.”

Then, without warning, he stops and spins you around, lifting you off the ground like you weigh nothing, pressing a deep, giddy kiss to your lips.

“You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet,” you laugh breathlessly as he sets you back down.

He smiles, that soft, golden smile. “You just bring something out in me.”

Swiftly, he disappears down the hall, leaving your heart pounding and you wondering when exactly he got all suave and smooth. 

When you swing your door open, still swooning over Bob, you see something. Something…concerning?

It’s another flower. 

The door shuts behind you as you pause mid-step, squinting at it. This wasn’t the one Bob gave you. That one had soft green leaves and leaned adorably toward his voice and evidently danced. 

But this? This one had glowing yellow petals that pulsed faintly, almost like it was breathing. You hadn’t seen it before, and you certainly hadn’t grown it.

“I come in peace, plant.”

You carefully lift its pot and set it next to your other plant. If you were more attentive, or just less exhausted, then you probably would’ve noticed the faint tremble in the soil, or the way the leaves angled ever so slightly toward the door. You’d deal with it after the giant stack of papers and emails you had to get through.

You click-clack at your computer and try to focus, your body becomes heavier, the letters on your keyboard become blurry.

“Stay awake, stay awake,” you whisper to yourself, like a chant to keep you up, but it’s no use. “Just five minutes,” you murmur to yourself, as you rest your head on the desk.

What must’ve been at least an hour slips by, and when you jolt upright, disoriented and sticky-eyed—

“Of course, I fell asleep…”

You look around, scratching the back of your neck, stretching with a yawn, trying to blink the fog from your brain. But when you look to the corner, the one you’d started glancing at by habit, it’s empty.

When you wake up, the flower is gone.

Actually, both flowers are gone.

“Shit.”

You blink, disoriented, and then the sudden crack of gunfire rings out. You bolt upright, and you step out of the lab into complete chaos.

The hallway is a mess, vines are all over the ceiling and walls, snaking around furniture and lights, creeping fast. Ava is blinking in and out of sight, phasing wildly as she dodges them, while a vine nearly snags her ankle. Yelena is hanging from the chandelier on the ceiling with a gas mask, shooting at them. 

You can’t see him, but you can hear Alexei roaring in the distance, presumably batting the plant’s tentacles away with brute force.

“What the fuck is going on?!”

At the centre of the chaos, the yellow flower that was on your desk was now mad with power and trying to pull Bucky out of the elevator. And in another corner amongst overturned chairs and sparkling wires is a pink one, that had tentacles attached to John’s back, trying to pry off his clothes. 

How the fuck did they get here? Did they take the subway? A taxi?

Before you can do anything, you’re being pulled away into the air with a scream… not by a tentacle but by an invisible force.

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A few minutes before the plant attack on Avengers Tower, Bob’s lying in bed, living his best life and thinking of you, like always.  

Since you were busy working, he decided he’d take a nap, five minutes tops. He had been tired these past few days as well, thoughts of you in his bed, riding him, calling out his name until your voice was hoarse, keeping him awake more and more often. The sex dreams were wreaking havoc on his sleep schedule. Every time you guys would makeout, he’d be brought back to all the filthy things you’d be whispering in his ear in his dreams. 

He’d only meant to close his eyes for five minutes.

But eventually he drifts off peacefully, the comfort of his pillow and the lingering scent of you on his shirt pulling him under. Only to wake a few minutes later to the feeling of a warm, unfamiliar weight on his chest.

A soft rustle. Something moves.

A bloom of purple petals hovers above him, looking down at him with something almost resembling fondness. The plant tilts its head, mimicking him as he shifts, confused.

It takes him a moment to realise… his sheets are gone. His wrists, tied gently but firmly to the headboard by vines. Velvet-smooth tentacles looped like cuffs around his ankles.

Bob freezes, his breath catches in his throat. His heart races too, thoughts piling up in his head faster than he can sort them.

He swallows hard, shifting his hips in a vain attempt to sit up, but the vines hold firm. One of the petals tilts curiously, responding to his movement with something too close to glee.

Still pinned, still breathless, he whispers to the ceiling:

“…This plant is going to kill me.”

As if hearing him, the plant gets to work, making quick work of his clothes, discarding the fabric in smooth, deliberate motions, like it had done this before.

Bob couldn't deny it felt good… He'd been left wanting more every time, longing to be touched more. Every heated makeout session, few and far between, cut short by your mutual agreement to take things slow.

The tendrils slither their way around his body until they found what they were looking for, his cock. They wrap around him, the substance that was oozing from the tentacles onto his cock making him feel weak.  

His whole body shivers when they start moving. They fluctuate between pulsing around him and jerking him off, making it impossible to focus on anything. 

He bites back the no doubt embarrassing moan that was bound to come out. But he can’t keep them back for too long.  The moan that rips through him is more of a pathetic whine. They use his reactions against him, rubbing wherever made him whimper the loudest. But instead of moving as fast as they can, they slicked up his cock, moving just slow enough to leave him wanting. 

His breath is short, and his limbs feel heavy, too heavy for him to do anything, but he’s not sure he wants to do anything right now. 

“Fuck…”

He feels himself getting closer and closer, but one of the tentacles curls around the base of his cock and squeezes. Denying him the release, he very much needed. His legs shake as he groans and slams his head against the headboard, denting it. 

“Please…,” he lets out, his eyes dazed, and if you asked him what he’s begging for, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. 

The plant isn’t done with him yet; it starts moving again. The tentacles are making themselves right at home, working their hardest to get him to another orgasm. It's hell-bent on draining all his energy and leaving him a complete mess. He moans, bucking his hips up into its grip, causing it to squeeze around him harder. 

“I can’t, I can’t…” he gasps, before collapsing into a quiet sob, trembling under its iron grip pressing down on him.

He turns his head to the side, burying his face in the pillow, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. His breathing quickens, shallow and erratic, as his toes curl in pleasure.

It’s not long before he feels it coming again, another dry orgasm he’s too weak to do anything about except whimper.

“Please, let me—”

His back arches off the bed as he has a second dry orgasm. All he can think about is you, how he wanted to kiss you and hold you in his arms… and fuck you senseless.  He wanted to hear you, wanted to make you feel good. His eyes start to glow gold as he moans out your name over and over. 

“Please, please, please—”

With the thought of you fresh in his mind, he finds his orgasm hitting him that much faster and harder. No matter how much he begged, the plant wouldn’t let him finish. But that’s not what really hurt; what hurt is the fact that you weren’t here right now with him. And he needed you. 

The tentacles keep moving, but start exploring the rest of his body more. He felt boneless and unbelievably horny, like he was about to go crazy. 

He needed relief. He needed you. To feel your body pressed against his, to feel your pussy squeezing down on his dick.

He flexes his hand and thinks of you, hoping that you’d come to him.

And you did. You were still mid-yell when you flew in there, as he slammed the door shut behind you with his telekinesis. 

Not even in your wildest dreams could you have imagined seeing Bob like that when you floated into his room.

Vines around his body, his abs twitching, panting out your name in desperation. He was practically gift-wrapped. 

“Holy—” You start, but you see Bob nod his head, and your clothes literally go flying off your body. 

“Need you right now,” He breathes out, and your body floats over to him. Good to know that Bob could throw you around with his mind. You land on his lap, just as the vines fall away from around him. 

He only wants to focus on having you.  

“Bob, what happened?” you ask gently, caressing his cheek.

He’s so sensitive to your touch that he lets out a soft moan, eyes fluttering shut under your fingertips.

He doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he leans in, mouth finding your collarbone, marking it with slow, desperate kisses. He’s been craving you, and that's evident.

“Bob…,” you whine, getting lost in his touch. You’re sure he can’t be affected by the sex pollen capabilities of the plant, so it must have found a way around it. 

He kisses his way from your collarbone to your neck to your earlobe, gently nibbling on it. 

“I’ve been wanting to be inside of you for weeks,” he confesses, finally saying it, feeling like a weight off his shoulders. 

Your heart jumps in your chest, and something about the way he says it, all breathy and needy, goes straight to your core. 

“Oh yeah?”

He nods, every movement he makes methodical. “Every time you’d climb in my lap or grip my hair when we’re kissing, all I could think of was how you looked lying out on that examination table that day.”

His hand runs down your stomach until he’s gently pressing on your aching pussy, not moving yet. “How good you felt to touch… You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to just bend you over and…”

You gasp, feeling him start to move his hand, rubbing your clit in slow circles. “And just fuck you,” he says finishing his sentence. 

“Need to fill you up,” he says and moves you until you’re over his dick. “Can I?” 

You nod excitedly. Who were you to deny him when he’s so cute asking for permission? 

He slides in, and you remember just how good it feels to have him inside of you. Your walls stretching to accommodate his size, the biting pain that melts into pleasure, there’s nothing like it. He makes the most of it immediately, moving in sync with you. 

“So perfect,” he moans, like he’s finally gotten that relief he’s needed so badly. 

It’s clear he’s desperate for you, and only you.

“Want my cum to be dripping out of you for days,” Bob rasps, as he thrusts harder. 

That was a surprise.

“O-okay,” you squeak. He looks at you like he’s starving, like only you can satiate this aching hunger that’s eating him alive from the inside out.

You had never heard Bob talk like this, but you kinda liked it. 

He locks eyes with you, something fierce and tender flickering there, then pulls you flush against his chest. He starts thrusting into you with inhumane force, which makes you drool. His breath brushes your ear as he whispers, “You feel that? That’s all for you.”

“Bob!” you scream as he bounces you up and down on him with vigour.  You cry out his name so loud, you swear the other Avengers might hear it over the potted plant chaos. It feels so good, you swear you’re about to lose your mind.

“Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” you reply immediately.

He slows down, holding you by the hips and rocking you gently, the head of his cock pushing right against your sensitive spot. He leans in and kisses you like he’s scared you’re going to disappear, his whole body pressing into the moment, as he pours every ounce of feeling into it.

You're his world, and in that kiss, there’s no mistaking it. He wants you just as much as you want him.

He pulls back, kissing you on the forehead. Before you can even think of whining at the loss of him, you’re in the air as he flips you over with his mind. That was going to take a lot of getting used to. 

You end up back on the bed, legs spread, waiting for him to fill you up again. The anticipation is almost killing you and just when he decides to tease you, pushing the head of his cock against your entrance but not giving you want. 

“Bob, please…,” you beg, looking behind you to try and convince him with doe eyes and a pouty lip, but an invisible hand forces you to face the front and arch your back. You can feel Bob’s both of actual hands replacing his dick, spreading your wet folds apart.

“Don’t tease me like this,” you complain, still at the mercy of Bob’s invisible hold on your hair. Then catching you off guard he gets underneath you and starts licking at your pussy.

“Bob!”

He sucks your folds hungrily, like he was starved of you, before flipping you around over like a rotisserie chicken to get more access. You land on your back, chest heaving as you look up at Bob, so determined to please you. 

“You’re so beautiful, can’t believe I have you all to myself,” he praises before diving back in and turning your brain to soup.

You’re about to close your legs, too sensitive to the feeling, but the plant now sprang back to life with impeccable timing, catching them to keep them open. The vines deepen the stretch of your legs to allow Bob all the access he could ever want.

You watered it every day, gave it sun, and now it betrays you, just when you think you know a plant. Traitor.

He laps you up, your slick coating your lips as you continue to squirm. “Gonna die…,” you breathe out, and you’re surprised you’re not already dead. 

You try sitting up, but again that invisible force pulls your body around like you’re a puppet. He takes your arms with his mind and pins them above your head as he continues to please you with his mouth. 

“So…mean…” you whine to which you feel the vibration of his chuckle on your pussy. 

When you look down, you catch his eyes, glowing gold and full of desire for you. 

Just when you feel like you’ve had enough, you feel his fingers rubbing on your clit and more fingers pressing on your g-spot? Or at least you thought it was his fingers, but when you looked down, Bob’s hands were under your knees, so he was doing it with his mind. You didn’t know he had that much control, but you’re glad he did. 

“Bob, you’re fucking magical,” you say, as you let your head loll against the sheets. 

If his telekinesis wasn’t keeping you flat, you’d be arching your back off the bed as you scream out his name again. 

The moment you finish is something you’ll never forget. You’re whining because you can feel the orgasm coming but a final lick on your clit, as he looks up at you sends you crashing.

You fight against the hold the plant has on your legs, and the hold Bob has on…well, the rest of you, but it’s no use. The orgasm rolls through your whole body as you’re practically forced to stay still. 

He finally lets you go and shoo the plant away from your thighs. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, checking up on you, and you nod. You may be slightly (very) disorientated but you could fuck until the sun came down and then continue to fuck until the sun came up again. 

He pulls you up to a seated position, arms wrapped gently around you, letting you catch your breath as he whispers sweet nothings in your ear, words soft and warm enough to melt you.

“Want to keep going?” he murmurs, voice low, lips brushing your skin.

“More than anything,” you breathe, and before he can respond, you shift, taking him by surprise as you climb on top of him, eyes locked with his.

The look on his face?

Completely undone.

His Adam’s apple jumps and he gulps, eyes locked on you like he’s trying to memorise every inch.

You were so beautiful, so sure, so sure of him. It made something ache deep inside him.

“You want no one else?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper, needing that confirmation. 

“Just you,” you say without hesitation, and it’s all he needs to hear.

You run a finger slowly down his abs, watching the way his muscles tense beneath your touch.

Then your desire takes over, and then leaning down, licking a line from the bottom of his abs to the top, savouring the way his breath catches, the quiet, broken sound he makes in response.

He's yours, and right now, you're making sure he feels it. You even feel his whole body shiver when you do that, a subtle tremble beneath your touch, and it gives you a quiet satisfaction. It’s something special, knowing you can unravel him like this. That even someone as powerful as Bob Reynolds can fall apart in your hands.

 He’s looking up at you with wide eyes, “Always wanted to do that.”

They were perfectly crafted. What were you supposed to do, not lick them?

You hop back on top of him and start rubbing his cock against your entrance, knocking him out of his stupor. He reaches for you immediately with a quiet beg, “Please.”

You can never handle it when he asks you for anything, so you oblige. Slowly, you lower yourself on his cock but when it comes to riding him, it’s hard and fast. 

He’s crying out your name as he clutches at your hips. 

You roll your hips faster and the plant comes to help you this time, pulling his hands from you and holding his arms down. Even though he could break the hold at any time, he’s rather enjoying being entranced by you. The way your body moves made him want to give you anything and everything. 

“You like this?” he asks, voice needy but happy. He loved seeing you feel good; he loved being the one making it happen. 

“I like everything you do to me,” you say back, breath hitching, fingers threading through his hair as you pull him closer.

And the way he looks at you then, like you just gave him the universe, makes your heart stutter in your chest.

You slow your pace for just a moment, catching your breath, and his eyes, before leaning in to press a soft, tender kiss to his forehead.

It’s gentle, the kind of kiss that says I’m here.

But next thing you know, you’re being plucked off of him and placed at the edge of the bed so your trembling bottom half hangs off of it. He was putting you through your paces today, that’s for sure. 

You feel him suddenly behind you as he runs his fingers over your body with reverence and lays a soft kiss on the small of your back. He pushes you legs apart and pushes in without warning but at this point, to his cock, your pussy was a second home. 

You grip the sheets as once again you’re being ganged up on by Bob and the plant. You feel tendrils wrap around your legs and ankles, lifting you in the air to create more space for Bob and invisible hands grab your hands from their death grip in the linen to place them behind your back.

He’s fucking you so hard, the bed is shaking. You can quite literally hear the legs groaning under the pressure and screws coming loose as it scrapes, inch by inch, across the floor.

“More, please, more…” you blurt out, your mind halfway across the world

In response, the plant wraps around you more, pushing you back to meet his thrusts. The sound of your hips meeting his echoes in the room so loud, it’s obscene. 

“Only want you,” he says, his voice sounding completely wrecked. 

He’s so deep inside you now, stretching you out so perfectly,  you can barely handle it.

Your legs spasm and shake, you know you’re close, and so does he.

“I’m close too, I know,” he says like he’s reading your mind and picks up the pace. You’re barely holding on, moaning so loud you might lose your voice. 

You wanted to be fucked senseless and you suppose this is it. 

The toe curling, leg shaking, drool inducing pleasure tears through you once again as you slobber out a series of “Fucks” and “Bobs”.

And before you can catch your breath you feel his cock twitch inside of you then you’re being flooded with his cum, it feels never ending. He just keeps pumping you full of his load before he presses down on top of you, kissing everywhere he can reach. 

“I love you so much,” he pants out, almost quiet enough that you don’t catch it.

He freezes.

Then suddenly, he’s off you, untangling himself, backing away like he’s afraid he said too much. Your limbs, once wrapped up in Bob and the tentacles, now lie free and cold in the absence of him.

He won’t look at you. His hands fidget. His breathing’s uneven. He’s spiralling. He’s thinking too hard.

What if it was too soon? What if you thought it was stupid? What if—?

“I love you too.”

His head snaps up, eyes wide, meeting yours. You’re looking right at him, that beautiful, grounding smile on your face, the one that always reminds him of sunshine after a hurricane.

“I love you,” you say again, slower this time, to make sure he knew you meant it.

Then you hold out your hand.

And when he hesitates for half a second, you yank him back down onto the bed, right next to you, where he belongs. 

The moment you two settle, you hear a creak, then another, and before you know it, the whole bed collapses with a definitive thud. All you could do was laugh, breathless and tangled in sheets with him.

“I’m sorry. Got a bit carried away,” he says sweetly, laying a gentle peck on your cheek. Bob Reynolds, folks. Talking to you all sweet as if he wasn’t railing you so hard, his bed collapsed.

You look around and see the plant sitting there innocently, like it hadn’t just caused a full-scale disaster. The state of Bob’s bed has the place looking like a tornado tried to redecorate.

“Seems you had a lot pent up,” you say, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “So did I.”

He nods, quiet for a beat. “One of us should’ve said something.”

“I agree. So let’s agree to communicate,” you reply, exasperated but softening, “instead of letting a plant interfere and tear the tower apart… again.”

He smiles, small, sheepish. “Deal.”

Slowly, his eyes flick to the plant in the corner. “Do you think that’s why the plant did this?”

The plant had been oddly in tune with both of you, following your every move like you were its favourite reality TV show. You sigh, dragging a hand down your face.

“Fuck, probably…”

Then, the door slams open.

“Wait! There are naked people in here!” you yell instinctively, cuddling up to Bob, who yelps and fumbles for the blanket.

Alexei freezes mid-step, unbothered. “Just checking you and Bob still alive,” he says, then nods toward the chaotic hallway behind him. “There’s a team meeting. Everyone’s… angry.”

You groan into Bob’s shoulder. “Of course they are.”

You both get dressed and peek your head out in the hall. The vines are gone, but there’s a significant amount of damage (those flowers could pack a punch) that they left behind.

When you step into the living room, you’re happy to see everyone’s alive and unfucked. 

The yellow and pink flowers sit peacefully without a care in the world in the middle of the room, with the rest of the Avengers, who look like they just survived a hard-fought battle. 

You and Bob waddle out of the wreckage and stand in front of them.

“Hey guys…,” you say sheepishly, brushing a leaf out of your hair. This was the second time a plant-related attack happened on your watch, so safe to say you weren’t feeling too great.

“Again? Really?” John throws his hands up. The plants got him the worst, as he was only left with his beret, boxers and his shield. “How did the other two get here?!”

You shrug, half-defeated. “I think the first plant summoned the other two?”

A collective groan and chorus of exasperated sighs ripple through the room. You think you hear Ava mutter about “never trusting a flower again.”

“How?” Yelena asks, exhaustion rife in her voice. 

“With a dance?” you say, instantly regretting your own words. “It was a kind of shimmy,” Bob adds, trying to be helpful, and you squeeze his hand with a smile. 

There’s a long pause.

Bucky sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “That’s it, we’re banning plants. Or we won’t have a tower left to work out of.”

“Agreed,” you and Bob say in unison. 

Main Masterlist || Marvel Masterlist

[oh-no-its-bird]

Shikamaru accidentally becomes the second coming of Jiraiya via anonymously publishing BL novels with Sakura and Ino as his managers and editors

HEAR ME OUT. HEAR ME OUT.

Ok so, Shikamaru's grandfather passes away (aka my oc Shikasada, for those in the know) and among his things is a very old diary dating back to Konoha's founding. Shikamaru opens it to fund uhh. Many things. Many things he could have gone without knowing. Mostly revolving around his grandpa's apparent years long slow burn affair w some Hatake boy.

Shikamaru, sort of horrified but in too deep to back out now, resolves to at least finish the diary-- and despite himself, besides some of the more painful to read sections, there really is a lot of really interesting information in the diary.

Which brings Shikamaru to being unable to set down the diary, and bringing it to the academy with him in the morning.

(Quick note, lets set this like two or three months before graduation, so Shikamaru is like, ~13 I think)

SO, SHIKAMARU IS IN CLASS AND READING HIS GRANDFATHERS DIARY IN THE BACK OF THE CLASS (his first mistake, tbh) And he doesnt notice as Ino and Sakura appear behind him and Ino starts reading over his shoulder. And Ino, proud fujo, after a minute of reading goes really loudly,

"is that YAOI???"

And now Shikamaru essentially has two options. Both of them a uniquely kind of terrible. Does he,

a) admit this is his grandfathers very gay, very sappy, very depressing, kind of steamy diary about how he cheated on his fiance with a Hatake boy and even briefly debated running away from his wedding to be with him instead (but ultimately didnt)

or, b) let his classmates think hes a fan of doomed yaoi romance novels.

He decides that option b at least doesnt invoke a possible scandle for his clan (which his mom would kill him for) and says its a book.

Sakura immediately points out the fact that its hand written.

On pure reflex, Shikamaru blurts, "I wrote it."

(Instant regret.)

So anyways Ino and Sakura (mostly Ino) bully Shikamaru into letting them read 'his' book. And they come back to him with it going "omg, this is amazing! It's just as good-- maybe even better than most of the things on the market right now!!!"

And Shikamaru is like, "great can I have it back please."

And they're like "Shikamaru, you cant just let this kind of masterpiece rot in your closet!!!! This is incredible!!!! Heart wrenching!!! Hair raising!!! Super dramatic and filled with tension and drama and history and 𝓇𝑜����𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 !"

And Shikamaru, again, is like, "Great. Can I have it back please."

"Shikamaru, you don't understand. You have a gift."

"Can I please have it back now."

So. One thing leads to another and after much peer pressure (and maybe some light threats of blackmail because Ino and Sakura have totally realized that Shikamaru didn't actually write the diary, and it instead belonged to his grandfather. (Mostly because Ino had actually met the man before, and obviously recognized his name)) Shikamaru has now gained:

a) two very eager 13 year old publishing managers / editors

b) the contact information of Sakura's cousin, who coincidentally works at one of the biggest publishing houses in Fire counry.

c) somehow, some way, the obligation to edit and publish his grandfathers diary as a bl romance novel.

Shikamaru hates his fucking life.

SO. THEY PUBLISH IT AFTER SOME EDITING AND CHANGING OF CLAN NAMES AND ITS A WILD SUCCESS. SHIKAMARU IS KIND OF MAD AT HOW MUCH OF A WILD SUCCES IT IS.

(Though, laying in his bed of money that now rivals his father's personal funds as the Nara clan head, he can't bring himself to be... as mad as he might have otherwise been.)

(Sakura and Ino, also with their giant piles of money, are also very satisfied.)

But the satisfaction doesnt last for long bc soon the girls are scheming to get Shikamaru to write something new for them to publish.

"But I didn't write the diary to begin with!" Shikamaru argues.

"What does it matter?" Ino insists. "You still edited it, and it was your grandfather who wrote it! Some of the talent has to be there!"

(depressingly enough for Shikamaru, some of the talent does seem to be there.)

And thus begins Shikamaru's life of becoming a famous romance author with his (blackmailers) managers Ino and Sakura <3

(In the pure lands, Shikamaru's grandfather is screaming into a pillow as his Hatake boy in question laughs his ass off and insists this is exactly what he deserves after keeping them a secret for so long. Really, Shika, you should be proud for having such a resourceful grandson.)

So anyways, this brings me to the fact that Sakura's first ever encounter with her new sensei, Kakashi, would have gone WILDLY different on her end. Because she saw the original diary. She, unlike the general public, didn't get the edited version of the story with changed clan names.

So when her teacher walks into the room and introduces himself, her very first thought is omg like the yaoi.

And her first act is to start giggling maniacally in the corner of the room like a little freak. In Sakura we stan

Kakashi meanwhile has no fucking clue what kind of drugs that little girl is on, but finds that he probably doesn't want to know.

WHICH ALSO BRINGS ME TO THE FACT THAT LIKE. Theres something profoundly funny about known icha-icha lover Kakashi reading this novel and becoming a huge fan-- absolutey 100% unaware that it's about HIS direct cousin, only two generations back.

Shikamaru put way more effort into disguising the Nara clan's involvement in the book-- both because he cares more about the Nara and because he kinda uhh... was under the impression that the Hatake were all dead, like, for real. In the book, the Nara's clan name is changed, the character names are changed, their sacred animal is changed to a rabbit and their traditions are all altered-- but the Hatake clan just becomes the Hasake clan and is largely left alone bc Shikamaru is 13 and can't really be bothered to go the extra mile.

(Editing so much is such a bother, Ino. You just dont get it)

So like, Shikamaru has no idea who Kakashi is, he only learns he exists when Sakura fucking bodyslams into him and Ino screaming about how HER NEW TEACHER IS RELATED TO THAT GUY YOUR GRANDPA HAD NASTY GAY SEX WITH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"THE ONE LIKE IN THE DIARY ONE???" Ino screams

"IS THERE ANOTHER GUY WHO HAD NASTY GAY SEX WITH SHIKAMARU'S GRANDPA WHO I'M SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT??!?!?" Sakura screams back

Shikamaru just screams into his pillow. The girls both ignore him.

Meanwhile, Kakashi knows SHIT about his clan and recognizes nothing in the novel. Which is a special kind of tragic because as he reads it, he's being given more information than he's ever been given about his clan. And even specific stories and in depth recorded conversations about his grandmother-- and even occasional mentions of his own father as a baby, and he just... has no idea.

Man is literally reading about his ancestors, getting stories of his family only a single generation before him, going: "Wow something about this clan just speaks to me. Probably the dogs."

Literally getting his fathers childhood stories. Not a single clue.

Hes going on a mission going "Hmm, what would Haruka Hasake from hit bl series XXX do" like that isnt secretly his fucking GRANDMA

Meanwhile, all three of the kids are acting SO shady around him. Ino and Shikamaru specifically are so fucking suspicious bc they are largely successful in avoiding him like the plague-- so when they do interact, it's an Event(tm) for them, while Sakura is forced to learn to be normal near him via exposure.

Tho not even the sage himself can save Sakura from the day Kakashi pulls out THE book during training instead of his usual icha-icha. Sakura fucks up her aim on a body flicker and flies straight into a tree, giving herself a concussion. Rip!!

Anyways yeah. Let Shikamaru discover his grandfathers old, scandal filled diary and be blackmailed by Ino and Sakura into publishing it-- setting him on his journey of becoming the next big thing in naruto romance publishing. It'd be funny as hell.

Special thanks to @imsosleepyofyourbull and @halsaph for talking to me about this on discord, this is so fucking stupid and I had so much fun with it

[loganficsonly]

an independent woman

˚₊‧⁺˖✮ ch 5: slipping away ✮ ˖⁺‧₊˚

worst!logan x fem!reader, 5.3k (the longest yet!)

SUMMARY: As Logan learns to live instead of survive, he finds himself in the extremely dangerous position of sharing an apartment with you—Wade's friend. Extremely dangerous because Lord knows he can't keep his feelings a secret forever... not when your room is five steps away from his.

SERIES WARNINGS/TAGS: english is not my native language, no use of y/n, reader is a working adult (mid-late 20s) with a slightly written out personality, friends to roommates to lovers, slow burn, secret crushes, mentions of alcoholism and AA

CHAPTER WARNINGS/TAGS: 18+ MDNI!!!, masturbation, ANGST, hurt no comfort, unresolved sexual tension, a ton of negative self-talk, past trauma, death (imaginatory), just lots and lots of feelings

AUTHOR'S NOTE: gonna make this a/n a bit longer than usual:

first, a huge shoutout to @theworstwolvie who has been so gracious with her time and feedback. c, your comments on the chapters so far have been a great source of motivation and joy for me, and the fact that you enjoyed reading this one before i posted it is SUCH a relief for me—mainly because of how deep i had to dig for this chapter. THANK YOU SO MUCH I LOVE YOU <3

second, i haven't the faintest personal experience with alcoholism and AA, and so i resort to reading things online to understand what it's like for the little bits of it that this series contains. i stumbled upon this blog post while writing this chapter, and i just want to share it with you for how honest it is. i hope the writer is living her best life right now!!!

this chapter took a lot out of me to write (i'm bruised in many invisible places), i hope you enjoy it.

Silver and bronze.

One heavy, rectangular slab each, about as long as a remote control. Clean cut. The metallic ingots sit quietly on the shelf of the living room, plain if not for the engraving of the name of your workplace and the accolade you received.

Reflected within their monolithic shine are bursts of animated colors from the television light, dotted with rambunctious laughter that settles down into mutters of concentrated small talk.

Yukio brought her Nintendo Switch and they’re playing a party game while you watch, sitting on the floor in front of the couch. Wade, Peter, Dopinder, and Negasonic Teenage Warhead—Ellie now, to most of you—are trying to “cook a cube of steak on all sides”, per the instructions of the game.

Vanessa’s behind you, her hair dipping down as she leans to giggle near your ear. The four players wrestle visibly with the controllers, moving it like they would a frying pan.

“They look like they’re jerkin’ off the air,” she covers her mouth, and you do too, biting back a grin because you see it.

When Wade first floated the idea of celebrating your win, you said no immediately.

It’s excessive—it was a team win, not your own. You’ve allowed yourself to feel proud of your achievements, specifically on the night of the award ceremony, which was almost two weeks ago. Life has gone on since then. Even at work.  

But Wade begged and pleaded.

“I promise it’s just for the first five minutes, honeybee. The rest of the night is gonna be us hanging out. Pretty please?”

Of course you couldn’t say no to that. So you relented. 

“We’re doing it at your place, though,” your ex-neighbor grinned, “a proper housewarming is long overdue.”

And Wade kept his word: nice things were said about you over toasts with raised Solo Cups, earnest despite your friends overtly not understanding what it is you do for work. After that, takeout boxes were drained dry, and Yukio asked if people were in the mood for games.

You’re watching the chosen form of entertainment play out when you feel it. A pang of loneliness, just a sliver of it, as soft as a petal landing on your hair.

Logan’s not here.

Eyes flit to the kitchen—he’s there, doing dishes. Slipping away temporarily in a way that’s familiar to you. Something in you relaxes.

Before you know it, you’re up on your feet, approaching him.

It’s been like this lately. You do your best to control yourself, to be self-aware—maybe a little too aware—in maintaining an appropriate distance with the best roommate you could as for, but you still can’t stay away.

You always look for him first when you enter a crowded room. Seek the meaning between the delicate lines that appear between his eyebrows when he tastes the food you make. Focus on the stir of his back muscles against flannel when he moves around the house. 

The moon probably feels the same way orbiting around Earth, you think. What pulls you to him is stronger than celestial gravity. 

A defeated part of you has long excused your physical attraction towards him. He is an attractive person, the internal voice reasons, nothing wrong with eating the eye candy. It’s an insult not to.

And you agree. You haven’t dreamed of him since, but once is enough. All it takes is one dream and suddenly he’s haunting all of your waking hours like a personal vendetta against you. 

He makes himself hard to ignore, whether he realizes or not. Always with the white tank tops and sweatpants. Biceps out. With any other person, you’d simply be fascinated at that level of fitness on a human body, but with him? Your mind wanders the way a child would in an amusement park. 

How are you supposed to function normally when the source of your maladaptive daydreams live five feet away from your door?

Can he blame you for slipping a hand under the blanket late at night, chasing subconscious sensations that felt so real to you? Would he despise you for pretending your fingers were his own, for lying to yourself—they’re his—the way you dreamed of? 

If he knew you gave yourself to him in secret, what would he do?

You have half a mind to think he notices—you were never the best pretender, and he’s lived with you long enough to get a bead on you. Stares poorly concealed. His every movement demands you to look: his fingers gripping a glass, how his eyes seem to change color under sunlight, the stretch of cotton over his undeniably sculpted chest… which come to think of, you still haven’t seen bare, to Wade’s surprise.

The worst part of this is that it’s not just his body. It’s more than that. More than eyes, hands, and his larger-than-life frame. 

It’s the way he looks at you when you come home from work and wordlessly take a tub of ice cream from the freezer. The way his fingers brush against yours when you reach for the popcorn bowl at the same time. And how he hugs you, warm and binding. You keep that memory filed away in a precious stack, that night he told you about his first AA meeting.

God, you miss his arms around yours. When can he hold you again?

Would he, if he knew the things you did while thinking of him?

Wade’s voice echoes in your head.

You’re really not gonna make a move on him, honeybee? Do you actually not like him?

You reply in your head. I think I’m past liking him, Wade. 

You know because alongside the dirty delusions about the rumble of his voice, you’ve started fantasizing about other things.

Things like telling him how you feel.

How it would happen—perhaps after a particularly charged movie night, or right before the mundanity of what to order for dinner. The kind of words you’d pick for him are hard to imagine, impossible to form with your mouth.

Language couldn’t contain the convolution that floods your lungs like flowers.

I want to be more than just friends. Do you? 

The way you’d cut your heart out from your chest and serve it to him on a silver plate, just to show him the way it beats. Messy and erratic when he’s around. You think it’s alright if he sees all of it, even the parts that you swear to hell and heaven you wouldn’t show anyone.

Your voice would be fraught with weakness because god knows you’re never good at declaring what you want.

And it stops short there, the fantasy.

You don’t allow yourself to think about what happens next. Whether he’ll pull you into a kiss that takes your breath away or shoot you an apologetic look like he spilled coffee on a white shirt. If the nosedive ends up in the cool waters of an aquamarine swimming pool, or broken bones on a pavement.

That line of thinking is forbidden. You know how dangerous it gets, how the less-kind voices whisper. They’ve already started, in the nooks and crannies of your idle mind.

He’s nice to you because he doesn’t see you that way.

If you tell him, you’ll make him uncomfortable in the apartment he calls home. Don’t be selfish.

He sees through you. How could he possibly want that?

So the daydreams end abruptly, a third act with no resolution other than the lucidity of a single thought. 

You just don’t want him to leave.

And if that means secretly surviving the stormy and turbulent, you’d do it. Day, after day, after day.

“I’d ask you to stop, but I’d be a hypocrite.”

The words tumble out of you quietly, standing by the sink near him. The party goes on, Vanessa’s and Wade’s laugh cutting through the noise.

He looks at you and does that huff—the one that’s not quite a chuckle, but just enough as an amused response.

“Caught me.”

“You don’t like the video game?” There’s a tinge of concern that weaves through the syllables. It’s getting rather loud and you don’t want him to feel bothered. 

“’s fine,” he replies, wiping his hands dry after putting away the last dish, “just not good at it, ’s all.” 

“You were great at the rowing one,” you smile, already replaying the fresh memory in your head.

It was rather miraculous that he didn’t swat away the offer to play in the first place. Maybe it was his soft spot for Yukio that did him in. He took the controller without a word and stared so seriously at the screen as if faced with an actual mission.

You schooled your giddy face as you watched him, stiff hand mimicking the rowing motion. Then he brought the team to victory and you were the first to cheer.

After nearly two months—god, where’d the time go?—Logan is still full of surprises, you decide. 

He shoots you a playful look, one that says I know you were looking. One that’s easy to miss, but his face already became a fluent language to you.

The Super Mario Party-induced bedlam continues to resonate mere feet away, and yet the kitchen feels like it’s just for the two of you, almost enclosed in a different reality.

You watch as he looks at you. Gentle, phantom strokes across your face. 

It’s moments like these that make you fall into that labyrinth. The maze that lies past your fantasies. It traps you into thinking that maybe, just maybe, he feels it too. Your heart aches with feelings that have no way out.

Logan opens his mouth then.

“And why are you escaping?”

You swallow, side-stepping to get to the fridge. I can’t, you answer in your head, not from you.

“I’m not. Just getting soda.”

The lightness in your voice had to be forced through the thickened air.

Can he tell? The same way you can tell what his grunts mean, if the frown on his face is one of upset or confusion, how he likes his coffee?

He watches as you cradle two big bottles of diet Pepsi, one in each arm. You try to ignore the way your spine tingles, reacting to the heat of his eyes on you.

You look at him one last time before passing him by, barely managing a smile on your lips.

He watches you walk away and digs a hand into the pocket of his jeans.

He feels it. An aluminum medallion.   

Light, the size of a poker chip, he reckons. With a swipe of a thumb he grazes its surface, busy with embossed letters, but larger words are pressed at the center. “1 MONTH”. Buried deep like a secret he didn’t mean to keep.

Windswept with the passage of time, he forgot about it.

There’s already a buzz in the air when he enters the room in the library.

Something much bigger is underway. Something he isn’t used to, much to his dismay.

It feels like the sky drops when the question does.

“Anyone here have thirty days?”

A sudden silence takes over. His head is anything but. Strange that he is so doubtful, as if he hasn’t been counting each day religiously.

He has thirty-five. Should he raise his hand? 

No, not yet. Maybe someone else hit theirs today—they should get to raise their hand first, not him, not when he feels like he hasn’t actually done anything real to get here—

Somebody does raise their hand.

Brent, he recalls. Young, a little younger than you, wearing baggy clothes and a little cowlick on his dirty blonde hair. He has a difficult look on his face as he starts to speak. The raised hand falls awkwardly back onto his lap, and then something in his eyes shines. Quiet. Steady.

“I’m Brent. I’m an alcoholic and I’m thirty days sober today.”

Pin-drop silence for a split second before the room erupts into cheers. People are clapping. Some of them get up from their chairs to embrace Brent in congratulations. The chairperson walks up to him, giving him the chip. The metal gleams red in the warm light.

What is more often than not an appropriately somber meeting, reserved in the first few minutes, dissolves into lightness and warmth. Like the shackles around each of their ankles are gone, just for the moment. Freedom in knowing that someone here—Brent—got to today, and that is enough for someone else in the room to get through their first 24 hours.  

The shift in the air seems to be enough to affect him, too. The voices in his head, the recitation of names that chant as soon as the memories creep—Scott, Jean, Rogue, Storm, Charles…—lack their bite of guilt and shame. He doesn’t feel like drowning, not like he used to. Images behind his eyelids flash, not of charred corpses and bloodied faces. Not today.

Today they smile, and he remembers fragments of his days with them, as beautiful as painted pictures.

The same image that made him cry for the first time in years.

In this room, with other faces who have gone through so much, regret doesn’t echo as loud. If his friends—no, his family—were here…

…they’d be proud of him too. He can’t lie to himself out of that fact.

He doesn’t know how, doesn’t know a part of him still remembers after countless cries since the day he lost them. But he does—hear their voice, see their smile, as if it were yesterday.

Jean and Rogue would hug him, their heads tucked in his chest and neck. Storm would, too, with a wide smile.

And Slim? Slim would be quiet for a while, gaze unreadable from behind the red visor, before finally circling an arm around his shoulder. 

Charles would be the only one with words. The warmth in those bright eyes could bring tears to his own.

We’re so proud of you, Logan.

That’s what he would say.

So a minute later, Logan swallows the lump in his throat and raises his hand.

He strokes the cool metal inside his pocket. He should tell Wade. Tell Laura.

Tell you.

He watches the living room from his spot at the island, trying to be present.

It’s your and Laura’s turn on the console. Somewhere along the way it turned into a fighting game, apparently. He can hear the banter, Laura mercilessly barraging you with attacks as a response to your playful goading.

When the killing blow plays in slow motion, you let out the loosest laugh he’s heard in a while, a hand running through your hair. Laura shakes your shoulders playfully, half-heartedly consoling you with a “of course I win, we play this at the dorms all the time”.

You sigh, the same sound that he usually hears after watching a great movie together. Entertained. Grateful. 

And then you turn to look at him, a bright smile on your face.

Did you see that? the pull of your lips seems to ask.

His heart rends in two at the sight.

This is what made him forget.

You. The greatest thing to stir up his emotions that drowned in a tar-like ocean of sin. 

Things are deceptively easy with you. A couple of conversations got you past that clumsy hump that comes with meeting a mutual friend, and after that, the road’s been highway-clear. The two of you coast like you know the way, like you’ve known each other for a while. 

Each interaction with you is a four-leaf clover, a smooth pebble, a scallop seashell—beautiful, natural little gifts that help convince him he was okay. That he no longer has to fight the world or himself, at least for the time being.

That he’s allowed to rest. 

Except he can’t.

Because in the past week, June has forced her temperature up a notch, and it has been nothing less than hellish torment. Suddenly your shorts become shorter, your t-shirts smaller, until they eventually turn into tank tops.

It’s not that he blames you for seducing him through the way you dress—you could wear a potato sack and he’d still want you—it’s his fault. He was the one who crossed that line, that night in the shower, thinking of you like that despite trying so hard not to.

You exist, blissfully unaware of his transgressions, and he’s tempted.

His eyes can’t help but hunger and he feels like a nasty animal, preying on you with his gaze while you’re around the house, a place where you feel safe.

Jaw clenching at your exposed legs as you walk around from one room to another. Hands balling into fists at the glimpse of your waist when you reach for the top shelf. Mouth salivating as you move your hair, exposing the nape of your neck.

That part of you should be so innocent, but the curve, your skin… it reminds him of the dress you wore.

It didn’t help that he bumped into you a few days ago, fresh out of the shower. You gasped when you collided into his chest and he had to put a hand on your waist to hold you steady, except he didn’t realize the only thing covering you was a flimsy blue towel.

Skin damp, smelling like a concoction of fragrances that made him want to take a bite out of you.

“Oh my god, sorry,” you breathed, escaping to your room without meeting his eyes. The door closed, and he was left alone in the hallway, accompanied only by his heart beating like it was begging to be let out of its enclosure.

It also didn’t help that he came home from work early yesterday, only to hear a buzzing sound. Too loud to be electricity. Faint and barely there, but more than enough for his enhanced hearing to pick up.

Above it, a sigh. Your voice. So soft he thought he imagined it.

Then a muffled whimper, and he knew it was real, because it was better than anything he could dream of.

His nerves jolted with hyper-awareness as soon as he registered what was happening. He could feel his body react as if it responded to yours, blood pumping south, his pants tightening.

A shaky exhale. You sounded so good, too lost to have heard him close the front door, but not at all loud, like you’re still trying to hold yourself back in case someone heard. Have you been sneaking around like this, taking advantage of the times he was away, trying to hide this from him? 

What if you thought about him when you touched yourself?

Fuck, he couldn’t believe that’s where his mind went. It was too late. Once he started picturing you picturing him, he felt dirty, but it wasn’t enough to make him stop.  

So yes, nothing helped. Certainly not you. You made it worse.

Made him picture you in your bed in a state of undress just shy of total nakedness, legs tangled between crumpled sheets, pressing a little vibrator against your clit while you slip your fingers into your folds. Made him want to break down your bedroom door and show you how he’d make you lose your mind instead of relying on that godforsaken toy.

Made him yearn.

He locked himself in his bedroom that day, hand around his cock, and thought about more than just the arch of your back when he sinks into you. Timing his strokes with your quiet gasps—perhaps hushed for human hearing, but more than enough for him—like he wanted to believe he was there with you, causing your downfall. 

A deeper need hummed incessantly through him. He should be startled at its revelation, but instead, he found it perfectly familiar. Maybe he’d thought of this from the very start.

Your face, wrecked with pleasure, cheeks flushed as you gasp up at him.

Logan, please, more.

He’d give you anything you asked for, drive deeper with the singular purpose of carving his soul into your very being. He’d leave a mark neither you or time can erase. You’d moan, lost in him, but your eyes would lock with his as you whisper, stuttered in between thrusts:

I love you—love you so much—

He came. Harder than any of the times he’s touched himself while thinking of you. Copious amounts of him spilled in his hand, on his stomach, forcing him to hold back a loud groan.

It felt wrong, his wayward mind twisting your voice to say those three words to him. He didn’t just cross a line this time, he violated it. 

What have you done to him? He thought he’d be content just living. The universe gave him a chance at redemption in the shape of a man in red tights, and as if that wasn’t crazy enough, he ended up with the cleanest slate he could get: a life in a different timeline with his friends and his daughter.  

But here he is, blood boiling with affection that laces his veins—for you. The prettiest, softest, kindest thing he’s ever seen, the person who stubbornly insists to be useful when you only need to exist for him to fall into that wretched feeling he hasn’t felt in a century.

You’ve turned him into a monster of greed, because now, living is no longer enough.

He wants you, wants to pull that laugh out of you, wants to make his shoulders comfortable enough for you to rest your head on, wants to spend a lazy morning in bed with you, cradling your face in his hands and showering kisses on your eyelids—   

“Logan? Do you wanna play?”

Hazel eyes snap back to reality at the sound of your voice.

The entire living room is looking at him. Laura and Wade look suspicious, while you still have that blameless smile on your face, holding your controller out as if it’s for him to take. 

Thoughts usually cease to exist when you look at him like that, beaming, but tonight it’s different.

Tonight he feels like he’s defiled you without having laid a hand on you, and the thoughts ring louder than ever, taking the shape of a voice he didn’t think he’d hear again.

Cassandra Nova’s.

There’s a cruel lilt to her voice, the same one he heard in the Void. That happened a lifetime ago, but it doesn’t echo—smooth and unmistakable. She’s still in there, in his head.

One good thing enters your life and you can’t keep your paws off her. Desperate pup.

You should see how you slobber all over her. A blind person could tell. I think she can, too. 

You think she’s going to kick you out? I think she’s too polite for that. She’d pretend everything was fine. That sounds like her, doesn’t it?

It feels like her grimy fingers are sinking into his brain again. As if they never even left.

He tries to shake it off, the sensation of nails scratching into the recesses of his brain. 

But oh, boy, when she finds out… a cold chuckle, give her two weeks and she’ll tell you she needs to move out for some bullshit reason, completely unrelated to you. Because she doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. Never. She’s too nice, isn’t she?

The sensation sucks the air out of his lungs, an out-of-season chill up his spine.

She’s only nice to you because she feels sorry for you.

For a split second, he sees your face in the rubble. Bloodied in pallor, eyes blank.

Dead.

Don’t get too close, Wolvie. You know what happens when you get too close.

Fear.

How could he forget?

Has hitting thirty days of sobriety got him cocky, got him thinking he’s worth more than he really is?

What was he thinking, planning on showing a fucking coin to you?

It doesn’t change a thing. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s killed, spilled blood that could fill up a river. Pretending like his moral ledger is not in the red, like he no longer has enemies, debt-free, all set for a quiet life? What the fuck is he doing, playing house with a woman who has her entire life ahead of her? 

You’re probably doing this out of pity, anyway, the same pity that moves little girls to their core when they see stray cats stuck in the rain. The kind that can’t stand seeing someone cold and alone, unaware of the diseases he’ll bring. The teeth. The claws.     

He jumped timelines. Who’s to say others can’t, if they want to hunt him down so desperately? And god knows they’re out there, he just doesn’t know when they’re going to come for him.

If he’s sure of anything, it’s that his past always comes back to haunt him. Always.

And that you deserve better.

“Logan? Do you wanna play?”

He doesn’t answer your question. Grunts, footsteps padding across the room until he’s situated at the furthest corner away from you.

Doesn’t even look at you.

He’s quiet that way for the rest of the night, but only to you. You’ve spent most of your life reading rooms and sensing situations—you’re fairly certain of your assessment.

He’s upset.

About what, you don’t know. Your mind jumps to the conclusion it always does. Could he be mad at you?

Something heavy and invisible begins to make itself known in your gut. He’s only a little subdued, the way someone would after a long day at work. Afflicted with a kind of tiredness that his healing factor can’t fix.

Aside from that, he seems normal. Would be, to the average person. He even exchanged a few words with Ellie. Something about Japan. Yukio smiles, an easygoing bundle of joy next to her girlfriend.

You’re in a conversation with Dopinder—if you can call it a conversation, because it’s mostly him speaking at this point. His words are lost to you as you leave the asking of follow-up questions to Peter, while you’re left retracing steps and things said to Logan, in case something landed the way you didn’t intend it to, trying not to look over at him every three seconds.

You fail.

Glancing at him, you see him already staring at you back.

What do his eyes say? In that instant, you forget how to speak their language. 

He looks away.

Suddenly it’s cold.

There’s the taste of bile in your mouth.

“Hey… you okay?”

He’s on the couch, a faraway look on his place. You step closer, gathering the guts to sit next to him—not afraid of him lashing out, but the possibility of him not wanting you there. 

He nods, unmoving even as your weight sinks on the soft surface.

You’re so used to his presence, especially here in the living room. A sacred place where the two of you are free to blend into each other. Movie nights, easy laughter on your part and a snort or two from him. Assembling a store-bought shelf together on the floor, plywood parts surrounding you in a circle like it was actually a private little bubble—you and him against the world. Having dinner with him and Laura, talking shit about work, windows open, music in the background…   

Now, there’s a wall. The air is thick in a way that suggests a coil being snapped, and not at all in the way you would like. Your skin tells you someone is getting hurt.

And you know who is.

“I was—”

“Did you wanna—”

The two of you begin speaking, only to stop at the same time. On another occasion, you’d laugh. Not this time.

“You first,” you look expectantly at him.

He wipes his nose once, leaning forward to rest both elbows on his knees. Doesn’t look at you when he speaks, his gaze glued to the black TV screen ahead despite you watching his every move. 

There’s a prolonged silence before he finally speaks.

“I was thinkin’ of movin’ out.”

He turns his head to finally look at you.

You wonder what he sees on your face, because you don’t know what emotions are running through you right now.

Surprise, because you aren’t sure what to expect, but it definitely isn’t that. Doubt, because this whole thing is set up like a prank, except he won’t joke about this. Logan is straightforward, not needlessly cruel.

Most of all, you feel confused.

Did you get the signals mixed somewhere along the way?

The world sinks slowly beneath your feet, like your reality has been a poorly constructed sandcastle all along. Feet slipping, grains parting as you drop further downwards.

Maybe he wasn’t as comfortable as you thought he was, living with you. Maybe he didn’t like having to help you wrestle with wrenches and bolts. Maybe he only approved of the fried rice you made, and that asking him to taste test your other dishes got him annoyed. Did he really like the fried rice, or was he just trying to make you feel better about cooking?

Maybe you misread his sharing past stories as a sign of openness.

Maybe in showing him pieces of yourself you'd never shown anyone else, you created pressure instead of safety.

Maybe you hovered too close. Pushed too far.

You hear a voice from the past. Nameless, faceless, an amalgam of a few persons you no longer keep around.

You need to lay off. You’re a bit much.

God, you know you get things wrong sometimes, but this? You feel sick, the ice-cold realization submerging you.

What if you projected so much of your infatuation towards him that your rose-tinted glasses made you blind? What if, this entire time, you didn’t see him at all?  

You’re the one to break eye contact, looking down at your lap. From your periphery, you can see his hands tightening around his knees like he’s holding something back.

He continues to speak, voice measured, slightly apologetic.

“Was thinkin’ I needed privacy after all, now that I can actually afford it,” he rasps.

“Space. Just for myself. Less awkward if I… have some company over.”

Something in you cracks.

You catch yourself just before breaking in the only way you can.

He watches as you look up at him, a smile on your face that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“I understand. I appreciate you telling me in advance,” you reply, voice level. “Do you, um, know when you’re gonna move? I need time to find a new roommate.”

“Not sure, Wade and I got this mission that’ll last for a while. I’ll look around after.”

You nod. It’s quiet for a while.

“I’ll help you look, then.”

He nods this time, voice quiet.

“Thanks.”

You get up.

“Shower’s all yours. Good night, Logan.”

“...Night.”

He watches as you turn, disappearing down the hallway, your bedroom door clicking shut.

Hands clench around the fabric of his pants so tight, his knuckles turn white. He exhales, but there’s no relief. Instead, the pain intensifies, jagged wires constricting his chest and digging into his skin. 

Fuck, he doesn’t know why he said that. That part about company, as if you didn’t already have him wrapped around your finger, as if you hadn’t been the best person to be around, as if he wanted someone else. 

Felt like cutting his tongue off the moment the words escaped him. He hates it, he fucking hates it.

Hates the look on your face, trying to be calm and considerate of him. You didn’t even ask why and he lied to you, only to watch you mask the hurt like he couldn’t see through it. He can, he has a feeling you know he can. Instead, he watches you slip back to the past, like this was your first conversation with him.

Polite.

Like whatever the two of you shared this past two months didn’t exist in the first place.      

Logan ignores the pained caterwauling in his chest. His breath won’t go down his throat, tortured and stuck.

Absentmindedly, his feet take him to the hallway, gaze lingering at your bedroom door.

It’s dead quiet, his enhanced senses picking up nothing. Somehow he thinks it’s worse than hearing you cry.

He swallows before retreating into his own room.

It was the right thing to do.

So why does it feel like he’s still drowning even after it’s done?

taglist: @squishyfruitloop @britttzy267 @tezooks @ddwnghead @dear-detested @duckyyyx @hits-different-cause-its-you @mrfitzdarcyslover @snowlycanroc @teresas-lisbon

[scary-grace]

22 w tomura mayhaps? (idk how to send writing prompts is this correct...)

You got it! #22 was "a hand clamped tightly over a mouth", and I went for an AU (what else?) based on one of my favorite horror movies. Thank you for giving me the chance to write it! A Quiet Place AU (with soulmates for some reason?), Shigaraki x reader, reader POV, typical creature scariness.

Your commute to work is bad enough without adding Instagram to it, but as usual, you’ve whipped out your phone and started doomscrolling anyway. You’re not the only one, either. Everybody else on the train, whether they’re standing or seated, is glued to their phones. Tumblr, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook – you even see one person on a dating app, even though dating apps have been unnecessary since before you were born. If you’ve got a soulmate mark, you don’t need a dating app. If you don’t have one, you’re shit out of luck.

Soulmate marks are what make scrolling through Instagram such a pain in your ass. Even though you’ve got a ton of art accounts and pet rescues filling your feed, the #mademymatch posts always sneak through. The one that shows up mid-screen today takes your morning from shitty-but-it’s-Thursday to where’s-the-nearest-window in two seconds flat. It belongs to your best friend, who’s been texting you nonstop for the past two hours about who knows what. You haven’t looked. And now you don’t need to.

Your best friend found her soulmate. You can tell by the way she and the random guy she’s supposed to spend the rest of her life with are beaming at the camera, even before you swipe to the next picture and see their forearms extended, soulmarks spelling out each other’s names in brilliant, unmistakable gold. You wish you could say you were happy for her. Instead you’re pissed. That’s one more person you cared about who’s gone now, swallowed up into the black hole of perfectly matched. A person with a soulmate doesn’t need friends. They barely need family. They’ve got one person who’s their everything, which is great for them. It sucks for you.

You keep scrolling with a vengeance. The train stops, and the person in the seat next to you gets off. It’s only a second before someone else drops into the seat – a blue-haired guy your age with a backpack, in a hoodie, who wastes no time in making himself comfortable. You catch an elbow to the ribs and glare at him. He stares back for a second, his crimson eyes shadowed by dark circles and ringed with skin that looks almost painfully dry, before yanking his phone out of his pocket and putting in his headphones.

Asshole. You’d have at least said sorry first. You put in your own headphones and go back to scrolling, past your best friend’s match post and down to a video of a rescued condor being taught to fly. Your forearm is starting to itch, right over the spot where your stupid, fucked-up soulmark is. It takes most of your self-control not to scratch.

The guy in the seat next to you is scratching his forearm. And his neck, alternating between the two like he’s got fleas or something. Of course you had to sit next to the flea guy. You glance at his forearm out of habit, but it’s covered, like yours. People with soulmates they’re excited to meet have theirs out in the open, even in the cold. People like you keep theirs hidden. Your soulmark, a mashup of two names on top of each other, doesn’t say anything good about the person who’s supposed to become the center of your entire life. A mark like that indicates a soulmate with an identity disturbance, whatever that means. You’ve got enough issues all on your own. You don’t need someone else’s, too.

The guy next to you keeps scratching, but your attention’s drawn away from the scratching to the video he’s watching on his phone. It’s shaky and blurred, like the person who was holding it was trying to run for their life and film at the same time. The people around whoever’s filming are running too. And the thing they’re running from is – you stare hard, searching for a word that describes what you’re seeing, or an animal to compare it to. Nothing comes to mind. It’s awful. Everything about it’s been put together wrong.

If this is a horror movie, you’ll watch it. You elbow the guy next to you a little harder than necessary, and he looks up, already irritated. You point at the screen. “Is that a movie?”

He doesn’t answer. Then again, he has headphones in, and whatever the audio is in the clip he’s listening to, it’s loud. He jumps in his seat, then jumps again, worse. His phone is shaking in his hands, and as you watch, he swipes to a new video. Different set, different lighting, different weather and time of day – but the same shaky camera, the same thing at the center of it all. He swipes again, and again. The thing’s in every video.

When the emergency alert hits every phone in the train car, you’re still watching his screen. You see it flash there first, a second before the unmistakable buzz sets the train humming. Your headphones are enough to mute it, and the guy in the seat next to you shouldn’t have trouble, but he reacts even worse than everyone else. They just startle. He clamps one hand over his mouth and nose. With the other, he turns off his phone.

Why is he doing that? There’s important information there. You glance at your own screen and read an instruction to shelter in place immediately and await further instructions. How are you supposed to shelter in place on a train? And await further instructions – when there’s a plan, the government tells you what the plan is. If they’re saying to await further instructions, it means they don’t know.

People’s mouths are moving as they talk over what they’ve seen, their voices inaudible through your headphones. One person points at you – no, above you, straight out the window. You glance back over your shoulder at the skyline. You’re familiar with it. You see this every day on the ride to work if you happen to be sitting on the other side of the car, and that means you know exactly what’s missing from it. Three or four of the tallest buildings are gone, and there are columns of smoke rising in their place.

“What happened?” someone says aloud, their voice full of more shock than fear. A moment later, the train comes to a stop in the nearest station.

Fuck sheltering in place on a train. You get up, and the guy standing next to you does the same. He’s taller than you, so its easier for him to carve a path, and you keep following him onto the crowded platform. You can’t see where you’re going, and although the rude guy is taller than you, he’s not actually very tall. You might be better off on your own.

Just as you have the thought, the rude guy comes to a complete stop. The platform rumbles beneath your feet, more immediately than it does with the arrival of each train, and you hear a voice, maybe the same voice as before. Less shock, more fear. “What the hell is that?”

There’s an unearthly roar. Someone else screams. The crowd ahead of you begins to collapse, pushing rude guy backwards onto you, and pushing you the rest of the way back onto the train just as the doors begin to close. Rude guy is half-in, half-out of the train car, and you want this train to leave as soon as possible. You grab rude guy by the straps of his backpack and yank him the rest of the way into the car as more roars, more screams, filter in through your headphones. The doors shut, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s not even that loud of a sigh, but a hand comes down over your mouth anyway. Rude guy is right there, glaring at you. He shakes his head. Even though you’ve never read lips a day in your life, you understand what he’s saying. Shut up.

He’d better read your lips, too. Why?

He mouths something that’s too long, too complicated. You shake your head, and he mouths a curse, then fumbles in his backpack. He comes up with a notebook and writes. They follow sound.

They? You point out the window at the train station – or back at the train station, since the train’s pulling away, and the guy nods. He writes more. They can’t see. It’s how they hunt. Shut up.

You nod. Rude guy nods. He tucks his notebook away, and the two of you sit in silence for a few companionable seconds. But the only people who are silent are the two of you. Nobody on the rest of the train can keep their mouth shut. They’re talking about what’s happened in loud voices. Calling other people, talking even louder. Crying, hyperventilating – there’s even some asshole watching a TikTok about whatever’s happening with no headphones.

Rude guy realizes it in the same second as you do. It doesn’t matter how quiet the two of you are. You’re surrounded by noise. If one of those things is listening, there’s no chance it won’t –

Glass shatters. The train lurches violently to one side, throwing blue-haired guy forward against you and throwing you back against the bank of seats on the opposite side. Your breath leaves you in a pained grunt, but in the midst of the cacophony in the rest of the car, no sound you make could possibly matter. The screams of the others are so loud that there’s no chance you’ll be heard.

But just as quickly as the screams crest, they’re going silent. The creatures you saw in the video are terrifying up close, and they move with lightning speed. At first you think they’re eating people, biting them. Their faces open up into mouths full of teeth that you’ll be seeing in your nightmares if you live long enough to fall asleep, but when you watch closer, you realize it’s their limbs that do the worst of the damage. A single swipe from one is enough to bisect a person. One person’s decapitated so close to you and the blue-haired guy that both of you are sprayed with blood.

There are four creatures attacking here, you think – two inside the car, one reaching in from the broken windows, and one reaching in through the roof. The car rocks from side to side, throwing you back against the seats harder every time. You push away, biting down on an agonized sound. Any noise you make could be audible to the creatures now. The car’s gone almost completely silent.

You lock eyes with the blue-haired guy, and he stares back at you. You wonder if he’s thinking the same thing you are – thinking about what to do next, thinking about whether it’s worth including somebody else in that plan. You know you’re not the ally anybody would pick for what you’re rapidly beginning to think is the end of the world. But based on the look on the blue-haired guy’s face, he doesn’t think he’s the ally you’d pick, either.

Still, he’s what you’ve got. You nod once. He nods in response. And as the last of the screams breaks off into an abrupt, terrible gurgle, the two of you begin to crawl for the lever that will release the emergency doors. Sure, it’ll spit you out onto the track, but in the open, there are options. You’ve got no options if you’re trapped in here. This is about as bad as it could –

If you survive, you’re going to have to stop thinking in terms of ‘as bad as it gets’, because the instant you do, the train lurches again, this time tipping completely onto its side. You’re on the wrong side of the wreck yet again, but you’re used to it. You steel yourself and keep silent as you crash against the emergency doors. The blue-haired guy doesn’t steel himself. He catches himself on his hand, and you watch in slow, silent horror as his wrist jerks sideways and breaks.

Before a cry of pain can exit his mouth, you’re covering it, but the sound his body makes as it thuds against the door is something you couldn’t dream of concealing. A creature turns towards you, its face opening into a thousand fanged petals, and you’re transfixed. Blue-haired guy’s body is shaking where it’s pressed against yours, his tears hot against your knuckles and his breath hotter against your palm. The creature approaches you in slow, almost mincing steps. You’ve seen it kill people. You can’t even pray that it’ll be a quick death.

And you don’t want to die. One hand’s occupied covering the stranger’s mouth, and with the other, you fumble across the floor, looking for something – a weapon, maybe, so you can pretend to fight to the death. You’re on a commuter train. There aren’t weapons. The closest thing you find is someone’s goddamn Stanley cup, heavy with liquid and probably loud enough to attract every creature in the city if it fell from a height.

Perfect. You grab it by its handle, and instead of throwing it at the creature that’s almost on top of you and the guy with the broken wrist, you throw it as hard as you can towards the other end of the car. You’d be happy if it drew the creature further away, but if this is all you get, you have to be able to work with it. Your back’s against the emergency doors, and the other set are on the high side of the tipped car. You aren’t getting out that way. But if the train car doesn’t shift, and if you can be quiet, you might be able to sneak out one of the windows on this side. There’s just enough space for a person to squeeze through.

You make eye contact with the blue-haired guy, then glance pointedly towards the window. He shakes his head, mouths a word: Glass. You see it, too. It’s mostly broken, but huge, jagged pieces are still protruding from the frame. You shift him off of you, as carefully as you can manage, then steal a discarded, bloodstained scarf to wrap your hands in. Then, one by one, you start extracting the remaining pieces from the frame.

You’re conscious of the guy next to you, of how badly his wrist is broken. Getting out of this car without making a sound is going to be hard enough for you, but for him? He was borderline as an ally before his wrist snapped, and now he’ll be actively decreasing your chances of survival. But how good are your chances, really? Probably not great, and if it wasn’t for this guy, you’d never have known that the creatures hunt by sound in time for it to matter. You owe him one. Making sure he escapes the train probably counts for at least three.

You communicate through some combination of gesture and mouthing words that you’ll go out the window first, then help him through. You think he gets it, at least enough that he doesn’t try to get through the window ahead of you. You push your backpack through first, then crawl out after it onto the tracks. The tracks don’t exactly look clear, but you can see a service stairway maybe fifty meters ahead. Getting to it will be a nightmare, and climbing down will be worse, but it’s doable. It’s doable if your only other option is staying up here.

Blue-haired guy pushes his backpack through the window first, just like you did, then crawls out himself. You only have to watch him for a second before you figure out what the problem is, and you reach forward, taking some of his weight so he can crawl through without putting his broken wrist down. You’ve now made more physical contact with this stranger than you have with anybody since everybody you know started finding soulmates, but there’s something about the fact that you’re both two seconds away from dying horribly that burns it all away.

It feels normal to help him put his backpack on, to help him to his feet, to make sure he’s steady as you pick your way along the tracks, skirting the edges of the cars, watching every step to make sure your feet come down quietly. Everything else is so nightmarish that being this physical with a stranger is the most normal thing that’s happening to you. Blue-haired guy isn’t flinching away from you the way most people do from people who aren’t their soulmates. He probably has a fucked-up soulmark, too.

You’re most of the way to the stairs when the sound of a train whistle shatters the silence. You instinctively drop down, hands over your ears, but your ally doesn’t. He’s looking at something over your shoulder, eyes widening in horror, and when you glance back, you understand why. There’s another train coming down the tracks, slowing down but not fast enough. It’ll hit the wreckage of your train. And if you’re still on the tracks when that happens, you’ll die.

You give up trying to be quiet, and your ally does the same. The two of you bolt down the tracks, then dive down onto the service stairway. You lose your footing immediately, and so does blue-haired guy, and the two of you tumble down the stairs, elbows and backpacks flying. With this much noise, there should be creatures all over you, but the oncoming train is so loud that you can’t imagine they can her you over the whistle and the screech of the brakes. That feels like it should be important to you. Maybe it will be later, if you don’t break your neck on the way down the stairs.

When you reach street level, there’s no time to regroup. The sound of the second train hitting what’s left of the first is apocalyptic, and the raised tracks are rattling, buckling. You drag the blue-haired guy to his feet and the two of you take off down the street in a stumbling run, until you trip on a downed police barricade and he trips on you and the two of you go down in a heap again.

You bit the inside of your cheek on the way down. You can taste your own blood, and it’s dribbling from the corner of your mouth as you turn your head to look at the blue-haired guy. He looks dazed, just like you, and he’s bleeding from a scrape at his temple and another one along his jaw. He’s in bad shape, worse than you are, and when he opens his mouth, you already know what he’s going to say. “I’m gonna slow you down,” he says quietly, too quietly for anyone but you to hear amidst the sound of the raised tracks collapsing. “You should –”

You cover his mouth with your hand, ignoring how the itch in your forearm crests into agony, only to go quiet a second later. Together, you mouth. His lips move against your palm, but he looks skeptical. Together.

You’d say it was quiet for a second, except quiet’s the norm. Still might be a better description. He watches you, wariness in his red eyes, and after a moment that lasts way too long given that you’re both sprawled out in the street, he nods.

[kings-highway]

Impulsively wrote this middle school friendship AU intro for Ushiten. It would follow a week of them working on a school project together and probably be mostly canon compliant with the change of them meeting in middle school. Theyd play volleyball eventually and maybe Id extend it long enough to see the high school days its unclear. It would include both artist Ushijima and mega anime nerd Tendou and also tw for suicidal thoughts and feelings but no attempts just two deeply, deeply depressed 13 year olds finally meeting someone who gets them. Also Ushijima would have a stammer and an amount of autism that might be lethal before he had any decent self regulation. It would be the return of Adopted Tendou and probably a few other things. Anyway why am I telling you this? Because I have a habit of impulse writing the first 1000 words of something and then forgetting about it so instead I've given it to you. So like. Maybe all this will be nothing idk.

---

It was 9:08 on a Thursday morning when Tendou Satori decided to kill himself.

And then at 11:13 that very same Thursday morning, he’s forced to delay his decision due to a school assigned group project.

Now, normally Tendou would not be so altruistic as to care about whether or not he pulled his weight in a group project or left people hanging. No, the reason why this is an imposition at all is because of how he ends up assigned to a group project. He’s not paired up with the girl he sits beside as she rolls her eyes, they don’t draw straws or count numbers. No, they’re told that everyone can pick a partner to work with for this particular assignment, and then they have to make and colour project board on - you guessed it - a type of animal to then present to the class on.

Tendou, at first, is actually thrilled with this. He simply won’t partner up, and then he’ll be dead, and it will be okay. But when the class is wrapping up and everyone is getting ready for lunch, the teacher is suddenly whistling for him and waving him over like a scheming villain.

He’s not even sure he’s the one she wants at first. He frowns, glancing around and watching the other kids file out of the class, and then looking back to her. She waves him over again.

Her name is Kobayashi, and she’s… fine. Middle school biology is generally just fine.

He stands in front of her, wondering if he’s done something wrong.

“Hey, Satori,” she says, like she’s about to ask for all his gold. “I have a… huge favour to ask you. You don’t have a partner in mind for the animal project, do you?”

He shakes his head.

“Great, good, okay. So… do you think you could do me the favour of asking Wakatoshi to be your partner?”

Tendou frowns, glancing behind him to where the other kid usually sat, but he had already left the class.

“Uh… why?”

She seems to hesitate on this answer for a second, before eventually saying: “Well, it’s just that… you know he doesn’t really talk much, and has a really hard time making friends. And usually I help out by introducing him to someone, but I think he’s begun to notice that nobody ever approaches him on their own, and…”

Tendou stares at her for a moment, then glances behind him and scans over the occupied seats in the class to identify and even number of students. So an even amount of pairs.

We’re probably leftovers, he decides. There’s probably something wrong with this kid the way there’s something wrong with him, and she wanted them stuck together to avoid contaminating the other kids.

“Okay,” he says, because what does it matter to him?

“Oh, you’re the best, thank you,” Kobayashi says, clasping her hands together for a moment before adding: “Okay, I won’t take any more of your time. Go enjoy your lunch.”

Tendou nods slightly, and figures he should probably go find this kid to set up their collaboration. And it’s about then, (11:13) that he realizes if he asks to partner with someone, and then kills himself, that would be super inconsiderate and lame. So he decides he’ll wait until after they present.

But he heads down to the school cafeteria and starts scanning the available seats. It’s interesting that there’s apparently another social loser like him in his very class, and he’d never noticed. He’s fairly certain he can recognize the kid by face, but it still takes him a moment of intensely scanning before he notices him. He’s not exactly sitting alone, which is what surprises him. It looks like the kid is surrounded by friends.

Except for that, as Tendou approaches, he realizes that while he’s sandwiched in between two very loud groups of friends, he’s not actually engaging in either circle, and is instead sitting with his head down, peeling an orange so carefully he’s kept the peel all in one piece.

Tendou has to fight through crowds, then, to get to the other side and worm into the seat across from him and between those two groups. He doesn’t look up.

Tendou clears his throat.

He still doesn’t look up.

So he reached forward, knocking his knuckles against the table to get his attention. This makes him jump, and he looks up in alarm, as if shocked someone had snuck up on him despite being locked in on that orange like it owed him a life debt.

Tendou immediately regrets the rude way of getting his attention, realizing he probably seemed like an asshole, and withdrew his hand quickly to sit on it.

“Uh, hey,” he says. “Ushijima, right?”

He gets a single nod back. Well, Kobayashi had said he was quiet. Tendou wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him speak, actually.

“Well, I’m Tendou - we’re in class together-”

Ushijima is nodding, indicating he does recognize him.

“-uh, and we’ve got that stupid animal project coming up, and I don’t have a partner yet, so I was wondering if you wanted to, like, I dunno, do that together or whatever.”

Ushijima looks at him for long enough that Tendou is beginning to get concerned that he didn’t actually speak any Japanese, and then eventually the blank look turns to a frown.

What, did I offend him? Why is he looking at me like that?

“I mean, unless you already have a partner,” Tendou starts. Ushijima continues to stare at him. “Do… uh… sorry… What's happening? You can say no, dude, that’s fine, I just-”

After a second, Ushijima glances around, as if psyching himself up, before lean towards Tendou and very carefully saying:

“Okay.”

Tendou leans towards him at the same time. “Okay as in… partners?”

Ushijima nods, and then looks back down to his orange. Tendou is fairly certain that that’s the end of the conversation and this project is going to be the most boring partnership on the planet when Ushijima splits the orange in half, and offers half over to him.

“What? Why?” Tendou says, not quite able to stop his tone from coming out distrustfully.

Ushijima doesn’t seem to notice, and instead answers the question:

“You do not have lunch with you.”

It’s not a question of ‘are you hungry’ or ‘did you eat’ or ‘would you like half of this orange I’m holding,’ but rather Ushijima has now decided that since Tendou does not have any, he was going to put food in front of him.

Tendou feels a very heavy, hard beat in his heart, and reaches forward to take the orange.

“Oh. Thanks.”

[p-00e]

teaser - Cauldrons and Charms (?)

slytherin!gojo satoru x afab!Gryffindor!reader

Warning! - I do not agree with nor condone any of the heinous things JK Rowling has said about trans people and the LGBTQ+ community! This is my first real try at a fanfic and I hope you enjoy!! A full story is in the works right now, but heres a peek :)) -

Professor Binn’s history of magic paper was going to be the true cause of your death. In fact, Hermione’s better than magic zero sugar red bulls weren’t enough to pull you through the ten scrolls you had due in the next two days. Running a hand through your disheveled hair, you swept past the excited first years with a fresh two hours of sleep, sporting eyebags heavier than a mountain troll. 

“Mione! I swear if Binn doesn’t reduce his course workload, I will hex him into a-” 

Your fellow Gryffindor winced as she saw your shoulder shoved violently against broader and sturdier ones. Knocking your scrolls of parchment and sending them flying in the Great Hall. 

“Rats..” you muttered under your breath, quickly collecting your unfinished work and thinking of how you could use that Tongue Twister hex Fred taught you on the witch or wizard that shoved you. 

“What kind wheezing MORO-” your verbal tirade was interrupted by the sound of boisterous laughter, a laugh you were unfortunately extremely familiar with. 

Clad in black and green robes, stood the obnoxious, annoying excuse of a wizard, Gojo Satoru. A notorious snake who made it his personal mission to harass and ruin your life at Hogwarts. 

“Watch where you’re walking, someone might think you bumped into me on purpose, sweets” He chided with a smirk, silver ring clad hand ruffling his snow white locks. Picking up and unraveling one of your stray parchments, he eyes it like you've written some ancient undecipherable alien text then suddenly bursts into a fit of dreadful laughter.

“Listen, Gojo, I really really do not have the energy NOR the sufficient hours of sleep to deal with your goonish activities, so give me back my assignment before I send you a one way ticket to Madam Pomffrey.” You heard a small snicker, stemming from the tall figure next to your sworn enemy. Geto Suguru, in all his Slytherin glory, draped a lazy arm over his friend, sending a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, your way. Opening your assignment, Gojo feigned a wince, shaking his head while tsking. “You know, for a witch as bright as you, obviously not as bright as me... I expect a better essay… like what is this? “The Goblin King, a fierce dictator..” You writin’ a paper or a fanfiction?? Honestly, considering your brains, you're doing a rather poor job at trying to impress me"

Letting out the loudest sigh in wizarding history, you turn to Geto, giving him a quizzical brow, as if to say aren’t you a prefect? Do something? - Unfortunately, Instead of doing his job, he peers over his friend's shoulder, reading along. "I mean, I could probably write a better essay with my EYES closed" He snickers, sending a wink to the hoard of slytherin girls that gathered at the Hall.

Pulling out your wand, you hesitated between hexing the living Gojo out of him and accio-ing your essay from his grasp. Tuning out his mindless criticism and self-satisfaction, you opted for punching him in the gut, swiftly grabbing your essay, hexing his hair piss yellow and cackling your victory away.

Just as your hex takes effect, your thoughts are interrupted by a violent, high pitched scream followed by the gasps of young girls, echoing along the halls, startling Nearly Headless Nick and causing the Fat Lady's glass to shatter.

"MY HAIRRRRRRRRR"

You pick up the pace, trying to reach the safety of your common room before you face the consequences of his wrath. Your escape was short lived, however, as his freakishly long legs strode to you with a speed that could rival a thunderbird. Grabbing you by the robe collar, he slowly leaned forward, grin still intact but a visible irritated wrinkle creases his eyebrows. "If you were trying to get my attention, you've certainly done a wonderful job L/n." You roll your eyes, trying to tug your robe out of his grip. "Why don't you let me go and saunter off to entertain your little cult. I mean WOW Gojo, you never told me you could sing! For half a second I reckoned a banshee had broken into Hogwarts!" Impatience colours his face, yet his smile remains,

"Right? there really IS nothing I can't do" He sighs, with genuine dejection, “But my overflowing talent is nothing new, now why don't YOU undo the hex, sweets? I have a quidditch practice in an hour and I really wouldn't want my loyal fans to faint from the hue of my hair”  

Scoffing you chide “Fans? You can't possibly be refering to that hoard of third years? That's not admiration, they're just blindly obsessed with your pompous personality, Godric knows why..."

He grinned, eyes gleaming at your words, as if your retort had reminded him how huge his ego actually was. “While I relish the praise, I’m not obsessed with your attitude, keep being so prickly and I might hav’ta kiss ya, sweets, but I doubt you'd be that lucky” 

Feeling your heart drop into the pits of your stomach, you resist the urge to expel the bile building up at the thought “Gojo I’d rather kiss a toad with a thousand boils than even IMAGINE a kiss with the likes of yo-” 

A stern cough interrupted your soliloquy, turning your heads to the sound, a not so happy Professor McGonnagall, stood, wand in hand. “Ms L/n! And to think one of the brightest witches in Hogwarts is acting a fool in the Great Hall, now if your show is over and done with, I’d suggest you carry on with your day.” Flushing, you're quick to defend yourself.

“Professor you don’t understand! He started it!” pointing your index to Gojo, who was not so sneakily trying to weasel himself out of losing house points. She raises her pointed nose at the lanky wizard, tsking in disappointment. “And Mr Gojo! I suggest you return to your table and get that ghastly hair fixed before your quidditch practice, I doubt Madame Hooch would be happy to see her star player looking so… yellow." He perks up at her words, "Awww professor, you think I'm a Star Player? I mean I obviously am but to think you agreed!" Sighing, she shoots him a glare that immediately shuts him up. Shooing the gawking students, McGonnagall quips "And to think that two of my most intelligent wizards are to be seen publicaly jousting in the hall, five points from both Gryffindor and Slytherin! I will see the two of you, in my office friday evening." Eyeing your hunched figures, she briskly turns away. Leaving the two (three with Geto who was thoroughly enjoying himself) of you with another detention together.

"Great"

divider creds to : @thecutestgrotto

thank you for reading :?

[gyaruhana]

please write more thanos 230 smut i need to fight for dominance with this man and the previous fic was great

Thanos/Choi Su-Bong - Hatefucking (pt.2)

Synopsis: You and Thanos hate each other and, no matter how many death threats he sends your way, you never listen. So he decides that, if threats don’t work, maybe you need to be fucked instead. Of course, he's a fool to think he'll get away with that.

A/N: hey.... hey.. how y'all doing..? I'm back from the dead in honor of squid game s3 so here's this finally.

Warnings: smut, thanos gets denied release bc he deserves it, every1 is mean, we basically attempt to murder nam-gyu but he lives dw, hair pulling (from both us and thanos), it's literally called hatefucking so don't expect lovey dovey stuff.

Waking up the next morning after last night's events was.. Something. You felt very conflicted with yourself. You couldn’t believe you had let that absolute dickhead have his way with you and treat you like a whore. You wanted to punch him for having the audacity to do that with you but you also wanted to punch yourself for letting him get away with that. You had half a mind to walk up to him now and yell at him but you knew that would get you nowhere. If anything, it would just make you more angry because he’d probably look at you with that dumb cocky smirk again and make fun of you. 

You snapped out of your thoughts when the very loud voice of Thanos rang out again. You looked over at him immediately with a glare, not appreciating his current volume when it was this early in the morning. He was louder than the blaring classical musical that would play through the speakers to wake everyone up. You were really hoping today would be the day he dies so you’d never see his dumb face again. The chances that happened were ridiculously slim though considering he was a little too willing to sacrifice everyone within a 5 mile radius of him. 

“Good morning everyone! Let’s play some games!” Thanos spoke with a large grin, much to the dismay of everyone else who didn’t want to deal with such an energetic person after just waking up. In all honesty, Thanos was feeling much more excitable today. He had been thinking about the events of last night non-stop as seeing you in that state was a real treat for him. He really didn’t expect he’d enjoy using you so much but, now that he’s done it once, he can’t help but want to do it again. It was a real ego booster to see you on his knees sucking his cock after all the shit you had said to him. He preferred you much better when you kept quiet. 

You peeled your eyes off of him after a few solid seconds of telling him to shut up through the power of telekinesis, instead opting to look at the ground beneath your feet to avoid poisoning your eyes with his ridiculous face. You let out a sigh before getting up and shoving your hands into your pockets in a rather poor attempt to blend into the small amount of people left. It was sort of surreal to think that there were 456 people when you first arrived here and now there’s not even close to 200 people left. Although, the deaths you witnessed had left you rather desensitized to murder now.

You subtly walked over to the line of players that was slowly beginning to form as it was time for the next god forsaken game. You were hoping you could avoid Thanos and his dumb little friends - if they could even be called his friends - because you weren’t keen on hearing what comments he had to make today. You could only guess some of the things he would say after the events of last night, none of which you wanted to hear come from his mouth.

You followed behind the line of survivors as you were led through hallways, up way too many stairs for your liking, and finally to the game room for today. It was certainly an interesting looking place. It was a circular room - sort of like a circus tent - and there were many doors that seemed to each lead to a small room. In the center of the room, there was a circular platform which seemed to house three carousel horses in the very center. You didn’t have a single clue what this game could possibly be but you didn’t let that deter you.

The usual robotic voice rang out over the speakers explaining the game for today. You listened as it explained the rather simple rules of the game. You almost wanted to laugh at how easy this game sounded although you knew better than to do that as there was probably some trick to this game. If anything, this game might encourage violence because it’s more of an every-man-for-himself type game under the guise of a team game. 

You stepped onto the large circular platform, not exactly looking forward to the inevitable chaos of this game. You watched each player carefully as they stepped onto the platform with utmost caution. Clearly, everyone was on edge as they all seemed to predict that what was about to occur would be anything but humane. 

A sudden hand on your shoulder made you flinch slightly as you looked behind you to see Thanos’s stupid grin. He seemed to have gotten even cockier, maybe because he thought he had some sort of power over you now. You let out an audible sigh as you turn around to face him with annoyance written all over your face.

“What? What do you want?” you question but your tone made it clear you really didn’t give a fuck what he wanted. He laughed at your slight aggression towards him and squeezed your shoulder slightly. “Relax, just wishing you good luck,” he says with a small smirk but it was clear his intentions were in fact not to wish you good luck. You pulled your hand out of your pocket and quickly pushed his hand off your shoulder with a scoff. “I don’t need your good luck,” you speak and he looks away with slight annoyance.

“Was yesterday not enough for you? Maybe I should fuck your bitchy face again, huh?” he says as he looks down at you, the smirk on his face long gone and replaced with the same annoyance as yours. “How about I fuck your bitchy face up instead?” you speak. You couldn’t believe the audacity he had to bring up what happened yesterday now. It was like he was trying to throw you off your game so you’d die. Well, unfortunately for him, you’d sooner claw his eyes out then die in a stupid place like this.

He seemed to find something so amusing about your words, you could just see it on his face that he found you ridiculous. “Better hope we don’t cross paths this round,” he spoke before patting your shoulder twice and leaving you alone to go to his own team. The threat was very clear this time around and you could tell he meant it. If you got too close to him, he’d make sure to kill you. The idea brought a small smirk to your face. Him? Killing you? You wouldn’t even let him succeed in that in his dreams.

You let out a scoff before turning around. On cue, the platform began to spin and some childish music played. When the platform stopped, a number was called out and you quickly found a group to run into a room with. It was a bunch of strangers who you hadn’t had the chance to speak to and you definitely weren’t going to try any time soon. You watched through the slot in the door as people who weren’t so fortunate got eliminated but it seemed Thanos hadn’t gotten to share the same fate.

It took around 10 minutes before the room doors were unlocked and the players trailed back to the center platform. This went on for four rounds and you, thankfully, did not have any encounters with Thanos yet. However, you had been watching him and he seemed rather preoccupied in sacrificing his own teammates. You honestly weren’t surprised. Of course, he was sacrificing his own team with a smile on his face. God, you wanted to wipe that grin off his face permanently. 

The last round came by and you managed to overhear a conversation between some close-knitted players. A conversation that had you quite intrigued considering it related to the game. You watched them subtly and took in their words.

“Two,” one of them spoke as the other one looked over at him curiously. “Wait, why?” the other guy responded, curious for an explanation to the guys very confident guess. “We're at 126 people. There are 50 rooms. Even if there’s two in every room, there’s still only enough for 100 of us. If you don’t find one fast, you’re done for,” he answered and that definitely peaked your attention. His guess was quite educated and it formed an idea in your head.

You looked over to Thanos with a small smirk and he seemed to sense your stare causing him to look over at you curiously. You didn’t break eye contact and just stared at him. In all honesty, it did make him slightly uncomfortable considering you were just standing there staring. He didn’t have time to think about it though as the platform stopped and the number two was called out. Rather predictably, he left his quiet friend alone and instead took player 124 with him.

Without another thought, you ran after them and quickly caught up with them. You couldn’t explain what got into you but, before you knew it, you had grabbed the back of player 124’s jacket and pulled him back. Of course, Thanos was taken aback and immediately looked over but you didn’t give him time to think before you pushed him back into an empty room, leaving Player 124 in the dust. You closed the door behind you and held it shut, waiting for it to lock on its own.

Of course, Thanos was pissed. He immediately made a move, stomping towards you with the intent to get you out of the way. Not like you were about to let that happen. You quickly raised your foot and kicked his knee making him stumble back with a grunt. “Fuck!” he cursed out before straightening up and looking at you with a lot of anger. He couldn’t believe the shit you were pulling.

Honestly, you couldn’t believe it either.

The door locked as the timer ran out and you let go with a slight smirk before walking toward him. You gripped his chin roughly and forced him to keep his eyes on you. Oh, you were going to get revenge for all the times he’s treated you like shit. You had more than enough of him by now and this was the perfect time to give him a sweet taste of his own medicine.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he said and you were quick to raise a hand and slap him clean across his face. It sent him into a stunned silence as he was quickly forced to look back at you again. Had you actually just slapped him? He was starting to think this might be some sort of hallucination from his drugs but he knew better than that. 

“I’m fucking sick of hearing you speak. Can’t you shut the hell up for once?” you speak as you look at him. Your voice snapped him out of his daze and he quickly regained his composure. A smirk once again graced his lips as he looked at you. “Is this your way of asking me to fuck you again?” he asked. You couldn’t believe he was still talking like that given the situation. Your free hand grabbed a fistful of his hair as you pulled him closer. You were angered by his undeserved confidence.

“I’d rather have a bullet blasted through my skull than have you fuck me again,” you responded. “Then why didn’t you die out there?” he questioned - obviously trying to make fun of you by subtly suggesting that deep down, you want him despite all the hate your harbour for him. “Because I wanted to wait for you to die first. I can’t wait to see the life leave your ugly fucking face,” you answered and his smirk dropped at your words. 

You let out a scoff before letting him go and standing by the door to see the situation outside. You didn’t see player 124’s body anywhere so you could assume he survived and might have it out for you later after the stunt that you pulled. Thanos didn’t seem to say anything and instead opted to just stare at you. You could feel his eyes burning through your skull but you ignored it. You had already decided to fuck around with him some more later. After all, this was just a warning sent to him to not fuck with you unless he wants to face the consequences.

Then, all of a sudden, a hand grabbed your hair and pulled you back. You let out a hiss at the jolt of pain and looked at Thanos to be met with an angry glare. He kept a tight grip on your hair as he brought you close to his face. It was pretty clear that he was anything but happy now. There wasn’t a single trace of amusement on his face. Part of you was glad since you were sick of seeing him look so smug.

“Are you trying to make me angry? Because it’s working,” he speaks. His attitude had changed quite a bit now and he no longer would play nice - or, at least his version of nice. Your hand raised to grab his wrist tightly, a silent warning to let go of you before things got properly violent. “Let me go,” you stated firmly. You had long run out of patience with him. If he didn’t start listening, you’d make him listen. 

He let out a humorless laugh as he briefly looked to the side before returning his gaze to you. “Or what? You gonna slap me again?” he says with a mocking tone. Thanos had already painted an image in his mind of you being all bark and no bite. He didn’t believe you had the guts to actually try anything and that this was nothing but your poor attempt at regaining some sort of power after the events of last night. He was starting to think he might need to give you another taste.

“Worse,” you respond, waiting for his reaction to your response. Your intentions were not to kill him, not yet at least. You just wanted to put him in his place like he tried to do to you. If sex was his language, then you’d use it to send a very clear message for him to stay in his place and out of the way of you. He raises an eyebrow at your words, analyzing your face as if to try to understand what the response you gave meant. 

“Worse-?” he questions before he’s silenced by your lips pressing against his. It caught him slightly off guard as he really hadn’t expected you to kiss him. He wasn’t an idiot though, and he could tell this kiss was nothing related to love or anything along those lines. It was a way to get a message across. You backed him up against the wall as you kissed him and he made no effort to stop you. If anything, he actually partially reciprocated the kiss. 

In your mind, you knew you had maybe a little over six minutes left to prove a point to him and you’d be damned if you didn’t make the most of that time. Your hand slipped down beneath the waistband of his pants and Thanos tensed slightly. Feeling him tense up at your touch entertained you slightly. It only served as motivation for you to continue as you slowly started palming his cock through the fabric of his boxers.

He let out a quiet grunt as he tried not to thrust up into your hand. He preferably didn’t want to appear desperate even though his cock got increasingly hard as your hand teased him. He knew you’d keep teasing him like this just to hear him whine and beg. He didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of that though. That would bruise his ego and he couldn’t have that happen.

“Is this your way of saying you want my dick again?” Thanos speaks with a smirk, keeping up his cocky facade as if he isn’t starting to feel rather eager to get his dick sucked. You gave him no response, opting to instead pull his pants down to his knees along with his boxers and free his hardening cock. 

His breath hitched for a moment as your hand wrapped itself around his cock achingly slowly. Usually, Thanos had the power in situations like this. He couldn’t think of a single time where he was the one pushed up against the wall with his head leaned back and his eyes squeezed tight at a little pleasure. Feeling the way you slowly stroked his dick, purposely teasing him - it was driving him mad. He wanted to say something - to do something.

He wanted to grab a fistful of your hair and throw you to the ground before fucking the life out of you but he couldn’t. He was feeling weirdly sensitive and it had him distracted beyond belief. Of course, you had noticed how he was actually submitting to you. It brought a smirk to your face knowing you made him give up so quickly.

“What’s wrong?” You question as your thumb goes to his tip and traces light circles. He grunted - an attempt to cover up what you both knew would’ve been a whine. “Too much for you?” You tease as you quicken your motions a little to try to elicit more sounds from him.

“Shut- up,” Thanos spoke as his hips instinctively thrusted upward. He was chasing a release even though he knew you wouldn’t let him have it. He knew that you just wanted to leave him hard and horny with no one to help but his own hand. 

His words make you laugh a little. His annoyance and desperation were funny to you - hilarious even. The fact someone like him was being reduced to this might be the best thing you’ve ever seen. It was even better when he actually started whining. 

By now, Thanos had given up on his attitude. He hoped that maybe if he just started begging you to let him cum, you would. As shameful as it was for him. He really didn’t want to be left with nothing. 

“Fuck- c’mon, faster. I’m so close,” He spoke through heavy breaths and slight whines. He ran a hand through his hair as he felt his release closing in on him. Fuck, he wouldn’t say it out loud, but you were good. The way your hand fit perfectly around his cock and effortlessly switched places was driving him mad. “I’ll do whatever you want,” he adds in a desperate attempt to get the release he needs.

“Oh yeah?” you question as you grip his chin and make him look at you. He nods his head quickly like some puppy desperate for a treat. “Anything,” he repeats and, for a moment, he thinks you’re agreeing because your hand moves up and down his cock faster and your thumb presses on his tip just perfectly but then-

The door unlocks. And the feeling is gone. 

A whine leaves his mouth as he almost feels himself collapse to the floor. You were already walking out and, if his dick wasn’t aching right now, he would have chased you down. 

“Fucking bitch,” he cursed under his breath before letting out a heavy sigh. Reluctantly, he pulled his pants back up, the friction making him wince a little before he relaxed slightly and ran up to you.

“What the fuck was that?” he said quietly to you with annoyance. He was pissed off that you basically stripped him of his dignity and didn’t even give him the gift of release in return. Upon getting no response from you, Thanos lets out a noise of frustration but he continues to quickly trail after you. “Oh, so now you’re gonna ignore me,” he says as he blocks your way to force you to acknowledge him.

“What? That desperate for more?” you tease as you fold your arms over your chest. You didn’t even let him answer before you spoke again. “God, you’re pathetic. I’d recommend you fuck off from now on, yeah?” you speak. He’s quiet for a few moments as he just stares which elicits a scoff from you before you push past him and walk back to the center of the room.

Thanos doesn’t move after you this time, too busy trying to come to terms with what just happened. He couldn’t believe he let you get away with that. He should’ve done something- anything, but he didn’t. He was left feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. His ego was a little hurt too. You played his game and still beat him at it. Fuck, you were annoying. 

“Fucking bitch,” Thanos curses under his breath. “Fucking.. Hope she gets shot,”

[questionablecuttlefish]

I am moreso tb critical . They barely spoke any lines to each other and the time they got together was the au episode to justify it . Also I’m not going to say but a famous voice actor keeps trying to make his ship happen . Also it feels like everything jinx is or does is erased bc omg couple goals . And it’s the whole puppy crush taken to a next level .

Yeah, I find the whole thing personally a bit baffling, because I was totally okay with what was actually there on the show. I remember sitting there at the end of Episode 6 with my girlfriend going "Well we're 2/3rds through the series with no Ekko, I guess they're really not doing Timebomb stuff hey." And then episode 7 lmao.

The AU was an, uh, novel way to deal with Ekko's unresolved feelings about his childhood friend turned nemesis, but the payoff seemed to be spelled out? I thought? It really felt like it was laying Ekko's crush to rest as he accepted Jinx couldn't be the Powder of his dreams.

I just didn't get any romantic vibes at all from Main Timeline Ekko and Jinx, the contrast between them and his romance with AU!Powder made that even clearer, as did everything that happened in the final battle and after. His last shot is burning a mourning paper into the breeze, literally letting her go, ffs.

It's a pretty cut and dried Perfect World Bubble Episode trope and I thought it put a bittersweet, poignant full stop on their troubled relationship.

But then the fandom happened, and to be honest, while I once respected Timebomb as a valid, understandable alternate ship for Jinx, I'm done with it now.

I can't deal with the Canon Brigade. I can't stand Lightcannon shippers being all but forced at gunpoint to preface every social post with "guys I also like Timebomb but" or risk being harassed. I can't stand all mentions of "Lux" and "Lightcannon" being banned on relevant reddit subs. I don't like bullies and homophobes and I won't bow to either.

No, I don't like Timebomb, I never will again, thanks to people like this. You could almost say "I had a crush, until I started talking to the fans..."

No, I won't multiship, I don't care if you do, but I don't have to, and I don't.

Both ships were crack ships based on throwaway scraps of dialogue until Amanda Overton got heart eyes and it's time to stop pretending there's any more validity than that.

Lightcannon was, literally, here first, and pretending it's somehow less valid and has no place in the fandom is just homophobia and queer erasure and I have no time for that shit.

If people want to ship Timebomb, if they see something meaningful there that I don't, I'm not going to tell them they can't have it, who the fuck am I? Just another shipper with opinions.

All I can say is that it just doesn't work for me. And I love Ekko, I love Jinx, but their stories, their canon, has had barely anything to do with each other until now, and erasing them both to force the genius time twisting hero of the Undercity and the chaotic freewheeling destruction terrorist into a hetero tradwife fantasy is throwing away 99% of both of their stories and doing both characters a massive disservice.

Don't get me wrong, Ekko is great, I f'cking love writing him, his whole League canon is amazing and it's heartbreaking that they tossed it away for Arcane, the dynamic of their broken friendship is rich and interesting to explore, but it's better off as that. They both have better options that open up whole new adventures instead of ending their stories.

[newavengers]

they did a lot of things wrong with sam's first solo movie. 1) first and foremost, the worst crime is hiring an idf soldier to play an equally problematic gross piece of shit called sabra. next, was not listening to the fans and axing her. we were literally begging for marvel to just write out her character. instead, they modified her, gave her unnecessary screentime that she took from leila (sam's comic accurate love interest). this was such a slap in the face. we could've had leila do everything that ruth did and do it fucking better??? instead, she took screentime from a dark skinned black woman who deserved so much more than to have her fucking scenes cut for her. 2) the marketing. the mcdonalds and the coke 'reveals' came out a year before the actual movie. since they were doing a million reshoots, over and over and over again. so instead of working with their corporate officers to delay the toys and merch, they just ignored that and just let it happen (again, extremely unprofessional and this wouldn't have happened if marvel gave two shits). 3) the reshoots. marvel had so much money to do so many reshoots, but they still couldn't cut out a piece of shit idf actress? hmmm ok. :) also, they wasted genius talent like giancarlo esposito. like seriously? 4) the movie wasn't bad, but it had the potential to be great had they just listened to the fans and actually gave a shit about sam and his movie. what marvel did was, it checked it's diversity box and went back to promoting the shit out of it's mostly white projects. sorry to hijack your post, but i love sam wilson and i wanted brave new world to be my favorite fucking marvel movie, but instead, we got this. the work of marvel execs who clearly didn't give a fuck if it succeeded or if it failed. sam wilson deserved so much more.

one day we will talk about how marvel continues to fail at promoting their black characters… look at the way they promote fantastic 4… they couldn’t even have the same energy for sam wilson captain america

[theopteryx]

a special privilege for the resurrected (56k, E, steve/eddie, complete)

"I'm heading back in," Eddie says, finishing off his cigarette and using Steve's shoulder to balance as he pulls his legs out of the pool and stands up. His hand is cool, even in the warmth of the sun, but Steve still feels it like a brand on his shoulder. Steve stays behind a few minutes to sit and finish his coffee and smoke another cigarette, ashing into Eddie's empty mug. He squints up at the sky; low clouds are rolling in overhead. Another spring storm is on the way and the sunshine's already getting softer, diffused. He stands, brushing the dirt off the back of his shorts, and collects the mugs to head back into the house. There's almost a moment, right when he turns, when he sees the open sliding door to the house out of the corner of his eye and it doesn't feel like a door; it feels like the mouth of a creature, lying in wait for him. The clouds begin to pass overhead, dimming the illusion, and Steve feels like an idiot for startling at it. Christ. He could use some time at a beach too, he thinks. He's still too fucking jumpy.

it's been a year since i finished posting this fic after i spent a decade thinking i was never gonna write again so it has a very special (and bloody) place in my heart ❤️ i genuinely appreciate that s4 made me so feral i had to unzip my id and throw it at the internet and then like, rip apart a couch cushion with my teeth. thank u to everyone who's read, and if u are looking for a spooky-season-appropriate fic, i hope u enjoy 🫡🩸🗡️

[evanescentdawn]

cheering, hooting and clapping. I’ve WRITTEN. I feel so throughly like a writer back and im so beyond happy and this yukishima dynamic and yukio era is giving me life

"Ah, not that way!" Shima grabs his arm and deters him from where he was about to take a turn left. He grabs his arm so easily like Yukio had ever given him permission but he’s too exhausted to say something. It takes needless energy to argue with someone like Shima.

"Where are you taking me?" He still hasn't left go of his arm.

Shima gives him a grin. He's always grinning, what is he so damn happy about? Does he like being apart of Illuminati that much? For a double spy, Yukio really can't make sense of him.

"Homara-san asked for you. I think she's gotta something for us. A mission…?"

A mission.

An unpleasant feeling curled in his stomach. "Mission?" Yukio asks, "What mission?"

He told Lucifer he wasn't here to be apart of Illuminati. Made it explicitly clear. He's only here for the answers he desperately needs. He's been here for two days, to which they regrew his arm but said that the tests would wait, something had come up. Yukio can only imagine what would that be, knowing what's important to the Illuminati.

…And now Shima's taking him to Homare for a mission, apparently.

Is this why they gave him this outfit to wear?

Shima takes another few turns. He seems very familiar with this place. Yukio, for the little exploring he did, had gotten lost very easily though he would never admit it. Conveniently, there was always someone around to redirect him even though he never asked for it.

The unhidden eyes around the base aren't lost to him. Homare did tell him from day one — they're watching. A warning. Even if Yukio can't see the cameras, he knows they are there.

"Ah.. here we are!"

[queer-omens-in-the-archives]

Can we have a second Tuesday this week because we spent most of this one basically unable to talk or text (barely capable of making any words) or do any hobbies (combination of: information/processing overload & wording incapability) and I want a refund.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Anyways, to those who have been wondering what we've been doing during our impromptu Tumblr Vacation or whatever we're calling it, we've been trying to find a playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 that is made by someone who doesn't annoy the shit out of us, and also tormenting Karlach Cliffgate (as you do)

[marlynnofmany]

Lookie what I got! The rarest of collector's editions, with only one in existence! (There's an @ symbol in place of a © on the title page.)

(There's only one because I fixed it after I ordered my proof copy.)

Someday this will be very valuable, for sure!

[acaciapines]

on today's episode of 'acaica's background thoughts for the dess raises kris au': okay but lets be serious do dess and chara actually stay together in the end--