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netherfeildren · 1 year

Text

I urge you: Bite me

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Sometimes love hurts like a split nail, and sometimes we like it like that.

Sometimes Joel hurts like a split nail, you like him like that too.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Raider era Joel; Angst; Obsessive behavior; Possessive behavior; Toxic relationships; Controlling behavior; Mean Joel; Kind of soft Joel too; Frankly, some pretty pathetic behavior; Surprisingly soft sex; Breeding kink; Creampie; Oral sex (f!receiving); Dirty talk; Fingering; Come eating; Size difference; Older man/younger woman; Buckle up we’re going old man trapping!; Joel Miller comes with his own TW

A/N: Idk what to say, she's just in a silly goofy mood, I guess!

Title is from Stigmata: Escaping Texts by Hélène Cixous

Word Count: 9.8K

Read on AO3

You’ve been watching him for close to half an hour now. The longest you’ve probably ever gone without him catching you, barking at you to get lost.

Sometimes… he’s mean.

Cold and brutish and maybe even a little cruel. Not an ounce of patience for the pesky little crush he knows you’ve been nursing for him from the first moment you’d met him. He’s never thrown it in your face, a sort of kindness, you suppose, but it’s always just there, on the periphery, the tip of his tongue, the corner of the room. Hanging over your heads like a black cloud. The reality of the fact that you’re pretty sure you’d do anything he asked of you, in any form, no matter what it was. You’d give him anything if he wanted it from you. This pervasive need to please and impress him. To be strong enough, smart enough, savvy enough to keep up with him and Tess, and yet, you’re always shut out, left behind, scolded or scorned or belittled, and still, and still you want him.

But then other times–other times he could be sweet. Or whatever weak sort of pretense of sweetness a man like him could muster up; like the fruit he brings you on occasion, sweetness. The first time he’d done it you’d cried yourself to sleep afterwards. Heart set to burst, stomach in your throat. Getting down on your knees in gratitude to a man who is just on this side of not completely hating you for a simple piece of fruit doesn’t seem like the best way to get him to respect you, to not look at you as a burden. You’d held off from doing that… just barely.

Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel Joel

You don’t think you’re obsessed with him. Or– you don’t like to call it that. But you do look up to him and you do want him and you would do anything he ever asked of you no matter what it did to you. You’d met him and Tess shortly after you’d arrived in Boston, joined their crew or whatever it was that they called themselves when they went out and did things they weren’t supposed to be doing. You know they have something between them, don’t know the specifics, the technicalities, and you don’t like to think of it. Mostly you push it from your mind and look the other way when they get too close, intimate voices and lingering touches that make your belly sour and curdle, your eyes pinch hot so that you have to call it a day and head home after that.

They live together. Or at least you think they do. They keep you at arms length enough to know that there are two apartments they keep, one that you’re pretty is for contraband and one for fucking and sleeping and eating, but you’re not entirely sure. Another thing you like to close your eyes to.

They never let you do much, don’t trust you, don’t think you competent or strong enough which is fair and fine you suppose. But you’re smart, good with numbers, sound logical head on your shoulders and they know this. Hard pressed as they are to admit it, sometimes you have good ideas, and sometimes they come to you for your opinion on logistics, distances, measurements. These are the times Joel is cruelest. He gets mean when he’s nervous, like a bad dog. And your involvement in their business makes him nervous as hell. Mostly you fetch things for them, and Tess likes to call you puppy sometimes which you know is just another way of saying you’re his little bitch. Something that, deep inside of you where it’s quiet and secret and maybe a little delusional, you think he’d not stand for if she actually said those words out loud. There is, you think, a line to his cruelty and a space he keeps you in, and that line is not to be crossed and that space not to be trespassed, and if it weren't for the way he looks at you sometimes, the fruit or the sweater he’d brought you once, it’s soft, goes with you, he’d told you, you’d not have noticed that line or that space. But it’s there, you know it’s there.

Lately though, things have been… you don’t know, tenser, perhaps. Angrier, on the edge of something, verging on a scream or a fight. Between the two of them, but also towards you. You’d worried they were getting sick of you or that they’d finally realized the little they had you do was not nearly enough to warrant including you in their takings – even though you knew they always cut you short and took the bigger piece for themselves. A few days ago, you’d been exhausted, taking shifts at the old mall for cleanup behind their backs, Joel doesn’t like it when you take FEDRA work, but the dude you rented your little room from had told you last week he’d be upping your rent to twenty rations a week, a truly obscene amount. And you didn’t want to tell Tess and Joel, you didn’t, couldn’t ask them for help, and you also didn’t want to get kicked out of your room. So you’d taken a few shifts on the down low, just as a source of cushion. They’ve been planning a big haul for several days now, and she’d come to you to double check their measurements and distance calculations. Easy work you should’ve been through with quickly, but you’d been so tired. Overworked and underfed because sometimes you’re stupid and soft and share too much with the old lady that lives in the room next door to yours, and your head had been throbbing something fierce, vision glowing bright white. You just needed sleep, and Tess had been so sick of you, angry and snappish, and you’d even thought, just for a second, that she was going to strike you when you couldn’t make sense of their notes and the plan she was disclosing to you. Which had admittedly surprised you for as shit as they usually treated you, they’d never once, either of them, laid a hand on you. And it had surprised you doubly from Tess who, despite the puppy shit, could sometimes be sort of kind to you. You know it’s pity, but you also know she’s a good person. Despite the stealing and the drug dealing, and yeah probably, or most definitely, even the murdering – she’s a good person. Or whatever semblance of a good person a world like this allows for now. So yeah, something was off. A petty and bitter and terrible part of you hopes it’s something between them. That they’re breaking up, that he’s leaving her, that he’s finally realized he wants you as much as you want him. Wishful thinking of a silly little girl.

He calls you soft. Sometimes, he probably even calls you dumb. How could he not when you follow him around the way you do? Half the moon shining in your eyes for him. You could say you don’t care, and most of the time you don’t, but like you’d said, things were different recently. Tense and angry and there was a frenetic sort of energy that buzzed around Joel whenever you came around now, an extra ounce of pity punctuated by something sharp and mean in Tess’s gaze that’s added to you having pulled back a little from them as of late, as well.

And then there had been, well… you don’t want to think of it. You turn your face away from where you’ve been watching him the past half hour, sitting on a dirty bench a ways away from where he’s been having a conversation with another man since you’ve been sat here. They look like they're arguing, or better said, the man looks like he’s trying to argue at Joel who’s scowling down at him with a look of utter disdain and disgust, thick bulging arms crossed across his chest. You cross your own legs at the knee, pressing your thighs together. You don’t want to look at him anymore. You don’t want to see him anymore. You don’t want to love him anymore because you’d never really loved anyone else before your whole life, but you’re pretty sure you love Joel. As mean or as angry or as cold as he can be, you’re pretty sure you love him. Again, like you’d said, silly girl.

And there had been that thing last week, the bursting of the old rotten fruit the three of you pose as, which you don’t like to think of, but which, if you’re being honest, has lived like the plague, like a parasite inside of your mind the past week since it’d happened. You were supposed to meet them at noon last Thursday at the apartment, but it’d seemed like it was about to start pouring so you’d headed over a little early, had put on the soft blue sweater he’d brought you days back and hadn’t wanted it to get wet. Foolish. And you’d knocked, you had, you always did for this exact reason, but when there’d been no answer you’d stupidly pushed the door open anyways, they’d told you to meet them there at noon it was only ten minutes to noon, you weren’t even that early, only to be met with the sight of Tess’s retreating form into the restroom, shutting the door behind her, and him, a curdle of bile in your throat, his naked torso, thick and strongly built, hard muscle and hair and scars, jeans open and his thick, long cock, lying heavily on his belly, still shiny with damp slick, the white of his spurted semen glistening on the skin of his abdomen and chest. There was a sheen to his collarbones and his forehead and his dark curls were a mess, like fingers had been recently run through them.

When you were ten you watched your parents get killed in a raid right in front of you. The sight of him like this by the hands of another woman was not as bad, but very close. You’d paused for a too long second, hand on the doorknob that felt cold as dry ice, burning your skin, and the two of you had just stared at each other. His gaze had been so vacant, so hard. Like he’d wanted you to see, like he was glad. You couldn’t help the tears that had filled your eyes because you knew that he knew. Knows how you feel. A muscle under his right eye had spasmed at the sight of your emotion, the frown in his brow deepening and as he’d made to stand up to tuck away the source of your horror you’d spun on your heel and ran. Down the stairs and straight across the entirety of the QZ to the opposite end, as far away as you could get from them and that apartment and the sight of his wet and used cock. You’d gone to the far wall of the QZ that spot where you knew there was a little part in the slats you liked to look out of sometimes when you were feeling restless and trapped, and you’d thrown up in the dry and overgrown grass.

It’d been a week and a day since then, and you want to hate him so badly. You want to hate him so badly. But you’re pretty sure the incident had only made you want him more.

And you want to hurt him too.

Which is surprising because you lack a severe sense of violence or hardness a life like this now warrants, but also not because it’s just been too much. Too much of being belittled, too few scraps of kindness, affection, softness, compassion, anything. And maybe you were soft or dumb or too young, too naive, too weak or any of the other things they liked to call you, puppy, but you also have a limit, even though you’d not previously known that it existed, and you’re pretty sure now that you’re coming to that limit pretty soon.

Honest or pathetic or whatever it is that it sounds like, the truth is that you just want someone to be nice to you. To pet your hair or hold you or tell you that you’re good and that it’ll all be okay. You want that very badly, and he will not give that to you, this you know with absolute certainty.

There is also the issue of your friend Adam. Adam who lives on the opposite side of your old neighbor, and who is kind and sweet and patient and who helped you get the clean up job at the mall. He likes you, you know it. Maybe he even wants you. But he’s just so– he’s not– no, you won’t think on that either right now.

Over half an hour now, and he’s not snapped at you to quit staring at him. Come over here and handed your ass to you for following him around or eavesdropping on his conversation. He hasn’t looked over at you a single time. Maybe he hasn’t noticed you, maybe a week and a day is long enough for him to have forgotten about you entirely, and your heart pinches and burns at the thought. You close your eyes to the warm sun. The weather is so unusually nice today. The sun, soft and soothing, and if you tip your head back and let the light of it shine through the thin membrane of your eyelids, you can feel that heat seep into your eyes, feel it on your bare arms propped up on the back of the bench. You’re tired today, again. That sort of bone tired that makes you dizzy and sick in your belly. Not enough food, not enough sleep, not enough anything. There’s a meagerness that lives about you all the time now, but there’s warmth right here in this spot on the bench, and Joel nearby, and even if he hasn’t noticed you, even though he’s never really noticed you, the sun is still there, and it’s still nice to watch him from afar. And yes, you’re pathetic, but you don’t really care about that so much, to be honest.

You want to hate him so badly.

“Where ya been?” He knocks the edge of his boot into the prominence of bone on the outside of your ankle and you hiss, jerking your leg back and away from him, not having heard him come up. He never says your name. Never. You’ve heard him utter the word four times in the entirety of the time the two of you have known each other, and it makes you want to bear your teeth at him or kick him in the shin, scream until his ears bleed. Does he really think you so small and insignificant that he cannot even address you by name when he speaks to you? Asshole.

“I’ve been here,” and there is too much truth to the words.

“On this bench?”

“What?” you look away from him again, swallowing. He is not a funny person, and you would like to tell him so. He’s looming over you, hands on his hips and a pissed off look on his face, and sometimes, you’ve realized that the angrier he gets the wetter it makes you, and you really don’t want to think about that right now either. You’re too tired, you don’t want to think about anything. You wonder if anyone’d notice if you just laid down right here and went to sleep forever. There are two warring sides within you, one that whispers that you could drop dead infront of him, and he’d not give a single fuck, and another that says that if something bad happened to you he’d be truly, truly displeased.

You feel newly hatched, newly made, too exhausted to deal with the enormity of all you feel for him right now.

He tries to knock your ankle again, and you whip your face back towards him “What do you want?” You spit at him, and his mouth parts, a little shocked, you’ve never been anything but meek and sweet and desperate towards him. But the shock of your temper passes quickly, and you watch him harden like stone before your very eyes. His face and demeanor going stony and angry and serious, readying to put you in your place. The sight of it chases all the fight out of you, you deflate like a sadly trampled flower and seem to melt into the surface of the bench. Let him do and say what he will, you don’t care anymore.

“I want you to fucking look at me when I’m speaking to you, first of all. And I want to know where you’ve been and why you haven’t come around?”

Voice dead: “Don’t you also want to know why I don’t knock before walking into other people’s homes?” And you don’t know where it comes from, and you kind of feel like you might vomit at his feet or start crying or a little bit of both, but you’re glad you say it anyways.

Another look of shock, and if you weren’t so beaten down bone dead tired, you’d probably smile a little. But that passes quickly again too and like a knife to a lung or a fist to the belly he says, “You did knock.”

So he knew and let you see anyways. You nod once, “You’re right, I did.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“What?”

“Stop being purposefully fuckin’ obtuse, little girl.” Little girl, fuck you.

“Obtuse. Big word, I thought you needed me for the brains.”

His frown changes, different form anger, more like confusion; “What’s wrong with you today?” You don’t know. You feel sad. Tired. Alone. Angry.

“Nothing,” you lie, looking away from him. “Did you need something from me?” You know what the answer will be.

“No.” Yeah.

A dip of your chin. “I gave Tess my notes. The plan for tonight’s good.” You slide to the far end of the bench so that you can stand without being too close to him, and he takes a single side step towards you. All at once: confused, questioning, angry look on his face. You want to smooth out the little frowning wrinkle between his eyebrows, you want to hate him, you want to take him inside of you. The sight of his wet cock flashes in your mind. If he fucked you it’d hurt, you’re sure of it. You’re also sure you’d like it if it did. Your mother had died before you’d become a woman, gotten your period, known anything about what it would be like to walk around the world with a thing between your legs that men would covet. You’d gone to live with a woman who was kind of her friend, but not really, but who in the end, had been kind enough to shelter a lonely child, told you about the world and set you up so that you’d at least survive on your own, if not thrive. She’d told you that sometimes love hurt like a split nail, and that sometimes we liked it like that. That sometimes people came out a little gnarled and looked for equally strange things in return, and that you should be wary of this but not punish yourself for it. Things were the way they were. You’d not understood at the time, had only thought her to have the saddest sort of eyes you’d ever seen in your short life, but when you looked at yourself in the mirror now as a grown woman, you saw those same sort of eyes reflected back at you, and you felt you understood what she’d meant.

He takes another small step towards you, and you look the opposite way, down the street towards your cold little room with the land lord who you’re pretty sure is eventually going to ask for a fuck instead of rations. The thought of that is somehow tragically better than the thought of his damp and used body and that cold and taunting look in his eyes, Tess’s pity and sharp voice and desire to strike you.

Adam had said he had more work for you tonight, you think you’ll sleep for a few hours and then go find him. “You’re not coming,” he says sharply, interrupting your thoughts, invading your thoughts like always.

You look back at him, the frown, the aggressive, commanding aspect of him. Of course he doesn't want you there. “No, I’m not. I have other things I need to do.” Stupid to add that on, but you can’t help yourself.

“Like what?”

“My friend Adam has been finding me work.” Stupid, stupid. Shut your damn mouth.

“What the fuck are you talking about? That’s where you’ve been running off to these past few days? I thought we had an arrangement the three of us–”

You scoff, “An arrangement? That’s what it was? I thought I was just your puppy,” and the words burn and writhe like something poisoned on your tongue. You’d never said that word aloud to him, never acknowledged what it is they see you as.

He swallows, at a loss for words, “Listen, if this is about–”

“Joel, I don’t care how you keep your dick wet. We had,” another bitter laugh, we, what a fucking joke, “The arrangement served its purpose, but I think it’s run its course, don’t you? I’ll help with plans when you guys need me, but I need more work. Teddy,” the landlord, “s’been asking for more rent rations–”

“That slimy fuck can’t do that to you–”

You ignore him, stepping back and soldiering on, “And I need more work. I’ve been helping the clean up crews–”

His eyes go wide and bugged and furious, and he takes several more steps to match your retreating ones, “You’ve been doing fucking what? And who the fuck is Adam?” he growls, hand coming up to catch you when all you want at this moment is for him to finally let you go. At the same time, the man he was speaking to before, the pseudo arguer, calls out to him from behind, coming up upon the two of you, and when Joel turns to look back at him you spin on your heel and scamper away as quick as you can. He calls out your name after you, the fifth time he’s ever said it, and it is no longer a split nail, but a split limb, a split rib, a split heart, something terrible and devastating.

You make it back to your room in time to collapse into the saddest puddle of tears that’s surely ever existed. Face down, buried in your pillows you cry for a thing you’d never even had the possibility of having, but which still hurts like a blow to the skull nonetheless. Something that you can no longer push from your mind or close your eyes to or swallow and hide away in your belly. He doesn’t love you. He never has and he never will, and there was never the possibility of it, and you have to accept that. And you must also accept that it is not some failing on your part, his inability to choose you, to love you. You know that there are parts of Joel that are broken beyond repair, sometimes people come out a little gnarled and look for equally strange things in return, and you cannot tell yourself either that it’s his loss because honestly, perhaps, it isn’t. Perhaps, it just isn't meant to be, and it is no sort of loss because it was never really anything that was ever supposed to really be. You must tell yourself these things not to hurt yourself but because you are tired of hurting. He doesn't love you, and it isn't your fault, and there's nothing you could have done about it and nothing you can do about it and things move forward anyways.

You sleep after this, lulled into unconsciousness by the pounding of your temples and the slow, cold drip of your tears across the bridge of your nose and into your ear. The wall your bed is pushed up against is a sickly yellow color, deep, old cracks and water damage marring the surface, and it’s such a sad sight it makes you even more depressed, and when you finally close your eyes to escape it, even though all you can see in your mind is the look on his face right before you walked away from him, even though it’s an infinitely painful sort of thing, it soothes you in a sick and twisted sort of way to know he’s out there in the world existing. Even if you want to hate him, even if you don’t, even if his very existence pains you, it’s still somehow comforting.

The job Adam has for you turns out to be stupider and more dangerous and bigger than you’d bargained for. His crew is trying to steal a generator from an old FEDRA warehouse that they’d heard about through their grapevine of informants. He doesn’t tell you what the generator is for, nor where it is they’re exactly stealing it from. All he tells you is that he needs you to stand at a previously decided upon spot in the woods near where their drop off location is, and keep watch. There will be another person posted a few miles away from you, and if there’s any movement there shouldn’t be you’re to come looking for the next person who’ll find the next and then the next and alert whoever it is that needs to be alerted that something’s amiss. Stand, watch, signal if necessary, and it seems simple enough, but the catch, the fact that you need to leave the QZ is what you’d not accounted for. Something you’d never done before. After several hours of restless sleep and a slightly revolting can of old chili and beans you feel partially more yourself and not so haggardly terrible. You’ve decided that the conversation with Joel never happened and that you’re going to avoid the two of them for the rest of your life and pretend like you never met them and they don’t exist and maybe you’ll even give Adam a chance to fuck you, and then perhaps, the memory of Joel will be jostled out of your head by another mans dick. Good, sound plan.

It’s raining something awful outside by the time the two of you make it to the meetup point and the place where you’re to stay and keep watch, and you don’t think about the fact that at this very moment Tess and Joel are probably also sneaking their way out of the QZ to go on their own run. You’re comforted by the fact that you know that their raid will lead them in the opposite direction of where you’ll be tonight. The spot you’re to keep isn’t so deep in the woods that the moonlight isn’t able to make its way through the trees, and the rain has abated slightly by the time you’re settled into your spot on the cold ground where you’re to wait and watch. Adam leaves with a short nod and a brush of his thumb to the high arch of your cheekbone which elicits a slightly nauseating flip of your stomach that you choose to ignore. Evasion is obviously your favorite tactic of self preservation, and you wonder when all this burying of your head in the sand will finally catch up to you.

You sit for several hours in the dark silence, and it eventually stops raining and with the cessation of the cold downpour comes your fear. The silence is so loud and the dark seems to swell and throb around you with the loss of the rhythm and movement of the rain. You’re freezing cold, and Adam had said to not move until he came back for you, but he’d not specified how long that’d be, and now that you’re stuck here, shivering and stomach cramping with hunger, fuck those beans, you’re realizing how ostensibly stupid this was of you, and you also can’t help but think that Joel would have never asked this of you, he would have never left you out here in the dark wilderness unprotected, he probably would’ve tied you up and muzzled you before he even let you out of the QZ, and to be perfectly honest, you think you’d probably like that too. Pathetic.

You sit for a short while longer before something shifts. The moon or the wind or something that doesn’t feel right; your level of fear ricochets up to a scream for a second, and then you hear the snap of a branch from what seems to be one side, and then the shift of trees from another direction. You get to your feet and make a slow circle in the place your standing, frightened eyes searching the darkness for something that shouldn’t be there, and as you’re about to call it quits and bolt, fuck Adam and his stupid plan, you’re jerked back into a rock solid, wide chest, large, rough hand clamping tight and painful over your mouth. You freeze paralyzed for a single second, heart racing within your chest like a small animal on the verge of death, but then his rough voice, angrier than you’ve ever heard it, soft in your ear. “You better tell me I’m hallucinating you out here right now.” Your body sags, adrenaline leaving you in a florid rush, so that you’re wilting in his hold. You make a choked, garbled sort of noise in your throat, head hanging so that the weight of it is held in the cup of his palm, and you’re pretty sure you feel his head bend to nose into the back of your loose hair at the base of your skull. The two of you stand like that for a few moments while you catch your breath, and yes, that’s definitely the tip of his nose smelling at your hair, the soft place behind your ear. The feel of his skin meeting yours sparks a sort of frenzy within you, and you snap into rage, limbs jerking and shivering and throwing you into movement, pulling yourself out of his grip and whipping back to face him. In the weak light of the moon you can see that his eyes are darker and angrier than you’ve ever seen them. Even that time you were incredibly stupid and clumsy and had slipped on a ladder you shouldn’t have been climbing, for a job you shouldn’t have taken and cracked a rib. He is definitely more furious with you this time.

“Let me guess,” he spits, taking an aggressive step towards you, “This is the fucking job your little fuckin’ friend got for you.” He says your name again, for the sixth time and twice in one day, and it’s enfolded in a casing of rage that feels bitter and punishing in a way that makes a sharp pain start up behind your left eyeball, deep in your brain. “How fucking stupid can you be coming out here? You’re going to get yourself killed, caught, thrown in FEDRA prison, and I’m not gonna be able to get your ass out, you hear me? You are not fuckin’ built to be out here doin’ shit like this and–”

You rush at him suddenly, using all your weight to slam your palms into his chest, the rain has started up again, and he’s slightly slippery and steaming hot beneath his wet clothes. You slam your tiny and inconsequential fists into the incredible strength of his chest, the other going up to the edge of his jaw to try and shove his face back but he’s too strong and too big and too unmoved so that you’re left to resort to simply digging your nails into the meat of his cheek like a pathetic little kitten. “I am so fucking sick–” you try and shove him again, and he takes a looming step into you, bumping his chest into yours and jostling you into taking a forced step back, “Of the way you treat me.” You drag your nails over the edge of his jaw and down his neck, trying to draw blood, incite a reaction, but he’s made of stone and you hate him. “You’re such a fucking asshole all the time, and I’m tired of it, and I hate you.” There are tears sliding down your face, and you thank the sky for the masking of the rain. “You find me so fucking burdensome, so annoying, so useless or whatever your fucking problem is with me then go away, leave me alone! What I’m doing out here is none of your business.” Another weak slam of your fists to his chest, the drag of your nails down the thick jut of his collarbone, and you shove yourself back and away from him. Chest heaving, throat choked with tears and resentment and fear and love for him.

“You hate me, huh?” he says very quietly and very calmly.

Your face spasms in frustration and rage, and you turn away from him to face the dark of the surrounding woods, hands coming up to clutch and pull at your hair. “Yes. I hate you so much,” the sobbing heaves make it all sound very convincing, you’re sure.

“And you’re tired of the way I treat you?”

Why is he so fucking calm? Maybe you should hit him again. “Yes, I am.”

“Got your little panties all in a twist, don’t you, little girl?” Little, little, little. Your heart dips down into your stomach, your arms falling to hang limply at your sides. “But I bet if I checked, they’d also be wet for me right now, wouldn’t they?” You’ve never heard his voice sound like this. You turn slowly back to look at his face again, but before you can even shake your head, deny it, he’s rushing at you, strong hand clamping painfully around your jaw, smooshing your cheeks together, and he’s seething at you through clenched teeth. “You fuckin hate me? Well I hate you back. I hate you more. More than you could ever imagine, and I fucking hate how much you make me want you.” Your eyes go wide and shocked and full of tears. “Huh? How ‘bout that? Bet you weren’t expectin’ that, were you?” He’s so angry the drawl of his accent is deepened, sharper, amputating the ends of his words with his rage, and he shoves you away by the grip on your face, leaving you to stumble in shock.

You can’t speak, can’t say anything, he’s struck you dumb. Your eyes slither down his wet form. His soaking flannel is plastered to his thick torso, big, bulging arms and wide chest, his long legs encased in dark denim. When your gaze makes its way back up to his face he’s scowling at you. “Got nothin’ to say?” You take a tiny step back and he matches it with one of his own forward, a half jerk of your chin. “Have you let that stupid fuck have you?”

And you really weren’t expecting that, “What?” voice confused and breathy, heat pooling low in your tummy. You look over his shoulder at the dark space behind him, “Where’s Tess?”

He shakes his head, irritated and short, “I pissed her off. She stayed back. Adam – are you letting him fuck you?” Another step forward to match one of your own, and his eyes flash down to your feet, he gives a slight shake of his head as if to warn you off of your retreat.

This angers you. “What do you care who I’m letting have me? What if he is fucking me? As if that’s any of your damn business.” You take two more steps back, and his face spasms in anger.

“Fucking run,” he whispers, “I dare you.” Your legs lock in obstinacy, you’re not doing what he tells you anymore. “Answer me. Are you letting him fuck you?”

“No.” Pathetic.

“But he wants to.”

“Yes.”

Something verging on a snarl deep in his chest, “And he brought you out here? Left you out here alone? When he wants you like that? And you were stupid enough to let him?” But suddenly, something is clicking inside of your mind, and you’re not really paying attention to the things he’s saying to you anymore. He’s angry. He’s jealous. You give him a little smile and oh, that really pisses him off. You give another step back, nod your head gently at him, soft smile widening. Another deep, rumbly sound that makes your cunt go soft and wet and your heart gallop inside of you. “You better fucking run, little girl. You’re not going to like what happens when I get my hands on you, and I’m not going to care.”

It’s not a threat. It’s a promise, and you don’t need him to tell you twice. You spin on your heel and make a run for it. Weaving through the trees, guided by the weak light of the rainy moon, you know there are houses a short ways west, and you pump your legs and arms as fast as you can in that direction. You’ll hide in one of them. If he finds you, catches you is a thought for when or if he does so. But you can hear the heavy pound of his boots slamming against the ground behind you, close enough to jostle your heart up into your throat, and you let out an entirely inappropriate little squeal as you do your best to speed up. But he’s stronger, legs longer and more powerful and being caught was an inevitability. As soon as the first house comes into view an uncompromisingly strong arm is wrapping around your waist, painfully crushing your ribs in the circle of his grasp and slamming you into his chest. He comes to a jerking halt with you held in his arms, and the length of his panting, steaming body presses into your back, his other arm coming up to circle you as well, and he reaches for your heaving breast, clutching the heavy weight of it tightly in his hand and squeezing a ragged moan out of the both of you at the same time. “Caught you,” he whispers into your throat, pressing a thick, growing erection into your bottom. He spins you in his hold, nothing gentle about the way he handles you, grips you by the jaw forcing your mouth open, fingers digging between your molars and slams his mouth to yours, wet tongue licking into you, tasting behind your teeth, the surface of your tongue. You moan and claw and scratch at him, trying to hit him and pull him closer and push him away, all at the same time. Hand snaking from your jaw to fist in the back of your hair he yanks your head back, wet mouth left open and panting and that anger is different now, something unrecognizable about it when he says, “More than anything though, I hate how much I want this cunt.” His hand on your waist has slithered down over your ass and between your legs to cup your pussy in his wide hand, fingers pressing harshly at the seam of your denim over your clit. You think you must whisper his name because he nods his head once, and then is bending at the knees to press his shoulder into the soft of your belly and straightening to his full height again with you slung over the thick mass of his wide shoulder like a sack of potatoes. You don’t even protest, just lay there limply, arms and hair hanging overhead and swaying with the rhythm of his gait as he starts to walk towards the first house, and all you can think is finally.

He does two slow roves around the house before he tries the backdoor handle, in the end, simply resorting to kicking it in. He pauses at the threshold for a moment, and he’s not even slightly out of breath with the entirety of your weight folded over his shoulder after that chase. The ground is so far away from where you hang, he’s so tall, and you can’t help it when you drag your hand up the denim over the back of his thigh, over the thick swell of muscle of his ass to the edge of his jeans where you tuck your fingers in, feeling the heat of his damp skin. He growls at that, at the feel of your exploration and grips the back of one of your thighs tightly, the other coming up to squeeze an ass cheek in his hand, and then you feel the press of his face and the sharp bite of his teeth as he sinks them into the side of your ass over the thick fabric of your pants with a gruff snarl. You whimper, digging your fingers into the muscles of his lower back. He kicks the door shut behind you and moves slowly through the entire house after that, pistol gripped in one hand, you in the other, making sure the house is alone and secure. When he’s finally assured himself that the two of you are alone, he makes his way to one of the bedrooms, shutting and locking the door behind the two of you and then ripping the old dusty comforter and pillows off the bed where he shucks you off his shoulder, letting you fall to the mattress with a limp bounce. He doesn’t even ask, doesn’t say anything, simply starts at the laces of your boots, pulling them from your feet and then your socks where he lifts your small foot, big hand wrapped entirely around the thing of it, and drags his teeth over your sensitive instep. You moan, trying to pull your limb away from him, but he flashes you a hot and warning look and you settle. What’s the point in fighting, you think, if this is the very thing you’ve wanted all this time anyways? He pulls you up by the lapels of your too thin jacket, which he tuts at recriminatingly, divests you of it. Before he pushes you back to flop on the bed again, he grips you by the throat to lick into your mouth once more, moans deep and wanton in his chest, a vibration of sound you’ve never before heard from any man at the simple taste of you. He works at your jeans and sweater next, then finally your panties and bra. He doesn’t seem to really look until you’re finally entirely bare for him, limbs splayed out, soft and loose and too sticky sweet. His eyes are like fire, they burn, and you stretch and arch for him, letting him scorch you. He falls forward, propped up over you by the strength of his thick arms and dips his head to suck a single nipple into his mouth, opens his jaw wider and bites at the full globe of your breast as if he could swallow the entire thing. He moves to give the other one equal attention, your hands coming up to thread through his thick curls, and when he looks back up at you his gaze is manic, and if you wanted him less, maybe had more sense, it would perhaps be frightening.

“What do you want?” He asks you in a way that tells you he doesn’t really care what your answer is.

“Anything.”

He shakes his head at you as he moves to grip you beneath the bend of each knee to spread you wide for him. “Begging for things you don’t know nothin’ about.”

“I don’t care,” you tell him, “I want them anyways,” because it’s the truth, and he nods his head like he already knew, like he knows everything there is to know about you and maybe even the things that you don’t even know about yourself yet.

“You’re too young,” he shoulders his way down to lay on his belly between your thighs, and when his eyes land on your slick, swollen cunt his voice drops down to an even lower octave. “And you want this too much.”

“I know. I don’t care.” You drag your thumb over the arch of his thick eyebrow, the hairs are coarse but soft and then he lowers his mouth to your pussy.

He eats your cunt like everything else he does, a little mean. Starts with gentle laps, soft kisses, but eventually, graduates to sharp sucks and harsh nips, all teeth and tongue and plush lips so that your hips are arching in desperate and begging little motions, thrusting up into his face. When he presses first one then two of those thick long fingers into your opening it pinches in a way you weren't expecting. Only his fingers have you twinging on the verge of discomfort, and you don’t know how you’ll take his cock, but you know he isn’t going to give you the opportunity for choice or pause, and so you lay there and spread your legs wider and take it. He interchanges between rough and gentle, fingers petting softly at that sensitive place inside of you you’ve always wanted to give him, but mouth sharp and mean sucking harshly at your clit, nipping at the lips of your sex and the vulnerable soft of your thighs, covering the entirety of your pussy with his mouth and then licking at your fluttering hole when he pulls his fingers from you to taste the rivulet of slick you’re weeping for him. He groans and you watch the shift of his shoulders and back, the thrust of his hips as he grinds his cock into the mattress desperately, the gathering of sweat at his hairline. He presses his fingers back in, crooks and shakes them inside of you to jostle your orgasm forward, and like every other time you’ve followed him into complacency and obedience blindly, you gush for him, a broken sob of his name splintering from behind the line of your teeth. He’s sucking and kissing at your clit, the space above where his fingers penetrate you, but when you throw your arm over your eyes to hide the sight of your overwhelmed tears from him he pauses, “Want your eyes on me when you’re coming for me, you understand?” A pinch to your asscheek, a kiss to the top of your mound. You sniffle, shifting your head to rest your cheek on your shoulder and watch him over the swell of your breasts as he resumes the work of his mouth on you. He licks through your folds, pulling his fingers from you to lap up all of your spilled lust, and when he’s done, pulling back to look down at you like some conquering villain he reaches down and pats the top of your cunt, “She’s mine now,” he tells you, and you can’t even dispute it. He kneels between your spread legs, a murmured, wanna look at you, as he starts on the buttons of his shirt, pulling it open and baring himself to you. You’d already seen his naked chest that other time, and the memory of it embitters the moment, you turn your face into the crook of your raised arms, hiding your face away from him, and he tuts at you. “Told you, want those gorgeous eyes on me at all times.” And you love him, Christ, you do. It’s the most unfair thing in the world, the most painful thing that’s ever happened to you in your entire life. You want to cry and scream and kick. You obey anyways. Shifting your face with a small sniffle to peer up at him from beneath your lashes. You want to pull your legs closed, feeling suddenly, unbearably shy and hurt and newly made. Like the orgasm he’d pulled forth from you had brought to light the reality of your existence in the world, in his life. A non entity.

And like he can read your mind, like he’s acquired a direct line of communication for himself to your brain, your very heart: “Me and Tess haven’t been anything for a while.” He goes for the button of his jeans, you listen to the teeth of the zipper parting for you. “Not since you started coming around.” You would like to ask him to stop. You make to close your legs, your cunt like a wound in the shape of your desire for him, bared and obvious to the whole world, but he grips you about the round of your knee, squeezing the joint and keeping you spread for him. “I just couldn’t anymore. And the other day– what you saw the other day was just me being desperate and pathetic and unfairly angry at you. It was me being weak and stupid, and that isn’t an excuse.” He stands and shucks his jeans, he’s not wearing underwear, and God, you want him with a sort of desperation that’s unhinged and maybe even wrong or depraved. “She knows we’ve been through. Told her again today, but still… I needed to stay away to keep you away. This shouldn't be happening right now, and yet it’s going to anyway, and after this, it’s going to keep happening–” Your heart flames into elation, and then goes frozen and bitter all at the same time. You want to kick him away, but settle for trying to twist away from him. Angry and hurt and not wanting to hear anymore, to think about him fucking her, of their shared history, their relationship.

You try and wriggle away, but he pulls you back by your hips, big hands sliding up the slopes of your waist to squeeze and knead at your breasts. You grip and claw at him, “I don’t care, I don’t care. I don’t want to hear any of it. You’ve been so–” you gasp on a sob.

“I know,” he nuzzles into your skin. “I know,” a kiss to your jaw and his bare form is settling between your thighs, his thick, long cock coming to rest heavily over the wet, parted seam of your cunt. You gasp at the feel of him there. “Don’t think I’ve ever wanted to take something for myself as badly as I wanted to take you. It made me mean as a dog.” He sucks a nipple into his mouth, biting gently. His mouth is everywhere, his hands gripping and pinching at your breasts, clutching at your ass to grind his hard cock against your pussy. He pulls back, and the wide head notches at your entrance. Oh, please, fuck me, fuck me. Finally.

“Gonna fuck your little cunt, baby. Make you all mine.”

“Please, Joel.” He goes slowly at first, fat head catching on the rim, popping it in and out, he pauses to look down, only his tip held inside of you, and he spits, right at the place where the two of you’re connected, smears it in with his fingers.

“Hot little pussy. Gonna take the whole thing, greedy little girl. Aren’t you?” You nod your head stupidly, mouth hanging open, eyes wide and wet, and you wonder if he can read that you’re in love with him there. You kind of hope he can. He presses in slowly so that you’re forced to feel every bump and ridge, your hips rocking unconsciously, trying to take more faster, but he’s big, thick and heavy, and the taking is not easy. You’re left gasping and arching, writhing wantonly on his cock by the time he’s sunk balls deep inside of you. There’s a bead of sweat sliding down the slope of his cheek, and you have to force yourself to keep your mouth shut and your tongue inside with the hopes of catching it there. He pants and groans, pulling and pressing you closer into him, grinding deep so that the wide head rubs at the mouth of your cervix. You can feel the ripple and shiver of your muscles, your body trying to adjust to such a large invasion and he kisses and licks at your face, your neck and shoulders and tits, and when your breathing has finally settled he pulls back to look down at you, gives a few light thrusts of his hips, eyes glued to the place where your cunt swallows him, spread obscenely, fit to burst around him. He looks back up at you, “Have you adjusted?” A pause for a brief nod of your head, “Yes? Good. Not gonna be gentle.” You don’t think you’ve ever wanted him to be gentle. After all, the way you’ve always felt about him has never been gentle in turn either. His thrusts take on a brutal edge, the wet slap of his balls against your ass loud and sticky against the slick curve of your ass. “Fucking Christ,” he bends his head to nip at your breast, big hand coming up to squeeze the entire thing and suck it into his mouth, “Got the wettest little cunt, baby.”

You want to beg him to go harder, deeper, to fuck you like he’s in love with you. “It’s yours,” you whisper instead.

“Yeah– fuck yes, it is. Yeah, baby, take my cock. Just like that.” He grips you by the knee, bringing your ankle to his shoulder to bob limply there, folding you entirely in half so that he can drill into you, and you reach up to hook your fingers against the edge of his bottom teeth, pulling his mouth open to peer inside. He laps and bites at your fingers, grips your own jaw, your throat, and you drag your nails down his jaw, his neck leaving little scorches of hurt in your wake. “Wanna see you fucked full of my come. Wanna see you leaking me. You gonna let me fill you up, sweet girl?”

Yes, yes, yes, please. Please, fill me up.

Your other ankle thrown over his shoulder now too, he presses his entire weight into you, his face pressed against yours, whispering into your skin, “And if I fuck you full of my baby? What’ll you do then? Hate me more?”

“No, no, never,” voice delirious and filled with a sort of frenetic energy he seems to be able to harness at whim. “Please, please, fuck me full of your baby. Please, I want it so bad, Joel. I do, I do.” He pauses his thrusts, holds there in the depths of you, grinds and squeezes you so tight you think a lung might burst.

When he pulls back the look on his face is just as unhinged as you’ve always felt about him. “Fucking Christ,” he starts to slam back into you, thumb at your clit, the other cradling the bowl of your skull in his palm, fingers woven through your hair. “Yeah– yeah, I’m gonna do it,” he grits. “Then it won’t fucking matter if you hate me or not. You’ll be stuck with me anyways.” He bends to kiss you again, and he tastes like violence, you lick into his mouth, take in the taste of his tongue. When he pulls back to look down at where he’s fucking into you, you reach down to grasp the half of his cock outside of your wet clutch, you want to feel where he’s caliming you, shiny with your slick, you half jack him off with sharp little tugs. “Come inside me, come inside me.” He changes the angle, punches at your g-spot, and the rub of your hand over your clit where you’re gripping him, the feel of his skin, his voice, the slide of his cock, in, in, in, and you’re both shivering and jerking with orgasm, throbbing into one another as he starts to fill you with his spend, his teeth bared in a growl as he marks you with himself. His hips slow, press and grind, and you feel the heavy jerk of his cock inside of you as your muscles work to suck him deeper, milking his come out of him with each tightening pull of your cunt. He presses his face into the damp crook of your shoulder, licks at the sweat gathered there, mouths wetly at your jaw, and you run your hands up the bumps and ridges of his muscled back. There’s a slight tremble running through him, and you hope it means he’s as overwrought by this as you are, that he wanted this as badly as you did, that he’ll want it again as desperately as you already do. He starts to shift, moving down the length of your body, kissing and licking as he goes, his sated cock slipping wetly from your cunt with a shuddered groan from him as he settles back again between your legs and starts to lick the slick from your overwrought cunt. Not seeming to care that he’s eating his own come as well. “Look so pretty drooling me here,” he murmurs, thumbing gently at your trembling opening. “Gonna fill it every day now. Fuck it full of my baby. You want that?” He looks up at you with a sly look, nipping at your thigh, sucking marks into your skin, all you can do is nod. Once he’s through licking you he crawls back up your body, wedges your jaw open and with a puckered mouth lets a long string of spit and come slowly seep out of his mouth and into your open, waiting one. It’s disgusting and dirty and entirely delicious.

As he flops back on top of you heavily, you drag your nails up and down his skin, threading your fingers through his curls and angling his head to hide beneath the edge of your jaw. His breathing starts to slow and deepen after a while, and you smile lightly, wrapping your arms and legs around him like snaking, strangling vines, and pressing your nose into the thick of his hair, taking in the musky, masculine scent of him, you know that after this you'll do anything, anything to keep him here with you just like this.

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hardboiledleggs · 2 years

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Tattoo Artist Eddie Munson Part 2

Part 1 Here!

I could kiss all of you consensually on the mouth, you were so nice about part 1 I cried several times. Here is the long awaited part 2, which I am considering turning into a full length fic on ao3 so if anyone wants to follow me there here it is! Sorry it is so short! This is mostly a stepping stone for my plan for part 3. As always, if anyone would like to be added to my permanent Steddie fic tag list or the tag list for this fic specifically, let me know below :)

~~~

As a general rule, Steve considers himself a confident person. Unfortunately, there’s something about Eddie Munson that reduces him to a nervous, sweaty wreck with decidedly NOT perfect hair. Every time he pulls the now well-worn scrap of paper with Eddie’s number from his pocket, his heart rate jumps to an unhealthy level, and he stuffs it away. This has, of course, royally pissed off Robin Buckley.

“I mean, Jesus Christ, Steve. What is the point of getting a cute guy’s number if you aren’t even going to use it? I think I would have called him more than you have by now, and he doesn’t even have boobies!”

Steve crosses his arms and lets out a disgruntled huff. “Look, I told him some seriously personal stuff, okay? I doubt he even wants me to call him.”

Robin shoots him a deadly glare as she restocks the chocolate chunk ice cream, her stern look tempered slightly by her ridiculous sailor outfit. Scoops Ahoy is an okay place to work, all things considered, but Steve has considered reporting the ice cream shop to the Better Business Bureau for the uniforms alone.

“Why the hell would he give you his number, then? Please don’t be a dingus,” she snorts as she wipes an arm across her sweaty forehead.

“He probably felt bad for me, okay? Seriously. If I had told you that story, you wouldn’t be like ‘Wow, can’t wait to jump his bones!’ You’d think I was a pathetic dude with daddy issues,” Steve groans, flopping forward against the counter. His track record with guys had been, so far, awful. It was hard enough to be a bisexual man in the 80s, let alone in a small town in Indiana. One wrong move, the wrong word, and he could be arrested or worse. It didn’t give a guy a whole lot of confidence.

“For the record, I wouldn’t have wanted to jump your bones regardless, but whatever,” Robin says dryly. Her eyes are soft as she catches his arm. “Just don’t let yourself lose out on something nice ‘cause you’re scared, okay?”

Steve doesn’t look at her as he tugs out of her grip and starts organizing the spoons.

~~~

Eddie Munson has always hated places like the Starcourt Mall. There are always way too many people, too much erroneous noise, and the workers start to follow you around the store if you start touching everything that looks like it might be soft. However, even he cannot deny the hypnotic pull of a brand-new Tower Records shop.

Weaving in between soccer moms and bubblegum-chewing teenage girls, he skids around a corner and gazes above the heads of the crowd, trying to spot the Tower Records logo amongst the perms. Nothing catches his eye except a blue and red neon sign flashing ‘Scoops Ahoy Ice Cream Parlor’ across the mall. Figuring there were worse places to take a break and get directions, Eddie shrugs and fights his way through the crowd and steps into the nautical ice cream parlor.

The man at the counter has his back to Eddie, but upon hearing Eddie’s boots squeak on the linoleum he turns and begins to recite sullenly, as if from a drilling manual; “Ahoy, are you ready to set off into an ocean of flavor with me as your capt-“

Steve snaps his mouth shut when he makes eye contact with Eddie. In comparison, Eddie’s mouth is gaping like a beached trout, and he doesn’t seem to have the capacity to shut it, because Steve, “tattoo boy who he had moaned and whined about to Argyle for literal hours” Steve, is standing right in front of him in tiny shorts and a sailor’s hat and is that lip gloss?

His face is on fire, smoke might be coming out of his ears, but he can’t bring himself to look away from the shorts. Apparently, the Scoops Ahoy motto was “Serve ice cream and invade Eddie Munson’s wet dreams for at least a month!” Eddie shifts his weight from foot to foot, his discomfort growing as the silence stretches longer. It had been days since they’d met, and Steve hadn’t called once. Wayne had gotten so sick of him asking if he had any messages that he’d threatened to tear the phone out of the wall.

“Well, hiya Stevie. How’d that ink turn out? Thought I might get to hear about it after you left, but I think my phone might be busted? That, or my uncle is lying to me about not getting any messages.” There. False bravado. The tried and true method of any queer man about to get rejected by an obscenely handsome ice cream salesman.

“I’m sorry,” Steve blurts. His hands twitch, as though he wanted to reach across the grimy counter but thought better of it at the last second. “I didn’t know how to call you and… so I didn’t.”

His face is ashen, full lips parted as he breathes. Eddie thinks he might never see a more beautiful thing in his life, but he takes a step back, a false grin stretching his lips into a practiced and careful expression.

“Hey, man, no big deal. I misread things. It happens! You were darling, and I am well-known for my sweet tooth.” He smiles a real smile this time and holds out his hand to shake. “No hard feelings as long as you can point me in the direction of the new record store?”

Steve stares at his ring-clad fingers for too long before he turns and starts to wrestle with the junky cash register on the counter. Something snaps as he yanks it open and fumbles for the receipt paper, tearing off a sheet and beginning to scribble furiously. Eddie is just thinking to himself that this guy must think he’s too stupid to remember one or two sentences of directions when the paper is shoved into his outstretched hand. Steve has scrawled his full name and number in thin, slanted handwriting.

A bubble of hope rises in Eddie’s chest as he stares at the piece of paper in his hand. This isn’t platonic with a capital P. Or at least if it is, the universe is mean and should reevaluate how it operates.

“This way you can call me, because I’m a total chickenshit and am definitely terrified of you,” Steve declares as he gnaws on his bottom lip. “Or if I fucked it up that’s whatever and I get it. The record store is like 15 stores down to the right.” He looks like a puppy someone had kicked and left out in the rain.

“When is your shift over? Or rather, when will you be home and sitting by the phone?” Eddie asks in a breathless rush.

Steve’s face brightens with a shy but triumphant smile. “I’m off at 7, home by 7:15!”

“7:30, loverboy. I need a ride.” The pane of frosted glass behind Steve slides open, revealing a pretty girl in a similar uniform to her coworker, although her outfit isn’t having quite the same effect on Eddie as Steve’s is. Grinning like a hyena, she pulls a whiteboard out from behind her and uncaps a marker, putting a single tally in a column labeled “You Rule” that has thus far remained empty. Steve tosses a waffle cone at her head, which she ducks, before sliding the panel shut once more.

“7:30 then. Got it. Expect my call, big boy,” Eddie bows theatrically. He steps backward, attempting a suave exit, and spins around before he can say anything else horrific and embarrassing like “Need a skipper for your next voyage?”

As he is hurrying out of the shop, he hears a crash and a shout of “Buckley, you are so dead!” Eddie grins and stares down at the phone number in his hand, trip to the record store completely forgotten. Steve Harrington had no idea what he was signing up for.

~~~

If I tag you in error I am so sorry!! Please message me or comment and I will take you off no hard feelings I am super frazzled by the response to this series and very likely have screwed up this list. If I missed your name feel free to absolutely roast me in the comments :) I can take the heat

Tag list (Holy moly here we go) - @mackdaddyofheimlichcountyy @throwbackthrowaway @vampireinthesun @mightbeasleep @steve-the-hairrington @nelotegreitic @swimmingbirdrunningrock @thehumblefigtree @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @idsellmysoulforsteddie @toobluebrunette @azreadytodie @rainydays35 @luna-munson83 @sl1187 @artiststarme @bethebitch @ultrarainbowunicorn100 @doilooklikebees @this-is-moony-lovegood @impeachy @grimmfitzz @lifeisnotsobadonceyoustopcaring @maya-custodios-dionach @brassreign @kurumeki @zerokrox-blog @starxlark @chaoticvictorianspirit @2nd-star-2-the-rhgt @adankrivervalleynearyou @yikes-a-bee @e0509 @babyblender @shinekocreator @hope-can-be-your-sword @hellomynameismoo @knitsforthetrail @thegingerrapunzel @blindbisexualgoose @4nemo1egend @piningapple @aceflavouredyougurt @cyranyx @fruitandbubbles @eyesofshinigami @thefreakandthehair @prettyboyandthemetalhead @void-library @steddio @jjoesjonas @vecnuthy @twiggspots @spectrum-spectre @henderdads @sweetcreaturetm @morning-rituals @inmoonywetrust @kyoxyukiforever

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tarjapearce · 1 year

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Cast Away (Pt. 2)

Warning: DO NOT read this if you're having a good day and love Miguel O'Hara being happy. ANGST. Graphic depictions of miscarriage, implied self hate, HEAVILY influenced by "Die For You" by Joji. Had to hold myself from making this too dark. Sorry in advance, but I write my sadness away ~ Thanks Anon for this request ✨

Pt 1

The steps approaching just echoed through the high walls and, he glanced at the trespasser of his secluded space briefly to continue his new endeavor.

"She got home safe." Jess mumbled from the doorframe, not needing to invade his corner even more.

"Made sure to check the area as well-"

"You're dismissed"

"You're welcome" Jessica shrugged and returned where she came from.

Silence fell upon him again, where you had been standing a while ago. Although you had changed, he no longer had to wonder what had been of you.

The memories always repeated themselves in his brain whenever he dwelled too much in the past. It was like a self imposed punishment from everything that had happened. The remembrance itself was unable to be stopped once it was played in his mind.

He would come home to you, dread seeping in as the rain only poured harder, drowning the sound of the daily suburban life. Your car was parked ahead of his, he then had rushed to get inside only to be greeted by a bone shaking cry.

Dread pumped harder on his chest, making his breath to hitch as his eyes stumbled upon a crimson and jagged pattern on the floor.

Don't

His mind chanted, but the desperate cries of help gave him enough courage to slowly push the door open. And god, he wished he could have some sort of device to erase the ongoing memory.

His heart not only wrenched but broke upon the sight of you. Slumped on the bathroom floor against the wall, blood everywhere as you wept, holding onto your belly, repeating over and over 'my baby', begging for an answer above as to why your child was the one that had to be ripped away. He was sure that whoever above was in charge, he wasn't listening.

He had to steel his grip on the doorframe as his eyes darted to a certain bloody puddle between your legs. Tiny little bloodshot feet peeked through the fabric of your nightgown. His eyes blurred as the tears flooded his eyes and for a second he thought he would collapse right on the spot.

A painful wept snapped him out of his trance and took action. He phoned an emergency number and rushed to you again. There was no comfort that could alleviate your hearts. At best, he just cradled you in his arms, and held you tight as you clung to him, your one and only anchor, asking for his forgiveness.

But his mind was on the tiny human that laid quietly on the floor. His spider vision only confirming what he in his mind was trying to deny so badly.

He was going to be a father of a boy.

You didn't know yet and had demanded to be a surprise, the appointment scheduled within four days. The baby shower for next month.

Everything was a blur after the medical staff arrived to your home and took you to the hospital. He couldn't follow right away to the room you had surely would be kept.

Doctors barked orders, and he hated himself for admitting that he was glad he wasn't allowed in, his rage would surely make him commit something really stupid.

Hours passed and the only thing he could do was to stare at you through a window. Oxygen mask attached as the monitors gave soft beeps, mimicking your heart beats.

How he couldn't see this coming? He analyzed every single outcome possible from your pregnancy, he had used his knowledge in genetics to always monitor you.

What had gone wrong? His blood? Probably. After all his own dna had been modified, and yours was strong and compatible enough for a successful pregnancy. Or so his results had shown.

Never he could imagine that the 0.99% fail rate due dna instability from your end, would shatter everything to pieces.

There was no longer adoration in his eyes upon watching you, but something darker, hatred like even.

Weakened eyelids fluttered open and awake, trying to adjust at the light and blurry sight, and when they did, you were received with a look that were only given to your common enemies. Your heart broke into nothingness.

Miguel could see you mumbling his name, but it fell upon deaf ears. He turned around and left.

LYLA's projection brought him back to reality. For once he was grateful she was there, his past haunting him stopped briefly.

"Did ya hear?"

"Hm?"

"Are you sure you wanna do that?"

"Highest resolution available."

"Isn't it a crime to use this tech to personal purposes?"

"Solo haz lo que te digo.*" His tone an octave lower and demanding.

LYLA sighed and soon a new projection appeared on his screen.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, his eyes following your frame that soon disappeared in the arms of an unknown man. His eyes narrowed in disdain as he peppered your face in kisses.

He was tall, not as physically built as he, but the man looked like the cardio was enough for him. House looked cozy, homey. Tainted in the colors you were always telling him about , matcha green and beige.

The man kissed you, and as he cupped your cheeks to do so, Miguel caught the glimpse of a golden ring on his finger.

------

"Mi amor!" Your hand covered your mouth as your squealing was muffled. Your husband rushed to you and stopped upon seeing you nodding and crying as you held a pregnancy test on hand. After two months of trying.

The man was overjoyed. And Miguel's jaw clenched.

----

"It's a boy"

You whispered in between soft sobs as the ultrasound captured the picture. Red eyes glued at the way that man mumbled the sweetest things that made your chest swell merrily. He looked so proud of you.

You had always wanted a boy.

He was once the father of a boy.

----

"Im not going anywhere" The man mumbled as he planted himself by your side.

"Where would I go, hmm?" His stomach revolted as the scene displayed before him.

You left

His mind accused. Something he could truly never shake off. Months of surveillance resumed into this very moment. Medical staff rushed in and soon the moment he never got to experience with you, happened.

Your child was born.

His lip pursed, suppressing a quiver while he witnessed in sheer darkness, the peak of your happiness. Your arms cradled the baby, cooed him, cherished him. Your pride and joy, shared with a stranger.

Could've been you

Miguel's breath was released in a shaky sigh.

"Felicidades, mi niña."

He turned off the screen. Darkness swallowing him whole.

--------

Solo haz lo que te digo- Just do as you're told.

Felicidades, mi niña.- Congratulations, my dear.

#miguel o'hara angst #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #atsv miguel

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angelasscribbles · 1 month

Text

The King's Mistress

Series: None, this is a one-shot and you can find those here.

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Rating: NSFW 🍋

Warnings for this chapter: Slight Lemons, infidelity

Word Count: 822

My other stuff: Master List.

Story is under the cut.......

The Duchess of Valtoria was perched on the edge of an expansive mahogany desk with her head thrown back and her elegant evening gown hiked up around her waist, moans of ecstasy spilling out of her as the king stood with his pants tangled around his ankles thrusting into her. Her perfectly manicured nails sank into his ass, spurring him on.

He had been waiting for a moment alone with her all damn day. Sitting next to her for two hours in the budget meeting had been bad enough, but then she had shown up at the annual Ambassador’s Ball in a dress that ought to be criminal. Holding her in his arms on the dance floor while maintaining proper decorum had been excruciating. Getting her somewhere private had jumped to number one on his priority list.

Her screams filled his ears as his eyes locked on her face, watching the rapturous euphoria of her release dance across her features. She cried out his name as he spilled himself inside her.

“Riley…” his lips brushed the side of her neck as a hand tangled in her hair and pulled her closer.

He couldn’t get enough of her. He was bewitched by the way she loved with such wild abandon. She cared nothing for the intrigues of the court or the judgments of others. She was a wild thing, free in a way he longed to be.

He had been surrounded his entire life by crown chasers and sycophants, but Riley was different.

Maybe the raging inferno she ignited within him was love, or perhaps she represented the path he had almost chosen before duty and sacrifice had landed him right back where he started.

Either way, she had chosen him when she’d had no idea who he was. And that meant something to him.

He stepped away from her reluctantly and pulled his pants up. “I should get back before my wife sends a search party to find me.”

Riley made a face as she scooted to the edge of the desk. A slight sound of displeasure issued from the back of her throat.

He took her hand and helped her to her feet. Despite his assertation that he was needed back in the ballroom forthwith, he took his time carefully and tenderly helping her adjust her dress back into place. His fingers kept making detours to trail down a bare arm or trace across the back of her neck.

When her clothes were righted, his hands ran once again through her now tousled hair. “Sorry, I made a mess of that updo.”

“It’s ok,” she laughed as she plucked the few remaining clips free and shook her head, sending waves of riotous curls cascading down her back. “But I am going to need a little help fixing it.”

“Hm.” A bright smile lit up his face as humor danced through his ocean blue eyes. “I command armies, negotiate with dictators, and the Cordonian stock market can rise or fall based on my mood, but alas, I am utterly helpless in the face of a hair emergency.”

“I know!” She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder, “But I left my phone in my clutch, which is back in the ballroom…”

His grin widened. “It’s ok, I’ve got you.” He produced his phone and brandished it in front of her. “Hana?”

“Hana,” she agreed with a nod.

His fingers flew across the phone pad as he sent a text to Bastien Lykel, the head of his king’s guard, to find and escort Lady Hana Lee to his office.

“She’s on her way. I hate to leave you, but I really do need to get back. The ambassador from Rival—”

“It’s fine, go.” She waved him away as she headed for the attached bathroom to check on her makeup. Being seen re-entering the ballroom together would just cause more whispers anyway.

Not that the entire country didn’t already know. They hadn’t been that discreet. Their relationship was an open secret at court. She was the maîtresse-en-titre as the French would say. The king’s official royal mistress, complete with all the money, titles, land, and security that provided.

She knew that what she gave him in return was more than sex. It was companionship, romantic intimacy, advice, conversation, and a shoulder to lean on when he needed it.

He had married for political reasons, family obligations, and tradition. There was no love between the king and queen.

Still, this wasn’t where she saw her life going when she met him on that cruise ship and mistook him for a broke college student.

His voice stopped her before she made it through the door. “Hey, Riley?”

She turned back toward him. “Yeah?”

That grin that always sent butterflies shocking through her broke out across his face. “I love you.”

She returned his smile as he retreated into the hallway. “I love you too, Leo.”

#angelasscribbles #the royal romance #trr #the royal romance fanfic #trr au #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #choices stories you play #riley brooks

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shanie · 5 months

Text

Of Brothers and Bloodbonds (Unfinished Samijey Fic)

Rating: Teen Words: 2925 Pairing: SamiJey, Sami & Kevin (platonic/brotherly) Characters: Sami Zayn, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Jimmy Uso (Mentioned), The Bloodline (Mentioned) Sitting in a hotel room in Detroit, Michigan, Sami spends the night tending to Kevin's ribs while watching Jey take on Roman. When Jimmy shows up and turns on Jey, Sami is even in the building let alone in a position to help. So, after the show, when Kevin (of all people) demands that Sami go spend the night with Jey, rather than spend it mothering him, Sami can't bring himself to put up too much of a fight. After all, he was the one to tell Jey to follow his heart. How could he ever abandon him now?

STORY IS UNFINISHED AND LIKELY NEVER WILL BE

(sorry)

“I mean it, Sami, you should go to him.”

Sami Zayn was fussing. Not that he wasn’t always concerned for Kevin; Kevin was his brother and Sami loved him with all his heart. He was going to worry about Kevin whether he was trying to heal him or hurting him personally. But ever since Kevin had gotten injured, Sami had been particularly protective, if for no other reason than he felt guilty about not having stopped it.

Not that he could have. The numbers game was a bitch.

But maybe that was why, when his former lover Jey Uso got toppled by it at Summerslam, Sami had felt guilty for a whole other reason.

But Jey was in the past. Beyond that, they were in the past. They were friends again, sure. Maybe. Sort of. A little. If you could call them not hating each other and simply being on speaking terms again “friends”. But regardless of what was happening at Summerslam, Sami wasn’t about to abandon Kevin to help Jey. Not again, at least, especially considering how badly doing so had gone in the past. Besides, It was Jey’s battle and had been for a long time. Sami knew he’d just get in the way.

And then, Jey had cried.

Sitting in the ring after the match sobbing over yet another betrayal and another loss.

He’d lost his go at the titles. He’d lost his chance to be Tribal Chief. But most of all, he’d lost his brother.

Jimmy. His brother, his twin, his whole world. The one person who Sami knew Jey would lay down his life for in a heartbeat had, instead, laid Jey out and left him at Roman’s feet.

It had stabbed Sami in the heart in a way he’d forgotten could hurt so much... which was strange because usually, when his heart ached that way, it was because he’d gotten stabbed in the back by his own brother yet again.

So when said brother saw the video with Sami and told him that he needed to go pay his old lover a visit...

“Seriously,” Kevin told him, “I’m fine here. He needs you more than I do right now.”

Sami shook his head. Kevin wasn’t feeling well. The painkillers had clearly gone to his brain, although how loopy prescription-strength ibuprofen could make you, Sami wasn’t sure.

“No way, Kev,” Sami told him, “I’m staying put. I’m not leaving you alone again.”

“Sami. I’m fine. The door is locked, nobody is getting in, it’s not like my ribs are gonna get any more fucked up in a hotel room in Detroit. You need to go check on Jey.”

Kevin definitely wasn’t feeling well.

Sami shot an incredulous look. “Since when did you care so much about Jey Uso? I thought you were sick of the Bloodline?”

“I am! But for fucks sake, Sami, the guy was sobbing. When did I care? When did you STOP? You’re the one who was so preoccupied with saving him, SAVE HIM!”

“Come on Kevin, he doesn’t...”

“Sami LISTEN! I – ”

Suddenly, Kevin winced and grabbed his ribs.

“Kev!” Sami shouted and practically launched himself off the opposite bed to check on his partner... only to get swatted away aggressively.

“I’m fine, I’m FINE!” Kevin barked. “Look, are you going after him or am I? Because I don’t think he’s gonna be very happy to see me right now. You, on the other hand, he would – ENOUGH WILL YOU STOP! GO FUSS OVER SOMEONE WHO NEEDS IT!!!”

Kevin practically shoved Sami and his ministrations off the bed, pushing him away to no small amount of protest. The reaction was quick, for both of them, and Sami’s chest hurt at the look of guilt on his best friend’s face.

“Look, sorry,” Kevin said quietly, “I’m sorry. I’m just... I’ve had a really shitty couple of weeks. Even the zoo sort of sucked as much pain as I was in. And I was kind of hoping that maybe, just maybe, this would all be over this weekend. That Roman and his narcissistic bullshit would be gone and the whole fucking company could move on. But that didn’t happen. What did happen was his poor bastard of a cousin got his ass beat and his heart broken and I’m not going to leave this alone for you to change your mind sometime when I’m not around and then you get your ass beat and heart broken too.”

Kevin’s jaw clenched and Sami watched him visibly swallow the anger that was bubbling inside him.

“So do us both a favor and go to him. You know his room number, find him, and fix him. Even if it’s just for the night.”

Sami’s heart was pounding in his chest at the realization of what Kevin had suggested before, as if to confirm, his friend added, “And I don’t want to see you until morning.”

Sami’s mouth suddenly felt very dry. If there was any doubt about what Kevin wanted him to do, it had been forcefully removed with his last statement, and, with nothing else to say, Sami replied with the first thing that did come to mind.

“How... how do you know I know his room number?”

Kevin gave a small smile that was stuck somewhere between sadness and understanding.

“You always do,” he said softly.

He always did.

And, closing his eyes and letting out a long sigh, Sami realized Kevin was right. He had to go. Kevin would be fine but Jey?

Jey had never been apart from Jimmy before. Not like this.

Sami’s heart ached all over again at the thought of what Jey might be going through. At the thought and, worse, at the memory of all the times he’d gone through the same. Bloody, tear-stained nights of him and Kevin tearing each other’s bodies apart while Sami’s soul did the same inside his chest.

It was never fun and, for as much as he’d cherished the connection they shared regardless of what side they were on the ring from each other, it left him feeling empty and broken every time.

And that was what awaited Jey Uso now.

Emptiness and brokenness.

All rendered at the hands of his brother.

Sami got off the bed and, nodding with his decision, opened his eyes to gaze at his own brother.

“You’re right,” he told Kevin, “I’ll go.” .......

Kevin hadn’t been kidding about Sami always knowing what Jey’s room number was.

At first, it had been easy – The Bloodline always lived in the lap of luxury. If Sami knew what the hotel was, all he had to do was find the Executive Suite, and, guaranteed, they’d be there. He’d made a point early on to always locate the suite in the building when he arrived and, while he’d never admit it, on more than one occasion had requested a room swap to something close enough to maybe even catch a sight of his old family. He was careful, always careful, and if they’d seen him watching they’d never gone after him, but something about keeping them close, about keeping Jey close had always felt right to Sami.

But once Sami had reunited with Kevin things got a bit… trickier. Kevin was jealous, always so damn jealous, and Sami had to use a trip to the ice machine as an alibi to figure out where the Usos were staying.

It hadn’t taken long for Kevin to figure out what was going on and, after Kevin had caught him behind a corner watching Jey catching some air on a public balcony near the master suite, he’d gotten hell for it. To be fair, Kevin wasn’t angry about Sami’s feelings – those he’d figured out ages ago – it was more a case of Sami being stupid and creepy about following around an ex who wanted nothing to do with him when he and Kevin were ostensibly supposed to be partners.

Sami had to admit Kevin had a point about that. Even if Jey did want him around lurking in corners watching him wasn’t the way to go about seeing him, regardless of Sami’s intentions.

When Kevin asked him what said intentions were, Sami hadn’t been able to answer, but then how the hell was he supposed to tell his partner that regrets about leaving Jey behind in the Bloodline and laments about how Jey had chosen Jimmy over him were keeping him up at night? How the hell was he supposed to tell Kevin that seeing Jey, even from afar, was the only time the bullshit in his brain truly shut up? That keeping tabs on Jey and always knowing where he was and that he was ok was the only thing keeping him sane?

No, Kevin didn’t understand, especially when following Jey around kept getting him hurt instead and Sami resigned himself to asking the other superstars what room the Usos and their little brother were staying in. And, once tensions began to flare between the three of them and their cousin, Sami started asking the front desk. Sami had always felt like the trustworthy sort but the ease with which he usually got the information made Sami wonder if Jey wasn’t saying something upon check-in.

He wanted to think Jey was. He doubted he was.

But, regardless, it was another night in another hotel room and once again, Sami knew exactly where to find Jey Uso. Far from the master suite or any suite at all, just a regular hotel room that was honestly beneath Jey. Roman and Solo could go fuck themselves, Jey was the one who belonged in the executive suite.

Jimmy too. Fuck him too now.

The whole lot of them, Jey’s whole family, none of them deserved him and, really, Jey didn’t deserve them. He deserved so much more. To be loved, to be protected, to be champion.

Most of all, he deserved to not be alone. And as Sami looked around the hallway standing outside room 403 to make sure nobody had followed him, he knocked on Jey’s door, intent on making sure Jey wasn’t.

There was a moment, or rather, several. Several moments of agonizing silence where a thousand worries crossed Sami’s brain. What if Jey had gotten a different room? What if Jimmy had come after him? What if Roman had? What if Jey had done something stupid? Oh god, oh fuck, Jey, Jey, JEY…

But then, noise. The sound of multiple locks being unbolted and unlatched before the door cracked open without a word.

Not swung. Cracked.

And, a moment later, began to close again.

“Hey!” Sami said, quickly shoving his foot forward to block the door.

If there was an invitation to enter beyond the door opening, Sami didn’t get it but he also didn’t care. If Jey hadn’t wanted him in there, he wouldn’t have unlocked the door let alone opened it. That was just how Jey Uso was. You only ever got as close as he wanted you to.

Sami entered the room quickly, taking one final look around, closing the door behind him, rebolting all the locks… and almost plowing over a folding chair that had been propped against the wall behind the door.

“Use the chair too,” Sami heard Jey say. His voice was so small and broken and, as Sami saw his former lover standing in front of him, two things struck him immediately.

Jey’s back was to him, tattooed, bare, and exposed.

And Jey was still crying.

Sami made a mental note to buy Kevin an entire tray of his favorite cupcakes when they returned home as a thank you for pulling his head out of his ass. Kevin was fine, Kevin didn’t need him at all that night.

Jey, however…

Silently, Sami unfolded the chair and propped it under the doorknob.

“You know,” Sami said softly, “if there’s a fire or something, this is gonna make it really hard for the firefighters to get in.”

“Good.”

“Did you steal that?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

Jey didn’t respond to that, simply moving over to the bed and laying down, curling into a ball and clinging to a pillow that looked like Jey had been holding it in a death grip for hours.

Sami felt his heart kick at the sight. Jey, so proud, so strong, tucked in the fetal position over the betrayal of the twin he’d shared the womb with. It was... honestly it made Sami want to cry. But really, with as red and puffy as Jey’s eyes were at that point, it was obvious Jey had done enough crying for both of them. Instead, Sami stood across from Jey, leaning against the wall and trying not to disturb the typically bland painting of flowers that always seemed to decorate every hotel room across America.

For several moments, they stayed like that, silent beside the quiet sounds of Jey’s sniffles.

It was Sami who broke the silence first. “How’s your head?”

A sniffle. “... hurts.”

“Those superkicks hurt.”

“Yeah.”

There was a beat before Jey added, “Sorry.”

Sami smiled sadly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Another sniffle, this time accompanied by a fidget and Jey adjusting his grip on the pillow. “Nah, man. You was right. All along. Never shoulda listened to him.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Roman can be very persuasive.”

“I didn’t mean Roman.”

“Oh.”

Jey’s grip somehow tightened even further and Sami sighed. He had to get Jey out of that headspace, he knew that much. Jey lived deep enough inside his own mind on his best days but when he was in the worst places, he tended to spiral. Sami had seen it happen.

He’d caused it to happen.

He didn’t want to think about that, though. Not when Jey was suffering at that moment for a whole different reason. From a whole different person.

Sami pushed away from the wall and stepped over to the bed. “Hey,” he said softly, placing his hand on Jey’s arm, “Come on, get up. Here, let go...”

Jey’s whole body twisted, pulling his arm away from Sami’s reach.

“Jey, come on, don’t -- ”

“Go away.”

“I’m not going to leave yo – "

“I SAID GO AWAY!”

“NO! I’m not leaving!”

Sami reached across the bed and grabbed Jey’s wrist, pulling it free. In an instant, Jey’s eyes blazed, his fiery temper shining through and matched only by the fire in Sami’s eyes. But, in the instant after that, Sami’s gaze softened, turning from fire to warmth and for as much as his grip didn’t loosen, the intensity of the touch shifted drastically.

The effect it had was quick, Jey’s rigid form relaxing just enough to allow Sami to relax as well.

“Sami...” Jey said and, oh, his voice. So strong, so angry, but not at him. Not really, and Sami couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m not leaving,” Sami repeated softly.

“You did once. How’m I supposed to trust you won’t again?”

Sami’s thumb absently brushed Jey’s wrist as he replied, “I left Roman, not you. I’d hoped you’d come with me.”

“I shoulda.”

Sami sighed deeply. “Well, uhh, hindsight’s...”

“Ya, I know,” Jey said, cutting him off and this time pulling his wrist away and releasing the pillow, pushing it behind him and swinging his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. He aggressively rubbed the tears away, roughly, as if he could just scrub them and the pain they represented from existence, and added, “Hindsight’s 20/20. I got it.”

“Actually,” Sami replied, “I was gonna say it’s a bitch.”

Jey’s face lifted, just for a moment, and their eyes met, and Sami’s heart broke. They were red, sure, but the pain and anguish in them was so deep that it was rending Sami’s soul simply from seeing it.

So he couldn’t look at it anymore.

Sami quickly took a seat beside Jey on the bed, not touching him, but still close enough that he could feel Jey’s presence against his skin as if the flames that were always burning in Jey were warming him like a fireplace. Sami stared at the wall in front of both of them, not quite looking and far from seeing, but at that moment it was better than the alternative, so he figured he would focus on it anyway.

For his part, Jey’s eyes were on the floor.

And this time, the silence was broken by him.

“I never thought...” he began, his voice small again, “Me and Jimmy. We ain’t never been apart. He’s always had my back. And now... I got nothing. I got no one.”

“Not true.”

“What? Who else I got? You?”

For such a bitter statement, there wasn’t nearly enough bitterness in his voice for Sami’s taste. And he could have done without the defeat that was in its place. He turned his focus to see Jey, still staring at the floor, and let out a long breath.

“Yeah, I’ve been pretty shit about that, haven’t I,” Sami admitted. “Sorry. Maybe if I had been there. I shouldn’t have left you – ”

“Man, don’t start that shit, I ain’t your responsibility. I can handle my own stuff, Uce.”

“I know. And I’m proud of you.”

The speed with which Jey’s head spun to stare at Sami, his eyes wide with shock at the redhead’s words – it made Sami sick to his stomach as he realized why. There was no way, it couldn’t be...

“Has - Has nobody told you that yet???” Sami asked. “Nobody???”

(end of written part)

As a heads up for the end of this story... Sami convinced Jey how proud he is and that he acknowledges Jey. And that, as far as Sami is concerned, Jey is the HIS tribal chief. Jey says that he said the same about Roman. When Roman made him Honorary Uce, Sami was real quick to call Roman his Tribal Chief.

Sami corrects him by saying that he called Roman "Tribal Chief". But he never said Roman was HIS Tribal Chief.

Jey is shocked, rememebering that night and realizing Sami is right and they kiss. Sami makes a comment that, if Smackdown ever grows too inhospitable for him with his family around, there's always a spot for Jey on Raw at his side. Jey questions if Kevin would be OK with that and Sami says "Probably not, but he'll get over it."

The story ends with Jey asking if Sami wants to spend the night and Jey tells him he had sort of planned on it. They get comfortable and Jey crawls under the covers, curled up facing the door.... away from Sami. Sami is shocked, but Jey insists he gets into bed.

Sami realizes what the gesture means. Jey is turning his back on him... the last person left in the world he would do that for... and Sami turns the light off and curls around Jey, promising that, as much as Jey's family might break his heart, he will never do the same. Never again.

"I love you," Sami says.

"Yeah. Love you too. And Sami? Thanks"

"Any time." And with that, Sami kisses Jey on back of the neck and the two fall asleep together.

Sorry I never got to finishing this. I wish I had. I had this and another one in my mind but they just never got done. Forgive me.

#Samijey #Fanfiction #Shanie's fanfic #Unfinished fanfic

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skeeverboy · 7 months

Text

hi i'm skeeverboy and here's my review of every tfb album (not including singles or eps but maybe i will at some point)

I Hate My Friends (2008)

despite being their first and least finished albums, it is one of my fav albums of all time. it's unique and definitely not for everyone, but the garage/basement sound and unique vocals are so charming. it has this whole immature feeling in both instrumentation and lyrics that i'm just obsessed with. i really like the background vocals and the entire shouty kind of singing this one has.

fav track: push-ups

rating: 9.5/10

My Grandma Vs. Pneumonia (2009)

very similar in sound and vibe to IHMF, with the same acoustic recorded-in-someone's-basement feeling (this is because both albums were in fact recorded in random basements and garages). it feels a little more finished than IHMF, and the songs have a bit of a different vibe that i don't know how to explain. ultimately though i put it in the same category as IHMF and frequently forget which songs are in which albums.

fav track: the bass is too loud

rating: 9/10

The Front Bottoms (2011)

absolutely amazing album. it has all the charm of the first 2, with significantly more development and more of a finished feeling. it starts off with an amazing first track and there's really not a dud on this album at all. both versions of the cover art are beautiful. the lyrics in this album are just like some of my favorite of all time and often times soul crushing. i love it. enough said.

fav track: looking like you just woke up

rating: 10/10

Talon of the Hawk (2013)

another absolute banger. it has a lot of the same vibes as self titled, though it started getting a lot higher energy. while still angsty and gut-punching, it's also a lot easier to jam out to than their self-titled, with more electric guitar featured and absolutely banger choruses. maybe a little bit overrated, but a great album nonetheless.

fav track: santa monica

rating: 9/10

Back On Top (2015)

another one of my favorites. it's nearly completely abandoned the more acoustic feeling, aside from chunks of songs like the beginning of West Virginia. pretty much every song can be either cried to or rocked out to in the car. even though there is one song on this album that i kind of hate (summer shandy) the rest of them more than make up for it. fun electric guitar parts, the epic wind section in 2YL, the hard hitting lyrics in songs like Plastic Flowers, it's all just amazing.

fav track: ginger

rating: 10/10

Going Grey (2017)

everyone hates me for my opinion on this album but ultimately it's just kind of meh for me. it's not bad, but it's my least favorite TFB album. the entire sound of the album isn't my favorite, and at times the vocals feel a little dull, which i mean the vocals are like the number one reason why i love the front bottoms. some of the lyrics leave something to be desired, especially considering past songs.

i don't hate the album though. it's high energy, really transitioned TFB into IS&IF and YAWYHOW smoothly. it has a lot of good songs while remaining pretty true to the core TFB sound.

fav track: trampoline

rating: 7.5/10 (don't crucify me please)

In Sickness & In Flames (2020)

ok on my tier list i admit i ranked this one way too low. it pushed the band into a new direction, with the autotune and the way more developed and finished sounding instrumentals. pretty much every song is high energy and catchy. it strays way more into the pop side of tfb's pop punk/emo sound, which is fine but not exactly my thing. i think they do it in a really graceful way though and most songs on here are bangers

fav track: bus beat

rating: 8/10

You Are Who You Hang Out With (2023)

this one is significant for me because it was their first full-length album they released while i was actively a huge fan. it was exciting and i heard a few of the songs before the album's release live, so i'm definitely biased in this one. the autotune is a little weird, but it works for me. the mix between brian's unique voice and the autotune and just the general sound of it are really good.

i'll admit it did take me a minute for it to grow on me, especially as an early tfb girlie, but grow on me it did. outlook and batman both feel like really nice tie-backs to the older sound, almost sounding like they're from TOTH or back on top?? and the newer, weirder songs (i'm looking at you Paris) work really well with the sound of album and such.

fav track: batman

rating: 9.5/10

#picking a fav track from every album was so fucking hard #the front bottoms #tfb #front bottoms #brian sella #mat uychich #midwest emo #emo #album review #i hate my friends #my grandma vs pneumonia #talon of the hawk #back on top #going grey #in sickness and in flames #you are who you hang out with #yawyhow #toth

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chiefbeifongcanrailme · 11 months

Text

Chief Beifong and her Affinity for-

Here’s my submission for day 4 of Lin Beifong’s Week. You can also find it on AO3.

Pairing: Lin Beifong x Lightning Bolt Zolt

Rating: M

Art made by JadeLotus💚

Chief Lin Beifong had always been a recurrent patron at the Jitaku hotel just outside of Republic City. She frequented its hospitality through her late teens and early twenties. She basically lived there throughout her thirties, but ever since she hit forty, Lin’s visits to the Jitaku hotel were erratic. Just when the management thought that was their last time hosting the mysterious, porcelain noblewoman and her companion, they would seemingly turn up just to prove them wrong.

But little did management know that their furtive customer was the Chief of Police and what they were hosting were clandestine escapades. They didn’t know that their major benefactor was busy protecting a city infiltrated with criminals- one of which, was their other major benefactor. Triads had always been a very present part of life in Republic City. Over time, their dusty caves had become tourist spots for people from all over the world to gawk at. It was a mockery of justice. Lin didn’t like that Republic City was being celebrated for its wicked infestation. But she knew better than to get involved with the city’s politics.

The Rising Flame triad were, as their name suggested, rising. Their group was growing in number, and they were getting bolder; resorting to murders when organized crime didn’t do their bidding. Most of them worked at the Lucky Cranefish gambling joint- which was also their site of operations. Their leader, Xiaolan, had no idea that Lin Beifong was privy to all this information through a mere former acquaintance.

It had been a few years since Lightning Bolt Zolt had quit the Triple Threat Triad and gone straight. The successor after his successor, Tokuga was doing a horrendous job keeping the flame burning. There was a time Tokuga tried to dissolve the Rising Flame, but it only created a huge mess that in turn, added to the rise in rising flame.

“Enough with the puns,” Lin had said about twenty-five times when discussing the inner workings of the triads of Republic City with her informant.

This evening, he was more than just an informant. He was a partner. Not the kind of partner the Jitaku hotel was accustomed to accommodating, unfortunately. Lightning Bolt Zolt was going to team up with Lin to take down the Rising Flame Triad, once and for all.

This whole situation was filled with a sense of poetic irony. Ever the philanderer, Zolt was prepared to make the most of his consorting with Lin. They had decided to arrive to the hotel separately and Zolt was the first one there. He waited under the opulent glow of the chandelier for a few minutes before Lin arrived, covered in her brown coat and matching hat.

Together, they made their way to the concierge who handed them one keycard for their room.

Lin gave him a slight glare, prompting him to say, “It’s a suite with two queen beds. It’s all they had for tonight.”

Clearly, that was a lie. Lin rolled her eyes. The hotel was empty. It was cold- nobody was stupid enough to travel to Republic City during its off season.

Without a word though, Lin followed him into the elevator, watching him press the button for the very top, twenty first floor.

She already knew this was a bad idea. But a very tiny part of her wanted to see where this would go.

Once they entered the room, Zolt dramatically cried in shock. Of course, there was only one bed. And of course, Zolt made sure they were in the most expensive suite with the best view of the city.

Lin folded her arms in front of her chest and gave him a look. He knew it meant that she was about to pin him down and kill him Earth Queen style, so, he gave her a cheeky grin. She scowled when he made his way over to her, untying the belt of her coat.

“What? Tell me you hate this.”

Lin rolled her eyes. “We’re not here to fool around, Zolt. If I knew this is what you’d turn this into, I never would’ve asked for your help in the first place”

“Oh, but aren’t you glad you did,” he said, pulling her closer with one arm around her waist.

His lips ghosted over her ear lobe, and despite herself, she closed her eyes to welcome his warm breath on her. He gently stroked her back, lulling her closer into his embrace when, suddenly, she shoved him off.

“Keep it in your pants, Zolt!” she scolded.

“Fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “Xiaolan is currently on the seventeenth floor of this very hotel. You remember Viper? He betrayed Tokuga and the Triple Threats and joined the Rising Flames- they don’t didn’t even accept non-bending fire nation folk, so, I don’t see how Xiaolan is going to let this waterbender go on with them.

“So Xiaolan is going to double cross Viper?”

“That’s right,” Zolt nodded.

“What if we take Viper in our confidence, tell him what we know and”

Zolt waved his hands. “That’ll never work. Viper’s a slippery bastard. If he finds out that the cops know shit about fuck, he’s going to kill all of us. He’d die before he goes to jail.”

Lin smirked. “Quite a colorful sentence you had going there.”

“That slimy guy drove me nuts. He was definitely part of the reason why I quit the triads and went clean.”

“Part of?” she raised one eyebrow suggestively.

“Baby, if only you knew what a big part you have always been.”

Lin shook her head and turned to the door. “Just so we’re on the same page, you’re going to talk to Xiaolan with the recorder in your breast pocket”

“I love it when you talk dirty,”

“And as former triad leader to current triad leader you’re going to establish a friendship and get him to boast all about his crimes. You will keep recording until we have complete admission to illicit activities with names, locations, and everything, okay?”

“And then we get back here and resume our illicit activities?” his eyebrows jumped at the word.

Lin rolled her eyes. “You better not mess this up. You have no idea the migraines I had to endure in trying to get Varrick to make this pin sized recording device.”

“The Chief and her affinity for criminals,” he laughed.

“Zolt, please.”

“Don’t worry about it! It’ll work out fine,” he whined with a limp wrist. “I can initiate and hold conversations unlike some other people in this room- I won’t name names.”

“If you screw me over, I will make sure you’re living in perilous fear for your entire life after I cut your dick off.”

But Zolt laughed. “There’s that dirty talk I like, baby!”

“I’m not kidding,” she snarled.

“Fine, fine. You can trust me, really. I won’t do you that way,”

Lin nodded with relief.

“And you hold up your end of the bargain?” he confirmed, “My identity remains protected. You are not to reveal your sources.”

“Of course, not. I still need my officers to respect me.”

Once he left for the bar downstairs to meet his new friend in the making, Lin sat at the foot of the bed, head in her hands. It was surreal seeing Zolt after all these years in this hotel. Even though the rooms had been renovated since the last time they were here, the memories from then were clear as day. The two of them could spend days and nights together in their room, only leaving it for food if they could help it. They were inseparable when together, but when their baggage and legacies were put between them, it was easier to part ways.

Cards on the table, Zolt always made her happy. Somehow, he managed to properly love her without ever telling her he loved her. She wondered how lucky she was- whether people realized how rare, how unique, and special feeling this way was. How easily feeling loved trumped hearing flat ‘I Love Yous’.

Lin always told herself that she could never be with Zolt because he went against everything she stood for. And suddenly, ever since they started working on taking the Rising Flames down, ever since he gave up on his unlawful ways- Lin was finding it harder and harder to rationalize why she couldn’t just choose to be happy. She knew if she just said the word- he’d come running to her.

Lin had a choice to make. It was a very easy one.

Five and a half uneven knocks on the door meant it was Zolt. They used this back in the day when they were sneaking around. It was the middle of the night by now and Lin had inadvertently dozed off on the bed.

Back in the day, Zolt would’ve betrayed her and tipped Xiaolan off- or maybe he wouldn’t, but he was sure capable of it.

This man in front of her was the same, sexy man she knew all those years ago but now he had this new blood of morality flowing through his veins.

“Here’s everything. He admitted to so much more than what you were suspecting, Lin! Not to spoil your process, but this is going bring the Red Monsoon down too!”

“That’s great news. Does he suspect anything?”

“Not one thing!” Zolt said, laughing. “In fact, he was the one who came to me to ask what I was drinking.” He placed the recorder on the dresser by the bathroom and made his way over to Lin. She was wearing the fuzzy green robe that came with the room and nothing else underneath it. He couldn’t decide if this was intentional, or just that she simply didn’t change after her shower.

“That’s great news,”

“You already said that,” he chortled as she walked over to him.

“I know,” she said, smirking. She placed her arms over his shoulders and leaned towards his body.

“Chief, are you rewarding me with sex for assisting you on a case?”

He was grinning so widely; the lines of his smiles must’ve been eclipsing his eyes. His hands gingerly roamed around her back and then down to cup her ass. His mouth got to her neck- he licked the skin slowly and then closed his lips to nip it. Lin threaded her fingers through his hair and lightly yanked on a chunk, inciting a moan out of him. His hands were still on her ass, when his mouth moved to her lips. “I’ve been dying to kiss you,” he whispered.

“Then kiss me.”

He pulled her closer by her behind and kissed her lips fully. The longing from their love lost was oozing with every beat- it was an epic war of affection with no losers.

“To the bed?” she asked, moving away.

“Aren’t you glad we’re sharing?”

Lin felt herself slam into the cushion as Zolt got on top of her. They were undressed within seconds. His lips immediately encircled her nipple, and she wroth upwards in response. Lin’s hands were back in his hair as his mouth slowly travelled down her body. He kissed her with purpose when his lips met her center.

Minutes later, she came, screaming into glory. He had missed that snap in her voice so much.

He clambered back up to kiss her mouth while his hand slid back down to penetrate her with two fingers.

“You taste so good, you know that?”

Lin chuckled, pecking his lips softly. “You’ve made that pretty clear.”

“Good thing I got us a room with just one bed, right?”

“Actually, it’d be nice if we had two queen size beds. I would've blown you on the other one,” she said with a wink.

#lin beifong #chief beifong #linzolt #lightning bolt zolt

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mikaelsrose · 2 years

Text

part two: the lights of new york

Pairing: Tyril x m!OC (Jude St. Clair)

Book: Blades of Light and Shadow; modern au!

Word count: 4600

Rating: T

Warnings: cursing, mention of alcohol, mention of drugs

Category: short-series, modern au

A/n: here's an insight into Jude's life, you're free to hate me for what I did

Tag list: @cashweasel @starlight-starfury @lilyoffandoms @lazypartridge @watatsumi-island @sophie-summer @brycesgirl @choicesficwriterscreations

pinterest boards: Tyril | Jude | Tyril x Jude

playlist: there's a change! »here's« a new one for those who're interested

Tuesday

afterhours.

Numb, exhausted, and terribly cold, Jude sat sprawled on a particularly uncomfortable red leather couch with his eyes glued to the massive neon sign with the club’s name. afterhours. Accurate, he thought. It used to be his favourite spot in Manhattan whenever he visited the States as a teenager. Always surrounded by a group of attention seeking leechers, people vying for his attention, buying him drinks, offering drugs, or even themselves. Unfortunately, this was Jude's reputation—opiate enthusiast, ladykiller, family's black sheep. The name St. Clair meant influence. It was enough to be photographed next to him once, and one could be catapulted into stardom, fleeting but enough for a start of a career.

Jude closed his eyes for a few seconds, feeling the familiar burning sensation and tears forming under his eyelids.

Woozy, overstimulated, drunk, on drugs. Pathetic. Someone offered to change location, saying it’s well past midnight. He felt a nudge on his arm but waved them off, and soon he was left alone in their lounge, with a dirty table full of empty glasses and white powder remains. He stared at his phone for a long time before finding the strength to pick it up and search for the right number.

Drugs didn’t give him the desired effect any more, at least not to the desired degree. Jude yawned and allowed the tears to roll down his cheeks, hoping they would ease the burning sensation.

“Please, pick me up,” Jude cried into the phone ten minutes later,

That night, after eighteen months under strong encouragement of his company, his strong will broke, and he joined his posse in what they liked to call “happy-pill-sharing,” and then continued to fill his stomach with rum based cocktails. By the time he called James, he was barely conscious.

Wednesday

The perks of being born into a family of multimillionaires include: being spoiled rotten, having the access to the best of everything, and, as in Julian St. Clair’s case, unlimited access to high quality drugs. Growing up, he had everything his little heart desired as well as the best schools, tutors, and healthcare. Léa St. Clair, Jude’s mother, despite having spent hundreds of hours on reading parenting books, made a cardinal mistake in raising her long-awaited, prayed for child—she treated him as her best friend rather than a son. Having failed with her first two sons, she was desperate to have at least one worthy heir to the family’s legacy, but as it turned out, the young St. Clair had always been somewhat rebellious, always pushing the limits of the law and people’s patience with him. The moment Léa realized her mistake, Jude was already fifteen, and she just ended the call with the school principal, who claimed her son was found on the school property while partaking in sexual activities with another student. Forty minutes later, her heart sank even deeper when she learned the student was Vena Starfury’s son. She remembered vividly the poorly hidden smirk of the principal when he said Julian was under the influence of drugs—he knew the school budget was about to be very generously aided.

That evening, Léa raised a hand at her son for the first time, giving vent to her emotions; it was an event that Jude will forever wear painted on his face as his mother’s expensive rings left a scar on his cheekbone. Later that afternoon along with her husband, Léa announced that Julian will transfer to London where his rather strict and conservative aunt, Léa’s sister, would take care of him. She pinned her hopes in Elisabeth to smarten up her son. However, it soon emerged that Julian was on a slippery slope and way too far to be helped in ways that didn’t involve incapacitation.

James sighed heavily before splashing his tired face with cold water. Looking at himself in the mirror, he thought how little has changed since Jude and him were in high school and most of their nights looked exactly like this—Jude mixing drugs with alcohol, drowning his emotions in vodka, fooling around with that Starfury guy, and him helping him sneak back into the fortress of a home or letting him crash on his sofa. Almost unwillingly, his hand opened the cabinet above the sink, his eyes following his own reflection in the mirror, trying to delay the moment of looking inside. Dicodid, Vicodin, Exalgo, Percodan. James scanned the etiquettes, cursing in his mind. The exact same starter pack as the one they used back in the days when they would go clubbing almost every night in London.

“What the fuck are you doing with your life, Jules?”

Having closed the cabinet, he looked at his reflection in the mirror, wondering whether it’s loathing or pity he felt for himself. Whichever one of those options it was, he also felt compassion for his friend. James understood how difficult it was to get out of addiction, at least the one that started as a way to relax and become a member of London’s elite clubbing “boy club.” The requirements were rather simple: be rich, attend Cambridge, be ready to party hard. Now that he thought of it he felt resentment, but back in the day, being accepted into the group was Julian and his most important task. That’s where Jude gained his popularity, being labelled as the “pretty, sad boy” - a title that was not too far from the truth. Unlike James, Julian fell into the trap of addiction easily, since he was used to taking abnormal amounts of pain relievers since he was sixteen.

James was known as the one responsible for the break-up of the group after a year of joining - praised by many for that decision but critiqued by even more. He was able to quit drugs easily, but as it soon turned out, Julian needed the intervention of professionals.

He shook his head. It was definitely loathing.

“We need to have you up and running by the evening, Jules, so please try to get your shit together.”

Jude looked about the spacious venue, smiling to himself at the overwhelming amounts of white marble, long, white candles, and his family’s favourite Juliet Roses crowded in multiple massive, ceramic planters. His mother certainly knew how to project an image of an elegant, influential, wealthy family.

His gaze focused on the familiar piano player until his mother blocked the view.

“Julian, I need you to behave tonight, this is an important event.”

He sighed heavily. “I’m a big boy, mom.”

“You tend to forget that,” she concluded curtly, and straightened his tie. “Find Adira, socialize with her. It’s good press.”

Jude rolled his eyes in response but agreed reluctantly. Soon, his brothers joined him.

“How do you like the set-up, Jay?”

James wrapped an arm around his neck and reached for a champagne flute carried by a passing-by waitress.

“I love our family reunions, there's always so much drama,” Jude chattered, swirling his wine glass, jaded.

"You are the cause of all the drama," Pierre rolled his eyes.

James snickered. "Attention-whore."

"Please don't mess it up at least once? It's important for dad," the oldest St. Clair continued, staring his brother down. Jude shrugged.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever. It's not like I was going to make out with Adira on the dance floor or something."

"Don't complain, Jules,” James chipped in. “You can say what you want about mom, but she has your type down pat—tall, skinny, rich, and pretty fucking annoying," he teased.

"Only if she had a dick."

Pierre groaned. "Oh my god, just shut. You," Pierre pointed at James. "No stupid, suggestive comments, and you," his finger slid towards Jude. "Just don't be yourself. Sit still and look pretty."

"Aye."

“And grow the fuck up, it’s high time.”

After spending about half an hour with Pierre and James, Jude went on the prowl for his mother’s choice of a perfect daughter-in-law, that is Jude’s wife. It didn’t matter much that he refused ten years ago to form any kind of relationship with Adira, and he didn’t change his mind, Léa invited her to all important events just so the two of them would be seen in one room. Adira was something of a damage control after all of Julian’s excesses.

"I was a good boy all night, mom!"

"Julian, stop this tomfoolery. Grandma Eloise said that the injury reared its head."

"The pain is never gone. It just so happens to increase in intensity when I'm in this house," he shrugged nonchalantly. "Must be a trauma response after kicking me out or something."

Léa clenched her fists. "I don't need the press to focus on your foolish injury, Julian," she said curtly and handed him a key. "You know where to go. Don't make us look bad."

For a short second, he looked into his mother's cold eyes, desperately searching for the crumbs of motherly affection and care, yet was met with icy indifference. Don't make us look bad. He smiled contemptuously. That's not what she'd say to his brothers, no. Pierre and James heard, “I'm proud of you.” Sometimes “Make us proud.” Julian watched his mother's lean back disappear behind the mahogany door, and he cursed. You know where.

It was almost 11. He rubbed his tired eyes and fighting the urge to stay there and go to sleep, Jude got up, feeling woozy and slightly unsteady on his feet, and made his way back to the party. Appearing, seemingly, out of the blue, Pierre nudged his shoulder.

"The hell've you been?"

Jude looked at his tipsy oldest brother, and smiled. "Cig break," he nodded towards their father, who was revising his speech hastily. "Nils’ looking dapper as fuck, you think he's gonna announce his retirement?"

"I don't think he'd need that many cameras for that. It's something bigger."

James cursed under his breath, seeing the state his brothers were in. He took a place next to them by one of the few tables where there was any food left and helped himself to one of the last Gruyère and Crab palmiers. "This party is going fantastically. Dad's side chick is one of the guests, mother is murdering him with her stare, Pierre's tipsy and Jules' high. A strong family with values."

Julian ignored his remark. "What's the big announcement, smart ass?"

“No clue. I’m surprised he actually didn’t tell us.”

Jude rubbed his burning eyelids and crossed his arms on his chest, watching his father stoically deliver his well-rehearsed speech. He had trouble focusing on his words, though, having suddenly felt a bit nauseous.

He reached for the last full champagne flute.

"Our company has been very vocal about starting the research on that matter and finding the ultimate cure; however, that journey proved not only difficult but also incredibly expensive. We considered putting the research on hold, but old friends and business partners offered to aid us in this noble cause. One of the main sponsors will be Valir and Vena Starfury…"

Jude choked on the champagne he'd been drinking, causing several heads to turn in his direction. He turned around, coughing as silently as possible, dying inside, while James and Pierre covering him with their bodies.

"Jules, you’re causing drama."

Taking several feel breaths and wiping the tears off his cheeks, he finally retook his place, facing his father, who was thanking the family’s “old friends and generous benefactors.”

"What a circus," James sighed. "Are we really so broke we have to partner with them?"

"It's good PR," Pierre hid his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “I suppose.”

“How does it feel to see your nemeses again?”

Jude shrugged, watching Tyril’s parents intently. Vena still looked like a ghost, wearing a red, long, elegant dress, her thin arms wrapped around her husband’s. “I was at their party last week.”

“And you’re still in one piece?”

“I’m afraid Tyril isn’t, he hasn’t returned any of my calls since then.”

James eyed Vena inquiringly. “She does look like she’s grieving.”

“That’s just her face,” Pierre mumbled and took a seat, the exhaustion and alcohol finally catching up with his mind. “Let’s just hope this announcement means the party’s ending.”

Nils rubbed his tired eyes, thankful that the party had come to an end. Social events were his wife’s forte, he was more than happy to be an arm candy.

He eyed his youngest son up. "It's mutually beneficial. No stupid shenanigans," he pointed a finger at him.

"Too late for that," Jude smirked to himself, before he thought of what he'd just said.

"Julian, God as my witness, I will disown you if you're involved with that boy again."

He rolled his eyes theatrically, hoping nobody could sense his fear. "I meant Adira, chill, dad. We were making out on the terrace and a reporter caught us when we were about to—"

"Spare me the details," he cut him off curtly. "I warn you, Julian."

"Fine, I promise not to suck off the one that shall not be named in this house's dick, daddy. You might wanna take up with mom the drug distribution, though," he put the key on the table. "The disappointment is leaving the premises, see you when you need good press," he said with tongue in cheek. With his back towards his family, he sent them a peace sign before the door closed. He sighed with relief.

Thursday

The longed-for six in the afternoon approached and the sea of sweaty students flooded out of the field into the locker room, loudly discussing their plans for the weekend, making plans to hang out, talking about the English test. As always, Tyril sat down on the bench, waiting patiently for everyone else to leave, so he can take a quick shower and go home. The room emptied after more or less twenty minutes, therefore, he hung the towel over his shoulder and reached for the bag with toiletries when he heard shuffling.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Tyril's brows furrowed upon hearing the stream of swear words and despite his initial instinct to leave and not get caught up in other people's business, his legs were already leading him towards the last row of brand-new red, metal lockers. Seconds later, his eyes came across a tall, lean kid, clutching his right hand.

His mouth produced a sentence before he could stop himself. "Do you need help?"

Startled, the boy staggered back, hitting the locker's door with his elbow, which resulted in another wave of curses hitting Tyril's ears. Only then, he noticed blood dripping from the hand his companion was clutching.

"Get lost and don't even think of calling anyone," the blonde responded, wrapping the hand in the white shirt he took off his back. Not convincing enough to make Tyril leave, though.

"You've left a trail of blood in your way, I don't need to tell anyone for them to notice."

“Shit,” the stranger concluded, realizing Tyril was right. He ruffled his already messy hair with the healthy hand and sighed loudly, trying to come up with a plan of how to get home without making any more mess and avoiding getting unwanted help. His eyes landed on Tyril, who stood astride with his hands crossed on his chest. “It’s fine, go back to what you were doing.”

“What did you even do?”

“Let it go.”

“Would you let it go if someone needed help?”

The boy gave Tyril an angry look. Making sure the stranger wouldn't run away, Tyril excused himself for a moment—in the meantime, Julian stepped back into the shower room and began cleaning up the mess hastily, not paying attention to the damage he was making. In a twisted, way the glass shards cutting through his skin felt almost pleasant, deserved, a feeling that was an old friend returning after a long separation. He threw the shards into the nearest bin and ripped several paper towels to wipe the blood off the white tiles when he heard a voice behind himself.

"I brought alcohol wipes and a bandage if you're still interested," Tyril said mockingly and immediately bit his tongue.

"I'm Julian, by the way," the blonde spoke up. Tyril opened his mouth to introduce himself, but Julian intercepted him. "You're the Starfury kid, I know you. Your folks funded the library."

Slightly embarrassed and suddenly shy, Tyril didn’t look up from the cut. A few drops of blood fell onto his trousers.

“Shit, sorry,” Julian mumbled. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

“No need. There, it should be fine until you get home,” Tyril responded, having tied up the bandage and looked up at his companion, only now realizing how scrutinisingly he’d been watched all this time.

"Thanks, nurse. I guess you’re not as much of a stuck-up dick as they say.”

“Great, just what we needed,” James mumbled, seeing a tall figure enter the spacious living room. The man quickly made his way towards the open terrace door, wondering who was Jude’s guest. The second he stepped outside, he sneered.

“I’ve been calling you all week,” Tyril addressed his half-naked boyfriend who, pretending not to hear, continued to smoke his cigarette, watching the New York’s skyline. “Jude.”

“He’s completely fucked up—"

"I can see that, but what, pray tell, are you doing here?"

"Playing your boyfriend's sitter again while the two of you keep sneaking around to fuck in the closet. Where the hell've you been all week?"

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Tyril let out a tired sigh. James was one of his least-favourite people in the world. "Stop acting like you're doing me a favour, James, because we both know you're here only to make yourself feel better."

"Yet I'm still here while you've been cosying up to your ex fiancée— or was it that stray you fucked in seven different states?"

"What the fuck is your problem, James?"

"I'm tired of fixing him once you're done playing his boyfriend! Look at him! Are you proud of what you're doing to him? Take a good look, Ty, ‘cause I don't think the last time taught you anything."

"Just shut the fuck up, both of you," Jude scolded them, rubbing his eyes and finally turning around to face the fighting men. "Just shut up. I’m fine."

Having put out his cigarette, he approached Tyril and placed a short kiss on his lips, then made his way towards the kitchen.

James shook his head. "You two bring out the worst in each other."

“Weren't you the one who partied with him for years?”

“I was also the one who took him to rehab, dickhead.”

“How noble of you to fix what you’ve broken.”

“Oh, piss off. Since you’re here, I’m heading home.”

“You’re high,” Tyril stated as he looked into his boyfriend’s dilated pupils. Jude’s eyes fogged for yet another time that night, and he had to avert his gaze. “Why?”

Jude shrugged. “Rough week, I guess?”

“Julian, don’t play dumb.”

“Then don't ask stupid questions.”

Tyril’s jaw tightened. “Alright, I have a better question—what happened back then in the locker room? What the hell did you do?”

“Oh fucking—, you just won’t drop it, will you?” Jude laughed, desperately, while his fingers tugged at the ends of his ruffled hair. Tyril noticed how his body trembled and wondered whether it’s caused by the drugs or the emotions. “I smashed the mirror with my hand! Does that answer satisfy you?! I got into an argument with my mother over the phone, and she pissed me off to such a degree,” his voice echoed within the empty halls. “I ruptured a nerve. It was sawn back together, but the damage was done,” he added quietly after a moment of silence. “The nerve is damaged, irreparable, and that shit hurts, Ty. Becoming addicted to opioids is a matter of time.”

Jude sprawled on the sofa, having suddenly felt dizzy and overwhelmed by the emotions. Tyril observed him, recollecting the memory of that day.

“Wouldn’t rupturing a nerve hurt much more?”

Praying in his mind that Jude won’t take that question as offence, Tyril slumped against the nearest wall with his back. It was too late for an argument, and Jude was already exasperated enough.

“Yeah, well, I made sure shit’ll stain when you left.”

“Can I see?”

Silence. Jude watched him for a while, silently, and Tyril was about to apologize for asking when his boyfriend agreed. When he took Julian’s arm in his hands, the first thing he noticed was a vertical scar, straight and pale, about ten centimetres long with barely perceptible tiny dots on each side. “It’s impossible not to notice, so how the hell did I manage to do that?”

“To be fair, I do a decent job in hiding it.”

Stupid. Tyril felt like an idiot, and, to crown it all, a selfish one. He really did only care about himself and noticed only what he wanted to.

Focusing his gaze on the open balcony door which let in the chilly wind, he desperately leafed through his memory, trying to find at least one connected to that incident which he might have ignored, but to no avail.

“Does your hand always twitch like this?”

“Yes, but usually not as hard.”

“Is that why you got addicted in the first place?”

Jude nodded. They sat in silence for a while, slightly shivering, Jude from the drugs, Tyril from the cold, pondering over what just happened. Tyril felt guilty. Maybe if he had found the time to see him, this wouldn't happen. Maybe if they hadn’t met, Jude’s life would be much better. Jude wondered if he did the right thing by telling Tyril the truth, knowing that he’d feel guilty, but he quickly cast that thought aside when he felt a wave of exhaustion wash all over him.

“I won’t go back into rehab, Ty,” he mumbled indistinctly. Tyril watched him until he fell asleep on the sofa and covered him with a blanket.

Despite the exhaustion, Tyril did not get a wink of sleep that night, too anxious that his boyfriend would choke on his own vomit. Feeling helpless, he called the only person who could actually help. Adeline appeared at Jude’s doorstep minutes before six in the morning with two paper shopping bags filled to the brim.

"You have one hell of a nerve to ask for my help.”

"Why are you here, then?"

"I still have some respect left for Julian," she said, looking at his half-naked, unconscious body. "Unlike himself."

"Did you buy—"

"Of course I did, drop the stupid questions," she grunted, and made her way to the kitchen where she began unpacking the bags. "Take him to bed, we'll start tomorrow. He’ll probably wake up by the evening, make sure he eats, drinks a lot of water, and does not go to another party."

Tyril nodded, watching her gracious movements for a few more seconds before taking his boyfriends body into his arms and making his way towards the bedroom. Once his pale body was tucked in, Tyril pressed his lips to Jude’s temple.

"Stay," Jude mumbled, faintly catching his boyfriend's hand. Tyril crouched next to the bed and placed a kiss on his hand, waiting for him to fall back asleep.

"Why did you let him fall back like that, moron?" Adeline punched her exfiancé’s arm once he got close enough. She was furious. "How could you let that happen, knowing that we have done this before and that he was in rehab?!"

"Adeline, I'm not his guardian! We couldn't meet this week and—"

"Always excuses. You're never guilty."

"That's not true and you know that. During our relationship, I always took the blame."

"Not always, just when you were wrong, which happened most of the time," she mocked and resumed putting the groceries away. "You don't deserve good people in your life. It's truly a mystery to me how you get them. You destroy everyone."

He clenched his fists. "What do you mean?"

Adeline eyed him for a while in silence. Her action was disturbed by the fridge reminder to close the door. "Julian never hid that what pushed him towards his infamous drug-spree and joining that stupid club in London was your breakup. You cut him off, even though you had every possibility to keep in touch. Then, after many years of relationship, you basically left me at the altar to run away with a random whore. And what about her? Why aren't you with her, since she was so important to you? Did you manage to destroy her as well in a week?"

He crossed his arms, his eyes dropping to the floor. "Selene was already destroyed."

"And you left her."

"No, she left me "

"Serves you right."

"God, can you stop already? I get it, I hurt you, and I'm sorry—"

"That's the thing, Tyril,” she cut him off. “You think you're sorry, but you don't understand how it works. You're sorry about the consequences of your actions, not about the actions themselves. You keep making the same mistakes, hurting people in the exact same way, and you're offended they take that damn offence!"

“Adeline, I don’t want to fight,” he sighed, tiredly.

“Good, you’re in no position to argue with what I’ve just said. I’m not interested in your excuses.”

Friday

Back to the old ways? St. Clair & entourage cruising NY’s nightclubs

St. Clair: loved-up and simper in Manhattan’s Fleur Room

Adeline sighed, reading the headlines of two of the most popular gossip magazines. Jude, very much unlike Tyril, enjoyed his status of a celebrity. It was an easy way of getting whatever and wherever he wanted, especially when drugs were involved. Interviews, photoshoots, and his blossoming music career, kept him entertained. This was the exact reason for the first rumours.

Someone noticed that where Jude was, Tyril was as well. Tyril accompanied his boyfriend to photoshoots, to interviews, to parties. When asked about it, he’d just laugh it off but never denied, which only fuelled the rumours.

Adeline put his phone away and smiled at Jude, who’d just woken up and took a seat next to him on the bar stool.

"How are we feeling today, Julian?"

"Weak as a baby, and I'm certain my head will explode any minute, thanks for asking! How are you?"

"No vomiting?"

"Not now—I’ve prayed to the porcelain god all night."

Adeline's brows slightly furrowed. "Where's Tyril?"

"Making up for lost sleep. He stayed up all night with me, probably making sure I didn't choke on my own puke and die and end this circus and—"

"Stop talking," she cut him off, demandingly, and placed a glass of water and a handful of vitamins and supplements next to his face. "Tyril and I wouldn't be here if we didn't care about you. We're here to help you get better, but if you stop cooperating, I will drag you to the nearest rehab by your hair."

"Okay, fine! Take it easy, girl."

He swallowed the pills obediently, winking at Adeline, trying to defuse the tension hanging in the air. They both knew the worst was still before them. They’ve been there before. They knew the messy part was yet to come.

In the meantime, though, they smiled at each other softly. “Thanks for helping, Addy.”

#yeah its been a while....#tyril starfury #tyril x oc #tyril x jude #oc: jude st clair #choices tyril #blades of light and shadow #choices blades #choices bolas #choices stories you play #cfwc fics of the week #cfwc #its late so im not proofreading anymore enjoy my typos<3

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inquisimer · 8 months

Text

softness did not serve me

A short piece for @febuwhump day 5, obedience. At Beraht's request, Nika puts the fear of the Carta into a new recruit.

read it on ao3 here

Female Brosca & Beraht | Rated T | 442 words | CW: torture, blood, child abuse, indoctrination

She was sharing a drink with Leske when the summons came. Beraht wanted to see her—not both of them, just her.

They both knew what that meant.

“Bet it’s that new kid,” Nika said. Kid, as if she’d passed more than fourteen cycles beneath the Stone herself. “She’s a little too vocal about Beraht’s style.”

She downed the last of her ale and headed out. Once, she might have made her boss wait; all the scars on her skin showed how he carved the inclination out of her. Now it was someone else’s turn to learn the same lesson.

When she arrived, Beraht pointed her toward the back room. A number of blades and whips and irons were already laid out on the table.

“You’re familiar with smart mouths,” he told her. “Shut hers up.”

The child tied up in the room was the new girl. Nika didn’t know her name. Such things weren’t important down here, not until you’d proven swift and cunning and clever enough to stay alive. She picked up a small dagger, the weight and grip of it familiar in her palm.

“Please,” the girl whimpered. She scooted back along the hard dirt floor, trying to get away as Nika approached. “Please, I won’t do it again.”

“Of course you won’t,” Nika smiled pleasantly, tapping the tip of her blade against the girl’s cheek. “We’re going to make sure of it.”

The girl cried out as Nika slashed the blade down, swift and clean. A thin line of red blossomed against her skin.

“Please,” she begged again. “Please you could just let me go. I’ll—I’ll tell them anything you want, I’ll say you did anything so you won’t get in trouble, please—“

Her face fell at Nika’s laugh.

“Oh, salroka,” she said, drawing out another whimper as she sliced through the other cheek. “There’s just no reason for me to help you.”

Slash, slice, slash.

The child whined and hissed and moaned, but her begging fell on deaf ears. It was really a favor, Nika mused, swapping the dagger for an iron she’d rested in the coals. The menacing, white-hot glow gleamed against the girl’s pupils, blown wide by fear.

Try to teach someone to survive in Dust Town and they’d be dead before any of the lessons took. But they all spoke the language of pain—she might hate Nika now, but she would survive later because of it.

Much like Nika had survived. Harder, colder, meaner—but alive. Wasn’t that all Rica had wanted for her?

“Please,” the girl whimpered. Nika shook her head.

“It’s the only way.”

#my writing #febuwhump 2024 #febuwhumpday4 #oc: nika brosca #dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age fanfic #torture #blood #indoctrination #child abuse

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theotherackerman · 11 months

Text

Totally Pucked

Summary:

HOCKEY AU

Mikasa Ackerman hates her annoying neighbor, Eren Jaeger. He is loud, he is annoying, and worst of all, he doesn't remember her from their childhood. But that's fine, she has enough things to deal with like why the real reason she quit dance and her cousin/adopted brother's return to hockey as Eren's coach.

Eren Jaeger knows exactly who lives across the hall from him, even if she doesn't. It doesn't matter though. It would be breaking one of his rules to hook up with her anyway. So he continues to shove her away.

But as fate would have it, these two keep getting thrown together, whether they like it or not.

RATING: MATURE

Ships: Eren/Mikasa, Armin/Annie, Levi/Hange, Gabi/Falco, Jean/Pieck

NOTES: I have no idea what this is. Do not ask me. I've read too many hockey romance novels and this the result. We're going to pretend that Marley and Paradis are somewhere in the midwest of America (because that's what I'm from). Everything I know about hockey is from google and romance books so sorry if anything is wrong.

CHAPTER ONE: And they were neighbors

“And breathe in. 1-2-3. Then release.”

Mikasa listened to her guide meditation.

Then the banging on the wall started.

Ignore it, she told herself.

“Another deep breath.”

“YES!” A woman in her neighbor’s apartment cried.

Mikasa tried to ignore it.

She tried.

It was seven am in the morning. Didn’t he have practice tonight?

And could the Reiss family not afford to make these walls a little thicker?

Mikasa pinched the bridge of her nose.

She was acting like Levi.

Historia had told her about this place, promising a good price since her father owned the building.

What Historia had left out was the jackass who lived across the hall.

Eren fucking Jaeger.

He was loud.

He was obnoxious.

Mikasa had known him previously. They had gone to school together before he moved. He had been her first kiss and her very best friend.

But that was all forgotten. It was almost eighteen years ago. She didn’t expect him to remember. In fact, they didn’t say much to one another. Even though she wanted to tell him that the walls were thin and the women he brought home were far too loud. She wanted to tell him that if she got woken up by his parties one more time when she had dance rehearsal in the morning, she was going to dump sugar in his gas tank.

But she couldn’t do any of that.

Why?

Because Eren Jaeger was the Center and star player of the Shiganshina Scouts who Levi was currently coaching. That meant Levi would somehow get involved, the last thing that Mikasa wanted.

She wanted to do everything on her own.

Besides, she had caused enough problems for Levi lately.

She could have told Historia but Historia was already trying to cover Mikasa’s ass from what had happened to cause her to completely quit dancing.

No one knew why the principal dancer of the Karifa Dance Theatre, the most popular dance theatre in the midwest, would just up and quit. Why would Mikasa also stop teaching classes and then just disappear off the face of the planet?

“And breathe in,” the voice said again.

But it was the moans from next door that caught Mikasa’s attention.

This was it.

She was done with it. Walking over to the wall, Mikasa pounded on it as loud as she possibly could.

In response, the woman next door only got louder.

“Fucking Jaeger,” Mikasa muttered under her breath.

Swapping over to her playlist on spotify, Pierce the Veil filled the apartment, drowning out the noise from next door.

—-------------

Eren had only a few rules for hooking up.

Never give them your phone number. They’ll sell that on the internet.

No photos.

No repeats.

Absolutely under no circumstances hook up with anyone related to the team.

Always use protection and make sure they don’t know where you throw it away.

Those rules were simple and how he successfully handled his shit.

He had a legacy to live up to after all.

Eren Jaeger.

Son of hockey legend Grisha Jaeger and brother to hockey legend Zeke Jaeger.

The Jaeger Dynasty is what they called it. It didn’t hurt that his half brother played for their biggest rivals. It was always a bloodbath when they played against each other. Now with Levi coaching, it would be worse. Zeke and Levi also had a rivalry. They had played for opposing teams in college. Levi was a monster on the ice,a legend. Levi Ackerman was an idol of Eren’s, much to Zeke’s chagrin. When it was reported that Levi was in a car accident and it wasn’t looking good, Eren had cried.

But now after years of physical therapy, Levi was returning the ice.

As a coach, his coach.

As soon as Levi was announced as their new coach taking over for Dot Pixis, Eren threw up.

“You fucks better skate better,” Levi told them.

He didn’t yell.

He didn’t scream.

He just gave them this look that terrified the shit out of everyone.

“What kind of pass was that, Kirstein? I’ve lost two fingers and can do better than that! My cousin would out play all of you!” Levi called the forward.

Jean grunted as he skated away.

Levi’s cousin was Mikasa Ackerman, Eren’s first kiss and the woman across the hall.

She was also now off limits.

So Eren found other women to occupy his time.

Because rule number four said that you don’t hook up with anyone related to the team.

The blonde he had in his room was pretty nice this morning. Her name was Sharon or maybe it was Shelly.

Fuck.

He didn’t remember.

There was a different blonde waiting for him, leaning up against his suv after practice.

“Oh no,” Eren groaned upon seeing Historia.

“Oh no is right. Do you know you’re a PR nightmare right now?” Historia didn’t look up from her phone as she continued to scroll. “Hockey Star Eren Jaeger was seen smoking weed and leaving with a random blonde last night. The Bad Boy is leaving a trail of hearts behind him. Bad Boy Eren Jaeger dukes it out with football player Boris Feulner in a club in downtown Shiganshina club.”

“Okay, I get it. You didn’t have to take me on as a client,” Eren muttered under his breath.

“Oh no, I did. Because your brother is my cousin which makes you family. You know I do PR for other people as well? Not just you. And you are a pain in my ass right now. I have other clients who need my help more than you.”

“Then go bother them,” Eren unlocked his suv.

“No, because you are an actual problem. Look, chill out. Find a girlfriend. Find a PR girlfriend for all I care or become a monk! The season will be starting soon, then no one will care about you. It’ll all be about the team,” Historia commanded. “And stop being mean to Mikasa.”

“Oh so that’s what this really is about,” Eren scoffed.

“No, it’s not. She doesn’t even mention your existence to me. I just know you’re an asshole who likes to be loud and play his music far too loud. She’s my friend, afterall.”

“I’m nice to her,” Eren muttered as he opened the door and threw his bag into the backseat.

Historia raised an eyebrow, “whatever. Just…go. And stop making life hard for me!”

—---------

“Well Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a hell of a game tonight. Zeke Jaeger vs Eren Jaeger. It’s also the first game of Coach Levi Ackerman taking over the Shingashina Scouts! Can you believe it? Just a few years ago, it was a showdown of rivals Zeke and Levi. Now Zeke is facing Levi as a coach!”

“That’s right, Shadis! In case you didn’t know, the commentators for tonight are me, Theo Magath and my co host, Keith Shadis. We’re coming to you live from Maria Coliseum in Shingashina! Tonight's matchup is the Marley Warriors vs the Shingashina Scouts. Let me tell you, it’s going to be a bloodbath out there. There’s so many rivaliers at play here. Not to mention two brothers facing off, the youngest coach of the Shingashina Scouts ever. History is going to be made tonight.”

“Have you seen the celebs showing up for this tonight? Of course, we have hockey legend Grisha Jaeger here along with his wife, Carla Jaeger. Looks like Grisha is wearing a Scouts jersey and his wife is wearing Warriors,” Shadis said.

“That’s so interesting to me. Carla isn’t even Zeke’s biological mom. Though from what I’ve heard, the woman has been a huge supporter of Zeke since he lost his mom,” Magath announced.

“That she has. We also have model Frieda Reiss here. She’s Zeke’s cousin and rumored to be dating someone on the Warriors yet she’s wearing a Scouts jersey to support her own team.”

“Those are just rumors. Frieda and the Reiss family have been huge Scout fans. Not to mention a sponsor.”

“That they have.”

“The most surprising face in the crowd tonight is Mikasa Ackerman!”

“That’s not surprising to me, Magath. Mikasa was instrumental to Levi’s recovery from that nasty car accident. It’s Levi’s return. It’s his first game since the accident. There is absolutely nothing that would stop her from being her. He is, afterall, her adopted brother. There’s only four years between the two of them. Not to mention, she used to play hockey after all. Many were confused when she didn’t go on to play in college. I’ve seen videos of her skating and I have to say, I think the girl may still have it.”

“Can you imagine if Levi was still playing and he and Mikasa were on the same team?”

“The Warriors would have zero chance then.”

—--

“WOO!! That’s right!” Sasha yelled in the box as the Scouts scored a goal.

Mikasa shook her head as she took a drink of her beer. “You have far too much fun at these,” Mikasa laughed.

“Only because Jean and Connie are out there. Do you miss the ice?” Sasha asked as she sat down next to Mikasa.

“Not really, especially living across the hall from Eren,” Mikasa rolled her eyes.

It was lucky that it was just the two of them in the suite. Hange would have been there but they had another lecture to give. Mikasa didn’t know what the status of that relationship was. She didn’t want to. There was an unspoken rule that neither Levi nor Mikasa talked about their sex lives or relationships. In fact, they both liked to pretend that neither of them had sex even if they had walked in on one another. It was bound to happen when they shared a townhouse once Mikasa had entered college.

Now that they were 27 and 31, respectfully, they still pretended.

“GOAL! From Kirstein!” Shadis announced and Mikasa was pulled from her thoughts.

“YEAH! THAT’S MY BOY!” Sasha yelled.

Mikasa took a drink as she shook her head. Some people thought Sasha was hooking up with Jean or Connie. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The three of them had been friends since high school.

Mikasa had one rule about her hookups: no hockey players. Though there hadn’t been many. There had been one guy in college that Mikasa didn’t like to remember and a few one night stands she’d rather not remember since then.

Mikasa sighed, not really paying attention to the game. It was a bad idea coming here. It brought up so many memories.

Everyone wanted to know why she quit and moved back here.

Everyone could go fuck themselves.

It was none of their business.

The game continued on with Mikasa not really paying attention until the end.

It ended with the Scouts winning.

At least Levi would be in a good mood when she saw him.

—-------------------

KNOCK!

Levi looked up from his desk to see his cousin leaning the doorway.

“Great game,” Mikasa smiled.

“That goal should have never gotten through,” Levi muttered as he stood from his chair.

“Yeah, yeah. Springer should have gotten it away from one of the Galliards but it happens.”

“If you would have been out, they wouldn’t have gotten close to the goal at all.”

“They don’t allow women in men’s hockey, you know,” Mikasa rolled her eyes.

“The league should reconsider that,” Levi remarked.

Mikasa shook her head.

“How has it been?” Levi asked as he walked towards her.

“I’m not…it got rough during the game. I just thought about dad a lot. Then mom. And then what that asshole said and my thoughts started spiraling…”Mikasa trailed off. She held back tears.

“That’s why you took this time off,” Levi reminded her.

“Hey Coach, we’re….” Armin trailed off. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Mikasa took a deep breath.

“This is my cousin, Arlert, Mikasa. Mikasa, Arlert,” Levi introduced them.

“Hi,” Mikasa nodded.

“Hi, are you coming to Zeke’s with us?” Armin smiled.

“I…um…”Mikasa looked towards Levi.

“She is. I have to go grab Hange and I’ll meet you there,” Levi remarked as he pulled his coat on. “Arlert, can you take her?”

“Oh. I don’t want to be any trouble,” Mikasa looked down.

“No trouble at all. Eren’s suv is huge,” Armin assured.

“Sasha is riding with them,” Levi added.

“Oh! You’re friends with Sasha! Then you have to come,” Armin grinned.

“Okay,” Mikasa nodded.

“I’ll see you there then,” Levi added as he started to walk out of the office, the two of them following him. He watched them walk out.

He trusted his team with her and Mikasa couldn’t spend her life hiding in her apartment, no matter what she thought. He locked his office and made his way to the parking lot.

—-----------------

Jean, Connie, Eren, and Sasha were waiting for Armin and Mikasa by a Cadillac Escalade.

“Are you sure there’s enough room for me?” Mikasa asked Armin.

“Of course! Eren’s car seats seven. You can have the front seat,” Armin offered.

Sasha grinned as Mikasa walked up. “I’m so happy you decided to come!”

“Ackerman,” Eren greeted Mikasa. His hair was still wet from the shower.

“Jaeger,” Mikasa replied.

“Hey, Mikasa,” Jean greeted her.

“We haven’t seen you in forever!” Connie added.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve just been…” Mikasa looked down.

“Connie! You’re going to be on my team for beer pong, right?” Sasha jumped in.

Mikasa was so thankful for Sasha. Though Sasha didn’t know the exact details about what had happened to cause Mikasa to quit dancing, Sasha knew enough.

Sasha knew that a man had made a remark about Levi that had greatly upset Mikasa to the point that Mikasa punched the man. Historia had made the whole thing disappear, PR wise and legally.

“I told Mikasa she could sit up front,” Armin informed Eren.

“Just waiting on the Rookie now,” Eren told them as he unlocked the car.

He opened his passenger door for Mikasa and then went and got into the driver’s seat. Sasha, Jean, and Connie piled into the back row while Armin sat behind Mikasa.

A young man came running out of the rink.

“Sorry!” he said as he reached the suv and climbed into the seat behind Eren.

Eren shifted the car into drive and drove out of the parking lot.

“Falco, this is Mikasa. Mikasa, this is Falco,” Armin introduced them.

“Hi,” Falco waved to her as she turned around.

“Hi,” Mikasa replied.

“So are you Eren’s girlfriend then?” Falco asked.

Mikasa jumped in her seat, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Eren was gritting his teeth.

“No, I’m not,” Mikasa looked away from Falco.

“Oh. Sorry. It’s just that Armin always sits up front.”

“Mikasa is Levi’s cousin,” Eren informed them.

“OH!”

Mikasa started fidgeting with her hands before she began picking at her nails. She bit her lip.

Music began to play, pulling Mikasa from her thoughts. She immediately recognized the Bring Me the Horizon song. She looked over at Eren, his hands flexed on the steering wheel. She noticed that his phone was now sitting on the hands free clip that was on his vent. She wanted to thank Eren but she had a feeling he would just shrug it off.

—---------

The ride to Zeke’s was uneventful.

Eren hadn’t been expecting Mikasa to come at all.

They hadn’t hung out since they were kids, which she never told him whether she remembered that or not.

As soon as they arrived, Historia launched herself at Mikasa.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Historia quickly whisked Mikasa off into the living room.

“I can’t believe you all hang out after almost killing each other on the ice,” Mikasa remarked.

“We only hate each other on the ice. Most of us went to either high school or college together,” Zeke explained. “Welcome to my home, Mikasa,” he grinned at her.

“Thank you,” Mikasa replied. “Sorry for just showing up.”

“Think nothing of it. You’re Levi’s sister practically, you’re always welcomed here,” Zeke reassured her.

“I thought you were his cousin,” Connie noted.

“I…my parents died. Levi’s mother took me in,” Mikasa looked down again.

Historia’s hand slipped into Mikasa’s.

Mikasa’s parents had died?

Eren had no idea that had happened. Levi had never mentioned it, then again why would he? When did that happen? It had to be after Eren moved away.

“My mom also died,” Zeke confessed.

The whole reason that Eren, his mom, and his dad had moved so that Zeke wouldn’t have to change schools since Dina had passed. The same age difference between Levi and Mikasa was the age difference between Eren and Zeke. Though most of the time, it didn’t feel like there were four years between Eren and Zeke.

“Way to bring down the mood, Connie,” Jean rolled his eyes.

“Be my partner for beer pong?” Historia asked Mikasa.

Mikasa bit her lip before nodding.

The doorbell rang and Zeke excused himself to answer it.

Gabi, Falco’s girlfriend, arrived with Pieck, a good friend of Zeke’s. It wasn’t long before Zeke’s friend Niccolo arrived along with the rest of the Warrior’s team. Then the last of the Scouts showed up. Hange and Levi were the last to arrive.

Zeke and Hange ended up very quickly in a debate about something in theoretical physics that Eren did not understand at all.

Eren found himself watching Mikasa more than he wanted to admit to himself. There was something off about her. It wasn’t just that her parents had died. Sasha and Historia were trying very hard to include her in everything but Eren could see very quickly that she was beginning to get overwhelmed. There was this part of him yelling at him to go save her, help her but he didn’t have a clue how to do it. When she excused herself and went into the kitchen, Eren followed her.

He saw her take a deep breath and close her eyes. Careful not to touch her, Eren went to the fridge and pulled out a beer.

Mikasa jumped.

“Sorry,” he said as he held a bottle out to her. “I swear this is good. Zeke drinks the most random shit just because he likes the bottle. This one is good.”

Mikasa took the bottle from him.

Eren reached over and twisted the top off of the bottle before grabbing one for himself.

“Thanks,” Mikasa remarked before she took a drink.

“They can be overwhelming,” Eren noted.

“It’s okay. I just….” Mikasa trailed off.

“Dealing with some shit?” Eren finished.

Mikasa snorted, “putting it mildly, yes.”

“The loud rock music from your apartment clued me into that.”

“You don’t want to know what the moaning women have clued me into,” Mikasa snorted again.

“That I’m an excellent lover?”

Mikasa scoffed.

“Don’t scoff at that,” Eren grinned before he opened his own beer.

“Shouldn’t you be out there with everyone?” Mikasa looked down as she took another drink.

“Eh. I wanted to check on you. You know…because of Levi.” Eren took a drink of his beer and put both beer caps onto the counter.

“You never check on me next door.”

“You seem like you don’t want anyone to talk to you.”

It was true. He had thought about talking to her. When he first saw her outside of her apartment, Eren had thought he had won the lottery. She was taller, obviously but her eyes were still that gray he was obsessed with. Her hair was cut into a pixie cut but it was still Mikasa.

“It’s not that I don’t want anyone to talk to me. It’s just…I don’t want to talk about the shit with my parents or why I quit my job or Levi’s injuries,” Mikasa looked down.

“Alright, so you're stuck on a desert island..” Eren grinned.

Mikasa looked up and rolled her eyes. “I’d get a boat to get off the island. That’s the worst question ever. I thought you’d come up with something a bit more creative.”

“Would you go forward in time or back in time?”

“Forward,” Mikasa answered.

“Really why?”

“Because I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and I hope future me has the answers. I just need to get out of this slump,” Mikasa confessed.

“MIKASA! I need you again!” Historia yelled.

“I should go,” Mikasa left Eren alone in the kitchen.

He stood there, surprised that she had confessed that much to him.

—------------------------

It was starting to get late.

Hange and Levi had already left.

Mikasa wasn’t sure if she should ask Sasha or Frieda for a ride home.

“I’m heading out,” Eren walked over and told her.

Why was he telling her this?

“You want a ride home?” he asked.

Oh.

Eren was actually offering her a ride home.

“Um, sure. That would be great,” Mikasa bit her lip.

Eren nodded.

“Let me just tell Historia and Sasha,” Mikasa replied.

Eren nodded again.

She quickly found Sasha and Historia. Historia walked back over to Eren with Mikasa.

“I’m watching you,” Historia told him before walking away.

“What was that about?” Mikasa asked as she followed Eren to the door.

“She’s my PR. You’ll be happy to know that I’m not allowed to hook up with anyone for a while,” Eren scoffed as he opened the door.

“How horrible for you,” Mikasa rolled her eyes as she walked out the door.

Eren grinned at her as he closed the door behind him. He walked ahead of her, unlocking the suv, and opening the passenger door. He closed the door behind Mikasa once she was in before he climbed into the driver’s seat. He put his phone into the clip on the vent. He hit play and rock music filled the suv as they drove home.

Mikasa was thankful Eren hadn’t found the need to speak the entire way there.

Tonight was fun. She had spent the majority of the night playing beer pong or pool with Historia and Sasha. Some of the team had tried to get to know her but Mikasa didn't know what exactly to say. She didn’t want to explain why she had given up hockey because apparently, Levi was bragging about her. She didn’t want to explain that she had gotten into a physical fight with a male dancer. She didn’t want to talk about her parents' death.

The days off since she had quit just reminded her how much she didn’t even really care about dance. She had just been doing it in her mom’s memory. But she also had no desire to return to hockey. Not that she could, she was too old now unless it was rec league. But she didn’t want to do it.

Now she was just living off of savings. She knew she was lucky for that.

Eren pulled into the parking garage that was attached to their apartment building. After getting out of the car and locking it, they walked silently to the elevator.

As soon as the elevator closed, Eren put his key into the elevator, allowing the elevator to take them to the top floor.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Mikasa asked.

“Honestly, because your cousin scares the shit out of me and I’m not in the mood to get yelled at by him tomorrow. Besides, I am nice,” Eren scoffed.

“Really? Because last time I talked to you, you told me to fuck off and slammed a door in my face,” Mikasa answered.

“Okay, first of all, she was hot. I was in the middle of something…”

“Oh I’m sorry, I don’t want to hear your sex life when I have to be up early the next morning!”

“Do I complain about hearing all the shit from your apartment? No, I don’t.”

“You know all that goodwill you built up today is gone. You care about no one but yourself. You don’t care that others don’t want to hear you having sex or being loud or fighting all the fucking time. You only care about yourself.”

“If I don’t, then who will? Huh? You’re like some ballerina in a music box.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You just exist to be pretty and perform whenever some wills it. There’s no substance to you,” Eren scoffed.

Mikasa reared back like she had been hit. Her hands shook. It took every bit of power not to punch him in the face.

“Fuck you,” Mikasa gritted out.

“You’re not my type, Ackerman,” he shrugged.

“You know what? I actually thought you were a person. I actually thought for a moment I could be friends with you that you were….” like I remembered. But the words wouldn’t come out. “But it turns out you’re just an asshole who lives across the hall.”

The elevator doors opened.

“And don’t you forget it,” Eren answered. He pulled his key out and left the elevator.

Mikasa scrambled out of the elevator and into her apartment. She threw her keys into the bowl next to the door. Throwing herself onto the couch, she buried her face into a pillow and screamed.

Fuck Eren Jaeger.

#mine #totallypucked #my writing

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rays-of-fire-and-ice · 2 years

Note

33 with Isshin and Momo! Because I'd love to see how'd you write them meeting if ever.

And well I love how you write angst so 7 and 1 for Rangiku and Gin?

Send a number and I’ll write a micro story

Note: Momo and Isshin's story is below the cut.

You Can't Go Yet

Prompts/words to include: silent fury and don't leave.

Rating: K+/ General with themes

Setting: before the main story

Synopsis: Most children in their district are attacked or forever changed when they first arrive, but Rangiku had been lucky...until now.

AN: so, I had WAY too many ideas for this one! I landed on this one mainly because it was the first one I came up with, but who knows, I may end up writing the others at some point ;D This ended becoming more than a micro fic but I still tried to keep it short.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this!

____________________________

As soon as the Shinigami are gone, Gin bolts from his hiding place amongst the trees and shrubs. He almost trips while rushing down the hill to Rangiku. She doesn’t stir when he shakes her shoulder or calls out to her.

Don’t leave me, he’d chants over and over in his mind as he hefts her on to his back and carries her home.

When he comes back into town, the adults around them watched on in apathy, useless to him. Every now and then he gives her a jostle, but still no reaction. His only relief, small as it is, is feeling her breath warm his shoulder.

"You can't go yet," he murmurs to her, and he hates the gnawing in his chest, the possibility that this is the end for them.

She had been lucky up until now. Sometimes he hears about how children should act, about the games they ought to play or the obedience they're meant to have to adults or the way they speak to each other. Most children in their district are attacked or forever changed when they first arrive, but the worst Rangiku had gone through was hunger.

He'll never know what possessed him to feed her that day or take her back to his shelter and decide she could live with him. Did he want some semblance of the childhood he's heard about? Was it something as pathetic as loneliness?

It’s when he’s almost home that she finally wakes up. He stumbles, but is quick to find a steady footing. With a renewed urgency, she rushes back to their home.

He doesn’t talk to her until they’re inside. He lowers her on to the lone futon, but she choose to sit up.

“I don’t remember,” she says when he asks what happened. “Something happened, I know it did, but I…” She raises a hand to her chest. Her eyes are wide and she slowly shakes her head. “Something’s not right. Something’s…” Her tears surprise her just as much as him. “I don’t know what, but something’s missing. W-What is it?”

Gin knows from the way she cries and shakes into his arms that it isn’t a physical possession – what little they had was only what was required to survive. Her reaction is one of missing something wholly personal and unseeable; there’s confusion for not knowing what it is and yet mourning for it being gone.

“I saw some men nearby,” he says when her sobs calm. “Do you remember them?”

“No,” she says, only half sure. “I was alone, and then I woke up.”

“They may have knocked you out.”

“My head doesn’t hurt though.”

And sure enough, she has no head injuries, just the usual scuff marks one got form living here. Night had come, so he chooses to relent in his questioning. After silently eating scarps of what food they’d gathered this morning, she rests back on the futon. Despite her exhaustion, her eyes remain wide and alert.

“Don’t leave, okay?” she says, clutching at his sleeve.

It’s the most vulnerable he’s heard her. Is she afraid to close her eyes? To wake up and find something else has gone missing?

With a gentleness he barely knows, he wraps his fingers around her wrist and pulls her hand away. “I won’t.”

With his reassurance, she feels safe enough to close her eyes and sleep quickly takes her. Gin stays awake, staring into the night through the gap in their door. He could not rest tonight even if he tried.

He sees the faces of those men pass through his mind. He commits them to memory, every detail he could remember. He knows little about Shinigami, but the ones that came here are always ordered by someone to handle disputes. If he's lucky, the men will come back, and he can track down their leader.

There’s a part of him, quiet and desperate, that tells him to stop this before it gets worse. Once glance at Rangiku banishes that thought far away.

Most souls in their district showed their rage through violence or shouting. For Gin, it’s a silent fury, one that slithers and coils in his veins, thrumming with anticipation but cool with patience. If he’d let it guide him, he’s certain it’ll give him the power to take what bloody imaginings he has and make them a reality upon those men and their leader.

_________________________________________

Send a number and I’ll write a micro story

Note: the Isshin and Momo story is below the cut.

The Momo Hinamori

Prompt/word to include: saccharine

Rating: K/General

Setting: before the main story

Synopsis: Isshin meet the Momo Hinamori.

AN: this was surprisingly harder than I thought it would be, but thank you for the challenge! Although as a result, this became a bit more than a micro fic ^^; I'll preface this by saying we don't know exactly when Toshiro was promoted to third seat, but in this scenario I'm imagining Momo is either a third seat herself or close to be being one. I hope you enjoy it!

____________________________

Isshin had been watching Toshiro and the girl in Tenth Division’s main courtyard for almost a full minute. It’s rare to see Toshiro interact anyone the way he did with her – not only did he retort to things she said, but he even teased her with a nickname that made Isshin raise an eyebrow. She calmed when he said why he invited her here.

“You’ve…been offered third seat?” she asks, eyes wide and brows almost reaching her hairline.

He nods stiffly.

Her surprise changes with a gasp and a clap of her hands. “Oh my goodness! That’s amazing, Shiro-chan! Congratulations!”

Her grin is positively saccharine, and Isshin almost shouts out in disbelief when the young boy’s cheeks glow bright pink in response. “Don’t call me that, bed-wetter!”

He needs to know who this is, and it’s with this in mind he walks as naturally as possible towards the duo, hops off the balcony, and waves his hand to get their attention. “Yo, Hitsugaya!”

The girl turns, and her grin wavers upon seeing him. She’s quick to bow. “Captain Shiiba.”

“No need for that,” he reassures with a chuckle. “I don’t recognise you from my division.”

The girl rises. “Oh, I’m Hinamori Momo, from Fifth Division.” With a new shyness – perhaps realising he had seen the whole exchange – she gestures to Toshiro. “I just came here to visit Hitsugaya-kun.”

When he shifts his gaze Toshiro, the boy looks caught between being mortified and shocked. He swivels his head away with a huff, and it’s only then it dawns on Isshin.

“Ah, so you’re Hinamori-san!”

The girl blinks. “Oh, um…”

He gives her a grin. “Apologies. Hitsugaya here has mentioned you before. You’ve been friends for a while I hear!”

Momo looks to Toshiro, but he stares at the ground and his cheeks somehow get even redder. Had she never expected him to talk about her? Did she wonder what he'd told his captain about her?

She needn't worry; for the most part it had been in short exchanges.

"Hinamori wants to visit Baa-chan," he'd said when Isshin asked where he went on some of his breaks.

"They're from Baa-chan, Hinamori delivered them," he'd said when a box of amanatto appeared on his desk.

"And unlike you, she finishes her work on time," he'd muttered at Rangiku when the lieutenant expressed her surprise at the paperwork that'd appeared on her desk and asked who'd delivered it.

"It's for Hinamori's birthday," he's murmured while holding a small box, and he'd looked at Isshin as if he were judging just how much he could trust him with knowing how much he cared about his friend; a lot it seemed.

Isshin always knew Toshiro was the type to keep most of his personal thoughts and feelings to himself, so this girl must be truly special to him to talk about her as freely as he does.

Eventually, Momo gives Isshin a smile and a nod. “Yes, we’ve been friends since we met in the Junrinan.”

"I take it he told you about his new position then?” He smacks a hand on to Toshiro’s shoulder, causing the boy to stumble and then level him a surprised glare. “Our new third seat, at such a young age too!”

“He’s always been a hard worker,” Momo says. “I know he’ll do well in the position.”

It’s a wonder Toshiro didn’t pass out from how red his face got, whether from annoyance, embarrassment, or both Isshin couldn't tell. Isshin almost makes a executive decision right there and then to invite her and Aizen to division dinners every few months.

#ginran #hitsuhina #toshiro hitsugaya #momo hinamori #gin ichimaru #rangiku matsumoto #isshin kurosaki #bleach #fanfiction #angst #asks #ask meme #alexiethymia

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night-dark-woods · 9 months

Text

2023 Book Recap!

i really figured out this year what i like and don't like in a book i think, at least for scifi/fantasy books.

that ursula le guin quote about genre: "Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does."

& something one of the boys on the stephen king podcast said, where he described being familiar with a genre or medium as seeing the seams, and then a bit later as being like an erector set, where you can see all the pieces.

and that's really it, like bc i have read so much scifi and fantasy, every novel is an erector set. i know what the pieces of the kit are, and what they're supposed to build, so i can recognize when its built well and when its built poorly, and i can recognize when someone does something really cool and different with those kit pieces. but if someone doesnt do anything good or interesting with them, its just a pile of pieces, and that's not enough for me.

so, in descending rating order, books i read this year:

5/5:

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N K Jemison: spectacularly original worldbuilding, heartwrenching story, delightful narrative devices. getting added to the favorites shelf with Baru.

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin: very fun hard scifi book. if i don't have to google a math concept while reading your scifi book im not interested. i have not yet read the sequels but will.

Machineries of Empire Trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee: great military space opera with REALLY cool novel worldbuilding (the technology of the empire functions because of a high calendar maintained by ritual sacrifice!!!) and very neatly executed plots.

4/5:

How The Light Gets In by Louise Penney: perfectly enjoyable mystery novel i read to bond with my mother. old ladies who saw it sitting next to my register at work were at first delighted i was reading it and then aghast that i was reading one from the middle of the series out of order.

Dead Silence by S A Barnes: fast-paced scifi psychological horror, delivered exactly what i was expecting.

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner: doctor mechanic fic with the serial numbers scrubbed. also exactly what it says on the tin.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth: fun gay story that jumps around in time and has several cool narrative styles including whatever it is where there are in-universe texts included with the story narrative.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling: scifi cave-diving survival horror with a homoerotic relationship between the caver and her handler. loses a star for an underwhelming ending but overall it ruled i love survival books.

Blindsight by Peter Watts: this book made me the maddest a book has made me since i read The Word for World is Forest in high school and got so upset at one of the characters that i made myself nauseous. on the one hand the worldbuilding was very intricate and interesting and its a truly fascinating first contact story, and on the other hand i want to fight the author in a parking lot for how eco-fascist and misanthropic the thesis statement is. this book pissed me off but its also going to be something i will reread and also think about for a long time, and for that it can get a 4.

3/5:

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon: cool far-future post-apocalypse with ai gods, about bodily horror and autonomy when youre dealing with high tech divine possession. good book but not for me.

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar: fine, underwhelming. novel equivalent of a montage and the prose didn't wow me.

Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer: made me realize what i want from him is an actual ecology book i would love that but i hate his fiction.

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd: would have been higher if it had a stronger conclusion, fun concept though and it was fun to see the ways it referenced Hill House. speaking of:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: alright, i havent read enough horror to know what i like but this wasn't it, im glad i read it though.

2/5:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang: fine, none of the story concepts were compelling to me so it was hard to like any of them, though the Tower of Babylon was fun.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: no stakes, boring, no thought put into the politics of the setting or the plot.

Authority by Jeff Vandermeer: absolute fucking slog of a book with a boring protag.

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan: i dont like historical figures rewritten to be lgbt, i think the pacing and tone was inconsistent, and if youre going to write a book about a military campaign you need to actually care about writing military engagments and logistics. also as my friend Jake said. for a novel trying to do something with gender, there sure arent very many women.

1/5:

none apparently!

#bookposting #my posts #apparently i read annihilation the year before bc it wasnt in my bookposting tag and i started that at the beginning of this past year #i like keeping track of my books like this! its fun #also some of these are slightly diff ratings than i initially rated them bc some i posted right after reading and then thought about more #and liked them less lol #posting this at fucking 2:23 am. no one will see this.#also thats 22 books! almost 2 a month #thats more than i thought

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dancingonmoonbeams · 10 months

Note

Have you seen the prequel movie? If yes🌹>>>

A. In your opinion, please rate TBOSAS movie with 1-10 scale.

(1 = I hate it, 10 = I love it.)

Things that you like :

Things that you don't like :

B. For people who also read the novel.

Your opinions about the difference between the book and the movie :

Thank you 🎼

@curiousnonny

I did see it! I gave it five stars on Letterboxd and I'd rate it 8/10 for my own enjoyment and scale for movies. I loved being back in that world, loved the characterization and performances, and I think I'd rank it second out of all the franchise films (Catching Fire will always be number one).

I really loved the casting. I thought every actor was perfect for their role and brought so much to it. Rachel Zegler is incredibly talented and had a perfect balance of vulnerability and fierceness that Lucy Gray needs. Tom Blyth was great - what I think was really challenging was that the book is all Snow's inner monologue, which is hard to get on film. I thought the way Tom played him showed all of his internal thoughts without him saying them out loud. Hunter Schafer was another standout and her very last line gave me chills.

I also loved how all of the tributes were portrayed. We got to see each tribute as a unique person and could feel their emotions and desperation. I cried genuine tears at the scene with Reaper bringing all of the tributes' bodies to rest.

I'm not sure about dislikes - I was really caught up in being back in Panem and didn't have much of a critical eye. Maybe on a rewatch I'll find something but I had no complaints coming out of the theater.

I read the book too long ago to remember enough of the differences so no comment there, but overall I so recommend going to see the film if you can!

#tbosas #ask #tbosas movie #tbosas spoilers

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turtletaubwrites · 8 months

Text

Numbers Game ~ Part 4

I Wonder If I Can Do Both?

Numbers Game Masterlist

Pairings: Cross Guild x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2268

Ao3 Link

Ongoing Series Playlist: Youtube Music Link | Youtube Link

Summary: You can't get the thought of these frightening men out of your mind, day or night. They remind you of the dangers of slighting them, and the rewards for serving them, and they decide they want to get to know you better.

Rating/Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content, 18+ ONLY, MDNI, AFAB!Reader, She/Her Pronouns for Reader, Reader-Insert, Alcohol, Swearing, Angst, Smut, Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, Manipulation, Humiliation, Pet Names, Power Imbalance, Cross Guild boys are VILLAINS, Guilt, Possessive Behavior, Teasing, Threats, Size Difference, Dom/sub Undertones, Sex Dream, Sex Acts but just in a dream:, Inappropriate Use of Akuma no Mi | Devil Fruit Powers, PIV Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Choking

A/N: Reader tries speaking up just a little bit today, let's see how that goes 🤷🏼‍♀️

“Does that feel good, baby? Does my flashy girl like getting my cock all messy?”

“Fuck, yes,” you stuttered, meeting his gaze from across the room.

Buggy sat forward on his chair, his hungry eyes fixed on your movements. He loved to watch you use him like a toy, use his cock for your pleasure while he relaxed and enjoyed the show.

“Buggy,” you moaned, eyes fluttering closed as your head fell back against the pillows.

“What did we say about staying away from that clown?”

A choked gasp left you, and you felt the heat and weight shift on the bed, opening your eyes to find Mihawk and Crocodile laying beside you, trapping you between them again.

You couldn’t answer Crocodile’s question, fear taking your breath before Mihawk’s hand wrapped around your throat.

“Isn’t this better, sweetheart,” Crocodile teased, massive fingers shoving into you, laughing as you arched your back.

“Please…”

They looked down at you with such condescending smiles, their hands moving over you with more force until you cried out with pleasure.

This isn’t…

Fear shot through you, your mind remembering the real world.

Jolting up in bed, you were sticky with sweat. Stumbling to the bathroom, you raced through a shower, not knowing how much time you had before they called for you.

Washing away the evidence of the dream, you let out a frustrated groan, hoping the rush of water would drown it out.

It wasn’t enough that Mihawk’s teasing last night had left you face down, rutting into your hand as you chewed on your blankets, desperate to keep him from hearing your shame.

Now they were in your fucking dreams. You scrubbed almost viciously, hating how much you wanted your fucking captors.

You got pretty for them. You found a red dress that you’d normally pair with wild corsets, tights, and straps, but on its own it might do.

Crocodile’s gruff voice came with the heavy beat of his metal hook against the door.

With the creak of wood, you were under his glare. Staring up at him, your skin flushed as your dream hit your mind again. Your eyes caught on his fingers, and you chewed the inside of your lip.

“Come on then,” he huffed after looking you over, motioning for you to jump into his arms.

“Sir, I may have more appropriate shoes in Buggy’s room. We didn’t fi–”

“Come here.”

Trying to calm your shaky hands, you let yourself be carried. The heat of his body warmed your skin through his silk vest.

He didn’t stop at the usual room. The office? The lounge? The stupid couch room where they torture you slowly? You weren’t sure what to call it, but he walked past it, instead bringing you out on the balcony.

Mihawk was there, espresso in hand, a little round table and three chairs set up in view of the pirates at work below.

“Did you sleep well, little rabbit?”

Mihawk's words were like a blade, hitting you in exactly the right spot. You choked on your coffee, sputtering as you reached for a napkin to catch the hot liquid as it spilled down your chin.

“Don’t go ruining the only semi decent clothes you’ve got,” Crocodile said, glaring over the newspaper at you.

“Speaking of that,” he tossed the newspaper down, motioning to one of the servants.

You watched them hurry to his side, and were hit with whiplash over how different everything was in just three days. The way subordinates had behaved around Buggy was nothing like how they reacted to Crocodile and Mihawk.

You knew there were a mix of people now, not just the Buggy pirates or the people he’d recruited in Impel Down.

You recognized many of them here still, but with their backs a little straighter, their voices a little lower.

And the stench of alcohol was almost gone from the air. Now you only smelled it when you sipped that velvety wine on the velvety couch.

“What are your measurements?”

Jerking your head up, you realized you had been zoning out.

“My…” you started softly, shrinking under Crocodile’s steady gaze.

“You would like to continue wearing clothes, right? It would save us some money–”

“Yes, sir. Sorry!”

His lip twitched in a mocking smile as he gestured to the servant with a notepad in hand.

You were grateful now for all those costumes Buggy had made for you, your measurements coming to mind easily. You made sure not to forget the shoes.

“Here’s what we’re looking for.”

Crocodile pulled a folded paper from his vest, but Mihawk intercepted it.

“Let me take a look,” he drawled, unfolding the note. His brow creased as he took the servant's pen, adding a few scrawled lines, before sending the man off with that mystery paper.

“What was that?”

You felt both sets of sharp eyes on you, fear rushing in at the thought of questioning them.

I don’t want to be a scared little rabbit.

“I looked over your report from yesterday. I believe we can allocate some funds to take care of our little numbers girl, and her dainty toes,” Crocodile smirked, scraping the last bite off his plate before continuing.

“Make sure you prove me right today.”

“Yes, sir,” you nodded at his threat, but the force of your dangerous determination pushed you further.

“But why all of this? Why are you treating me this way?”

“Whatever do you mean,” Mihawk asked, his head cocked. He wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was fucking with you.

Crocodile lit his cigar, giving it a few puffs before giving you his full attention.

“There are plenty of new people working for you. I work for you now. So why the…”

You lost steam, the pressure of their gaze almost squeezing the air from your lungs.

You clenched your fists in your lap, and kept going.

“Why are you carrying me, buying me clothes, making me stay with you? I’ll work for you, you don’t nee–”

“Didn’t I tell you already, sweetheart? When I find something of value, I protect it.”

Your mouth parted at Crocodile’s words, thrown out as if it were common sense.

“It’s true. You have a part to play,” Mihawk agreed, his golden eyes pulling you in. “Yet I don't quite trust you yet, little rabbit. I believe you’re smart enough not to try anything to help our figurehead escape. But I could be wrong.”

“No, you wouldn’t do that, miss Y/N,” Crocodile cut in. “I know you’d rather have us take care of you than to treat you like an enemy, right?”

“Yes,” you nodded, voice barely audible.

“Good,” he leaned toward you, a few strands escaping his slick backed hair.

“Now just keep being valuable.”

His low voice and veiled threat froze you. Your fear only spiked when he reached out to hold your chin, his large fingers heating your chilled skin.

“Let’s go. You’re making those calls today, and I expect to see results.”

Mihawk carried you back to the lounge, setting you up at your desk. The glide of his fingers on your skin made you hold your breath. You could tell he was doing this on purpose. He knew how much he was affecting you, and it was humiliating.

Yet you didn’t want him to stop.

Crocodile too, when he’d smooth your hair out of your face, or rest his huge hand on your back, your body felt electric. All for this man that had threatened to kill you until he found out you were useful. His touch made you dizzy.

But Mihawk was fucking torturing you. It was getting to the point where just catching his eyes on you made your breath hitch.

Work. I can work. Just focus on this.

They actually left you alone for a bit, taking up spots at their desks on either side of the room.

Until it was time to start making calls.

Crocodile brought his transponder snail, and dragged a chair up to your desk. He sat facing you, head resting on his fist.

Mihawk came to perch on your desk, leaning over you as you reached out to make your first call. He grabbed your wrist, and started tracing his fingers along your hand, the gentle touches giving you chills as you tried not to let your eyes roll back.

“Be a good girl, miss Y/N,” he purred, his deep voice wrapping around you. “I know you’re not foolish enough to try to call for help, or to leak information.”

He used his thumbs to massage the meat of your palm. His skilled fingers giving you all that attention, even just on your hand, had your thighs clenching under the desk.

Even with his stare, even with the danger he promised, you could feel wet need dripping between your thighs.

A frustrated tear burned in your eye, and you couldn’t keep it from falling.

Crocodile leaned forward, wiping it away before laughing gruffly toward the swordsman.

“I thought you said not to scare our little rabbit, huh? Don’t we need her at her best?”

“Just needed to make that clear. Besides, there’s no need to be scared,” he promised, voice sinful as he dipped his head to catch your eyes again. “You know we’ll take care of you. Just be a good little rabbit for us.”

He brought your fingers to his lips, the pressure sending heat right to your core.

Crocodile leaned back, spreading his legs wide as he gave a low chuckle.

“He’s right, numbers girl. We’re gonna take real good care of ya. Now get to work, sweetheart.”

There would be plenty more work to do tomorrow, and the day after that, and probably for however long they decided to keep you alive.

But for today, you’d done well. You even secured more funding from an old contact. Who knew your old boring life would be so helpful in your current chaos?

Who knew you’d be so good at convincing rich people to side with the pirates that want to off famous marines?

I shouldn’t be surprised. Rich people were always fucked up. They could just afford to hide it.

Crocodile carried you to the balcony for dinner, but he kept you in his arms as he looked out over the dock.

“Uh, sir?”

“Your food is getting cold,” Mihawk drawled from the table, already started on his wine.

Crocodile sat you down close to his chair, and ran his hand up and down your back a few times. The evening air wasn’t too cold, but after being in the large man’s arms, you felt your body start to shiver.

He took his fur coat off, holding it up with his hand and his hook before lowering it over your shoulders. The weight of it was almost uncomfortable, but it was incredibly warm.

“Th-Thank you…”

He just nodded, picking up conversation with Mihawk about how high they should set the bounties for different Navy officer’s lives.

As plates were being taken away, their attention turned to you again.

“What do you like, miss Y/N?”

“I’m sorry,” you choked, eyes wide as you looked back at Crocodile.

“Things you enjoy. Things you want. It can’t just be numbers and clowns.”

“I…”

“I believe we have a budding wine connoisseur. Or maybe I was wrong, Y/N? It seemed like you rather enjoyed last night's wine tasting.”

“Swordsman, I’m trying to get the girl to talk,” Crocodile grumbled. “Give her a rest for five minutes.”

Your fingernails dug into your thighs at the sound of Mihawk’s satisfied laughter, and you tried not to to feel the press of his gaze as he conceded.

“As you like.”

“So? What do you like that isn’t pathetic pirate clowns or expensive wine?”

Your mouth was dry, and you made the mistake of reaching for that wine. That wine that made chills run over your skin.

Fucking get it together.

They were both staring at you.

Wine under the moonlight. A lovely dinner. A warm coat around your shoulders. Heat pooling in your core.

And now they were asking you what your interests were.

We’re not on a fucking date. They just threatened to kill me earlier today.

Your struggle to fix how your body felt about this moment didn’t stop the fact that they were waiting.

It had been awhile since you’d gone on dates, since you’d had to come up with answers to these sorts of questions. Everyone in your dating pool had seemed… boring. Until Buggy.

That thought soured you enough to shake yourself, and just rattle off the first things you could think of.

“I like fantasy novels. Cats. Dancing, but I’m not good at it. Umm… Cookies. Spicy food. Traveling. Uh…”

You trailed off, the weight of their stares sitting on you. Your next words came out high and strained.

“I didn’t do a lot at home. I just worked. I was pretty… boring.”

“Says the girl drinking wine with the Cross Guild,” Crocodile laughed, puffing on his cigar.

Mihawk watched you, one of his fingers playing lightly along the stem of his wine glass.

“What do you want now, little rabbit?”

“To survive.”

You shocked yourself, your words steady as you held his gaze.

The corners of his lips curved up, just the slightest bit, and he raised his glass to you.

Crocodile joined you, and the three of you tapped glasses again.

Last time it was to never be bored.

This time it was to make it out alive.

I wonder if I can do both?

Likes and reblogs bring me much ✨dopamine✨ thank you so much!

a/n: I am having way too much fun with this. I need to be stopped

Part 5

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