#ANOTHER 500 WORDS

[m-s-justice]

In a similar vein from my last post, Dempsey and narrative relevancy because holy shit I have lots of thoughts about this. This is mostly about Ultimis Dempsey, but some of it can be applied to Primis, too, probably.

Dempsey is, technically, the only Ultimis character that we formally "see" pre-corruption. We can hear Ult Richtofen before he was zapped by the MPD, but we play as Dempsey in Verruckt. This was probably retconned and the voicelines of the Marines in Verruckt are not likely representative of what Dempsey was like, but... isn't that just sort of insane to think about?

They so could've remastered Verruckt and have Dempsey, Smokey, Gunner, and John Banana actually be characters. We could've had a glimpse into who Dempsey was before being literally tortured and irrevocably changed.

Now, Verruckt and Nacht aren't really relevant to the overarching plot. Their consequences were, but nothing especially important happens with them, narratively speaking. (I love verruckt as a map, it's my favorite WAW map Der Riese can suck it.)

but I really hate to say it, but Dempsey does nothing and is important to nobody. Excepting McCain, but that was for one map and basically a backdrop for his motivations to be at Verruckt to get captured in the first place.

This is most prominent in DE. ZNS and GK both took place in their main character's respective country and dealt with issues specific to them, seen in their Ultimis counterpart. Takeo realizes his betrayal and Nikolai sees what he could become if he chooses to wallow in his grief.

Dempsey just fucking dies. He dies in a 935 base, still frozen by ultimis Richtofen. He's not allowed to have agency or growth. He't not allowed to have his problems taken seriously or explored in any capacity or to have any personal ties. Fucking Dr. Groph got more development in DE than the guy it was actually about.

And this is true of both Dempseys. Primis is jerked around by whoever is in charge at the time, doing what they say regardless of his own personal convictions, often because he feels like he has no choice but to. Ultimis fucks around and spits you in the eye. Bro does not give a shit about anything or anyone. Not in any real sense, anyways. He's american, but does that impact the story at all? Even when he's captured and held in custody by Broken Arrow, his status as an American and former affiliate of Pernell means nothing, it's not even brought up. He's a marine, but he doesn't really exemplify any of it's ideals or practices, other than surface level shit. Any friends or family he mentions are one off lines. They could be canon, but just as easily missed and irrelevant.

I know I've said it before, It's so sad to think about. Poor guy has so little. Probably intentionally so, at least to some degree, like with the deliberate withholding of his first name. Which drives me even more insane. This guy is such a hollow shell that he's denied everything that makes a real, dynamic character. No real connections, no deep motives, no inner conflict, not even a name. He has next to no affect on anything around him.

Everyday I wake up and thank god I'm not Dempsey.

[yurislotusgarden]

ʚїɞ Not just a little crush ʚїɞ

ʚїɞ Port mafia!Dazai Osamu x Gn!Reader

ʚїɞ Keep in mind English is not my first language, so you may find mistakes!

ʚїɞ word count: 1k

ʚїɞ Tw’s: literally nothing, just pure fluff of him being down bad

ʚїɞ This is literally just 1k words of Pmzai being down bad, whipped, even lovesick, for his crush🤷‍♀️

How did he end up like this?

The youngest executive in Port Mafia’s history, The demon Prodigy, one of the most feared people in Yokohama if not the whole of Japan, Dazai Osamu has fallen in love.

He tried to tell himself that it wasn't that. That the nice feeling he got whenever he was around you was just because of him standing near, or spending time with a friend, a close one, but denial can go on only for so long.

The brunette at first thought that his crush, as Chuuya had called it when he had caught onto Dazai's more than normally weird behavior, was one-sided. After all, there was no way that someone like you could love him, that just wasn't a possibility in Dazai's mind, yet you decided to go against his calculations once again, you seemed to like doing that and causing him to freak out.

It wasn't too long before he realized that, just maybe, you did at least like him in a romantic way, some acts just couldn't be brushed off as a friend gesture.

One thing he just couldn't brush off, as well as it being the reason he realized his crush may not be one-sided, was him remembering one of the times you cooked him food, even though you were aware how picky he could get with that matter.

///////////////////////////

A figure with brown-haired locks could be seen walking on the deserted sidewalk. Moonlight shone on him as he arrived at his destination, your house.

You always greeted him so sweetly, especially when compared to all the people in his life. Welcomed him like he was a classmate, a friend, a normal person that you both knew he wasn’t. He wasn't treated like a superior, like someone who would kill if the smallest mistake was made around him, and Dazai knew that he liked it from the very start.

Dazai had thought before how would it be if you somehow were in the PM, but to his surprise, he realized he hated, even despised that idea. Something about the concept of someone like you, a person who in his eyes could be an angel for all he cares, being in a dark place full of violence and death like the Port Mafia, was just absolutely not right.

Dazai had arrived at your door, not having to wait long after knocking for the door to be opened by you.

“Dazai?”

You. Oh, the lovely little thing that you were in his eyes. Innocent compared to him, a civilian who somehow met and befriended a feared mafioso without the slightest care in the world.

He had no idea how he managed to get where he was, but he had no regrets.

“Yes, me! Now let me in, it's damn cold!”

///////////////////////////

You disliked crab.

In fact, you disliked most seafood, he was perfectly aware of it, and yet, you did this just for him. 

A crab that could as well look like it was made by a restaurant chef laid in front of him on the table. It looked well-seasoned, the crab’s shell was purely gotten rid of, and the smell wasn’t overwhelming like a lot of food tends to be like to him… you really thought it out carefully. 

“What is this?” It was kind of a stupid question, but he wanted to know your reasons.

“What do you mean? I thought you liked crab?”

“I do-”

“Then shush and eat, you stick.”

What did you just call him? Did he hear it right?

“...’Stick’?” You turned to look at him as he said that, stopping the cleanup you were doing just moments before.

“Yes, have you seen yourself? When was the last time that you ate a proper meal, dear?”

Oh. Goddammit. Don’t get him started on the pet names. He was aware that you used it on people you considered close to you, as long as they agreed, and he’s been lowkey embarrassed ever since you asked for his permission to use them on him, or more like embarrassed on how fast he agreed to that. Dazai didn’t know why he liked it so much, maybe it was because of how no one ever referred to him as such, maybe it was the way you sounded when you addressed him with them, or maybe it was entirely just the fault of your voice but he simply didn’t care anymore.

“I think we both know that you’d rather not know the answer.” His answer caused you to let out a soft sigh, but what he said was kind of true. In truth, he would answer that it was the last time he ate at your place, which on one side wasn’t that long ago, but otherwise, he barely eats anything. You and Chuuya were the only ones getting any kind of nutrition into his body, which he supposed he should be thankful for… not like he’s ever going to voice it out.

“Right. Now eat, I don't need you collapsing on my floor.”

“But I don't wanna!” If any of his subordinates saw him like this, whining because of food, they would be dead on the spot, but he's alone with you, and he’s been over being embarrassed about his behavior with you a long time ago.

You sighed, and he knew that you were about to use the biggest thing you have on the brunet against him, just to get him to eat… Not like that wasn't Dazai’s plan from the start, he's gotta get his fair share of you, doesn't he?

“You eat the most you can and you get cuddles.”

“With you playing with my hair?”

You smiled softly and said, “I'll even add head kisses to the mix.” knowing damn well that it’s gonna win him over.

You knew what you were doing, you had to, and he didn't mind as long as you kept your side of the deal. He's gonna finish that damn plate if it means affection from his favorite person will be solely on him for as long as he wants it.

Hearts, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

writing at literally anytime during the day:

writing after 11:30pm:

[narumi-gens]

From the Ashes | Part Two

Mei Mei x f!Reader

summary: Mei Mei arrives at your uncle's estate as a con woman. She leaves it as your savior.

warnings: 18+ minors/ageless/blank blogs dni, smut, angst with a happy ending, historical (1920s) au, gothic romance, total rip-off of park chan-wook's masterpiece the handmaiden, con woman!mei mei, sexually and emotionally repressed reader, mentioned physical and emotional abuse, reader has some faint scars, reader continues to seem like she's losing it at times, mentioned incest, mentioned torture, mentioned suicide, mentioned murder, reader has some form of suicidal ideation, fingering, oral (f receiving and giving, obvs), rimming, masturbation, squirting, outdoor sex, mild exhibitionism, sexual awakening

words: 6.3k

notes: mind the tags! things are getting darker here, but also hornier so it all evens out.

series masterlist

Your uncle informs Mei Mei that he’s been called away on business and will be gone for a week. From the expectant look in his eyes, she knows that her time is running out. She has seven days to convince you to run off with her before she needs to decide whether to cut her losses. 

The morning he leaves, she plays the part of a besotted woman yearning for her partner’s return, wishing him well and for him to come home to her soon. But a few hours later, the pretense is done away with entirely as she corners you when you least expect it. 

Her hand darts out into the hallway as you're passing by to grab your wrist and pull you into the empty sitting room where she’s been lying in wait. She’s just able to catch the startled look on your face as she shuts the door and presses you against it before her lips are on yours, cutting off any protest you might attempt to make.

There’s an instinctual impulse for you to fight her off, trying to shove at her shoulders and wriggle away from her, but it quickly fades away as you melt into her embrace and begin to cautiously kiss her back. It doesn’t take long until you’re eagerly accepting her advances with pitiful whimpers and soft moans that she greedily devours. Your gloved hands have stopped pushing her away and have dropped to cling tightly to the fabric of your dress.

For as shrewd as you are, there’s a clumsiness to the way your lips meet hers that betrays your inexperience and naivete and it only spurs Mei Mei on.

With one hand cupping your jaw, she slides her other down your body, making sure to caress every curve she comes across and relishing the sharp inhale you let out as she squeezes one of your tits over your clothes. When she reaches your thigh, she tugs on the long skirt of your dress and you quickly release the expensive material so that she can pull the hem high enough to slip her hand underneath it and between your legs. 

Her skillful fingers are met with the finest silk money can buy only to find that it’s already soaked through from the little attention she’s shown you. You’re like a fully ripe peach that’s ready to be plucked from the branch and devoured.

As she plays with your pussy – stroking your slit over the drenched fabric of your underwear before pushing the material to the side to touch your heated folds directly, rolling your slippery clit, burying a single finger into your tight, tight cunt because that's all it can handle – she savors your moans, your blissed-out expression, and how your thighs are squeezing tight around her hand, not trying to stop her but trying to keep her there.

You’re seemingly unsure what to do with your hands otherwise and are too reserved to dare return her embrace, despite how she has a digit pumping in and out of your slick heat. Instead, your fingers scramble for purchase against the door at your sides through the haze of pleasure, the material of your gloves repeatedly slipping on the wood.

She’s unsurprised that it doesn’t take long before you’re cumming on her fingers with a sharp gasp and your head tossed back. With how inexperienced you are and how isolated you’ve been your whole life, she wonders if this is your first orgasm. 

Wearing a dangerous smirk, Mei Mei finds herself thinking that she could easily grow addicted to giving them to you. 

When she removes her hand from between your legs, you watch with lidded eyes and a heaving chest as she brings her dripping fingers to her plush lips and slowly licks each one clean. Just that small sample is delicious enough that she can’t wait to try you directly from the source.

She leans in to give you another slow, lingering kiss so that you can taste yourself on her tongue before she grabs onto your waist and gently slides you along the wall until you’re no longer blocking the door.

Her eyes twinkle when she releases you and sees how your legs tremble, knowing that it’s only the wall you’re leaning against that keeps you from collapsing in a heap at her feet. But she says nothing as she opens the door and leaves the room without sparing you another glance.  

Dinner that evening is silent. You sit across from one another, neither of you saying a word as you eat. When you finish your meal, you stand up and bid her a polite goodnight – the only words you’ve spoken to her all evening. 

Late that night, after she’s seen your handmaiden retire with the rest of the staff to the servant quarters near the Japanese wing of the estate where the guest quarters are located, she slinks under the cover of darkness through the Western side of the house and up its grand staircase to where she knows your bedroom sits. 

The door is unlocked when she opens it to find you standing at the window and gazing out into the gardens. Based on your mussed hair and the rumpled sheets in your bed, you’ve spent the last few hours tossing and turning until you seemingly decided to give up on sleep altogether.

You don’t appear surprised to see her. As you watch her enter and close the door behind her, locking it for good measure, Mei Mei can feel how your gaze roves up and down her form, which is clad in only a beautiful silk robe that clings to every voluptuous curve. The only light in your room comes from the full moon hanging in the cloudless night sky, but it’s more than enough for her to see the longing in your eyes as she crosses the adjoining sitting area in your room to meet you at the window.

You’ve been hoping for this and it makes her smirk.

She slowly tugs the sash around your waist loose before pushing the soft material of your own robe from your shoulders to meet the belt at your feet, baring you fully to her. Bathed in the moonlight, your nipples hard under her stare, your teeth sinking nervously into your bottom lip, and your chest rising and falling rapidly with want, Mei Mei finds you more beautiful than the fortune that you’re sitting on. 

She skims one lone fingertip across your collarbone and down to circle a pebbled nipple, avoiding touching the bud directly. There’s no need to rush after all. In the privacy of your bedroom, with the late hour and the household staff long asleep, there’s no need to rush. 

She can take her time with you. 

With a hand on your waist, your skin hot under her touch, she guides you to the bed, laying you out before her and then slipping her robe off to join yours on the floor, leaving her just as bare as you. She sees a flash of pink as your tongue darts out to briefly lick at your lips and from how entranced you seem by the generous curves of her tits, she doubts you’re even aware that you’ve done so.

She merely gives you an indulgent smile as she climbs onto the bed and kneels at your side. You instinctively raise a hand out to her before your senses seem to return to you and you quickly retract it, curling it into a fist and cradling it close to your chest. The motion is reminiscent of a child reaching out to grab what they want only to be harshly scolded.

But what catches her attention is how this is the first time she’s seen your hands completely bare. Without your gloves and with your hand in a fist, she’s able to see the faint lines scarred across the knuckles of your dominant hand. 

They’re clearly years old by this point and only noticeable because Mei Mei notices everything. It’s obvious what they’re from though. Your hand bears the scars of a child who was repeatedly struck across the knuckles and she can only imagine how harsh each blow was to have left such a permanent reminder etched into your skin. 

For as much as her curiosity has been piqued, she doesn’t linger on them. You hide them behind your gloves for a reason and she won’t make you doubt yourself when she already has you right where she wants you. But much like every other piece of information she learns about you, she tucks it away for later to be added to the puzzle.

Instead, she gently but firmly takes your curled first and brings it up to her chest, unfurling your fingers with her thumb and pressing your hand to her breast. You softly gasp as your palm makes contact with her smooth skin and she absently wonders when you last touched another person of your own free will, if ever. 

Her hand guides yours to cup and squeeze her tit, encouraging you to take whatever it is you desire — especially when that thing is Mei Mei. Once she feels that you no longer need her wordless instruction, she leans down and finally presses her smiling lips to yours in a gentle, teasing kiss that you quickly return, eager for more. 

Your tongue is warm and wet against hers as she guides you by example, enjoying the little whimpers that escape you. They only grow louder and more pitiful when she begins to move her mouth away from yours to capture a nipple between her lips, sucking and swirling her tongue around it before lavishing the other with the same treatment. 

While Mei Mei’s hand still keeps one of yours to her breast, your other one has found its way into her long, silver strands, pressing her closer to your tits as your thighs rub together with need. When she starts to turn her attention away from your chest, you protest with a softly moaned, “Mei?”

Hearing her name on your pretty lips without an honorific attached to it sends a rush of wetness to her own cunt. She gently shushes you as she starts to leave a trail of kisses and licks down your torso, moving to lay between your legs. In a practiced movement, she tosses a thigh over each delicate shoulder and you gasp at the mere sensation of her breath against your dripping pussy.

She uses her thumbs to gently part your glistening folds and grins when she sees how needy you clearly are, your clit swollen and slick leaking from your twitching hole to make a mess of the sheets below your ass. She thinks she could continue to drink in the sight for hours, if not days. But she’s never been one to deny herself what she wants, so she doesn’t hesitate any longer before burying her face in your weeping cunt. 

You writhe beneath her with every suck of your clit and flick of her tongue, moaning aloud into the darkness of your bedroom. She inserts one finger inside of you, meeting no resistance with how wet you are, and gives it a few pumps before coyly asking if you can take another. You nod without thinking. In this state, you would agree to anything — just as she planned. 

A soft hiss escapes you from the sting as a second finger slides inside of you to join the first, unaccustomed to being stretched in such a manner. But whatever pain you’re feeling quickly morphs into pleasure as she massages your walls. It doesn’t take long before you’re meeting each thrust of her fingers.

When the pads of her fingers find a spongy spot inside of you, a hand darts down to the back of her head to keep her mouth right where it is. It’s a far cry from how you were too timid to touch her earlier in the sitting room. But just like that afternoon, you cum for her quickly, your head tossed back into your pillows, your back arched up from the mattress, your thighs clenched as close as they can be with her head between them, and your walls spasming around her fingers.

Her name leaves your lips like a hymn that consists of only one word sung over and over again to the gods, “Mei, Mei, Mei.”

It’s one that you sing all night as she makes you cum again and again and again with her pretty lips and talented tongue and deft fingers. And you receive everything she gives you without complaint or protest, hungry for every scrap of the pleasure that’s been so foreign to you up until 12 hours ago.

When she finally has to leave you in the early hours of the morning, you’re an exhausted mess. Your folds are swollen from overstimulation and every so often there’s a slight twitch in your muscles. She helps you dress in your discarded robe once more, guiding your limbs through the sleeves and tying the sash in a perfect bow before tucking you back into bed. 

There’s an urge to crawl into the sheets beside you, but even an amateur con artist would know the danger of being caught in your bed by your handmaiden. So, she parts from you with a lingering kiss that wordlessly promises this is only the beginning. 

With every step she takes back to her room, the wetness between her legs grows more and more uncomfortable. When she slides between the sheets of her own bed, she quickly slips her hand between her thighs and begins to play with her pussy until she cums on the same fingers that have spent the past few hours buried inside of you and with your taste still on her tongue.

Come morning, breakfast proceeds much in the same way that dinner did the night before – in silence and with a tepid acknowledgment of one another. But that afternoon after lunch, Mei Mei stops you before you can leave the dining room.

“Would you like to take me on a tour of the gardens?” she asks innocently and from the way you suddenly stiffen, she’s sure that the request alone is enough to make you wet if you weren’t already. 

In the most secluded spot on the estate, hidden deep in the garden’s wooded area, there’s a small break in the trees that allows the sun to warm the patch of grass at the center. The house is a good twenty-minute walk from where you’ve secluded yourselves, which means there’s no need to worry that someone may stumble across you.

If they did, the scene would undoubtedly leave them shocked and scandalized. They would find an heiress on her knees, her cheek and chest pressed into the soft grass, bent over by the woman currently being wooed by her uncle. 

Your skirt is pulled up around your waist to allow her full access from behind as she buries two fingers knuckle-deep inside of you and circles your slippery clit with her thumb. Her free hand is placed above your clothing on your lower back, pressing your spine into an arch that only enhances how deep she can reach with every thrust. 

Your moans and cries of her name fill the clearing and if Mei Mei was feeling crueler, she would condescendingly tell you to hush. But for as cruel as she is, she doesn’t feel the need to be cruel with you. From the way your scarred knuckles shine under the bright sun as your bare fingers tug at the grass on either side of your head, your gloves discarded off to the side, she thinks you’ve already experienced more than your share. 

She chooses instead to enjoy your lack of inhibitions, your sense of propriety tossed out the window. Whether it’s with her fingers pumping in and out of your cunt, or with her lips wrapped tight around your clit, or with her tongue slowly licking at the ring of muscle a little higher up, she revels in pulling orgasm after orgasm from you in the small clearing.

By the time the sun has started to sink deeper in the sky, you’re nothing but a heap on the grass as Mei Mei’s fingers and the lower half of her face are absolutely drenched with your slick. When you manage to roll onto your back, you give her an easy smile that looks so foreign on your face, but at the same time seems like the only thing that belongs there.

You press the back of your trembling hand to your sweaty forehead and softly laugh with a disbelieving shake of your head before beckoning her closer. She quickly complies, letting you wrap her in your arms and hold her close as she gives you a slow and languid kiss, liking the way your smiling lips feel against hers.

On the slow journey back to the large, looming house, you walk close to her, your shoulders touching and the backs of your fingers intimately brushing against hers. And even once you’re back inside the house’s cold and dark walls, there’s a lightness inside of you that she hasn’t seen before.

It carries you through another quiet dinner. It carries you as you bid her a polite but cool goodnight.

It carries you to straddle her lap where you ride her fingers while she worships your tits with her lips and tongue when she comes to visit you just as she had the night before. 

And it carries you to you sit on her face, one knee on each side of her head as you let her hands on your ass guide you into grinding down on her mouth until you’re falling apart on her tongue for the umpteenth time in two days.

The next afternoon finds you both having tea in the same sitting room where she first cornered you, this time seated next to one another on the couch by the room’s large window that looks out into the gardens. And once again, her fingers are buried in your cunt as she watches on with hungry eyes. 

Your hand is slapped over your mouth to keep you from crying out and catching the attention of any one of the servants who may be passing by in the hallway. The only sounds in the room are your panting and the slick sound of her fingers as they slide in and out of your needy pussy. 

When she feels your walls beginning to spasm, she uses her free hand to guide your face into her neck so that you can softly moan her name against her skin as you fall apart. 

There’s a vulnerability to the way you stay there after you cum, cuddled close even once she’s removed her fingers from you and your breathing has returned to normal. And something about it has her starting to consider you as part of the fortune she intends to steal. 

That night when she visits you, it’s your turn to take her by surprise. Because when she crawls into your bed, you guide her with nervous hands into a position she never would have expected from you. Her face is buried in your cunt just like it has been for the last two nights, but your face is now also buried in hers as you both lay on your sides, giving and receiving at the same time. 

Your inexperience shines through once again, but Mei Mei savors it, knowing that she’s your first in so many different ways. Even as she focuses on bringing you to your own peak, prioritizing your pleasure first, she lets you take your time exploring her pussy, suckling at her clit timidly in between lapping at her folds, even daring to go so far as to dip your tongue inside of her.

In the early hours of the morning, after she’s made you cum again and again, and after she’s given you your first in what she hopes will be many lessons in how to pleasure another woman, you both lay exhausted and sated as you face one another. You tiredly play with the ends of her long hair, a soft smile on your lips the entire time.

She can see a new sense of contentment in your eyes and she’s sure that she’s won you over.

“Run away with me and every night can be like this,” she murmurs, taking the hand toying with her strands and pressing a gentle, wet kiss to the tip of each finger. “I’ll look after you.”

The words are unexpectedly sincere, but as soon as they leave her lips, the wall that you’ve lowered over the past few days is suddenly back up at full height. Your gaze and expression are cold once more and you yank your hand from hers.

Without sparing her a second glance, you sit up and turn your back to her as you get out of bed, picking up your robe from the floor and sliding it back on, tying its belt with practiced movements. You then take the pair of gloves on your bedside table and walk to the window.

“You should leave. It’s inappropriate for you to be here,” you say and at that, Mei Mei can’t help but toss her head back and laugh wickedly.

“I think we crossed the line of what’s appropriate and what isn’t when you first came all over my fingers,” she counters with a smirk that goes unseen with your back to her. 

As you continue to silently stare out into the gardens, it’s clear to Mei Mei that teasing won’t get her anywhere. She gets out of bed and puts her own robe back on.

“Your uncle returns in four days and I’ll need to disappear not long after,” she tells you as she ties her robe closed and moves toward you. Her tone is matter-of-fact as she tries to make you see reason. “What will you do then? You have no means to access your fortune without a marriage, which you say you’ll never have, meaning your greedy uncle will continue to siphon off as much as he can as your guardian.”

She comes to a stop next to you by the window, joining you in looking out through the glass and it isn’t the first time she’s taken note of how your room directly overlooks the sakura tree where your aunt’s body was found hanging — where you found your aunt’s body hanging. She can only imagine what growing up with a constant reminder of such a morbid discovery outside of your window every day of your life has done to you.

“Will you spend the rest of your days as a caged bird in this estate with only an old man and the rats in his pocket for company?” she asks and you finally meet her gaze through the reflection in the window. 

“I have a plan,” you answer in an emotionless tone that she had almost forgotten over the last few days. 

When she gives you an expectant look, wanting more information on this supposed plan, you offer nothing else. You simply turn away from her and walk back to your bed, where you grab the long, tasseled cord hanging from the ceiling that will summon your handmaiden from the servant’s quarters and begin to tug on it impatiently.  

Mei Mei knows that it’s also her cue to disappear. The threat of being caught by a third party is the only thing that could get her out of your room at this point. 

“This is the only plan that can set you free,” she reminds you just before she takes her leave.  “Unless you plan to die here, having no one else on this earth. But what a shame that would be when you have someone offering you their hand.”

Later that morning as she makes her way to breakfast, she sees your handmaiden scurrying through the corridor and trying to stay out of her way. She doesn’t miss the red, finger-shaped marks on the woman’s wrist, which will bloom into deep bruises over the next days, or the fresh cut on her cheek. 

Mei Mei would pity her for finding herself the outlet of your ire if she didn’t already know that the handmaiden reports back on your every move to your uncle, even going so far as to search through your belongings when she thinks that she’s alone and blind to the con woman’s ever watchful eye. 

When Mei Mei suggests a walk through the gardens after lunch, you brush her off without a word. When she tries to visit your room that night, she finds the door locked.

The following day, the fifth day, she contemplates her next step as she drinks her tea alone. As she looks out the window at the pouring rain, she readies to resign herself to the fact that she may just have to consider this job a loss. A con artist needs to know when not to press their luck and she knows that without you on her side there’s not much that can be done. 

You just don’t seem to trust her or her intentions, seeing her seduction of you as nothing more than an attempt to manipulate you to get at your money. And while she concedes that manipulation is her forté, her aims have grown beyond making off with your fortune, to also needing to make off with you. However, she’s at a loss for how to make you believe that she doesn’t plan to betray you.  

She’s pulled from her thoughts when the door to the sitting room opens and she looks up to see you standing there silently in the doorway. You both look at one another and when Mei Mei sees the conflict raging in your eyes, she forgets all about calling off the job. 

“Would you like to go for a walk?” you softly ask and Mei Mei raises a delicate eyebrow before glancing out the window at the sheets of rain that are coming down, leaving huge puddles on the grounds. But when she looks back at you and sees the unfamiliar tinge of desperation that’s crept into your expression, she easily agrees. 

Despite being waterproofed, the bamboo and paper umbrella you sneak out does little to protect either of you from the strong winds that have the heavy rain falling at a slant and you’re soon both drenched from head to toe. 

But you keep going, your arm tightly wrapped around hers to tug her alongside you deeper into the gardens. She knows the path that you’re walking, it’s the one that leads to the small clearing in the trees. As you trudge through the muddy path, leading her further and further, she finds herself surprised by your determination in the face of the elements. 

Finally, once you’ve reached the clearing and seem to feel that you’ve put enough distance between yourselves and the house, you come to a stop and face her. Your shoulders are rising and falling rapidly from a mixture of exertion and what seems to be fear if the look in your eyes is anything to go by.

She doesn’t know what it is that could have you so terrified and it puts her on guard

The torrential rain is deafening and Mei Mei knows that you brought her here now because even if anyone was willing to brave the storm to follow you, they would never be able to hear you.

“Can I trust you?” you ask. It’s the first thing you’ve said since you both left the house and you have to raise your voice to be heard. The question is so blunt that it gives Mei Mei pause. “You make your living lying and cheating. You came here with a plot that ended in my disappearance and you in sole possession of my inheritance. Can I trust you?”

If anyone else were asking her that question, the answer would be a resounding no. If you were asking that question on the first day of her stay, it also would have been a no. 

But as she’s used her fingers and her mouth to soften your hardened exterior and bring out an entirely different woman than the one she first met, her idea of what a successful job looks like has changed. It’s no longer about stealing only your money – she also needs to steal you. 

Her answer comes in the form of a kiss so heated that it causes you to drop your useless umbrella into the puddle at your feet. She cradles your face in her hands as her lips move against yours hungrily, the rain pouring down on you both and washing away whatever remaining doubts you had.

When you break apart for air, she rests her forehead against yours and is taken aback when she sees how your eyes are brimming with tears, a few escaping to mix with the rain that’s drenching you.

“I have no one on this earth,” you plead helplessly, echoing her words from the other night, and she gives you a fierce look in return.

“You have me,” she swears, meaning every word with her black and crooked heart. 

And then, with her hands still cupping your cheeks, her touch giving you the courage you need, the truth begins to spill from your lips.

You tell her about your sadistic uncle, about the terror he unleashed as you were growing up, about his house of horrors. You tug the glove from your dominant hand and present it to her to show how his cruelty has been scarred across your knuckles in neat lines.

Mei Mei takes your hand in hers and presses a gentle kiss to each knuckle. Unbeknownst to her, each touch of her lips feels like the tender care such wounds should have received all those years ago but that your uncle refused to allow. 

As your fingers curl tightly in her hold, you tell her about how his cruelty has also left scars of a different kind on you all your life, about your aunt who tried to run away when you were young and she could no longer endure his torment, only to be caught, tortured, and killed. You tell her about the house’s dark basement where you were forced to watch as it all happened. 

You tell her about how her body was hung from the sakura tree under the guise of a suicide and that you’ve been promised the same fate should you follow in her footsteps.  

You confess how scared of him you are. You confess how disgusted by him you are. You confess that you think he’ll haunt you wherever you go, that even if you escaped with Mei Mei to the other side of the world, you would have to live your life looking over your shoulder for him, lest you find yourself in his basement once more.

Through your sobs, you reveal that he hopes to marry you so that he can keep you and your fortune under his thumb forever. Mei Mei’s sudden arrival is just another opportunity for him to grow his wealth before she becomes another loose end that needs to be cut.  

With every truth revealed, the white-hot rage in Mei Mei grows until she’s ready to return to the house and destroy every brick and wooden board with her bare hands until not even the foundations are left. She wants to raze the house and the entire estate to the ground.

She wants to inflict the same suffering on your uncle that he’s inflicted on you. She wants to inflict more suffering on him than he’s inflicted on you.  

But more than that, she wants to steal you away from the prison where you’ve spent your entire life. She wants to melt the ice trapping you and bring you out into the sunlight where you belong, far away from this house and the man inside of it that have both loomed so largely over you for your entire life like a dark cloud. 

She wraps her arms around you and pulls you close. You eagerly return her embrace, burying your face into her neck and holding onto her tightly like she’s the lifeline that fate tossed you to pull you free from the inky depths of your misery and your uncle’s depravity.

“Do you trust me?” she asks, her voice barely loud enough in your ear to be heard over the clap of thunder that rings out from the sky. 

There’s a long moment where you don’t do anything but hold her tighter. And then, very slowly, you nod. 

“Please save me, Mei,” you softly beg through your tears, and as the rain falls in curtains on the two of you, Mei Mei swears to you that she will. 

That night, Mei Mei worships you. She’s never been rough with you, even in the most heated of moments, but now she’s as soft as a woman like her knows how to be. She takes her time with every kiss, every stroke, every lick and suck. She makes sure to lavish every inch of your skin with attention, as if she’s trying to make up for the affection that’s been absent all through your life. 

You beg her for more, for her to move faster, but she won’t have it. When she looks up at you from between your legs with adoring eyes, she maintains the same, languid pace, her free hand holding your scarred one in hers against your hip, your fingers intertwined tightly together. 

And as you finally cum, the sound of her name leaving your lips in ecstasy and the feeling of your thighs clenched on either side of her head, the sudden gush of wetness that drips down her chin and soaks through the sheets to the mattress below is just an added bonus. 

Your form trembles beneath her as she leaves a trail of wet kisses up your body until she can meet your lips. You wipe your thumb over her chin, which is shiny and drenched with your arousal, but she simply catches it between her lips and sucks the taste of you clean, not wanting a drop to go to waste.

A soft giggle escapes you at the way she teases you and you press your smiling lips to hers, the fingers not tangled with hers running through her long, silky locks. 

Once you’ve both had your fill — not that Mei Mei truly thinks such a notion is possible where you’re concerned — you lay wrapped in each other’s arms, your sweaty curves pressed right up against hers, neither of you willing allow any space between. 

Mei Mei dreads looking at the clock, wanting nothing more than to let you fall asleep in her arms where she can keep watch over you and protect you from whatever monsters lie in wait, but knowing that doing so will have to wait until she’s freed you from your cage.

“I want to show you something,” you murmur with a timid look in your eyes. You then sit up on your knees and reach over to your bedside table, opening the drawer and pulling a black-bound book from within.  

She joins you in sitting up, her posture much more relaxed as she leans back against the headboard. You take a moment to look at the book’s blank cover before offering it up to her with two hands and your head bowed, and she raises a curious eyebrow when she recognizes it as your sketchbook. 

When she takes it from you, she beckons you to join her at her side, but you shake your head and remain kneeling before her. Even fully nude and on a bed of rumpled and dirtied sheets, you manage to look like the lady you were raised to be as you sit in a perfect seiza, your palms on your thighs and your head tilted down. 

She frowns at the apprehenshion she can see in your pin-straight posture. Whatever it is you’ve spent your days sketching is a secret that you’re afraid to reveal. When she opens the cover, she realizes why.

On the first page is a detailed sketch of a body hanging from a tree, the same sakura tree outside your window. She turns the page to find a similar drawing, only this one is much more focused on the expression of the woman hanging from the tree. 

She flips to the next page and it’s the same again with only a few minor differences. As she continues to make her way through the sketchbook, the body in the drawings begins to change, morphing from a woman she doesn’t recognize — your aunt — to one that she does, intimately. 

You. 

“Was this your plan?” she asks quietly, her voice thin as she flips to another page where more of the same waits for her. The idea of you seeing no other way out from under your uncle’s thumb and succumbing to your despair stokes the raging fire she feels for the man. 

When you don’t answer, she lifts her gaze to look at you. Your hands have clenched into anxious fists on your thighs and your shoulders are hunched up to your ears self-consciously. You take a shaky breath and nod before daring to look up at her.

The rawness in your expression reaches down to her core. Your eyes are wet and shining under the warm lamplight, but in them, she can also see a hint of hopefulness, a feeling she’s sure that you’ve never experienced before.

“Until a better one came along,” you whisper with a soft smile as a tear escapes your lashline and rolls down your cheek.

When Mei Mei looks back at the sketchbook, she finds that the rest of its pages are filled with portrait after portrait of herself. 

[xbraveheartx]

Just full of ✨ Thoughts ✨ over the development and progress from when you start the game to when you finish on how P/Carlo just evolves, and kinda just thinking on some internal stuff on how I would like to write him.

How you start and he's just P, he doesn't know his purpose, he just knows he's being called somewhere. Lost, alone, faced with peril and made to fight when he hasn't even stepped out of his "birth place". He wakes up and he's just handed a sword. And he fights. At the start he's very much this empty slate; A newborn stumbling through Krat, and despite the man who calls himself himself father saying stuff like "Krat isn't how you remember it--" He really doesn't 'remember' anything at all. What is there to 'remember', he wonders?

And then he starts to get the memories-- they're not his but also... they are? They feel so close and yet so far away; Foreign and yet familiar. And then he hears a name whispered: Carlo-- and his whole world shifts right from under him. He feels sick, the name makes his head spin. The voice to have said it makes his head spin all the more. And bit by bit. He remembers. Not all of it, but... he remembers enough.

And he's hurt by what he remembers.

But by the end of it, after he claims his own freedom, after everything is resolved, and he returns to the hotel, he doesn't feel fully like Carlo-- doesn't feel at all like "P", either. He woke up not too long ago, and suddenly his life is flipped in its entirety. He's neither, and yet he's both. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but the name sticks. It's all he has left, even if a part of him feels some strange form of imposter syndrome, somewhere deep down... But he doesn't like being referred to as Geppetto's Puppet, either. He's not a puppet, not anymore. He's human, albeit, a different kind of human.

So just Carlo, is fine with him, even if he's changed far beyond of who-- and what-- Carlo was.

'--an Ergo puppet can have a second life and become another kind of human--' He just needed now to decide just what that second life meant for him, now.

[expelliarmus-percabeth]

one interesting thing I haven't seen people talk about is the way lucy gray baird's personality is very reminiscent of the manic pixie dream girl trope - and that's not to say that she's poorly written or one-dimensional in any way, but the dress, the spontaneous singing, all her "quirky" behaviours, the way she's seen through the eyes of a guy who's "stuck in a societal system" and sees her as this completely different, rebellious, being that "breaks him out" of the mold he's in - sound familiar? but this is a dystopian novel and not a romcom - her character was very specifically crafted this way because of the role she serves in the greater narrative in the end: a legend, a myth, a mystery - and that's why her mpdg-type personality works so perfectly. to snow and the reader, lucy gray is always going to have that air of intrigue around her, because she ultimately lives on in our memories not as a person, but as an idea and an icon.

[ditch-lily]

What's a fun work story involving Kim and P'Mod?

omg apparently you get a whole ficlet :) enjoy! I wrote this instead of making my dinner lol

--

Kim leans in close, lips grazing the mic.

"A knife."

He's not sure how the mic works, he's not used to this set up. This is only maybe his second proper interview. But his answer seems like it came across strong and clear.

The host is looking at him.

"...a knife?"

Well yeah. It's a deserted island.

"What would you use it for?" The host is trying to sound upbeat and chirpy.

Kim raises a brow. "For hunting." Maybe other things, who knows. He's good with a knife.

"Uhhh okay, very useful! What else would you bring? Remember it's a deserted island! Maybe your phone? A guitar?”

"A lighter. Fire's good. Useful." He explains it this time, this host seems to need that. Kim thinks maybe he's a bit dense.

"Ahhh. Okay sure, I get it! You're a survivalist! Do you watch any survivalist shows? Any tips?"

What? No he doesn't. Kim scowls. But fine, he can be chatty. P’Mod told him to be chatty. He leans close to the mic again. “My tip would be, make sure the knife you bring is a good one. Balanced, good for throwing. You might need it for multiple uses."

The host is a bit big eyed. He nods at Kim, a little shakily.

Okay, Kim nods back. This is working, he's being chatty. "Here." Kim reaches into his pocket and brings out his favorite switchblade. Snicks it out. "This one's good-  it's my favorite brand, and the tip is strong. Resists a lot of throwing. Keeps its point well."

There's an almost soundless noise from the host, a weird little rasp. He's nodding his head again, scooting his chair back, fast.

A movement catches his eye. P’Mod is waving frantically through the glass, hand viciously jerking through the air in a fast motion. Kim squints.

He doesn’t know what exactly she means. It looks like she's motioning…a throwing movement? Huh? Okay, he could throw it, maybe a demonstration would be good.

--

After, with the host wide eyed and saying, a little high pitched and nasally, oh don’t worry - the wall’s easily repaired and wow. That knife sure got in there deep, huh?

Well after that, and after P’Mod shaking their head, apologizing to the staff, she grabs Kim and drags him out of the room, down to the break room.

"Holy shit kid, what the fuck. You are so lucky that was radio."

She pinches her brow, sighing heavily, a little bit in shock. "New rule. And I can't believe I have to say this- but from now on? No knives on set.”

--

[suddencolds]

almost done... 🙏

[mikesbasementbeets]

[firstelevens]

and 22 for sambucky, perhaps?? 🍯

22. don't say yes

It is, technically speaking, Sam’s fault that he ends up where he does. Usually, there’s a little more nuance, but this time around, it’s completely on him.

His mother had been fond of saying that eavesdroppers were bound to hear things they didn’t like, and little Sam had only had to test this theory a few times before deciding that she was right. The lesson had worn off at some point, though, as high school and college came and went, and as keeping your ear to the ground made all the difference as a soldier and later as a superhero.

But Sam doesn’t mean to eavesdrop on Bucky. Not really, anyway. 

He pulls up to Bucky’s newly-purchased cottage and goes around back to drop off Sarah’s spare wheelbarrow. All afternoon at the docks yesterday, Bucky had been making noises about working on the garden at the new place, setting up a vegetable patch and hauling around some of the bricks left behind by the last owners to make up a little retaining wall.

When Sam had asked just how much experience Bucky had with growing vegetables, he’d mentioned that his Ma had kept a victory garden during the war, and then gone quiet until the boys burst in and demanded his attention. Bucky had gone back home not long after, and Sam had figured that the wheelbarrow and the extra gardening tools he’d pulled from the shed might be some kind of peace offering.

He sets the trowels and gardening gloves on the back porch and leaves the wheelbarrow nearby. It’s more habit than anything else that has him stopping to examine the boards and the porch railing, checking for rot or cracks. Sam doesn’t even realize that Bucky’s bedroom window is open, not until his voice carries out of it and into the yard.

“I promise I’ll be back soon,” he’s saying. “It’s just a quick errand.”

Sam furrows his eyebrows. He’d maybe expected Bucky to be on the phone, but it sounds like he’s talking to someone who’s there with him.

“The hardware store is close,” says Bucky, and the warmth in his voice is unmistakeable, “and the nursery’s not that far, either. I’ll be an hour, tops.”

He tries not to, but Sam can’t help but strain his hearing, trying to catch the reply from whoever is up there with Bucky. He can’t make out any words, but that doesn’t make him feel better. It’s 8 AM on a Saturday; whoever it is could easily just be tired.

It’s far too easy a leap from that particular conclusion to just why someone might be at Bucky’s house in the morning and too tired to really speak. Sam feels queasy all of a sudden.

Bucky had turned down an invitation to have dinner with them last night, and he’d left the docks in the late afternoon instead of hanging out like he usually did. Sam had assumed that he was going back to work on the house while it was still light out, but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe Bucky had gone into town, or to a bar somewhere. Maybe Bucky had brought someone home with him, and that someone had stayed the night.

Sam is just trying to convince himself that there’s a perfectly platonic, rational explanation to all this when he hears Bucky’s voice again.

“Baby,” Bucky says, somewhere between affectionate and chiding. “Sam’s gonna be here any second; you know I can’t just leave him hanging.”

That’s not how you talk to a one night stand, Sam realizes, with a sinking feeling. That’s how you talk to someone who’s been around for a little while, and who plans to stay that way.

Had he missed the signs somewhere? Had he misread all those conversations that he’d thought were moments with Bucky, even when they’d been on their own separate world-saving missions? All the text messages and the scraps of time they’d caught together in New York or DC or here in Delacroix?

Bucky shyly admitting that he’d put an offer in on a house in town had seemed like a confirmation of something, like establishing solid ground for them to take those first steps together. Now, though–now Sam can’t help but wonder if that solid ground isn’t his to tread, if Delacroix was the choice not because it’s Sam’s home but because it’s someone else’s.

“You’ve got to give me my shirt back, Sweets; I can’t go out without it,” comes Bucky’s voice again, and this time, Sam makes himself step back, intent on hustling back to the truck and booking it out of here before Bucky realizes he was there at all.

He’s already drawing up an excuse in his head, trying to strike the right balance of a reasonable last second cancelation and nothing that’ll worry Bucky too much, but the extra distraction proves to be the last thing he needs. Sam runs right into the wheelbarrow, which falls against the nearby stack of bricks with an extra-loud clang, reverberating outwards like a bell.

“Fuck,” Sam murmurs, and has just enough time to right the wheelbarrow before Bucky is calling out the window.

“Sam, is that you?” Sam doesn’t say yes at first, still trying to salvage his escape plan, and Bucky calls out again. “Sam? Are you there?”

It’s only latent self-preservation instincts that remind him it’s probably a bad idea to make the former Winter Soldier think that there’s someone skulking around his property uninvited, and he finally makes himself answer.

“Yeah,” Sam calls back. “It’s me, sorry.”

There’s no response for a moment, and then the door to the back porch opens. Bucky is smoothing down his t-shirt like he just pulled it on, and Sam’s stomach lurches just a little.

“Hey,” Bucky is saying, “sorry I’m late; I just got caught up with- wait, what’s that?”

It takes Sam a beat to realize where he’s pointing, distracted as he is by Bucky’s ruffled hair and the pillowmarks on his face. Even as part of him grapples with what he’s just learned, he can’t help but feel happy that Bucky seems to have slept through the night.

“It’s a wheelbarrow,” he finally manages to say, like it’s not the most obvious thing in the world. Sam clears his throat, but it does nothing to ease the sudden tightness he feels there. “Thought you might need one, for your garden and all. Plus, uh- we had some spare trowels and stuff at the house. No sense in buying new ones if you don’t need them.”

Bucky looks as surprised as he always does when he’s on the receiving end of a gesture like this, but he thanks Sam warmly. “If I supply coffee and snacks, d’you think Captain America might throw in his help along with the wheelbarrow?” he asks, grinning. 

Sam smiles in spite of himself. “Maybe, but it better be some fancy coffee.”

“I think I can make that happen,” says Bucky, nodding. “You about ready to head out? Is there anything we need to take with us to the hardware store?”

“About that,” says Sam, trying to keep his breathing even, “I was thinking maybe it would be better if we rescheduled? I, uh- I know weekends can be busy, and maybe there’s stuff that needs your attention, so we can-”

“Sam, this is the stuff that needs my attention,” Bucky says. His eyebrows furrow after a second, and realization crosses his face. “Oh, wait, do you have something you need to do? Is the motor still giving you guys trouble on the boat? Because we can just head over there instead; the hardware store can wait, but Sarah can’t miss that afternoon charter.”

It would make for a good excuse, but the boat is just fine, and if Sam said otherwise, Bucky would insist on coming along to help. “It’s not that,” Sam says. “Sarah’s all set for the charter. I just didn’t want to take you away from anything important, or pressing, or, I don’t know, more enjoyable than a trip to the hardware store and the nursery. You know Hank and Lottie are going to want ten minutes of gossip for every ten minutes of shopping.”

“I’m counting on it,” Bucky says, giving Sam a slightly odd look. “I want to hear what the deal is with that new couple who just bought the flower shop.”

Sam shrugs. “Just want you to remember that it might take a while, that’s all.”

Bucky waves a hand. “I have time,” he says. “Might even be able to squeeze in a trip to the coffee place so I can put a down payment on your help with the garden.”

That, weirdly, is the final straw for Sam. He may be quietly jealous of this unknown person who’s loath to let Bucky out of bed in the mornings, but they deserve some consideration, at least. If Sam’s partner was going to spend the day gallivanting around after promising to be home as soon as possible, he’d want to know.

Just as Sam opens his mouth to finally address the elephant in the room, Bucky is continuing on, as oblivious as ever. “Let me just grab my shoes,” he’s saying. “And then we can head out.”

He turns and opens the backdoor again, but just before Bucky can step inside, they’re met with the loudest, most plaintive meow that Sam has ever heard. It’s followed by a few more: short, sharp mews of complaint, very clearly addressed at the person deemed responsible.

For a second, Sam’s brain processes ‘there is a cat in Bucky’s house and it’s mad at him’ to mean that a stray cat got in through an open window and found that it couldn’t get out. Then he looks back at Bucky and finds him sitting in the doorway, now cradling a tiny white kitten in his left arm.

The cat is mewling loudly at him, with more force than such a small animal should have, and Bucky…Bucky is nodding along to the complaints, murmuring comforting nonsense back. 

“I know, I know, you told me not to go,” he says, gently petting the cat. “Sorry, baby. I should’ve taken you with me, huh?”

There’s one last meow in response, softer than the others, before the cat curls up in Bucky’s arms.

Sam, still astonished, glances from the upstairs bedroom window to Bucky and the cat and back again.

Sorry, baby, Bucky had said. You told me not to go.

“Wait, you were talking to your cat?” asks Sam.

Bucky frowns, looking confused. “That’s what this animal is called, yes. And I’m currently talking to her, so…yes to that, too?”

“No, I mean earlier,” says Sam, before he can stop himself. He feels his eyes go a little wide.

“Earlier when?”

“Uh, nothing. Never mind. Are you gonna introduce me to your cat, or what?”

But Bucky’s persistence is one of his best and most annoying qualities. “Earlier when, Sam?”

With the same consideration that he gives to a particularly risky throw of the shield, Sam makes himself answer. “Just when I got here. A few minutes ago, that’s all.”

“You heard me talking?”

“Yeah,” says Sam. “Your window was open and I was bringing the wheelbarrow around. I heard you saying you’d be home soon, and calling someone pet names, and I made an assumption. I guessed wrong, that’s all.”

Bucky arches an eyebrow. “So you were eavesdropping, then?”

“I was doing a favor for my friend and bringing him a wheelbarrow that’s almost as ancient as he is,” says Sam, his voice dry. “Not my fault you project like you’re on Broadway and aiming for the cheap seats.”

That gets a snort of amusement, at least. Sam steps onto the porch and takes a seat beside Bucky, holding out his hand for the cat to sniff.

“Sam, this is Alpine,” Bucky says. “Alpine, this is Sam.”

Alpine seems to deem Sam trustworthy enough, because she settles back down in Bucky’s arms and doesn’t tense when Sam runs a gentle finger along her back.

“How long have you had her?” asks Sam. “How’d I miss this cat hair on your extensively black wardrobe?”

“Two weeks,” says Bucky, “and I now own about a dozen lint rollers.”

“That’ll do it, I guess.” Sam laughs quietly. “You know the boys are going to want to meet her as soon as possible, right?”

“Sarah asked me to pick them up from school on Monday; I thought I might bring them by to see her then.”

Sam hums in acknowledgment and wonders if he’ll ever get used to the way Bucky has neatly folded himself into their lives. 

He doesn’t get a chance to ponder it for very long, though, because then he feels eyes on him, a vibranium shoulder pressed into his own.

He has about two seconds to brace himself before Bucky asks, “So if you heard me talking to Alpine and didn’t realize I was talking to a cat, who did you think I was talking to?”

It’s been a long time since Sam acted or felt like a teenager, and he’s not proud to say that he defaults to a classic 16 year old response: shrugs a shoulder and says, “I don’t know,” as nonchalantly as he can,

It does not work.

“Sam,” says Bucky. “Seriously, it’s Saturday morning. Who would be at my house at 8 AM on a Saturday?”

Sam shrugs again, but this time he makes himself answer, even if he can’t take his eyes off his lap. “Someone who fell asleep here, maybe.”

“Fell asleep here? What does that even-”

“Buck, I know the aw-shucks routine was a real hit in the forties, but you don’t need to go around pretending not to know what sex is now.” Sam means for it to sound light, but the words feel sharp as he says them.

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” says Bucky, and Sam might be imagining it, but there’s something careful in his voice now. “I just didn’t think of it.”

“Right,” says Sam, flat. “Of course not.”

Because only someone with a definitely-more-than-a-crush on their friend and superhero partner would hear three sentences through an open window and immediately assume that they had a romantic rival. Normal people with normal feelings about their friend and superhero partner wouldn’t be fazed.

Part of Sam is searching for an exit strategy again, trying to figure out the best way to wriggle out of this so he can contend with the embarrassment in peace for a while before things go back to normal. He would break out an excuse to get going, except that Bucky is still talking.

“I’m not saying it wouldn’t have come to mind before,” he’s saying, and Sam wants very badly for this conversation to end so he can be swallowed by the earth. “I just, um- I haven’t thought about entertaining people that way in a while, because there’s someone I’m interested in.”

It’s a medical miracle, Sam thinks, that he can feel like someone has punched him in the stomach and yet his curiosity still manages to seize control of his mouth and ask questions. “You sure you don’t have that backwards? It feels like the sort of thing that would be on your mind more, not less.”

He feels Bucky shrug beside him. “We’re taking it slow, I think.”

“Oh?” asks Sam, suddenly beset by chaste visions of Bucky sharing a milkshake with someone at the retro themed diner in Chalmette.

“Yeah,” says Bucky. “Not even any real dates or anything yet.”

Blessedly, the diner and the milkshake disappear. “No dates at all?” asks Sam, because apparently he likes pressing on bruises.

“No dates,” echoes Bucky. “But errands, sometimes.”

Sam furrows his eyebrows, finally turning to look at Bucky. “Errands?”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, errands. Like, grocery store runs, or gardening,” he says, and it seems like the corners of his mouth are turning up. “Or even trips down to the hardware store and the nursery.”

Sam blinks. “Wait, what?”

There’s clearly a grin on Bucky’s face now. “I mean, I’m assuming that the hardware store doesn’t count as a date, because if it were a real date, I’d be getting flowers instead of a wheelbarrow.”

There’s a rushing in Sam’s ears as he processes Bucky’s words. For a moment, he can’t seem to make his mouth work. When he finally does, his voice is embarrassingly creaky, like he hasn’t spoken in days. “Next time,” he croaks. “Next time, it’s flowers, I promise.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, his smile widening. “Next time, then.”

“Okay,” echoes Sam. “It’s a date.”

[io-u-a-moon]

A little scene from the AU currently living in my google docs! I have a couple comic pages planned out, we'll see. I'll probably end up posting them at some point, if anyone's interested.

[bookwyrminspiration]

2/5 classes done the countdown begins !!

[cyberdragoninfinity]

I totally agree with your points about Primo and bees, because they do make a lot of sense and are more canonically accurate to him (although I personally have to confess i like the idea of him liking bees just because I like bees-)

I think however one point that could argue in favour of him at least having an interest in bees is the fact that he outright describes how bees dance, if I recall correctly. Literally no one just remembers while riding a motorbike in a life or death scenario which formation bees make when dancing, and also there's the fact that he knows bees dance. He's an android from a post apocalyptic world; just why does he knows about bees, specifically bees, of all things? Considering the state of that world, bees shouldn't exist.

Anyway, what's your take on why Primo just happens to know about bees? i mean one possibility is that he deliberately studied things to compare lester to

That's a good question! Definitely worth examining. Primo does indeed bring up this concept of bees dancing in the sub, and though he doesn't describe the specific formation, he does shares the fact about how they do it to indicate to each other where to find things (though irl it's pollen actually, not honey lol)

To me though, I think Primo having this knowledge is less out of a driven interest in bees themselves, and moreso an interest in what the bees represent to him. Primo is... a not a terribly subtle person, and he is Very Vocal about his interest (fixation, almost) in determinism and destiny. Bees are a social animal, just like humans, and to him the bees' dance is all but the beautiful instinct of a small and insignificant creature, an act they perform not out of free will but out of inevitability--just like the inevitability he believes befalls humanity in their eternal Synchro-driven self destruction.

imo with him knowing this bit of Bee Knowledge, he doesn't actually care about the bee part--he cares about the dancing. I really like his Duel Links taunt that ties into this, actually, I think it's a great little flicker of insight on this topic.

god LOOK at that fucked up toothy grin!!!! what you lookin crazy for!!!! he says it in such a gnarly mean snarly way too. And it's clear here he is Not talking about the "bees dancing to show each other where to find food" tidbit he shares in show, he could not care LESS about that part right now; he's comparing his opponent's implied struggling to the predetermined helpless act of an amusing little insect. Because that's the part he's most interested in. There's no way you can win this, destiny's already determined that. All you can do is repeat your own mistakes, Do the same dance over and over.

So why's he got this bee knowledge in the first place? Personally, I think it's probably something he's tripped over in his own pursuits of examining humanity's inevitabilities (and trying to figure out how to circumvent them and save the world) He's an android, it's not super farfetched to think that he could have just downloaded a swatch of topics related to potentially predetermined instincts of social animals into his synthetic brain, and then later gave pause to bees in particular while mid-working on the Diablo and having a Commanded By External Forces "swarm" of his own. Or, considering that. ah. well. Z-one is quick to compare those he deems insignificant to insects ( 8,) ), Primo might have picked that up as learned behavior and was already inclined to pick bees as his preferred metaphor for unimportant cogs in the destiny's great machine.

Hell, maybe even Z-one himself is the one who preprogrammed the knowledge of creatures great and small into Primo's robo-brain. 5D's is very nebulous about just how long the Emperors have been around, but I'm very firmly in the camp of "a long fucking time, and they have probably been through several time loops and alternate timelines and rebuildings," so i think there's been ample opportunity for Primo to make contact with that knowledge one way or another, not necessarily because he actively sought it out. The post apocalypse Iliaster crawled out of may have been devoid of much life at all, let alone bees, but these guys very literally have all the time in the world to become acquainted with past ecology. (also Z-one is a NERD!!!! i KNOW he would have been preserving knowledge of things like animals. something something the repressed unspoken hope that things will get better, etc. etc.)

anyway, tl;dr I think Primo's more interested in what bees and their little dance symbolize in the grand scheme of what Iliaster is working towards than in the bugaboos themselves, and I think a combination of his active efforts building a particularly bee swarm-like robot army, his own personal belief system, and also the fact he's an android himself (with no doubt an inclination towards gathering data relevant to his God's command) just made him more inclined to pick up some Fun Bee Trivia and keep it fresh in his mind. 🐝

[itsmeimcathy]

Also also there's something so sweet and intimate in the fact that Su Su keeps calling him Tantai Jin despite being the one who told him to forget the past and move on -- and you can see his face when she does, his little smile, how his eyes brighten (how his breath caught the first time she did it, in her room, back when they were still toeing the line between truth and pretend) because yes, she hasn't forgotten him!! she still uses the same way and intonation as the past, back when she was calling her husband, and how can he not delight in that?? how many times do you think he has dreamt of her voice saying his name in all kind of manners in the last 500 years, when he was letting himself go through the most horrific torture simply because there was the vaguest hope of her being returned to him----

And so of course he smiles and doesn't correct her, he's always going to be her Tantai Jin just as she's always going to be his Ye Xi Wu, and you can just see that he finally found peace and comfort in that simple truth.

[fantastic-nonsense]

"all of these sections should be under 2500 words" I said. "keep them all relatively short and to the point" I said. "it will be easier to finish" I said. what about when I can't figure out what the point is and I just keep writing more and more trying to figure it out???

[miss-grimwood]

Gothic - Bellamione

The spectre dashed through the hallway, a dark blur in Hermione’s vision. As it fled, it extinguished the candles lighting the walls, plunging her into darkness.

The house had remained unoccupied for years, after the last of the Blacks had succumbed to the supposed family curse.

The ministry had decided to renovate the manor - it couldn’t be destroyed - and sent Hermione to investigate, to see how much work was needed to give new life to Black Manor.

The department thrummed with rumours, of ghosts and curses, dark magic and death. Hermione didn’t believe a word of it.

How naive she’d been.

The house was beautiful, despite the eeriness, and with a little remodelling, would be the perfect new training academy headquarters.

Portraits adorned the walls, of beautiful women and handsome men, all looking down at her over the bridge of their nose. An odd design choice, but the artist had captured them beautifully. It was as if they were possessed, following Hermione around the room.

All but one.

Bellatrix Black - the last to survive. She’d had no children, refused to pass on the curse. Her portrait was complete, just as beautiful as the others, but less alive.

A chill washed over Hermione each time she found herself staring at the portrait. A cold, heavy weight on her shoulder, as if she wasn’t alone.

Hermione didn’t believe the rumours, but somehow, she felt herself becoming entranced by the house. She never wanted to leave, never wanted to part with the beauty of the place, 

She found herself drawn to the portrait of Bellatrix. She had been so beautiful, even in the sea of elegant men and women that filled the walls. Something about her was special, pulling Hermione in. 

Why had she been the one to break the curse?

@sapphicmicrofics