#How to Calculate Power Consumption

[snail-day]

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Yan!SatoSugu x Reader - unwholesome edition

Sum: Normal college roommate activities, except your roommates, are madly in love with you and have a really weird way of showing it.

TW: Yandere Behaviors (manipulation, obsessive, possessive,etc), Omorashi/Piss, noncon/dubcon, oral (m! receiving), Abuse of showerhead, Reader is a bit dense, Power Dynamics, Alcohol consumption, unhealthy relationships, Infantilization, MDNI

WC: 6.0k

A/n: I will probably finish editing the wholesome edition later this week. :) I feel like I've been too angsty lately and I lowkey prefer the wholesome version a bit more, however, my beta reader likes this one so we'll see!

How far is one willing to go?

Willing to sell their soul to the devil—or in this case, devils. The ones you once called your best friends. The ones who stripped you of your rights because you owed them. Because they owned you.

Suguru and Satoru—two trust fund kids with more money than they could ever spend—had waltzed into your life during your freshman year of college, offering friendship cloaked in charm and generosity.

They’d given you a place to stay, sliding a 52-page lease across the table. A document so thick and dense that it had made your stomach turn. Your heart, your instincts, your very soul screamed at you to stop. To read between the lines. But you didn’t.

You trusted them. You ignored the red flags.

You brushed off the subtle proclamations of love buried in their actions, their words, their very presence. How they’d spoke of living up to your standards. How they hinted they’d have truly courted you—if only you’d given them the time of day.

But you didn’t. You dismissed their flirting as harmless.

And like any rich men who refused to be denied, they did the next best thing. They bought you.

You really should’ve let them court you.

Because if you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here now—trapped in their twisted acts of devotion. Acts they called love.

Satoru, with his dazzling grin and sharp blue eyes, always joked about wanting a dog. Something to take care of, to love him unconditionally, to always come when called.

Suguru, ever composed and calculating, never hid his desire for control. He wanted something—or someone—to care for, to command, to obey his every word.

And now, that someone was you.

You’d gone too far for free rent, hadn’t you?

It was almost funny, in a cruel way. You’d joked once about selling feet pics to creepy old men to make ends meet, and Satoru had flashed you that sharp, wolfish grin and asked, “How much?”

You’d laughed it off, calling him ridiculous. But he hadn’t been joking. Not even a little.

If you had said a number, he would have bought them on the spot, saving them for later use. 

When you couldn’t afford drinks on karaoke night, you’d waved it off, saying you’d be fine with water. But Suguru had just smiled, handing over his black card without hesitation.

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d said, his voice smooth, almost tender.

The whole night, he had coddled you, his arm a steady weight around your waist as you sang along to the music. When you were tipsy and laughing, stumbling into him, he’d pulled you onto his lap, his hands lingering just a little too long.

You didn’t notice.

You didn’t notice how his hands trailed along your thighs, how he tilted his head closer to catch the scent of your perfume, how his dark eyes gleamed with something dangerous.

They loved you.

They loved you so much that buying you was the easiest option.

Kidnapping you would have been messy, after all.

This? This was clean.

A lease. A signature. A series of favors and debts that quietly piled up until you were ensnared—unable to leave or even think about leaving.

You thought of them as just weird, quirky roommates. That’s what you kept telling yourself.

Satoru had the habit of barging into your room unannounced, sprawling across your bed like it was his own. He’d hug your pillows to his chest, burying his face in them, his bright blue eyes gleaming with amusement.

And behind your back?

He punched and slapped every single one of your stuffed animals.

All except for the ones he bought you.

Like the stuffed alligator he’d gifted you last month. “Because you’re so snappy,” he’d said with a wide grin, teasing you endlessly as he mimicked your glare. “And because you do those little alligator rolls when I try to cuddle you.”

He wasn’t lying. You did twist and squirm to escape his grip whenever Suguru was away, and Satoru found himself “too lonely” to sleep in a big bed all by himself.

“I need you,” he’d whine, tugging at your blanket as he wedged himself onto your mattress. “Friends can cuddle, y’know. It’s even in the lease—clause 22!”

You’d scoffed, rolling your eyes. “There’s no way that’s real.”

But, of course, you hadn’t read the lease.

You hadn’t read clause 22, clause 34, or any other fine print buried in those 52 pages.

If you had, maybe you’d have noticed the way they’d written their love into the lines of the contract. The way their obsession had been framed as something so mundane, so harmless, that you never thought to question it.

Instead, you dismissed it. Dismissed them.

They were just your weird, clingy roommates, right?

That’s what you told yourself every time Satoru squeezed the stuffed alligator to his chest, grinning as he teased, “See? It’s like me and you! You’re the snappy little gator, and I’m the big, lovable guy keeping you from biting anyone else.”

It was playful. Harmless, you managed to convince yourself.

But sometimes—especially in the dead of night, when the world was quiet, and there was nowhere to hide from the truth—you struggled to ignore the way his hands would wander.

How he’d press open-mouthed kisses against your chest, the wet heat of his lips leaving trails along your skin. The way his hands would squeeze your plush breasts, fingers digging in just a little too roughly, as if claiming them, claiming you, in his sleep.

You told yourself he was dreaming—lost in some haze where he thought you were someone else, or something else.

But when morning came, and you hesitantly brought it up, he’d blink at you with feigned innocence, his blue eyes wide and unbothered. “Did I really?” he’d ask, laughter bubbling just beneath the surface of his words. “Man, I must’ve been dreaming about something really good.”

His grin would widen, that devil-may-care attitude making you question if you’d imagined it all.

“Hey,” he’d say, throwing an arm around your shoulders as he steered you out the door, “let’s grab breakfast. My treat. Consider it a ‘thanks’ for not ripping my arm off in my sleep.”

The offer, so casually given, left you with no choice but to follow. To let him guide you down the street to the café he liked, where he’d order for you without asking—a gesture that felt less thoughtful and more… presumptive.

As he filled the table with plates of food you hadn’t asked for, his laughter echoing through the small, bustling space, you found yourself playing along. Smiling at his jokes, laughing when he wanted you to, pretending that everything was normal.

Because what else could you do?

Confronting him felt impossible. Denying him? Even more so.

It was easier this way—going along with the current, letting him pull you wherever he wanted, feeding you bites of his food like you were some cherished pet rather than a person with agency of your own.

“Open up,” he’d coo, holding a forkful of syrup-drenched pancake to your lips, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction when you complied. “Good girl.”

And you’d swallow it down, the sweetness coating your tongue as his praise sent a shiver crawling along your skin.

Because it was easier to pretend.

Easier to act like this was just how things were—how they’d always been.

But no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself, the question lingered, heavy and unavoidable:

How far were you willing to go?

You kept telling yourself to endure. Just two more years until you graduate. Two more years, and you’ll be free.

You could play along until then. You had to. You needed the cheap rent.

And it wasn’t like you could even prefer one of them over the other. They were equally clingy, equally overbearing in their own ways.

Suguru, at least, had the decency not to invade your space outright.

He never barged into your room unannounced like Satoru. He didn’t sprawl across your bed or bury his face in your pillows. No, Suguru was different. His methods were quieter, subtler.

Whenever Satoru left for the weekend to visit his family, it was Suguru who kept you company. He’d coax you onto the couch with him, his deep voice laced with calm reassurance.

“You’ll keep me company, won’t you?” he’d ask, his tone so soft, so genuine, that refusing felt impossible.

And before you knew it, you’d find yourself in his lap, his strong arms wrapping firmly around your waist as he leaned back, settling you against his chest.

“It soothes me,” he’d murmur, his voice low and almost apologetic. “I’ve been so stressed with my master’s lately. You don’t mind, do you?”

How could you say no?

Suguru always had a way of making his needs sound so reasonable, so innocent. You didn’t even think to question it—not until his hands started to linger. His thumbs would trace small, deliberate circles against your hips, his breath warm against the back of your neck.

Clause 12.

That’s what he’d called it the first time you hesitated.

“Roommate will always provide emotional comfort,” he’d said, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at his lips as his dark eyes held yours.

You hadn’t read the lease, of course. But when Suguru spoke, his voice so calm and assured, it was hard not to believe him.

So you let him hold you.

You let him keep you there for hours, his hands warm and steady as they rested on your waist, his quiet hums vibrating against your back. You sat frozen, unsure of where the line had blurred—or if there had ever been a line at all.

Things changed after one night.

You’d gone out for drinks with some friends—a rare occurrence these days. Between their constant presence and your dwindling social circle, opportunities like this had become few and far between.

Maybe that’s why you drank more than you should have.

The alcohol buzzed warmly through your veins, leaving your mind foggy and your limbs loose as laughter spilled freely from your lips. You didn’t even notice how late it had gotten until someone pointed it out, and the world tilted slightly as you tried to check the time on your phone.

“Shit,” you mumbled, your voice slurred as you stared at the blurry screen. You scrolled to Satoru’s contact—he always answered first—and hit call.

When they arrived, it was like the entire bar shifted.

“Oh my God, those are your roommates?” one of your friends teased, dragging out the words as she nudged you with a playful grin. “You’ve been holding out on us! Are you playing games or something?”

A giggle bubbled out of you as you swayed in your seat, the room spinning slightly. “Nooo,” you slurred, shaking your head a little too hard. “They’re just—”

Before you could finish, Satoru’s tall frame appeared in front of you, crouching down to your level. “Having fun, huh?” he asked, his bright blue eyes glinting with something unreadable.

You buried your face in his shirt, giggling uncontrollably. “Satoruuu,” you slurred, your voice high-pitched and childlike. “I’m fineeee. I was just… just hanging out!”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said, chuckling as he shifted you in his arms, holding you upright as your legs wobbled.

Meanwhile, Suguru quietly slipped away to the bar, his expression calm and collected as he handed over his black card to settle your tab. When he returned, his eyes gleamed with something dark, though his lips curved into a faint smile as he glanced at your friends.

“Ah, sorry we haven’t announced we’re dating yet,” he said smoothly, his voice low, a grin playing at his lips.

The table erupted into laughter and cheers, glasses clinking together in celebration.

You blinked slowly, your alcohol-heavy mind struggling to process his words. “Wait… what?”

You tried to straighten up, but Satoru’s grip on you tightened, pulling you back against him. “Shh, don’t make a scene,” he murmured, his voice light and teasing, though the edge to his grin made your stomach twist.

“He’s joking,” you said, slurring as you waved a hand lazily. “You’re jokinnng, right, Suguru?”

But Suguru’s smile didn’t falter. He leaned closer, his hand resting on the small of your back as he said softly, “Does it sound like I’m joking?”

Your friends erupted into louder laughter, their voices blurring together as your head spun.

“Let’s get you home,” Satoru said brightly, steering you toward the door.

You were too drunk to argue, your body slumping against his as the cool night air hit your face.

“You didn’t have to say that,” you mumbled, your words barely coherent as Suguru helped you into the car.

“Say what?” he asked, sliding in beside you, his voice calm and measured.

“That… we’re dating,” you slurred, your head lolling against Satoru’s shoulder as he climbed in on your other side.

Satoru laughed, his hand ruffling your hair as he pulled you closer. “Oh, come on. It’s not a big deal. Besides, they loved it. Right, Suguru?”

Suguru’s hand brushed lightly against your knee, steady and deliberate. His dark eyes met yours in the dim glow of the streetlights. “Does it bother you?” he asked, his voice soft, almost tender.

You tried to answer, your lips parting, but your mind was too foggy, your tongue too heavy. The alcohol clouded your thoughts, dulling the sharp edges of your confusion and concern. The only sound you managed was a quiet, slurred mumble before sleep tugged at your consciousness.

When you woke up, the world felt too soft, too still.

Your eyes fluttered open, the dim light of early morning filtering through unfamiliar curtains. The silk sheets beneath you were far too luxurious, the plush mattress beneath your body a stark contrast to your usual bed.

You sat up slowly, a pounding headache hammering at your skull as the events of the night before came back to you in blurry flashes. The bar. Your friends. Satoru. Suguru.

And now this.

Waking up in their bed was unexpected.

You winced as the urge to pee hit you, the discomfort pulling you fully awake. You swung your legs over the edge of the bed, your bare feet brushing against the cool floor as you prepared to stand. But before you could rise, a hand shot out, gripping your wrist.

The sudden tug sent you back onto the mattress, your heart skipping a beat as you turned to see who it was.

Satoru.

His snowy white hair was messy, his eyes still half-lidded with sleep as he pulled you closer to him, his grip firm but not painful.

“Where are you going?” he mumbled, his voice groggy yet tinged with something along the lines of annoyance.

“I… I need to pee,” you stammered, your voice hoarse as you tried to free yourself from his grasp.

Satoru’s eyes opened fully then, his bright blue gaze locking onto yours. He looked at you for a long moment before his lips curved into a sleepy grin. “Mmm, can’t you wait a little longer? It’s too early to get up.”

The warmth of his body pressed against yours, heavy and unmoving, trapping you in place. His arms tightened around your waist, pulling you flush against him, as if he were anchoring you there.

“I’m serious…” you mumbled, your voice barely above a whisper as you tried to squirm away, but his grip didn’t loosen.

Instead, you felt his grin against the back of your neck, his breath hot against your skin.

“Shhh,” he murmured, his voice soft and drowsy but carrying that familiar edge of control. “You’ll wake up Sugu… You can wait.”

The mention of Suguru made you freeze, your eyes darting toward the other side of the bed.

Sure enough, there he was.

Suguru lay on his side, his face calm and serene in sleep, his dark hair spilling over the pillow. His breathing was deep and even, the rise and fall of his chest almost hypnotic.

“You don’t want to wake him, do you?” Satoru hummed, his voice low and teasing, though there was something almost mocking in the way he said it.

You swallowed hard, the weight of the situation settling heavily over you as Satoru’s arms remained firmly around your waist. He shifted slightly, nuzzling into the back of your neck like a contented cat.

“Just relax,” he murmured, his voice already trailing off as sleep pulled him back under.

You lay there, stiff and silent, the dull ache in your bladder forgotten as your mind raced.

The warmth of their bodies on either side of you, the sound of their steady breathing, the oppressive weight of Satoru’s arm around your waist—it was suffocating.

But you didn’t move.

You couldn’t.

Because somewhere deep down, beneath the haze of confusion and discomfort, a single, chilling thought crept into your mind:

They weren’t going to let you go.

And for now, it was easier to stay still. To let Satoru’s grip keep you in place, to let Suguru’s presence loom quietly beside you.

To endure.

Because what other choice did you have?

You waited an hour. Generously. The way your bladder felt like it was going to spill if you even moved an inch made it agonizing, but what else could you do?

Why did I have to drink so much? you thought bitterly, biting your lip to keep yourself from groaning.

“Satoru…” you whispered, your voice barely audible, tinged with a small, desperate whine.

No response.

His soft snores filled the room, and you felt the faintest flutter of hope when you realized his arm had gone slack around your waist. It was loose enough—just enough—that you might be able to slip free without waking him.

Carefully, you began to move, inch by inch.

You winced at the painful, overfull feeling in your bladder, a burning reminder that if you waited even a second longer, you were sure you’d humiliate yourself. The thought of staining such expensive, silken sheets filled you with dread.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, you managed to wriggle out of Satoru’s grip. He stirred slightly, mumbling something incoherent before settling back into his slumber.

You held your breath as you slid off the bed, crossing your legs tightly as you stood. The sensation made you want to scream, but you forced yourself to stay quiet, moving as carefully as you could across the room.

You reached the bathroom door, relief flooding through you as your hand grasped the handle.

But when you turned it, the handle didn’t budge.

It was locked.

Your stomach dropped, a cold wave of panic washing over you as you tried again, jiggling the handle more forcefully this time.

Still locked.

You glanced over your shoulder, your heart pounding as you looked back at the bed. Satoru hadn’t moved, his snores still soft and steady. Suguru remained motionless, his dark hair spilling over his pillow like ink.

You turned back to the door, biting your lip hard enough to sting. Why the hell was it locked?

You tried again, pressing your weight against the door this time, but it wouldn’t give.

Panic began to rise in your chest as you crossed your legs tighter, your body screaming at you for relief. You couldn’t go back to the bed—not now, not like this. You couldn’t face them if something went wrong.

Your bathroom was… across the apartment.

You could make it, right? You just had to waddle your way there.

The thought alone filled you with dread, but what choice did you have? The idea of pissing yourself in your weird roommates’ bedroom—on their luxurious, expensive sheets, no less—was enough to make your face burn with humiliation.

A soft, desperate whine escaped your throat as you shifted your weight. It’s too much.

But you had to try.

You moved carefully, every step a torturous mix of sharp, burning pressure and overwhelming panic. Your breaths came shallow and uneven, your legs trembling as you shuffled forward, praying the noise wouldn’t carry back to the bedroom.

It was just the hallway, the living room, and then the bathroom.

Easy, you told yourself, though the pounding of your heart and the sting of tears in your eyes screamed otherwise.

You barely made it to the end of the hallway before your legs gave out, your body sinking to the cold floor as a sob built in your throat.

Tears brimmed in your eyes, the humiliation of the situation crashing over you like a wave. You couldn’t stop them, hot streaks rolling down your cheeks as you clutched at your stomach, the pressure unbearable.

Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t the door just unlock? Why couldn’t you have made it just a little farther?

You pressed your forehead against your knees, trying to muffle the soft, broken whimpers escaping your lips. The silence of the apartment felt suffocating, every sound you made echoing in your ears like a cruel reminder of just how trapped you were.

And then, the sound you dreaded most.

Footsteps.

Slow, deliberate, heavy against the hardwood floors.

You froze, your breath catching in your throat as the footsteps grew louder, closer.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Suguru’s voice was soft, calm, almost soothing, but it made your stomach twist into knots.

You didn’t lift your head, your body trembling as his presence loomed over you. You could feel his gaze, heavy like he could see straight through you.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, crouching down so he was at eye level with you. His tone was steady, almost kind, but there was an edge to it that made your chest tighten.

“I… I just…” Your voice cracked, the words stumbling over themselves as you tried to think of an excuse, something that wouldn’t make this worse.

Suguru tilted his head, his dark hair falling over his shoulder as his sharp eyes scanned you. “You could’ve just woken me up if you needed something,” he said softly, his lips curving into a small, affectionate smile.

Before you could respond, another voice chimed in.

“She’s crying.”

You flinched at the familiar, teasing lilt of Satoru’s voice, your heart sinking further as you felt him approach.

“Aw, did we scare her?” he teased, his grin audible in his voice as he crouched beside Suguru, his bright blue eyes gleaming with amusement.

“It’s not that,” Suguru murmured, his gaze never leaving you. “She’s upset.”

“Hmm,” Satoru hummed, leaning in closer, his sharp blue eyes gleaming with something that made your chest tighten. “Why’s that, little gator? What’s got you all worked up, huh?”

You wanted to disappear, to sink into the floor and vanish entirely. Anything to escape their piercing stares, the weight of their presence pressing down on you like a cage.

But then, you felt it.

The warmth spreading beneath you, dampening the hardwood floor.

Your breath caught in your throat as the realization struck you like a tidal wave. You’d pissed yourself.

Silent tears trickled down your cheeks, shame and humiliation crashing over you in waves as you dared a glance at Suguru.

His dark eyes flicked down to the wet patch spreading across the floor.

And then he smiled.

Not his usual small, measured smile, but something broader. Something that sent a wave of goosebumps.

Satoru followed Suguru’s gaze, his brows lifting in surprise before his grin widened into something almost predatory. “Well, would you look at that,” he murmured, his tone light and teasing but laced with something darker.

Suguru tilted his head slightly, his sharp eyes meeting yours as he spoke.

“Clause 52,” he said softly, his voice calm and steady, like he was reciting something he’d known by heart.

Your stomach knotted further, anxiety pooling. You really should have took time to read the absurdly long lease.

“‘If a roommate is deemed unfit to take care of themselves, it becomes the other parties’ duty to assume full care of the roommate, gaining full autonomy over the party deemed unfit.’”

The words were a death knell, ringing in your ears as your tears fell faster.

“Unfit,” Satoru repeated, his tone dripping with mockery as he leaned closer, his hand gentle as it brushed a tear from your cheek. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think, Suguru?”

Suguru’s smile didn’t falter, his dark eyes steady as his hand came to rest on your trembling shoulder. “It’s not harsh if it’s true,” he replied softly, his voice almost tender, but the weight of his words crushed any chance of denial. “She clearly needs us.”

“I’m fine,” you whispered, your voice cracking as you tried to push away the rising panic. You clung to the last shreds of your dignity, your hands trembling as you tried to wipe your tears. “It was an accident. I just—”

“You just proved you can’t take care of yourself,” Suguru interrupted, his grip tightening slightly, his words cutting through your feeble attempts at an excuse.

Satoru chuckled, leaning against you, his sharp blue eyes gleaming with a mix of amusement and something darker. “You know,” he started, his tone almost conversational, “we could have enacted Clause 52 sooner.”

Your breath hitched, your eyes darting to him as he tilted his head, his grin widening.

“I mean, your grades this semester? Not exactly stellar.” He chuckled, shaking his head as if scolding a child. “And let’s not forget that blunt you took from Shoko a few months back. You do know weed is very illegal in Japan, right?”

The blood drained from your face as he spoke, your mind scrambling to keep up with his words.

“Could’ve gone to jail,” Suguru added, his voice calm and matter-of-fact as he straightened, his hand leaving your shoulder only to slide under your legs.

You yelped as he scooped you up effortlessly, your body trembling as you tried to claw away from him, your hands weakly pushing against his chest.

“But a grown woman pissing herself?” Satoru said, standing and shaking his head as he followed Suguru toward the bathroom. “Now that’s a pretty clear sign you need help. I mean, we’d be neglecting you if we didn’t take care of you at this point.”

“Put me down!” you cried, your voice breaking as you struggled against Suguru’s hold, your heart pounding in your chest.

“Shh,” Suguru murmured, his grip unyielding as he carried you down the hall. “You’re only making this harder on yourself.”

Tears blurred your vision as the door to their bathroom came into view, the realization of just how powerless you were sinking in with every step.

Tears blurred your vision as the door to their bathroom came into view, the realization of just how powerless you were sinking in with every step.

“We’ll clean you up,” Satoru said brightly, his grin firmly in place as he swung the bathroom door open. His tone was light and teasing, but the words twisted in your stomach. “That’s what good boyfriends—sorry, roommates—do, right?”

Suguru carried you inside without hesitation, his movements smooth and calculated, like he’d done this a hundred times in his head. He set you down gently on the edge of the bathtub, his hands lingering on your arms as though steadying you. The care in his touch felt unnervingly intimate, blurring lines you hadn’t even realized were being crossed.

“I don’t need—” you started, your voice trembling, but Suguru cut you off.

“Do we need to treat you like a child too?” He hummed as he turned on the water, you noticed Satoru take a spot on the floor, his hand….gravitating to….

You forced yourself to look away. 

Instead pleading to Suguru that you can wash yourself, that he doesn’t need to climb into the tub with you pressing himself behind you. As he grabbed the handheld shower head, changing the settings as he deemed fit as you squirmed and sobbed. 

“Have to clean you now, hm?” He hummed behind you, changing the setting of the handheld shower head to the highest setting, the pressure was too much as you squirmed and clawed at his hands shaking your head. You looked over at Satoru the smile on his face, the way he seemed blissed out as he stroked his…

Oh god. 

They enjoyed this. 

You couldn’t help the whine that escaped you as your cunt clenched onto nothing, as your clit was being tormented by the harsh pressure of the showerhead Suguru had directed. 

“Shhhh, just let go… I got you,” Suguru murmured, his voice low and soothing as he adjusted the spray of water once more, there was purpose in his insistent touches, firm and absolute.

You couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked your body, your tears mixing with the water cascading over your skin. Your mind felt like it was spinning, your thoughts fragmented and overwhelmed by the unbearable mix of sensations and emotions crashing over you.

And then, you reached the peak—your body betraying you, shuddering in his grip as your climax washed over you. Shame burned hot in your chest, your face flushed with humiliation as the sobs came harder, raw and broken.

Suguru’s hand never faltered, his movements steady as he lowered the setting on the showerhead to a gentle spray, hushing you softly as you came down from your high.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his tone almost tender as his hand smoothed over your damp skin. “Just let me take care of you.”

You couldn’t muster the strength to respond, your body trembling as exhaustion began to creep in.

But he wasn’t done.

Before you could catch your breath, Suguru adjusted the water pressure again, the sharp sensation snapping you back into focus as he began once more.

“No, please…” you whimpered, your voice weak and cracking as you squirmed in his hold.

“Shhh,” he hushed you, his lips brushing lightly against your temple as his grip tightened. “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”

You didn’t have the strength to fight him.

Again and again, he pushed you over the edge, your sobs gradually giving way to soft, broken whimpers as your body betrayed you. Your limbs felt heavy, your mind clouded with a haze of exhaustion and humiliation.

By the time he finally relented, your eyes were half-lidded, sleep tugging at the edges of your consciousness.

Satoru, who had been watching the entire time, stood from his spot on the floor, his sharp blue eyes raking over your limp form with a grin that made your stomach twist.

“Since Suguru did a good job cleaning you up, think you can clean my mess?” Satoru’s voice was light, teasing, but the sharp glint in his blue eyes told you there was no room for refusal.

Your head weakly shook in response, your body trembling with exhaustion as you tried to avert your gaze.

But Suguru didn’t let you.

“Be a good girl,” he murmured, his voice calm but firm as his hand cupped your jaw, tilting your face back toward them. His thumb pressed against your lips, prying them open with gentle insistence.

You whimpered, tears welling in your eyes again as his thumb slipped onto your tongue, the weight of his touch heavy and suffocating.

“There you go,” he said softly, almost soothing as though this was something to comfort you. “It’s easier if you don’t fight.”

Before you could protest, Satoru was pressing the tip of his cock onto your tongue, sliding his length down your throat despite your gags as Suguru ensured you wouldn’t bite down, keeping your mouth open.

“Good girl,” Satoru cooed, his voice low and saccharine as he watched you with amusement, the corners of his lips twitching upward as you instinctively flinched. “Be a good little gator, don’t bite”

You couldn’t stop the fresh wave of tears that trickled down your cheeks, your body frozen under the weight of their attention. Every movement felt heavy, every breath labored as you struggled to take the full length down your throat.

Suguru’s dark eyes bore into you, steady and unyielding. “See? You can do this,” he murmured, removing his thumb to help guide your head as you sucked on Satoru’s cock. “You’re already doing so well.”

“Better than I thought she would,” Satoru replied, a soft groan escaped his lips as he tilted his head back, gently rocking his hips forward despite your tears, Suguru was forcing your head to bob on Satoru's length, keeping his touch gentle.

“We’re going to take such good care of you,” Suguru hummed, his voice smooth and steady as his hand’s methodical movements, his dark eyes gazing at you in adornment as you choked on the sticky white ropes that trickled down your throat. 

His words made your stomach twist, but the calmness in his tone—the way it almost sounded affectionate—made it all the more suffocating.

“I think we can work with this arrangement, right?” Suguru murmured, his lips curving into a faint smile as he leaned in closer, his breath brushing against your ear. His tone was calm, almost soothing, as though this was the most natural thing in the world.

“We love you so much, don’t you know?” he continued, his voice softening further, as if the depth of their love for you was as much a burden for them as it was for you. “We’ll give you time to adjust to the new arrangement. Don’t you worry.”

You flinched, your body trembling from a cocktail of exhaustion and humiliation. The words wrapped around you like a cage, their gentleness only making the weight of them heavier. Your eyes darted toward Satoru, searching desperately for some sign of relief, some thread of normalcy—but his expression only made your stomach twist.

His smile was lovesick, almost dazed, his half-lidded eyes clouded with fatigue, likely from his final exam. Yet his fingers found their way to the top of your head, the touch soft and deliberate, giving you a gentle, almost affectionate pat.

The gesture should have been comforting. It should have eased the tightness in your chest. Instead, it felt like a reminder—a quiet assertion of control, of just how tightly you were bound to them.

“Let’s get you ready for bed, shall we?” Satoru said, his voice light and teasing, laced with his usual carefree charm. But beneath the playful tone, there was an undertone of finality, a quiet edge that made it clear this wasn’t a suggestion.

Suguru’s hands were steady as he adjusted the towel around your body, his touch disarmingly gentle, as though he were savoring the act of caring for you. Each movement was slow, deliberate, as if he were worshipping the process of drying you off. He ensured the towel wrapped around you modestly, yet his fingers lingered just long enough to make you question if there was more to his care.

When he stood, his tall frame towering over you, he extended a hand. His dark eyes met yours, calm and unreadable, as if silently urging you to trust him.

You hesitated. Every instinct screamed at you to pull away, to run, to do something. But the exhaustion weighed you down, rooting you in place. Your legs felt like lead, your thoughts foggy and scattered, a tangle of fear and resignation you couldn’t untangle.

“You’re tired,” Suguru murmured, his voice a soothing balm that did little to ease the tightness in your chest. There was an undercurrent of quiet authority in his tone, one that made resistance feel futile.

His hand enveloped yours, warm and steady, guiding you to your feet before you could summon the strength to protest. “Let us take care of you,” he said softly, the words carrying a tenderness that felt at odds with the unease curling in your stomach.

Satoru was already waiting by the door, leaning casually against the frame. His bright blue eyes watched you with his signature grin—a grin that normally felt harmless but now carried an edge that made your chest tighten. “Come on, little gator,” he cooed, beckoning you with a casual wave. “We’ve got everything ready for you.”

You let them guide you, too drained to resist. Suguru’s hand rested lightly on your lower back, steadying you as Satoru walked ahead, his playful hum filling the quiet hall.

When you finally crawled into the cool sheets, your body sagged into the mattress, the weight of the day pressing down on you. The bath had left your skin warm and your limbs heavy, the overstimulation making it impossible to think straight. Exhaustion was a tide, pulling you under, and for a fleeting moment, you were grateful for the comfort they had so carefully orchestrated.

Perhaps you were too far gone to notice—or to care—about the faint noises behind you. The soft murmur of voices, the rustle of fabric, the low, intimate sound of Satoru’s moan as he lowered himself onto Suguru.

Your mind barely registered it, the sound blurring into the background as sleep took hold. You ignored the quiet gasp, the rhythmic creak of the mattress in the other room, and the muted groan that followed.

The warmth of the blankets, the scent of lavender, the haze of exhaustion—all of it conspired to drag you deeper into unconsciousness, letting the world fade away as your body surrendered to sleep.

[astrids-blog333]

Beneath the Silk - Chapter One

Emperor!Lucius Verus Aurelius x Reader

Fandom: Gladiator II

Chapter One Summary: A political marriage to Lucius is forged to secure the empire’s fragile peace. Though emotionally distant, Lucius is drawn to your quiet grace, while you struggle to navigate the undercurrents of power within the Roman court. But even the smallest kindnesses draw his gaze, leaving you both uncertain of where duty ends and attraction begins.

Warnings: angsty, slow burn, injury/blood (mild), anxiety and stress, manipulation, power imbalance, alcohol consumption.

A/N: This is a three-part fic I've been writing, and I'm hoping to get all three parts out in the next day or so, FYI Chapter Three will be 18+. It is set post Gladiator II, and there are slight deviations from the original plot (i.e he never married and is emperor). PLEASE PLEASE comment/like/reblog it really does help. I love the Gladiator movies so much, and I love him so much. Anyways, hope you enjoy <3

MASTERLIST - REQUESTS (OPEN)

WC (Chapter One): 3.8k

chapter two - chapter three

The halls of the imperial palace stretch far before you. You’ve been in this palace many times, yet today it all feels different. Your feet feel heavy, and every step you take seems to echo off the marble floors, louder than the last.

A summons to the Emperor’s court, a marriage proposal from Lucius Verus himself, does not go unanswered. As the daughter of a senator with ambition for more power, more influence, you have a duty to follow his wishes.

This meeting is not just an opportunity; it is the beginning of a marriage that will secure your family's future, a political alliance forged in the name of power and stability.

Your family’s future.

The door ahead opens, revealing a room bathed in golden light, its shadows stretching far along the stone floors. From it, a servant steps forward, bowing low. “My Lady, the Emperor is expecting you.”

With a nod, you move forward, your nerves hidden behind a composed exterior as you step into the room.

You are struck by the sheer presence of the man before you.

An Emperor.

He sits tall, his posture regal, yet there’s an edge to him, something dark that seems to pull the very air towards him. His gaze lifts as you enter, his eyes sharp, cold, but also appraising. The moment your eyes meet, you feel an unsettling stillness settle over you, the kind of quiet that could erupt into a storm at any moment.

He says nothing at first, his gaze lingering on you, as if taking measure of your very soul. The corners of his lips curl into something that could almost be mistaken for a smile, but there’s a coldness to it that sends a shiver down your spine.

"My Lady," he finally speaks, his voice smooth. "I’ve heard much about you." You hold his gaze; this is a game of power, of politics, and you are determined to play it well.

“I’m honoured to meet you, Emperor,” you reply, your voice steady even though your heart is racing inside your chest. You’ve heard the rumours, but now, standing before him, you understand.

Lucius Verus Aurelius is not just a man.

"You are just as your father said," He continues. “A woman of duty.”

For a moment, his expression softens, a flicker of something more human crossing his features. But soon it's gone again, replaced by that same cold, calculating gaze.

“The court is full of men and women who are all too eager to present themselves,” Lucius adds, his voice lower now, almost thoughtful. “But it is rare to find someone who doesn’t seek the approval of others.”

Lucius looks at you for a long moment, something unreadable passing across his features. Then, without another word, he turns and gestures to the throne beside him. “We shall see how you fare in Rome, My Lady."

The days following your first meeting with Lucius have blurred into a single long string of formalities, discussions and countless meetings. The whispers around the court grow louder, as does the weight on your shoulders. This marriage, your marriage, which was once discussed in vague terms, is now an inevitability. Your father has spoken on your behalf, assuring the Emperor that you are prepared to fulfil your duties.

This marriage is not simply a union of you and Lucius; it is a bond that must strengthen the empire, settle the mounting tension between factions, and solidify his reign. The senators, the generals, and the noble families all have their eyes on this union, their agendas clear.

It is political. It is power. It is survival.

You stand by the window of your quarters, gazing out over the sprawling city below. The weight of this arranged marriage presses in against your chest, and the reality of what it means is finally sinking in.

You are not marrying Lucius for love. You will never marry for love. The two of you, bound by the will of those in power, are being forced into unity, and regardless of the greater good, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Lucius, you’ve learned, is a man who does not easily show emotion. In your brief interactions with him, you’ve seen the icy exterior he wears like armour.

The few words you’ve exchanged with him since your first meeting have been curt, formal. There has been no warmth, no kindness, no hint of empathy. He seems determined to keep things strictly business.

The door to your chambers creaks open, and your father steps in, his expression as unreadable as ever. His presence fills the room, and for a moment, you feel as though you are being suffocated by his expectations.

“They’ve confirmed the date,” your father says, his voice low. “The wedding will take place in two weeks. Everything is now in place, finally.”

Your throat tightens, but you hold your composure. “Two weeks? That is quite soon, is it not?”

He nods, his eyes calculating. “It’s necessary. The tensions between the eastern provinces have been growing. The marriage will solidify our alliance with the eastern legions and quell any dissent within the senate.”

You nod, but inside, a cold knot begins to form. You are a pawn in this game. Your father, the Emperor, the senator, all of them are using you as nothing but a tool.

As your father speaks of the preparations, you can’t help but wonder about the man you are to marry.

The thought lingers in your mind, but you push it away. There’s no room for feelings in this arrangement.

Only duty.

The door closes behind your father as he exits, leaving you alone once again. You stare out at the city as the last light of the day fades into the dark night.

You know that there is no turning back now.

The grand hall is filled with the soft murmur of conversation, the clink of shining golden goblets, and the rustle of expensive, fine silk. The air is heavy with the scent of roasted meats and perfumed wine.

This is the atmosphere of celebration, of happiness, but you feel anything but celebratory, or happy.

You stand near the edge of the room, your sharp gaze occasionally drifting to Lucius, who is surrounded by the usual assortment of nobles, advisors, and foreign diplomats seeking favour with their ruler. His posture is far too perfect, his expression unreadable, as it has been all evening. He is, as always, a flawless picture of regal composure.

But something about him tonight seems different.

Your marriage ceremony had been short, almost perfunctory, with little fanfare or flourish beyond the required vows and rituals. Now, as tradition dictates, you find yourself at the centre of a sea of well-wishers, all of whom are eager to congratulate you on your new role as Empress.

You watch Lucius from a distance. He stands in a circle of powerful men, but his gaze keeps drifting toward you. It’s subtle, a brief flicker of his eyes before he turns away again, agreeing with a senator or nodding to some advisor's boring anecdote.

You don't envy this part of his job, of his duty.

But the glances, those you catch. You catch the way his jaw tightens for a fraction of a second, how his fingers grip his goblet just a little too tightly. He’s noticing you, even if he’s trying to hide it from both you and himself.

You take a sip of your wine, your nerves beginning to settle as the alcohol warms your insides. You’re not sure if it’s the drink or the fact that everyone’s watching you that makes you feel so exposed. You can feel their eyes on you, their judgement lingering on you like a shadow.

You look to Lucius again, this time locking your eyes with his. This time, neither of you looks away.

You can’t put your finger on it, but you sense the conflict within him. The coldness he wears so effortlessly seems at odds with the tension in his gaze.

The music plays on, and slowly, the crowd around Lucius begins to thin. The revelry continues, but you remain rooted in place, watching him. But then he turns towards you again and starts through the crowd in your direction.

Your breath catches in your throat, and suddenly, your palms feel clammy. The warmth of his presence envelops you, his scent intoxicating, a fine balance of rich leather, smoke, and something darker, more primal.

For a short moment, neither of you speaks. The silence stretches. The world around you fades into a dull hum as you lock eyes with him. The tension is so thick it’s almost suffocating you where you stand.

“I hope you’re enjoying the festivities,” Lucius finally says, his voice low and even, betraying nothing.

You can’t tell if it’s his disinterest or something else, but you know you’re being measured, evaluated. “I am,” you reply. “But I do find myself wondering what happens after all this. Once the celebration ends, once the court has gone, what is left for us?”

Lucius tilts his head to the side slightly, intrigue crossing his otherwise stoic features. “That remains to be seen, My Lady.” His words are polite, detached. “Marriage is a... business arrangement. Nothing more.”

The words sting, but you manage to keep your composure. It’s what you expected, what you have been prepared for your whole life. A loveless marriage with a man who wishes not to be with you, who wishes for nothing to do with you.

“Perhaps,” you say, taking a small step back, giving yourself some space to breathe, “but even some business arrangements can be... complicated.”

His eyes narrow just a fraction. “Complicated, yes of course.” His voice deepens. “But I don’t believe you are the complication I expected.” The words hit you like a stone to the chest, and you can feel the sudden weight of everything pressing down on you.

He doesn’t touch you, but the intensity of Lucius's stare almost feels like physical touch.

Before you can even think to reply, he steps back, his posture relaxing slightly as he adjusts the clasp of his cloak. His gaze lingers on you for one final moment.

As quickly as he appeared, Lucius turns away, his figure swallowed one again by the crowd.

You exhale, not realising you’d been holding your breath the entire time.

The palace is a maze, and you can feel the harsh looks follow you down the corridors. Today, you have the chance to walk through them, away from the crowd of courtiers and their insistent chattering.

The hall stretches before you, lined with columns that give the space a sense of grandeur, but the silence, which is only broken by your footsteps, is almost unsettling. You are alone in your thoughts, but there is no real solitude here, not when you can feel the eyes upon you at all times.

As you round the corner, you spot a young girl struggling, trying to steady herself while clutching at her side. It's such a subtle shirt in her stance you nearly miss it, but you can see the discomfort in the way she winces as she tries to carry on her task.

You slow as you watch her. It is a brief interaction, just a glimpse of vulnerability, but enough to catch your eye. You can’t possible ignore it.

Without thinking twice, you approach, stepping carefully so as not to startle her. “Are you all right?”

The girl, startled by the sound of your voice, looks up. Her face is flushed, and she quickly straightens, hiding her discomfort behind a forced smile.

“I’m fine, my lady,” she replies, her words quick, too quick. There is a slight tremor in her voice that betrays her. You study her for a moment, something isn’t right.

“I don’t believe you.” You keep your tone even so as to not scare her, but your eyes are sharp, persistent. “Let me see.”

She hesitates, glancing down at her hands, before finally lifting her sleeve. The sight of the deep gash in her arm catches you slightly off guard. It isn’t too serious, but it has clearly been left untreated to long as blood has begun to stain the fabric of her tunic.

“Why hasn’t someone seen to this?” you ask, lowering your voice.

The girl's eyes dart to the side, refusing to meet your gaze. “I didn’t want to trouble anyone, my lady,” she murmurs, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Sit,” you instruct, your words firm but gentle as you gesture to a nearby chair. “I’ll have it cleaned.”

As you move to tend to her wound, you feel the air shift. The sudden silence is broken by footsteps approaching from the other end of the corridor.

You don’t need to look up to know who it is. Lucius’s presence, even without words, seems to fill the space.

Without a word, he appears in the doorway. His eyes briefly flick over the scene before locking onto you. His brow furrows as he observes you kneeling beside the girl, your attention wholly focused on her.

For a moment, there is no movement, just the quiet exchange between you two. Lucius takes a step forward. His voice, when it comes, is low.

“You would... help those beneath you?”

It isn’t an accusation. It is a question, a quiet observation wrapped in the careful tone of someone trying to understand something they don’t quite grasp. Perhaps he refuses to believe that you, a Lady of the Roman Empire, who was born into wealth and prosperity, would even think to help a lowly servant girl.

You don’t look up immediately, your attention still on the maid as you clean her wound. “Everyone has a place,” you say, not pausing in your task, “but kindness should have no rank.”

Lucius is silent for a moment. When you finally look up, you address him, "Would you not agree, Emperor?"

You catch the brief flicker of something in his eyes. It isn’t exactly surprise, but it isn’t disregarded either. For the first time since your marriage, you see a different side of him, something unexpected that seems to make him seem faintly protective.

He nods, his gaze softening for the briefest of moments before his expression shifts back into something guarded. “I’ll have someone fetch a healer,” he says, his tone returning to its usual clipped edge. “Stay here.”

You don’t have time to dwell on it, though, as the girl's soft voice interrupts your thoughts. “Thank you, my lady. I... I don’t deserve this.”

You smile, brushing a strand of hair from her face as you finish cleaning the wound. “You do. We all deserve kindness, even when the world sometimes forgets it.”

Lucius pauses for a moment in the doorway, watching, listening, before disappearing down the hall again to carry out his command.

The night has long since fallen, and the grand halls of the palace are quieter now, the hum of courtly chatter and the heavy clang of armor replaced by the soft rustling of distant servants and the occasional glimmer of torchlight reflecting off the polished marble. It is the kind of night that promises solitude, a rare gift in a world so full of eyes, all pointed towards you. You find yourself walking the halls alone once more, needing nothing more than the silence to clear your thoughts.

You had spent the better part of the day in meetings, your role at the heart of Rome’s politics growing clearer with each passing day. The weight of your new position, all of the alliances, the shifting balances of power, and the many expectations are all beginning to wear on your mind and body.

The only place you can find any peace is in the gardens. They have become your sanctuary, so you find yourself slipping away from the palace’s watchful eyes to find some reprieve among the trees. The night air is cooler here, and the stars overhead shine brightly.

The sound of footsteps draws you out of your thoughts. At first, you think it’s just another guard or servant going about their duties, but as the figure comes closer, you realise it is him.

Lucius.

His presence is a shadow before it becomes a figure, tall and commanding, moving with purpose even in the utter stillness of the night. He doesn’t say anything as he approaches you, his eyes scanning the garden briefly before settling on you. You’ve seen him in many situations, in the heat of power struggles, in the midst of grand gatherings, but in this, this stillness, this quiet, he is different. It is almost as if you can hear the thoughts churning beneath his calm exterior.

“I didn’t expect to see you out here,” you say, your voice softer than usual, unsure of how to read the situation.

Lucius says nothing for a long moment. He merely looks at you. His lips part slightly, as though he might speak, but then he chooses not to. Instead, he takes a step closer, and you notice, almost imperceptibly, that he is giving you space.

“What are you thinking?” you ask, the words escaping before you can hold them back. It isn’t an ordinary question; this isn’t about politics or alliances. It is more personal, an invitation into the silence he carries with him, the part of him he keeps locked away. You wonder whether one day he will share them with you, his wife.

His eyes flick to yours, and for a second, there is a hesitation, a hint of something that makes you wonder if he’ll answer truthfully.

“Nothing worth saying,” he finally replies, his voice cool. He is always in control, always aware of what he reveals, to whom and when.

But tonight, it seems, something about the air between you has changed. Perhaps it is the quiet, the absence of everyone else, or maybe it is the sheer weight of the responsibilities that both of you now carry. Some of these responsibilities you now carry together.

“I don’t believe you,” you say softly, your gaze not leaving his. It isn’t defiance, it’s just the truth. You’ve learned enough in your time here to know that Lucius is a man of many layers, many masks, and that some things can be seen even if he never speaks them aloud.

His jaw tightens, but there is no anger in his features, no sharp rebuke. Just the unshakable, steady gaze that has become his trademark.

The only sound is the gentle rustling of leaves in the night wind.

Finally, he breaks the silence, "I've seen you in the gardens before, what draws you to them so?"

You pause, thinking for a moment before answering. "The night reminds me of home." He looks at you, raising an eyebrow slightly, prompting you to continue.

"I have never lived anywhere but my childhood home, so coming here has been...difficult, to say the least." You pause, unsure of how to continue.

"I found that even though my whole life has been turned upside down, the night sky has not changed. The stars are in the same place they have always been, so when I look up to them, I can forget everything else, and I could just as easily be home again."

His eyes narrow, as if measuring your words. "You don't seem as disillusioned as most would be," he observes. "Most would be angrier, most would resent being used as a pawn in the empire’s games."

You tilt your head, a small smile playing at the corners of your mouth. "And yet, here I am. No resentment, simply...remembering." You pause, glancing down at your hands, seeing they tremble slightly.

"Just doing what I must."

Lucius steps closer, the sound of his boots against the stone floor drawing your attention. "And what if your duty requires something more than you expected?" His voice drops, a thread of vulnerability threading through his usual detached tone. "What if you’re asked to choose between what’s right for the empire and what’s right for you?"

The question hangs in the air like a challenge, but you meet his gaze without any hesitation. "Then I will choose both, Lucius. I will find a way."

He speaks again, softer this time.

"Earlier, when you helped the servant..." He pauses, his voice a little quieter, almost as if uncertain of his own curiosity. "Why did you do that? It was nothing more than a small injury, but you treated it as if it were life or death."

You bite your lip, the memory of the servant’s injury still fresh. It had been a simple cut, nothing that would have warranted a second glance from anyone else. Yet, something in you had insisted on helping. It had felt… right.

"You see, Lucius," you say, carefully choosing your words, "in a place like this, where everything is always about power and control, it's easy to forget the little things. The ones who are dismissed, the ones who are invisible. It's not much, but I can't help but think that if we forget them, we lose something essential to who we are as people."

He is quiet for a long time, his gaze never leaving you. There is something unreadable in his expression, something buried deep beneath the surface.

"You're different," he finally says, his voice low. "Most would never think twice about such a thing. They would walk past, their eyes trained on the bigger picture, and yet..." His gaze softens, though he quickly masks it with a brief glance away.

You swallow hard, "I just... I just want to do what’s right."

A fleeting silence passes between you two, heavy. The moment feels fragile, like something could shift at any moment, pulling you closer or pushing you apart.

Lucius steps closer again, the distance between you shrinking even further. You can feel the heat radiating off him, the power of his existence wrapping around you like a clock.

There is a stillness in the air, a charge that hums between the two of you, and then, almost unnoticeably, his hand brushes yours. It is so light, so momentary, that you almost think it is an accident. But the sensation of his skin against yours sends a jolt of something through you.

Your breath catches in your throat, and for a moment, neither of you moves. His hand hovers just a fraction above yours, as if unsure whether to pull away or linger. His gaze flickers between your eyes and your hand, and you can see the battle within him, something he isn’t willing to show, but still cannot completely hide.

But then, just as quickly, he pulls away, his hand falling back to his side.

"I should go," Lucius says, his voice returning to its usual coolness. "There are matters to attend to."

You nod, though the tightness in your chest makes it difficult to breathe. "Of course."

As he turns to leave, you can't help but watch him, your thoughts swirling. For all the power he wielded, for all his control, you know there is something more to that man.

all parts of this series are out now, hope you enjoy 🫶

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Advice on being seventeen

Hi my biggest advice is please learn how to cope without your phone. I’m only 22, but I can’t tell you how vast the generational gap feels when I’m rooming a patient in their late teens and they’re just rudely on their phone the whole time because face to face etiquette is completely lost on them. Covid def did something to people who were in middle school or high school during the pandemic. Literally just try to exist without it more

Don’t obsess over anyone!!! Find a hobby!!!!!! Popular advice for a reason!!!!!!!!!!!!

Start volunteering early - it will help you build confidence and also genuinely help you find yourself

Read more is a very cliche one, but the massive illiteracy of every person I’ve met below 20 scares me

Don’t underestimate the power of a firm shower, a good meal, and 8 hours of sleep. Look into healthy habits, but don’t go off the deep end w self help consumption (as I once did!!!!!).

Advocate for yourself!! Especially if you have an overprotective family. Wish I’d done this sooner and just followed my gut on certain things, even if my loved ones disagreed. The more you do this with discernment, the less impressionable you will be. And it’s better to have regrets as a result of your own calls rather than somebody else’s

Do dumb shit tbh. 17 is the time to take (calculated) risks. Do fun silly things and don’t take yourself too seriously. No one expects anything of you at 17, and 99% of what people think won’t mater in no time at all. Go crazy but be safe about it

Give yourself permission to be out of the loop and focus on yours when you need it

You don’t have to delete social media to be able to use your phone in a healthy way, but you wouldn’t lose much by deleting it. Unless you are literally gaining money by being on social media, you do not need to be on it

The spotlight effect is very real. You have to learn that no one really, truly cares that much. And then you have to feel very free bc of that fact

Start having intergenerational friendships now. Little children. Older people. It’s so beneficial

[shegatsby]

Love Thy Enemy

Summary; Y/N Atreides had always been a stranger to the entire galaxy, her bed wasn’t her bed, her home wasn’t her home due to the fact that she was sent to accompany and be sisters with Irulan. She had limited access to her actual family and over the years they grew distant. She thought she would be like Reverend Mother, alone, yet powerful, and soon she would realize that there was no need of being alone when a wild creature had his eyes on her for a long time.

A/N: Long time no see my little doves. I am back. I had some mental issues, my man did me dirty (it was a situationship) and it broke me down but I am fine now. I am the type of ex that you can't reach me once you did me dirty and he keeps trying to reach me but I am not responding. Know your worth besties. This one is short because I wanted to post it immediately. Enjoy!

Warnings: Being kidnapped.

Words: 934

TAG LIST IS OPEN!

Chapter Eleven

The travel was smooth, she sat on the empty room, did her meditations, calculated the outcomes etc. After what seemed like a day the ship arrived on the planet of Arrakis, how she longed to see Feyd… however the ship as coming closer to the palace was hijacked by what she assumed Fremen soldiers. With a heavy thud it landed on the desert. She bolted to her feet, getting ready to fight, she could hear conversations in different language outside the ship, two men and women were speaking, they sounded content, another mission done. Soon the hatch was opened by them and Y/N was seen in the empty space, the Fremen were alerted and raised their weapons, Y/N charged one of them and took him down, however the woman of the group got a hold of her by her scarf and dragged her down, her face was revealed. ‘’Let go of-‘’ she was about to use the voice but the woman covered her mouth quickly, her blue eyes due to spice consumption grew larger when she realized that Y/N could use the voice. ‘’Sayyadina.’’ she called her, and then turned to her comrades, they repeated the same thing, ‘’Sayyadina..’’

Y/N didn’t understand the word and its meaning but she calculated that she might survive this, ‘’You are coming with us.’’ The woman said looking into her eyes and hit Y/N’s head, she blacked out.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen woke up in his empty bed, the temperature inside the palace was to his liking, his window covers were opened and let the Arrakis’s morning sun in. He slowly sat on his bed, his bare feet touching the cool surface, he sighed, he had a lot of duties to do today, per usual. As he got to his feet his door was knocked, he immediately deduced that something was off by the person’s knock but he pressed the button on his night table to let the person in. It was his most trusted advisor, ‘’Morning Na-Baron.’’ He greeted and bowed but there was haste in his voice, ‘’What is it now?’’ Feyd said annoyed as he walked to the table near the large window to get a glass of water, the man waited for him to drink his water first to deliver the news.

‘’Lady Na-Baroness,’’ he began and immediately caught his attention, ‘’What happened to my wife?!’’ his voice was stern, the hand he was holding the glass got tighter, ‘’We have news from Giedi Prime, our Na-Baroness.. has escaped the planet… by a cargo ship.’’

Feyd stood there, he knew the purpose of the cargo ships, she was coming here… ‘’Search every cargo ship that has landed on Arrakis.’’ He found himself getting hopeful, she did something he couldn’t do, she brought herself here.

‘’Na-Baron, we have searched…’’ he began, the advisor tried to keep his calm, ‘’And?’’ Feyd asked, feeling something that was out of place.

‘’She wasn’t in the ships, we believe she was kidnapped. One of the ships didn’t return, we cannot reach the pilot and workers inside.’’

Feyd, with primal rage threw the glass to the near windows, it shattered to the ground, their cargo ships usually get stolen or destroyed by the Fremen. She must have been taken by them or… he didn’t want to think further.

‘’How could you let this happen?!’’ he yelled at the advisor, ‘’Our men are searching the entire desert to find the ship.’’ The advisor began, ‘’Gather the council. Immediately.’’ He said and watched the advisor basically run out of the room.

Feyd, in hurry, got ready and marched to the briefing chambers of the palace. On his way no one dared to look at his direction for they heard the news and he was a ticking bomb. The wooden doors were opened for him and he walked in. He had his advisors, commanders in the room, all stood up from the circler table that had the map and coordinates, they bowed their bald heads to greet him.

‘’Where is my wife?!’’ he roared, his voice echoed in the room, one of the braves spoke, ‘’We have located the empty cargo ship, there was a sign of struggle,’’ the man projected the pictures that were taken, ‘’the Captain of the ship and crew were found dead.’’ Everyone could see the dead, Feyd could feel his blood boiling with anger and there was something he couldn’t place, his heart ached with a heavy feeling, he didn’t bring himself to ask if she was dead or not, he didn’t even want to think of that possibility.

‘’Any traces of my wife?’’ he asked with a raspy baritone, the man who explained the situation was much older than him, clearly he was trying to control things but Feyd was like a double edged sword. ‘’We have found a headscarf,’’ he moved his head to one of his team members to bring the material, it was given to Feyd and he smelled the headscarf, when Y/N’s pheromones it his nostrils he closed his eyes with relief, ‘’It’s hers.’’ He replied shortly. The old man was relieved, ‘’Na-Baroness must have left it there on purpose.’’ The old man added, Feyd could see that his men were somewhat hopeful, was it because they were afraid of their Na-Baron or their Na-Baroness gained their affection due to her kindness. He didn’t dwell on it, ‘’I will lead the search team.’’ Feyd said, ‘’And I will join you. Postpone all of the duties until my wife has been found.’’ And he left the room, the headscarf in his palm, his knuckles turning pale.

Thank you for reading. :)

Tag list: @superchatnoir07 @mamawiggers1980 @landlockedmermaid77 @moonsoulk @crystalskiesandcherrywine @palomavz @beebeechaos @jeong-uwu @tian-monique @avidreader73 @aleemendoza2425-blog @taleah @oneandonlybbygrl @flower-frog @or-was-it-just-a-dream @howibecameabadassbitch @monstresshorn @keanuispunk @lunerose0 @purplepeach333 @torossosebs @austinbutlerslovers @athanasialove @darlingisntit @aoi-targaryen @alexa4040 @wo-ming-bai @rosegardenpatsu @affabletimelady @mydearbabydoll @lothiriel9 @sabrinaselina55

[coolestork]

Of Darkness and Danger

Konrad Curze x Reader (Filthy FILTHY Smut)

-

Description: You offer yourself to darkness, not knowing fully what it entails.

Note: First smut eveeeeer, hopefully it's dirty enough. Leave a comment if you'd like to be fed more porn. ʕ •̀ω•́ ʔ✧

-

You sought him out, knowing full well that this could be your ruin. Not for power, not for survival, but for the raw feeling of surrender—to let the abyss swallow you whole and make you feel something real, no matter how dangerous. It was madness, perhaps, but it was your madness.

The halls leading to his chamber had been silent but oppressive, as though the stone itself recoiled from his presence. Each step closer had pulled your breath thinner, your heart racing faster. And when you reached the threshold, standing before the heavy iron door, you hesitated only for a moment.

You were offering yourself to the monster, hoping that in the consumption, something of you might finally feel whole.

The room was suffocatingly dark, lit only by faint, flickering luminors casting jagged shadows across the cold stone walls. You couldn’t see him, not at first—but you could feel him. His presence was oppressive, a suffocating weight that made your skin crawl. The air crackled with a predatory charge, and you knew he was watching you, his piercing, cold gaze slicing through the darkness.

“You shouldn’t be here,” came his voice, low and venomous, dripping with malice and a hint of amusement. “And yet, here you are, trembling like a cornered lamb. Tell me, little one—did you come here to beg? To tempt the monster in the shadows?”

Before you could answer, he was there, his towering frame materializing out of the darkness. Konrad Curze loomed over you, a living nightmare cloaked in obsidian armor etched with screaming faces. His pale, deathly face twisted into a cruel smirk as he reached out, his gauntleted hand gripping your jaw with enough force to make you gasp.

“You cower,” he hissed, leaning in close, his breath brushing your ear as he whispered, “Is it fear… or something darker?” His sharp, elongated teeth caught the dim light as he grinned, his blackened eyes narrowing. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you? I can smell it on you—the way your body betrays you.”

He didn’t wait for permission. He never would. Konrad’s massive hands tore at your clothing with calculated cruelty, the fabric shredding under his talons like paper. His claws scraped against your skin, just enough to sting but not to draw blood—yet. “Look at you,” he growled, tilting his head as though inspecting prey. “So fragile. So breakable. It would be so easy…”

His hand slipped lower, wrapping around your throat, his claws pressing lightly against your skin. He didn’t squeeze—he didn’t have to. The sheer size of his hand, the icy grip of his fingers, was enough to make you shudder. “You like this,” he murmured darkly, his voice a low, mocking purr. “You like the danger, the pain. You want to be consumed by the darkness, don’t you?”

When he finally pushed you onto the cold stone floor, his massive frame pinned you down, his armored weight pressing into you.

“You’re so small,” he sneered, his massive hands gripping your hips and dragging you into position as though you weighed nothing. “So weak. And yet, you dare to offer yourself to me? Foolish little thing.”

Standing up, Curze disarmed with eerie grace, each motion deliberate and predatory. The hiss of depressurizing seals echoed as he released his collar, shadows dancing over the midnight blue of his warplate. Plates shifted and fell away, revealing scarred, sinewy flesh pale as death itself.

Gauntlets clattered to the floor, his bare, clawed fingers flexing—no less lethal without their armor. The chestplate followed, exposing a lean, scarred torso carved by violence and hardship. Each breath pulled taut against his ribs, his body a grim testament to survival.

Piece by piece, the greaves and thigh plates followed, his movements slow and methodical. Dark, sweat-matted hair clung to his temples, framing a gaunt face with hollowed cheekbones and eyes that burned with unsettling intensity.

Stripped of his warplate, he was no less menacing, dangerous even when bared to the bone.

His cock was enormous, the sheer size of it making you gasp in both fear and anticipation. He laughed, a low, guttural sound that sent chills down your spine. “Do you see it?” he taunted, running the blunt head along your entrance. “Do you realize what you’ve begged for? What it will do to you?”

He didn’t ease into you—there was no patience, no tenderness. He forced himself inside you with a savage growl, reveling in the way your body struggled to accommodate him. The stretch was immediate and brutal. “Look at you,” he snarled, his hands bruising your hips as he began to thrust.

Each thrust was punishing, his pace relentless as he drove deeper, his cock stretching you so completely that you couldn’t form words, only broken gasps and cries. He leaned down, his sharp teeth grazing your throat as he whispered, “Scream for me, girl.”

Konrad's breath was hot against your ear, the edges of his voice sharp with cruelty. "How shameful," he rasped darkly, each brutal thrust drawing out a sharp gasp from your lips. "Taking me so well… stretched open and ruined, as it is meant to be."

He chuckled lowly, a sound that sent shivers down your spine. "What’s the matter?" he taunted softly. "Can't even speak? Good. All I want to hear are those broken little sounds."

His pace was merciless, every snap of his hips deliberate and punishing. "Do you feel it?" he whispered, voice thick with sadistic pleasure, a twisted purr. "How full you are? I can feel how tight you're clenching around me... trying to keep every bit of it inside."

A guttural snarl broke free as he slammed deep, his body shuddering violently. "That's it," he breathed against your trembling skin.

His release hit like a dam breaking, a torrent of molten heat flooding your insides with brutal, unrelenting force. His cock throbbed violently, each pulse sending another thick surge deep into you, filling you until you swore you could feel it spilling into places it shouldn’t reach. The sheer size of him, combined with the relentless ache of his brutal pace, left you stretched beyond reason, and yet he buried himself deeper still, grinding his hips against yours to keep every drop inside. His growl reverberated through your body, low and guttural, as if dragged from the depths of his twisted soul, a sound of victory, of possession.

The slick, obscene mess of it was inescapable, seeping out around the thick base of his cock even as he refused to pull out. He pressed down on your stomach with a clawed hand, his palm rough and unyielding as though savoring the way his seed filled you to the brim. “Feel that?” he rasped, his voice dark and low, as if speaking to himself more than to you. “That’s me. All of me.” His claws scraped along the skin of your hips, leaving faint, bloody trails as he held you in place. The wet, filthy squelch of him inside you was obscene, every twitch and grind forcing another involuntary clench around him, dragging a cruel laugh from his lips.

It didn’t stop—he didn’t stop. Even as his release slowed, it came in smaller, possessive spurts, as though his body refused to let you go until he’d marked every inch of you from the inside out. His hips rolled lazily now, pushing his cum deeper, ensuring that nothing went to waste. “You’ll feel me for days,” he hissed, his breath hot and ragged against your neck. “Every step, every breath—you’ll know what I’ve done to you.” His claws trailed down, gathering the slick mix of your fluids from where it leaked out around him, smearing it deliberately along your thighs, your stomach, as though marking you was an extension of his claim.

When he finally pulled out, it was slow and deliberate, as if savoring the way your body clung to him, reluctant to release him despite the stretch and ache. His cock dragged against your raw, oversensitive walls, and as he slipped free, a thick gush of his cum followed, spilling out of you in sticky rivulets. His eyes narrowed in satisfaction, watching as the mess coated your thighs and the ground beneath you. He dragged two fingers through the mess, spreading it across your skin with deliberate cruelty before shoving his fingers into your mouth, forcing you to taste the aftermath of his debauchery. “Swallow,” he commanded, his voice a venomous whisper. “Know your place. Know me.”

-

Note: a lil sum sum for you corrupted souls. ILY.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

FTC vs surveillance pricing

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

In the mystical cosmology of economics, "prices" are of transcendental significance, the means by which the living market knows and adapts itself, giving rise to "efficient" production and consumption.

At its most basic level, the metaphysics of pricing goes like this: if there is less of something for sale than people want to buy, the seller will raise the price until enough buyers drop out and demand equals supply. If the disappointed would-be buyers are sufficiently vocal about their plight, other sellers will enter the market (bankrolled by investors who sense an opportunity), causing supplies to increase and prices to fall until the system is in "equilibrium" – producing things as cheaply as possible in precisely the right quantities to meet demand. In the parlance of neoclassical economists, prices aren't "set": they are discovered.

In antitrust law, there are many sins, but they often boil down to "price setting." That is, if a company has enough "market power" that they can dictate prices to their customers, they are committing a crime and should be punished. This is such a bedrock of neoclassical economics that it's a tautology "market power" exists where companies can "set prices"; and to "set prices," you need "market power."

Prices are the blood cells of the market, shuttling nutrients (in the form of "information") around the sprawling colony organism composed of all the buyers, sellers, producers, consumers, intermediaries and other actors. Together, the components of this colony organism all act on the information contained in the "price signals" to pursue their own self-interest. Each self-interested action puts more information into the system, triggering more action. Together, price signals and the actions they evince eventually "discover" the price, an abstraction that is yanked out of the immaterial plane of pure ideas and into our grubby, physical world, causing mines to re-open, shipping containers and pipelines to spark to life, factories to retool, trucks to fan out across the nation, retailers to place ads and hoist SALE banners over their premises, and consumers to race to those displays and open their wallets.

When prices are "distorted," all of this comes to naught. During the notorious "socialist calculation debate" of 1920s Austria, right-wing archdukes of religious market fundamentalism, like Von Hayek and Von Mises, trounced their leftist opponents, arguing that the market was the only computational system capable of calculating how much of each thing should be made, where it should be sent, and how much it should be sold for.

Attempts to "plan" the economy – say, by subsidizing industries or limiting prices – may be well-intentioned, but they broke the market's computations and produced haywire swings of both over- and underproduction. Later, the USSR's planned economy did encounter these swings. These were sometimes very grave (famines that killed millions) and sometimes silly (periods when the only goods available in regional shops were forks, say, creating local bubbles in folk art made from forks).

Unplanned markets do this too. Most notoriously, capitalism has produced a vast oversupply of carbon-intensive goods and processes, and a huge undersupply of low-carbon alternatives, bringing the human civilization to the brink of collapse. Not only have capitalism's price signals failed to address this existential crisis to humans, it has also sown the seeds of its own ruin – the market computer's not going to be getting any "price signals" from people as they drown in floods or roast to death on sidewalks that deliver second-degree burns to anyone who touches them:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91151209/extreme-heat-southwest-phoenix-surface-burns-scorching-pavement-sidewalks-pets

For market true believers, these failures are just evidence that regulation is distorting markets, and that the answer is more unregulated markets to infuse the computer with more price signals. When it comes to carbon, the problem is that producers are "producing negative externalities" (that is, polluting and sticking us with the bill). If we can just get them to "internalize" those costs, they will become "economically rational" and switch to low-carbon alternatives.

That's the theory behind the creation and sale of carbon credits. Rather than ordering companies to stop risking civilizational collapse and mass extinction, we can incentivize them to do so by creating markets that reward clean tech and punish dirty practices. The buying and selling of carbon credits is supposed to create price signals reflecting the existential risk to the human race and the only habitable planet known to our species, which the market will then "bring into equilibrium."

Unfortunately, reality has a distinct and unfair leftist bias. Carbon credits are a market for lemons. The carbon credits you buy to "offset" your car or flight are apt to come from a forest that has already burned down, or that had already been put in a perpetual trust as a wildlife preserve and could never be logged:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/18/greshams-carbon-law/#papal-indulgences

Carbon credits produce the most perverse outcomes imaginable. For example, much of Tesla's profitability has been derived from the sale of carbon credits to the manufacturers of the dirtiest, most polluting SUVs on Earth; without those Tesla credits, those SUVs would have been too expensive to sell, and would not have existed:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

What's more, carbon credits aren't part of an "all of the above" strategy that incorporates direct action to prevent our species downfall. These market solutions are incompatible with muscular direct action, and if we do credits, we can't do other stuff that would actually work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff

Even though price signals have repeatedly proven themselves to be an insufficient mechanism for producing "efficient" or even "survivable," they remain the uppermost spiritual value in the capitalist pantheon. Even through the last 40 years of unrelenting assaults on antitrust and competition law, the one form of corporate power that has remained both formally and practically prohibited is "pricing power."

That's why the DoJ was able to block tech companies and major movie studios from secretly colluding to suppress their employees' wages, and why those employees were able to get huge sums out of their employers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

It's also why the Big Six (now Big Five) publishers and Apple got into so much trouble for colluding to set a floor on the price of ebooks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2012)

When it comes to monopoly, even the most Bork-pilled, Manne-poisoned federal judges and agencies have taken a hard line on price-fixing, because "distortions" of prices make the market computer crash.

But despite this horror of price distortions, America's monopolists have found so many ways to manipulate prices. Last month, The American Prospect devoted an entire issue to the many ways that monopolies and cartels have rigged the prices we pay, pushing them higher and higher, even as our wages stagnated and credit became more expensive:

https://prospect.org/pricing

For example, there's the plague of junk fees (AKA "drip pricing," or, if you're competing to be first up against the wall come the revolution, "ancillary revenue"), everything from baggage fees from airlines to resort fees at hotels to the fee your landlord charges if you pay your rent by check, or by card, or in cash:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/07/drip-drip-drip/#drip-off

There's the fake transparency gambit, so beloved of America's hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

The "greedflation" that saw grocery prices skyrocketing, which billionaire grocery plutes blamed on covid stimulus checks, even as they boasted to their shareholders about their pricing power:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-12-war-in-the-aisles/

There's the the tens of billions the banks rake in with usurious interest rates, far in excess of the hikes to the central banks' prime rates (which are, in turn, justified in light of the supposed excesses of covid relief checks):

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-11-what-we-owe/

There are the scams that companies like Amazon pull with their user interfaces, tricking you into signing up for subscriptions or upsells, which they grandiosely term "dark patterns," but which are really just open fraud:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-10-one-click-economy/

There are "surge fees," which are supposed to tempt more producers (e.g. Uber drivers) into the market when demand is high, but which are really just an excuse to gouge you – like when Wendy's threatens to surge-price its hamburgers:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/

And then there's surveillance pricing, the most insidious and profitable way to jack up prices. At its core, surveillance pricing uses nonconsensually harvested private information to inform an algorithm that reprices the things you buy – from lattes to rent – in real-time:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Companies like Plexure – partially owned by McDonald's – boasts that it can use surveillance data to figure out what your payday is and then hike the price of the breakfast sandwich or after-work soda you buy every day.

Like every bad pricing practice, surveillance pricing has its origins in the aviation industry, which invested early on and heavily in spying on fliers to figure out how much they could each afford for their plane tickets and jacking up prices accordingly. Architects of these systems then went on to found companies like Realpage, a data-brokerage that helps landlords illegally collude to rig rent prices.

Algorithmic middlemen like Realpage and ATPCO – which coordinates price-fixing among the airlines – are what Dan Davies calls "accountability sinks." A cartel sends all its data to a separate third party, which then compares those prices and tells everyone how much to jack them up in order to screw us all:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

These price-fixing middlemen are everywhere, and they predate the boom in commercial surveillance. For example, Agri-Stats has been helping meatpackers rig the price of meat for 40 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

But when you add commercial surveillance to algorithmic pricing, you get a hybrid more terrifying than any cocaine-sharks (or, indeed, meth-gators):

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-police-warn-locals-not-flush-drugs-fear-meth-gators-n1030291

Apologists for these meth-gators insist that surveillance pricing's true purpose is to let companies offer discounts. A streaming service can't afford to offer $0.99 subscriptions to the poor because then all the rich people would stop paying $19.99. But with surveillance pricing, every customer gets a different price, titrated to their capacity to pay, and everyone wins.

But that's not how it cashes out in the real world. In the real world, rich people who get ripped off have the wherewithal to shop around, complain effectively to a state AG, or punish companies by taking their business elsewhere. Meanwhile, poor people aren't just cash-poor, they're also time-poor and political influence-poor.

When the dollar store duopoly forces all the mom-and-pop grocers in your town out of business with predatory pricing, and creating food deserts that only they serve, no one cares, because state AGs and politicians don't care about people who shop at dollar stores. Then, the dollar stores can collude with manufacturers to get shrunken "cheater sized" products that sell for a dollar, but cost double or triple the grocery store price by weight or quantity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

Yes, fliers who seem to be flying on business (last-minute purchasers who don't have a Saturday stay) get charged more than people whose purchase makes them seem to be someone flying away for a vacation. But that's only because aviation prices haven't yet fully transitioned to surveillance pricing. If an airline can correctly calculate that you are taking a trip because you're a grad student who must attend a conference in order to secure a job, and if they know precisely how much room you have left on your credit card, they can charge you everything you can afford, to the cent.

Your ability to resist pricing power isn't merely a function of a company's market power – it's also a function of your political power. Poor people may have less to steal, but no one cares when they get robbed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/19/martha-wright-reed/#capitalists-hate-capitalism

So surveillance pricing, supercharged by algorithms, represent a serious threat to "prices," which is the one thing that the econo-religious fundamentalists of the capitalist class value above all else. That makes surveillance pricing low-hanging fruit for regulatory enforcement: a bipartisan crime that has few champions on either side of the aisle.

Cannily, the FTC has just declared war on surveillance pricing, ordering eight key players in the industry (including capitalism's arch-villains, McKinsey and Jpmorgan Chase) to turn over data that can be used to prosecute them for price-fixing within 45 days:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-issues-orders-eight-companies-seeking-information-surveillance-pricing

As American Prospect editor-in-chief David Dayen notes in his article on the order, the FTC is doing what he and his journalistic partners couldn't: forcing these companies to cough up internal data:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-07-24-ftc-opens-surveillance-pricing-inquiry/

This is important, and not just because of the wriggly critters the FTC will reveal as they use their powers to turn over this rock. Administrative agencies can't just do whatever they want. Long before the agencies were neutered by the Supreme Court, they had strict rules requiring them to gather evidence, solicit comment and counter-comment, and so on, before enacting any rules:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

Doubtless, the Supreme Court's Loper decision (which overturned "Chevron deference" and cut off the agencies' power to take actions that they don't have detailed, specific authorization to take) will embolden the surveillance pricing industry to take the FTC to court on this. It's hard to say whether the courts will find in the FTC's favor. Section 6(b) of the FTC Act clearly lets the FTC compel these disclosures as part of an enforcement action, but they can't start an enforcement action until they have evidence, and through the whole history of the FTC, these kinds of orders have been a common prelude to enforcement.

One thing this has going for it is that it is bipartisan: all five FTC commissioners, including both Republicans (including the Republican who votes against everything) voted in favor of it. Price gouging is the kind of easy-to-grasp corporate crime that everyone hates, irrespective of political tendency.

In the Prospect piece on Ticketmaster's pricing scam, Dayen and Groundwork's Lindsay Owens called this the "Age of Recoupment":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/03/aoi-aoi-oh/#concentrated-gains-vast-diffused-losses

For 40 years, neoclassical economics' focus on "consumer welfare" meant that companies could cheat and squeeze their workers and suppliers as hard as they wanted, so long as prices didn't go up. But after 40 years, there's nothing more to squeeze out of workers or suppliers, so it's time for the cartels to recoup by turning on us, their customers.

They believe – perhaps correctly – that they have amassed so much market power through mergers and lobbying that they can cross the single bright line in neoliberal economics' theory of antitrust: price-gouging. No matter how sincere the economics profession's worship of prices might be, it still might not trump companies that are too big to fail and thus too big to jail.

The FTC just took an important step in defense of all of our economic wellbeing, and it's a step that even the most right-wing economist should applaud. They're calling the question: "Do you really think that price-distortion is a cardinal sin? If so, you must back our play." Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

https://clarionwriteathon.com/members/profile.php?writerid=293388

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

[glittter-skeleton]

I haven’t seen anyone talk about Alastor’s cannibalism in relation to his relationship with Vox

So with most cannibalistic serial killers the reason they are people wasn’t because they liked the taste. It’s about full control and psycho-sexual desire as consumption.

The want of control is obvious all though Alastor’s character over himself and others. From the way he clearly gets joy out of ordering Husk around and literally owning his soul to his own ever-present smile (if we assume he’s not forsed into it as has not yet been confirmed) as a means of controlling his own character at all times. But with cannibalism it’s more than that, it’s control over your victim ever after they died, the power to not only control their souls but their body

And that’s where the psycho-sexual part of it comes in. In resent years movies like “raw” and “bones and all” we see what has always been a part of cannibalism: desire. Because it’s not only the power, it’s also the feeling of consumption, of becoming one with your victim. I’m a way, that’s not too different from sex in it’s most pure and carnal. In real killers most of the cases of cannibalism are sexual, with sex crimes accompanying. We can assume Alastor wasn’t like that, but the element or the carnal desire that plays such a big part in cannibalism still follows his character.

All of that to say that the desire that Alastor can feel in his own twisted way towards other demons is… impossible with Vox. He’s not made of flesh and bone (most probably) and we don’t know if he ever was. There is nothing for Alastor to feel attracted towards, not even his body (in the most literal way). We can also play with the idea that Vox is a sort of Ship of Theseus-type cyborg replacing parts of himself with machine one by one until there is none left as we do not know of any other demons in hell who are anywhere like him. So even if Alastor could feel that sort of way towards Vox, it is no more. And on the other side, if Vox was literally re-born as machine (maybe as ironic punishment for trying to be like one on earth like cutting off his emotions, etc) than that Alastor finds most desirable in a person was never there in Vox to begin with.

This parts a bit of stretch but even without the cannibalism Alastor thrives in watching people who are hopeful, souls who try and fail over and over again. Which maybe, as a machine, Vox originally wasn’t. Maybe at the start of their relationship he was calculating and unemotional which pairs well with Alastor’s own mask of detachment and indifference but also makes him completely uninteresting to Alastor as a subject of desire. But on the other hand Vox isn’t just machine, he’s a TV and his character reflects the media’s reactionary and emotional judgment. I just don’t know how Alastor ever worked with Vox if he’s always had the mindset we see in the show. But if that’s the case Alastor does feed on Vox’s desperation but never fully, never truly desiring him the consuming, power-play way that he feels most strongly (aka the want to eat him). I present you with both readings of Vox’s past emotional state as we do not as of now know what their relationship has been before

TLDR: Vox is the pinnacle of un-fuckable to Alastor, as even though he does not feel sexual desire the cannibalistic part of him can feel the psycho-sexual want to consume a body. Which he can’t with Vox who is machine.

I’d love to hear what other have to say about a machine loving a cannibal so please feel free to share your readings in the tags

[probablyasocialecologist]

Each time you search for something like “how many rocks should I eat” and Google’s AI “snapshot” tells you “at least one small rock per day,” you’re consuming approximately three watt-hours of electricity, according to Alex de Vries, the founder of Digiconomist, a research company exploring the unintended consequences of digital trends. That’s ten times the power consumption of a traditional Google search, and roughly equivalent to the amount of power used when talking for an hour on a home phone. (Remember those?) Collectively, De Vries calculates that adding AI-generated answers to all Google searches could easily consume as much electricity as the country of Ireland.

[...]

This insatiable hunger for power is slowing the transition to green energy. When the owner of two coal-fired power plants in Maryland filed plans to close last year, PJM asked them to keep running till at least 2028 to ensure grid reliability. Meanwhile, AI is also being used to actively increase fossil fuel production. Shell, for example, has aggressively deployed AI to find and produce deep-sea oil. “The truth is that these AI models are contributing in a significant way to climate change, in both direct and indirect ways,” says Tom McBrien, counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a digital policy watchdog. Even before Google’s AI integration this spring, the average internet user’s digital activity generated 229 kilograms of carbon dioxide a year. That means the world’s current internet use already accounts for about 40 percent of the per capita carbon budget needed to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

20 June 2024

[nurse-floyd]

F1 and VO2 Max Training

(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)

What is VO2 Max Training and why do drivers do it?

VO2 Max is the maximum amount of oxygen the body absorbs during exercise and can measure aerobic fitness levels. VO2 = Volume of oxygen consumed by the body per minute - it is one of the strongest predicters of heart disease and death. It is the best measure of cardiac and respiratory fitness available.

VO2 is measured in ml (of oxygen) / kg (body mass) / minute

How much oxygen the body consumes - the amount of blood the heart pumps per minute and how much oxygen was taken from it.

Now...why do F1 drivers need this?

Drivers put extreme demand on their cardiovascular, respiratory and overall physical health during races. Their bodies are subjected to enormous amounts of g-force and experience extreme heat and stress. They need a lot of energy to do this and as a result can burn a lot of calories per race.

VO2 max training is a useful measurement to assess a drivers endurance at their maximum during exercise which they are subject to during a race. The strain they're under during a race would require their bodies to be pushed to the max, requiring optimal oxygen intake and energy production.

It can ensure drivers are fit enough to endure the stress they subject their bodies to despite the environment within the car - maximum speeds/ heat. It gives drivers and their teams a greater understanding of how hard they can push their bodies and also how they can further maximise their performance during races.

Want to know a bit more about the science? Read below.

Now the (more) science-y bit - oxygen is used in respiration and as you breathe in oxygen the lungs turn it into energy called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). This powers the cells and helps release the CO2 in the body that's created during respiration when you breathe out.

The greater a persons VO2 max, the more oxygen a body can consume and the more effectively the body can use this to create the maximum amount of ATP energy and the better the body can handle aerobic/ cardio exercise.

During the test the goal is to get to maximum exercise to determine max heart rate, vo2 max and an estimated lactate threshold. The test measures oxygen consumption and CO2 production using a mask to determine values. The goal is to run at a comfortable speed but not too comfortable for around 10 minutes to max out oxygen consumption and heart rate. During the test heart rate is measured using the ECG dots you can see on the chest.

The Fick Equation is used to calculate VO2.

VO2 (mls O2/ minute) = cardiac output (stroke volume x cardiac output) x arteriovenous oxygen difference (difference in O2 content between arterial and venous blood - how much O2 is used by tissues in systemic circulation).

So in short, VO2 is how much oxygen the body consumes - how much blood the heart pumps per minute and how much oxygen was taken from it.

[softnwonderful]

Tech is the freakiest of The Batch

Pairing: Tech x Gn!Reader Word Count: 359 Rating: Explicit Warning: Sexual Content, mention of sub/Dom dynamics and Kinks.

Author's Note: So, I've been thinking about Tech, and to me, he's either hypersexual or ace, no middle ground. Here are my thoughts on the sexual option.

SEXUAL CONTENT UNDER THE CUT. YOU ARE RESPONSABLE FOR YOUR OWN CONSUMPTION.

think about it:

he's moved by curiosity and doesn't shy away from things he doesn't understand. he pursues, observers, researches as much as he can about anything he's not an expert in. mix that with sexual pleasure and you can get a very kinky person. 

control, control, CONTROL. the man loves structure and organization. he's also not the best fan of following plans that are not optimal based on his personal calculations. he likes to explore things under his own terms and conditions. i don't think he’s a sadistic dom (even though he has the potential to be it), but i do believe he can be a pretty stern one at the very least. 

he's not the most patient or humorous of all the clones, so again, that leads me to think he'd be into strong power dynamics. not with the usual playful or affectionate approach of a soft dom, but with a rather stricter tone. 

i bet his big on bondage, specially shibari. he enjoys the ultimate aesthetical result of it but also gets off on the intimacy of every careful touch. 

he can be such a tease as well, and most of the time is not even on purpose. he's just so deliberate with his touch all the time, that every little contact you get from him makes you shiver. when he noticed the effect that had on you, he began to play around with it, trying to see how many noises he could get out of you with as little touching as possible. he has even thought about experimenting with it and see if he could make you cum untouched. 

controversial maybe? but… he knows so much about different mating rituals from several species around the galaxy, that not much fazes him anymore. what i'm trying to say is, he can find pleasure in weird things and be gross in the best way possible. think: shoving his fingers in your mouth, dragging spit all over your face, cumming anywhere in your body and smearing it a little. also rough oral, anal, squirting; i would even dare to say watersports. and some not-so-gross but niche stuff as well. 

ok, I'm done. I'll go to bed now.

[a-minke-whales-tale]

Estimation of Energy Consumption During Swimming

One of the big questions I have had for quite a while is to estimate really just how fast I would normally swim, my normal energy consumption, and questioning if really I could breach, either partially or entirely.

Starting from my most recent estimations of the shape and size of the suit (which I have another post on that soon so this is sort of sneak preview). The length is 2,4 meters, width 0,36 meters, and height around 0,28 meters (I originally started at a target around 3,5 meters or so I think to give an idea how much the size has changed). The flukes would be 0,7 meters across and roughly 0,2 meters in length.

We can approximate a whale as more or less an ellipsoid with several protrusions at least for a first order guess. In this case the dorsal fin is small so it will be ignored and I will only add in the flukes (however this notably only changes the result around 5%). I did not include the flippers because when swimming straight and continuously, we tend to hold our flippers against our side and bring them out only when manoeuvring. This is in contrast to the delphinids (like dolphin and orca whose flippers tend to remain in the flowstream).

Using this equation we can calculate the wetted area of the suit (note that these sorts of approximations tend to lose accuracy as one axis becomes stretched as has happened here but it is what we have for now).

The drag equation is fairly straight forward.

However to turn it into energy this drag force needs to be multiplied by the distance over which it occurs. To become power it is then divided by time. This does make the power required to move through the water functionally a cubic relation.

From this paper, Simulated and experimental estimates of hydrodynamic drag from bio-logging tags, we can get drag coefficients corresponding to velocity. It is worth noting that these values are for bottlenose dolphins, however a variety of papers tend to put the coefficient of drag in this range so we will use it.

The efficiency of the kicks also poses some question. I took 56% from Propulsive Efficiency of the Underwater Dolphin Kick in Humans which notes 56% within its abstract for cetacean swimming efficiency. It does however note that other papers have reported 79% for monofin users, and 86% in bottlenose dolphins though that those numbers are idealised and ignores body drag.

Taking this data yields the following table which gives the needed input power and MET rating.

2,5 MET is equivalent to a gentle walk and 6 MET to running. Minke whale generally cruise swim between 5-10 kph though can swim as fast as 40kph. From this swimming at 10kph is likely to be a significant struggle for any length of time, however 5kph corresponds to 1,6 which is roughly equivalent to making this tumblr post.

From this chart there is very much no way I would be able to reach the top speed of normal minke (which would require around 5kW exertion). However in very short bursts humans can produce 2000-2500W of power so it is possible for a very brief moment I could get near to 20kph, though that would have to be a very short moment given the nature of both the breathholding and thermal management of the suit.

However knowing that 1,5m/s (5kph) is a very relaxed swimming speed, and 3m/s is quite achievable for very short periods does mean that I will likely be able to breach entirely out of the water.

From Energetic and physical limitations on the breaching performance of large whales, minke whales would make breach attempts between 1,6 and 3,4 m/s of which half of the observed breaches were full breaches (which I believe in this paper a full breach is 40% of the body above the water, baleen whales tend not to fully clear the water in the way delphinids do).

I do have the advantage of being quite a lot smaller than a normal minke, so even moving at 3m/s I should have a higher chance of nearly fully lifting myself from the water.

It is nice to know that at least certain aspects of minke movement are achievable for me. 5kph is not terribly fast but that is plenty fast for movement and still potentially a very relaxed movement as I swim around. Also knowing that I can realistically breach (in the way baleen whales do) is quite comforting and exciting as that is something I have worried about quite a lot - that being said, there are human monofin users who are themselves capable to fully exit the water on a breach, and even with my old monofins which are far more flexible I can already exceed the 40% boundary of a full breach.

Zwem Vrij, ~Kala

[jangillman]

Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we're not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude... 12,000 gallons of it. That oil needs to be replaced once a year.

It is estimated that a little over 3,800 turbines would be needed to power a city the size of New York... That's 304,000 gallons of refined oil for just one city.

Now you have to calculate every city across the nation, large and small, to find the grand total of yearly oil consumption from "clean" energy.

Where do you think all that oil is going to come from, the oil fairies?

Not to mention the fact that the large equipment needed to build these wind farms run on petroleum. As well as the equipment required for installation, service, maintenance, and eventual removal.

And just exactly how eco-friendly is wind energy anyway?

Each turbine requires a footprint of 1.5 acres, so a wind farm of 150 turbines needs 225 acres; In order to power a city the size of NYC you'd need 57,000 acres; and who knows the astronomical amount of land you would need to power the entire US. All of which would have to be clear-cut land because trees create a barrier & turbulence that interferes with the 20mph sustained wind velocity necessary for the turbine to work properly (also keep in mind that not all states are suitable for such sustained winds). Boy, cutting down all those trees is gonna piss off a lot of green-loving tree-huggers.

Let's talk about disposal now.

The lifespan of a modern, top quality, highly efficient wind turbine is 20 years.

After that, then what? What happens to those gigantic fiber composite blades?

They cannot economically be reused, refurbished, reduced, repurposed, or recycled so guess what..? It's off to special landfills they go.

And guess what else..? They're already running out of these special landfill spaces for the blades that have already exceeded their usefulness. Seriously! Those blades are anywhere from 120 ft. to over 200 ft. long and there are 3 per turbine. And that's with only 7% of the nation currently being supplied with wind energy. Just imagine if we had the other 93% of the nation on the wind grid... 20 years from now you'd have all those unusable blades with no place to put them... Then 20 years after that, and 20 years after that, and so on.

Golly gee, how green is that?

Oops, I almost forgot about the 500,000 birds that are killed each year from wind turbine blade collisions; most of which are endangered hawks, falcons, owls, geese, ducks, and eagles.

Apparently smaller birds are more agile and able to dart and dodge out of the way of the spinning blades, whereas the larger soaring birds aren't so lucky.

I'm sure the wildlife conservationist folks are just ecstatic about that.

I'm so glad the wind energy people are looking out for the world.

[evienyx]

Calculating Sentry's Power Level (with science!!!)

In Thunderbolts*, we are told rather explicitly that Sentry has "the power of a thousand exploding suns." I have seen this used a lot when discussing how he might measure up against other beings within the MCU.

Now, I have no real way of calculating or quantifying the power of someone like Wanda or Loki or anyone like that. For Bob, though, we might actually be able to find a number. What would this number mean? Unimportant, this is just for fun, so don't take anything as gospel either because I'm barely checking my math here and am just stream-of-consciousness-ing this thing.

Okay, so, let's figure out just how much power Bob has (spoiler: it's so much omg lmao). My man is stressed and doesn't wanna know but that's too damn bad okay here we go.

To start, let's look at how much energy, or power, the Sun outputs.

When it comes to stars, their power output is referred to as their luminosity, and is measured in Watts (also known as Joules/second, or the energy output every second).

The Sun's luminosity is about 3.828 × 10^26 Watts. (source)

For reference, the total U.S. electricity consumption in 2022 was about 4.07 trillion kWh (or about 1.4652 × 10^19 Joules) (source). Dividing our Sun's luminosity of 3.828 × 10^26 Joules/second by this, we can find that the Sun outputs enough energy to power the U.S. for a year 26,126,126 times over, every second.

So, a lot of power.

This alone would pack quite a punch. However, we are not looking at the power of just one Sun, but of 1000. So, we multiply our Luminosity by 1000, and can also multiply our number of United States as well to find that our power output is now

3.828 × 10^29 Watts, or 26,126,126,000 United States (in a year, every second).

Even now, though, we aren't getting the whole picture. After all, Sentry's power isn't "the power of a thousand Suns." It's "the power of a thousand exploding Suns." Therefore, we need to look at the amount of energy that the Sun would output at the end of its life.

In astronomy, stars are categorized based off of their luminosity and their surface temperature, as well as color (source). The majority of stars (as in about 90%) fall into the "main sequence," while the other 10% are made up white dwarfs, giants, and supergiants. They are organized in what is known as the Hertzprung-Russell (HR) diagram, shown below.

Our Sun is what is known as a G-Type (yellow) star. It is a very average star (which is a good thing). For average stars, their life comes to an end when they run out of excess hydrogen to use for nuclear fusion (the process of fusing hydrogen atoms into helium, which releases immense energy and powers the star). Once that hydrogen runs out, the star begins to collapse.

This collapse, however, produces more heat, so that the star can then create essentially a burning shell of its little remaining hydrogen that wraps around the star's core. This shell causes the outer layers of the star to expand rapidly, turning the star into a red giant, which will consume its helium until it is gone, and collapse and expand again.

As material continues to be ejected from the red giant, it also forms a planetary nebula around the dying star. After about a billion years, it will run out of material and the inner core of the star will be exposed. At this point, the star is left as a white dwarf (source).

Now, that was a lot, and a lot of energy was involved, but there are three main parts of the G-Type star's death: the red giant, the planetary nebula ejection, and the white dwarf.

When a star expands into a red giant, it heats up a lot, and its luminosity increases significantly (source). We don't know exactly how much the Sun's luminosity will increase by at this point. Some estimates put it anywhere between 1000 times greater and 3000 times greater, so for the sake of this, let's just say 2000 times greater.

So, the luminosity of our dying red giant star is about

7.656 × 10^29 Watts.

Unfortunately, Watts is measuring our energy output per second, and we want it overall. So, let's keep going.

Though the red giant period lasts for about a billion years, the increased luminosity is really only toward the end of it, as it comes from the burning of helium into carbon, which goes by much quicker than the hydrogen burning that took up most of the star's life.

So, instead of a billion years, we will go with about ten million years worth of our high luminosity.

Energy = luminosity (watts) × time (seconds)

Energy = (7.656 × 10^29 joules/second) × (3.154 × 10^7 seconds/year) × 10^7 years

Energy = 2.415 × 10^44 joules.

I'm not even gonna try to figure out how many United States that is.

This is only the red giant phase, of course. We still have a bit more to look at.

Though there is no fusion involved or anything, the planetary nebula ejection still outputs a lot of kinetic energy, which we can thankfully calculate relatively easily. We only need the mass and the velocity.

For mass, we're looking at about 40% of the Sun's original mass being sent out into space (source), so about 7.9536 × 10^29 (source).

For velocity, we're looking at about 20 km/s, or 20,000 m/s (source).

Another note: 1 joule = 1 kg × (m/s)^2

Now, onto kinetic energy:

E = 0.5 × mass × velocity^2

E = 0.5 × (7.9536 × 10^29 kg) × (20,000 m/s)^2

E = 1.591 × 10^38 joules.

That's a lot of energy, but in terms of stellar and astrophysics things, it's not actually that much lol. Still, now we know it.

Lastly, we have the white dwarf phase. Now, once a star is a white dwarf, its death is essentially already done. All that would be left in terms of energy for this white dwarf phase would be the energy that is output as it is cooling. Certainly, this is a lot of energy, but it isn't really enough to make much of a dent in our calculations, especially since it is happening over the course of billions of years.

So, our final number for the amount of energy output by the Sun in its death is about:

2.415 × 10^44 joules.

Our planetary nebula ejection number (1.591 × 10^38 joules) is so insignificant against this number that adding it changes literally nothing.

This is just one Sun, though. We need a thousand.

So, if we want to quantify the amount of power that Sentry has, knowing that it is the power of "a thousand exploding Suns," we can say that it is about:

2.415 × 10^47 joules.

This is more energy than the Sun will output over its entire lifetime, and by quite a lot.

Now, one thing may have caught your attention through all of this.

The idea of "exploding star" evokes a very particular image, and it is certainly not that of a star turning red and expanding and contracting over the course of a billion years. When you hear "exploding star," you don't think red giant; you think supernova.

The thing is, most stars don't go supernova. Our Sun is not nearly massive enough to go supernova. It would need a mass at least eight times that which it has to even have a possibility of going supernova.

However, supernovae have a general amount of energy that they output when they occur, in the ballpark of about 10^44 joules (source). Multiply this by 1000, and you get about the answer we already found (10^47 joules).

The exciting thing about a supernova explosion is not just the amount of energy that it outputs, but the speed at which it does so. The fact that the Sun cannot go supernova, and therefore cannot explode, will not affect our final answer in any way but vibes.

And so, we come to our not-at-all-peer-reviewed, done at midnight, completely without double-checking my work, final answer.

MCU Sentry, with the power of "a thousand exploding Suns," has the power roughly equivalent to 2.415 × 10^47 joules.

Or:

241,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules.

For reference, in 2019, the world total electricity consumption was about 22,848 TWh (source), or about 8.225 × 10^19 joules. This means that Sentry's power is equivalent to about how much energy the entire world uses in a year, 2.936 octillion times over (or 2.936 × 10^27).

Considering this is (I think) representative of his power level and not something like the total amount of power he can use ever, it's safe to say that, even if it is the power of a thousand exploding Suns rather than a million, MCU Sentry is still pretty strong, all things considered.

Anyway, if you find anything in particular that is grievously wrong with this, feel free to let me know. I did this in like under two hours.

Read next: Sentry Vs. The Avengers (with science!)

POV: They don't know I've got 2.415 × 10^47 joules worth of power inside me (except they kinda do lol)

[mariacallous]

AI’s energy use already represents as much as 20 percent of global data-center power demand, research published Thursday in the journal Joule shows. That demand from AI, the research states, could double by the end of this year, comprising nearly half of all total data-center electricity consumption worldwide, excluding the electricity used for bitcoin mining.

The new research is published in a commentary by Alex de Vries-Gao, the founder of Digiconomist, a research company that evaluates the environmental impact of technology. De Vries-Gao started Digiconomist in the late 2010s to explore the impact of bitcoin mining, another extremely energy-intensive activity, would have on the environment. Looking at AI, he says, has grown more urgent over the past few years because of the widespread adoption of ChatGPT and other large language models that use massive amounts of energy. According to his research, worldwide AI energy demand is now set to surpass demand from bitcoin mining by the end of this year.

“The money that bitcoin miners had to get to where they are today is peanuts compared to the money that Google and Microsoft and all these big tech companies are pouring in [to AI],” he says. “This is just escalating a lot faster, and it’s a much bigger threat.”

The development of AI is already having an impact on Big Tech’s climate goals. Tech giants have acknowledged in recent sustainability reports that AI is largely responsible for driving up their energy use. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, have increased 48 percent since 2019, complicating the company’s goals of reaching net zero by 2030.

“As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute,” Google’s 2024 sustainability report reads.

Last month, the International Energy Agency released a report finding that data centers made up 1.5 percent of global energy use in 2024—around 415 terrawatt-hours, a little less than the yearly energy demand of Saudi Arabia. This number is only set to get bigger: Data centers’ electricity consumption has grown four times faster than overall consumption in recent years, while the amount of investment in data centers has nearly doubled since 2022, driven largely by massive expansions to account for new AI capacity. Overall, the IEA predicted that data center electricity consumption will grow to more than 900 TWh by the end of the decade.

But there’s still a lot of unknowns about the share that AI, specifically, takes up in that current configuration of electricity use by data centers. Data centers power a variety of services—like hosting cloud services and providing online infrastructure—that aren’t necessarily linked to the energy-intensive activities of AI. Tech companies, meanwhile, largely keep the energy expenditure of their software and hardware private.

Some attempts to quantify AI’s energy consumption have started from the user side: calculating the amount of electricity that goes into a single ChatGPT search, for instance. De Vries-Gao decided to look, instead, at the supply chain, starting from the production side to get a more global picture.

The high computing demands of AI, De Vries-Gao says, creates a natural “bottleneck” in the current global supply chain around AI hardware, particularly around the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the undisputed leader in producing key hardware that can handle these needs. Companies like Nvidia outsource the production of their chips to TSMC, which also produces chips for other companies like Google and AMD. (Both TSMC and Nvidia declined to comment for this article.)

De Vries-Gao used analyst estimates, earnings call transcripts, and device details to put together an approximate estimate of TSMC’s production capacity. He then looked at publicly available electricity consumption profiles of AI hardware and estimates on utilization rates of that hardware—which can vary based on what it’s being used for—to arrive at a rough figure of just how much of global data-center demand is taken up by AI. De Vries-Gao calculates that without increased production, AI will consume up to 82 terrawatt-hours of electricity this year—roughly around the same as the annual electricity consumption of a country like Switzerland. If production capacity for AI hardware doubles this year, as analysts have projected it will, demand could increase at a similar rate, representing almost half of all data center demand by the end of the year.

Despite the amount of publicly available information used in the paper, a lot of what De Vries-Gao is doing is peering into a black box: We simply don’t know certain factors that affect AI’s energy consumption, like the utilization rates of every piece of AI hardware in the world or what machine learning activities they’re being used for, let alone how the industry might develop in the future.

Sasha Luccioni, an AI and energy researcher and the climate lead at open-source machine-learning platform Hugging Face, cautioned about leaning too hard on some of the conclusions of the new paper, given the amount of unknowns at play. Luccioni, who was not involved in this research, says that when it comes to truly calculating AI’s energy use, disclosure from tech giants is crucial.

“It’s because we don’t have the information that [researchers] have to do this,” she says. “That’s why the error bar is so huge.”

And tech companies do keep this information. In 2022, Google published a paper on machine learning and electricity use, noting that machine learning was “10%–15% of Google’s total energy use” from 2019 to 2021, and predicted that with best practices, “by 2030 total carbon emissions from training will reduce.” However, since that paper—which was released before Google Gemini’s debut in 2023—Google has not provided any more detailed information about how much electricity ML uses. (Google declined to comment for this story.)

“You really have to deep-dive into the semiconductor supply chain to be able to make any sensible statement about the energy demand of AI,” De Vries-Gao says. “If these big tech companies were just publishing the same information that Google was publishing three years ago, we would have a pretty good indicator” of AI’s energy use.

[gyutopia]

worls of sinners ii | sim jaeyun

⟶ 𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦: your parents are the head of one of the nation’s most lucrative syndicates and your older brother is heir to the throne which leaves you free to leave this world of evil behind. you’ve been waiting for this day for twenty years of your life, you can practically taste the freedom. what will you do, however, when your parents arrange a marriage for you to bind together their empire with the Lee’s to stop a full on gang war?

❥ 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: sim jaeyun x f!reader ft brother!sungchan

❥ 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒: mafia!au, arranged marriage!au

❥ 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡: 8.0k

⟶ 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠: dark themes, mentions of drugs, mentions of violence, vulgar language, mentions of death, forced marriage, corruption, consumption of alcohol, possessiveness, mentions of blood.

| masterlist | previous | next |

The reception was just as beautiful as the wedding. The soft procession of violins and cellos filled the hall as your guest roamed about the spacious room talking amongst themselves. You secluded yourself to the high table and refused to leave your position to meet any new faces.

You could clearly see the distaste written across your new father-in-laws face as you made it your goal to avoid his business associates but you could’t find it in you to care. While the mobsters scattered around the room drank away their inhibitions and partied like no tomorrow, you sat alone nursing a flute of sparkling cider mourning the loss of your freedom.

Jake tried his best to play the role of a doting husband but gave up an hour later when you did nothing but give him the cold shoulder, you said nothing as he slinked off to go congregate with his close friends, you watched them talk amongst themselves, feeling biter at how easy it was for Jake to let loose and enjoy himself. You bring the flute glass up to your lips and finish it off before placing the glass back onto the table only to be met face to face with Heeseung who stands on the other side. You raise your eyebrows curiously, “May I help you?”

He smirks and scans your face, “I'm sure you can doll.” Your face remains passive, even at the pet name he bestows upon you, you watch him with a blank face as he rounds the table to sit beside you. “Why do you look as if you’ve been shot? Shouldn’t you be happy, it’s your wedding day afterall?”

You scoff, “I’m sure you know why.”

A puff of air escapes Heeseung’s parted lips as he leans back in his seat and takes a sip of his whiskey. “Jake won’t hurt you if that’s what you’re thinking, that boy couldn’t even harm a fly. I have no clue why our father chose to hand over the clan to him. Besides, you have far more pressing matters to worry about”

An eyebrow shoots up at that, “such as..?”

He smirks over the rim of his glass, “producing an heir.” You cringe at the reminder of what is expected of you. You can’t stand even being in Jake’s presence for more than an hour let alone letting him bed you. “I don’t know how things are run over at Jung Empire but the Lee clan is quite old fashioned, the women are expected to look after the children and make sure there is peace between the mafiosos while the men control the bigger things such as the business aspect. Think of it as a game of chess, you may be the queen and Jake is the king but you hold the power on the board, he is nothing without you.”

You frown at his analogy, “I'm not sure I understand.”

Heeseung’s face is void of any emotion as he looks away to stare intently at the back of his younger brother's head, seemingly calculating “I’m sure you will soon.” He turns back to you and offers you one last vibrant smile before standing and walking away.

You watch him walk away, lost in your own mind that’s working in overdrive. You sigh and stand to walk towards the bar to get yourself a glass of whiskey.

As you pass Jake, the song draws to a close and your mother-in-law starts tapping her butter knife against the rim of her cocktail glass, the chatter around the room abruptly dies down. Your eyes locate her by the end of the hall, near the live band with her burgundy nails wrapped around a flute of a dark red wine.

“May I have your attention for a moment please,” she asks, her voice delicate yet firm. Jake makes his way over to you after excusing himself from his friends, he places a warm hand on your shoulder and leans over to place a kiss on your cheek.

You can’t decide what you hate more; the way Lee Yerin stares at you with her hawk-like eyes, scrutinizing your every move or the way Jake slides his arms down to grab you by the waist to assert his claim on you in the presence of his men.

It bothers you how comfortable he seems to be getting with you already but you know better than to brush him off. In your world, possession is everything. It wouldn’t be wise to send a message of strife so early in your marriage.

You’re barely listening as Yerin goes on about how proud she is to finally see her youngest son become a man. You wonder if she means her words, with Jake being the living breathing proof of her husband's infidelity you can’t help but wonder if she harbors any hate for the male. She finishes by thanking the guests for their attendance, before turning back to the two of you with a red-lipped smile that reaches her eyes.

As her speech draws to a close, the room erupts into polite applause, but the tension in the air remains palpable. Jake's grip tightens around your waist, his touch possessive, as if daring anyone to challenge his claim over you. It's a stark reminder of the role you've been thrust into – a pawn in a game of power and ambition.

You glance over at Yerin, her smile still plastered on her lips, but there's a glint in her eyes that sends a shiver down your spine. She may be putting on a show for the guests, but you know better than to underestimate her.

As the crowd begins to disperse, you feel a sense of relief wash over you. But before you can slip away unnoticed, Yerin's voice cuts through the air once more.

"____," she calls out, her tone sweet yet commanding. "A moment, please."

You exchange a wary glance with Jake before reluctantly stepping forward to face his step-mother. Her gaze is piercing, her scrutiny leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable.

"I hope you're settling into your new role comfortably," she says, her voice laced with thinly veiled authority.

You force a polite smile, nodding in response. "Of course, Mrs. Lee. I'm doing my best to adapt."

Yerin's smile widens, but there's a hint of something sinister lurking beneath the surface. "Good," she says, her tone dripping with insincerity. "Because there's much expected of you as Jaeyunie's wife."

You swallow hard, the weight of her words sinking in. You're well aware that your position comes with its own set of expectations and obligations.

Before you can respond, Jake steps in, his voice firm but gentle. "Mother, perhaps this can wait for another time. ____ must be tired from the festivities."

Yerin's gaze flickers between the two of you, a knowing smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Of course, my dear," she says, her tone saccharine sweet. "We wouldn't want to keep you from your rest."

With a final nod, you and Jake make your escape, the weight of Yerin's words lingering in the air like a dark cloud. As you slip away into the mass of people, you can't help but wonder what other secrets and challenges await you in this new chapter of your life.

As you and Jake make your way through the crowd, the weight of Yerin's expectations hangs heavy in the air. Despite the celebration, a sense of unease settles over you, casting a shadow over the lavish celebration.

Jake's grip on your waist remains firm, his touch a silent reassurance amidst the chaos. You steal a glance at him, finding a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, a stark contrast to the confident facade he wears for the world.

"Are you okay?" you ask softly, your voice barely audible over the din of the party.

He offers you a tight-lipped smile, his expression guarded. "I'm fine," he replies, his tone lacking conviction. "Just... adjusting, I suppose."

You nod in understanding, knowing all too well the weight of expectation. It's a burden you both share, a burden that threatens to consume you if you're not careful.

As you reach the outskirts of the crowd, Jake’s grip loosens slightly, allowing you both a moment of respite from the suffocating atmosphere of the reception hall.

"Thank you," you say softly, meeting his gaze with a mixture of gratitude and uncertainty. "For stepping in back there."

Jake offers you a small, genuine smile, his eyes softening with warmth. "Of course," he says, his voice gentle. "We're in this together, ____. No matter what."

As you and Jake navigate through the dispersing crowd, a sudden hush falls over the room, drawing your attention back to the center of the hall. Your heart skips a beat as you see Heeseung striding confidently towards you, his presence commanding the attention of everyone present.

With a flourish, he raises a glass high, the tinkling sound cutting through the silence like a sharp blade. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announces, his voice ringing clear above the murmurs of the crowd. "I believe it's time for our esteemed mafia leader to take his beautiful wife home."

A ripple of laughter and applause erupts from the guests, their cheers mingling with the strains of the fading music. You feel a flush of heat rising to your cheeks, a sense of discomfort settling in the pit of your stomach as all eyes turn to you and Jake.

Jake's grip tightens around your waist once again, his jaw clenched in irritation at the spectacle unfolding before him. You can sense the tension radiating off him, a silent warning to Heeseung to tread carefully.

But Heeseung pays no heed to Jake's silent threat, his gaze fixed on you with a predatory gleam. "Come now, my dear brother," he continues, his voice dripping with faux sincerity. "Let's not keep your wife waiting any longer."

You feel a surge of resentment bubbling within you, disgusted with the way Heeseung chooses to carry himself and address you as if you’re nothing more than a prize Jake has won to bed.

"I'm sure your wife is eager to get home and enjoy your company in a more... private setting," Heeseung drawls suggestively. This is met with a drunken roar of approval from the men in the room, a few of whom lift their glasses in Jake's direction and laugh salaciously. Yerin observes you carefully over the rim of her cocktail before stepping in. “The car outside is ready to go when you are, my darlings." she adds in, arching a perfectly-shaped eyebrow before raising her glass to you with a smirk. "Welcome to the family, ____."

A lick of ice runs through your veins.

In the next moment, you find yourself flanked from all sides by your bridesmaids, giggling as they pull you from Jake's clutches and shove you towards the exit. Jake groans as his friends do the same to him, trying and failing to get them to stop.

The cool night air hits you like a slap to the face when the double doors are flung open. A black SUV awaits you outside, the suited driver standing to attention on the curb, and the bridesmaids shove you into the back seat.

Next thing you know, Jake is being wrangled into the seat beside you. He sends his best man one last glare before the car door slams shut behind him. The car engine hums to life, and a heavy silence falls upon you as the driver pulls away.

You gaze out of the window for the entirety of the ride to your new residence.

When you finally turn in through the large automated gates of the Lee/Sim residence, you don't even wait for the driver to come around and open the door on your behalf, all but throwing it open in a bid to drag some fresh oxygen into your lungs.

You hear Jake's murmured thanks as he exits the car behind you; however your eyes remain fixated on the modern-style mansion that looms ominously before your eyes like a great, architectural monster.

Wordlessly, he moves past you with keys in hand. He knows you'll follow. After all, what other choice do you have?

The journey upstairs to the bedroom is a quiet one. Several of Jake's maids bow at ninety-degree angles as you pass, their hushed greetings of “Welcome, Mrs. Sim" directed at the expensive carpet beneath your feet, but given no indication that you should acknowledge them, you carry on in silence.

The master bedroom is pristine. So much so that it looks unlived in. As you step inside, you inhale the faint scent of fresh linen, a stark contrast to the lingering perfume of the evening's festivities.

Jake's voice breaks the silence, his tone surprisingly gentle amidst the chaos of the night. "This is your space," he says, gesturing around the room. "I'll be across the hall if you need anything."

You meet his gaze, gratitude mingling with the exhaustion etched into his features. “Okay, thank you.”

He stiffly nods before promptly exiting your room. Once he’s out of sight you huff out a sigh of relief before throwing yourself onto the large mattress. You know you should begin to get ready for bed but you feel drained in every sense of the word.

Just as you’re about to stand to remove your reception gown you feel your phone buzz on your bed. You look up from your seated position to find an incoming facetime call from Haru. You perk a bit, noting you hadn’t seen her or Anton on your way out of the reception.

You quickly answer and prop your phone up against a nearby pillow, adjusting it so you can see the screen while you start getting ready for bed.

“Hello.”

Haru smiles brightly and then turns the camera a bit to show Antons face before they both brightly answer you, “Hi!”

You smile at your two friends. “I miss you guys so much,” you say, letting out a tired sigh. “It feels like ages since I saw you.”

“We miss you too,” Haru replies, her voice filled with genuine concern. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

Anton nods in agreement, his expression serious. “If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call. We’re always here for you.”

You start to unbutton your gown, feeling a bit more relaxed. “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. Things have been... intense.”

As you step out of your gown, Anton's voice comes through, a bit hesitant. “How are things with Jake?”

You shrug, momentarily forgetting they can’t see you. “We haven’t really spoken. We’re sleeping in separate bedrooms.”

“At least he isn’t a creep who expected you to sleep with him on the first night,” Haru says, trying to lighten the mood.

You let out a small laugh, nodding. “True. That’s one thing to be thankful for.”

You slip into your pajamas and pop back into the frame, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “But something is off. I don’t know what it is yet, but I can feel it.”

Anton leans closer to the camera, his brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

You take a deep breath, deciding to tell them everything. “I was cornered by an FBI agent at the engagement party. He hinted that they know about the dealings of Jake and his family and they have a solid case. I’m going to find out what’s going on and use it as leverage to get out of this marriage.”

Haru and Anton are silent for a moment, processing your words. Finally, Haru speaks up. “Are you sure about this?”

“I have to do something,” you say firmly. “I’m not going to be a pawn in this game. I need to get out of here and join you guys in Paris. My father would have never agreed to this marriage if he knew that the FEDS have a solid case against Jake. I’ll snoop around his office tomorrow and see what I can find.”

Anton’s face is filled with worry. “Please be careful. If he catches you...”

“I know,” you say, nodding. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

There’s a moment of silence as your friends exchange worried looks. Then, Haru smiles softly. “Just remember, we’re always here for you.”

You feel a surge of gratitude for your friends. “Thanks, guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

After a few more words of encouragement and promises to stay in touch, you finally say your goodbyes and hang up. You place your phone down, feeling a bit more at ease after speaking with your friends.

You lie back on your bed, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow, you’ll start your investigation. You’ll get yourself out of this, it’s you against everyone else. Nothing new.

The next morning, you wake up feeling surprisingly well rested. You dress quickly and make your way downstairs, the quiet of the house almost unnerving. As you enter the kitchen, you find your new husband sitting at the kitchen island. He’s engrossed in his iPad, looking over company spreadsheets while sipping on his coffee.

A maid appears, her presence soft but attentive. “Good morning, ma’am. What would you like for breakfast?”

You offer a polite smile. “I can make myself a bowl of cereal, thank you.”

Jake glances up from his iPad, his expression firm. “No. I’m paying them to take care of you, so you should have a proper breakfast.” He turns to the maid. “Make her some waffles, please.”

You don’t put up much of a fight, knowing it’s not worth the effort. As you try to leave the kitchen to head to the massive dining room, Jake stops you. “Why don’t you take a seat beside me?”

Reluctantly, you sit down next to him. He looks at you, his eyes softer now. “I had all your art supplies moved into the studio down the hall. Thought you might want to get back to painting.”

You’re taken aback by the gesture. “Thank you, Jake.”

He nods, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I have to go to the company for a meeting with the shareholders, so I’ll be gone most of the day. But once I’m back, we can discuss the creative department I plan on opening for you.”

Surprised, you thank him again. This side of Jake is unexpected, you didn’t think he was being serious when he offered to open up a creative department for you when he proposed. You thought it would be yet another empty promise, his kindness leaves you momentarily off balance. He gets up to leave, grabbing his briefcase from the counter. “See you later.”

As he exits, the maid places a plate of waffles in front of you. “Anything else you need, ma’am?”

You look up at her, suddenly curious. “What’s your name?”

“Rose, ma’am,” she replies, her tone respectful.

“Thank you, Rose,” you say warmly. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

Rose shakes her head, a faint smile on her face. “It’s not proper, ma’am, but thank you for the offer.” She then moves off to clean the kitchen, leaving you to your meal.

You eat the waffles slowly, trying to gather your thoughts. The house is quiet, and the sense of isolation is almost tangible. Once you’re done, you make your way to the studio Jake mentioned. It’s a spacious room with large windows that let in plenty of natural light. Your art supplies are neatly arranged, and a blank canvas stands on an easel, waiting.

You sit down, picking up a paintbrush, but no inspiration comes. The paintbrush feels foreign in your hand, and you find yourself staring at the canvas, lost in thought. The events of the past few days swirl in your mind, making it hard to focus. You remember the FBI agent’s warning, Jake’s unexpected kindness, and the looming uncertainty of your future.

Minutes turn into hours as you sit there, the paintbrush hovering over the canvas but never touching it. Your mind is too cluttered to create, and the weight of your situation presses down on you. You think about Haru and Anton, wondering if they’re almost done with their preparations to leave Korea, wishing they were beside you now.

Eventually, you set the paintbrush down, realizing that you won’t be able to paint today. Instead, you decide to use the time to start your investigation. You remember Jake mentioning that he would be gone for most of the day, which gives you a window of opportunity.

You leave the studio and make your way to Jake’s office. The door is slightly ajar, and you peek inside to ensure no one is around. Taking a deep breath, you step into the room and begin your search. You open drawers, sift through papers, and check the computer for any clues. But the office is meticulously organized, and you find nothing out of the ordinary.

Just as you’re about to give up, you notice a locked drawer in Jake’s desk. Your heart races as you consider your options. You could try to find the key, but that would take time. Instead, you decide to try picking the lock, a skill you picked up in your younger, more rebellious days.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, you hear a soft click. The drawer opens, revealing a stack of documents. You quickly skim through them, and your blood runs cold as you realize just how cruel your husband can be. You thought your father was bad, but Jake seems to be the devil himself.

As you read through the documents, you uncover records of people Jake has killed, debts he plans on collecting, and bribes that go all the way up to the president. Each piece of paper details horrifying acts—the ruthlessness with which he eliminates anyone who stands in his way, the meticulous planning of each murder, and the extensive network of corruption he maintains. Your hands tremble as you come across a supposed hit list with names of people from Parliament.

Just then, you hear a voice outside the door. Heart pounding, you quickly put the documents back in place and lock the drawer just as Heeseung walks into the room. He looks surprised to find you standing behind Jake’s desk, a smirk curling on his lips.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks, his tone casual but laced with suspicion.

You straighten up, refusing to let him see your fear. “I was looking for a ballpoint pen to sketch with,” you lie smoothly.

Heeseung’s eyes narrow as he studies you. “Is that so?”

You nod, “And what are you doing in my home?” you ask, deflecting the attention away from yourself.

He scoffs at your use of the word “my” and steps closer, his smirk widening. “Your home? Has Jake fucked you well enough for you to be content with being his trophy wife?”

Your eyes narrow in anger as you slap away his hand that was reaching for a stack of papers on the desk. “If you came here to insult me, you can see yourself out. Otherwise, you’ll have to answer to Jake.”

Heeseung lifts his hands in mock surrender, his eyes sweeping around the room as if looking for something. “Jake doesn’t scare me,” he says, his voice low and menacing. “And neither do you. I’m not like Jake. I play rough, so you should watch where you put your hands.”

You glare at him, trying to keep your composure. “I’m not afraid of you, Heeseung. Now, if you don’t have any business here, I suggest you leave.”

Heeseung takes a step closer, invading your personal space. “Or what? You’ll run to Jake? You’re just his pretty little plaything, and you don’t know the first thing about the business we’re in.”

Your pulse quickens, but you refuse to back down. “I’m not just a plaything, and I won’t be intimidated or undermined by you. If you have any respect for Jake and me, you’ll leave now.”

Heeseung smirks, reaching out as if to touch your face, but you swat his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” you snap, your voice steady.

Heeseung chuckles, clearly enjoying the power play. “Feisty. I like that. But remember, Jake isn’t always going to be around to protect you.”

You take a step back, putting distance between you and Heeseung. “I don’t need Jake to protect me. Now get out before I make you.”

Heeseung’s smirk fades slightly, and he seems to reconsider his approach. “Fine,” he says, lifting his hands again. “But this isn’t over. I’ll be back to talk to Jake.”

“Goodbye, Heeseung,” you say firmly, watching as he finally leaves the room. The door closes behind him, and you let out a shaky breath. The encounter has left you rattled, but you can’t afford to lose your nerve now.

You sit back down at the desk, trying to calm your racing heart. Jake and his family truly do rule the underworld, it’s no wonder your father was so quick to wed you off. They’re involved in crimes that go far beyond anything you could have imagined. But this information is also your ticket out of this nightmare. If you can find a way to use it, you might be able to escape and start a new life.

For now, you need to act normal and keep up appearances. You leave the office and head back to the studio, your mind racing with plans and contingencies. Once inside, you pick up a paintbrush and stare at the blank canvas, hoping to appear absorbed in your work should anyone come looking for you. But your thoughts keep drifting back to the documents and Jake. He seems nothing like what those papers claim. He’s been nothing but sweet to you, to think he’s touched you with the same hands that have taken the lives of others makes you want to get up and shower.

Minutes turn into hours as you sit there, pretending to paint. Eventually, the sound of the front door opening and closing signals Jake’s return. You take a deep breath and put on your best calm demeanor, ready to face him.

Jake finds you in the studio, and his face lights up with a smile. “There you are. How was your day?”

“Good,” you reply, forcing a smile. “I spent some time in here, trying to get inspired.”

He nods, walking over to you and placing a hand on your shoulder. “I’m glad to hear that. Let’s have dinner, and then we can discuss the creative department.”

You nod, feeling a mix of relief and anxiety. Dinner with Jake means more time to play your role and gather information. As you follow him out of the studio, you can’t help but glance back at the canvas, the blank space mirroring the uncertainty of your future.

At dinner, you sit across from Jake in the dimly lit dining room. The table is set with fine china and a sumptuous meal prepared by the household staff. Jake starts the conversation, his tone light and conversational.

"How did you spend your day?" he asks, cutting into his steak.

You take a sip of your wine, trying to maintain your composure. "I spent the day in the studio."

Jake nods, chewing thoughtfully. "I'm glad to hear that. I've been thinking a lot about how to integrate your talents into the company."

You raise an eyebrow, interest peaked. "Oh? What do you have in mind?"

He leans back in his chair, a smile playing on his lips. "We could start by setting up a small team to work on special projects. Maybe some unique advertising campaigns or custom artwork for our high-profile clients."

You nod, your mind racing with possibilities. "That sounds wonderful, Jake. Thank you for considering my passion."

He smiles, seemingly satisfied with your response. "I think it will be a great addition to our company. Plus, it will give you something to focus on and keep you busy."

You force a smile, trying to hide the unease that bubbles beneath the surface. "I appreciate that. I've always wanted to use my art in a meaningful way."

Jake takes a sip of his wine, his eyes studying you. "I want you to know that I won't hurt you," he says softly, his voice sincere. "We were both forced into this marriage, and I understand how difficult that can be. I won’t take any anger out on you. I want you to be comfortable here, to feel safe as my wife."

You’re conflicted, Jake’s words sound comforting but the papers hidden in the depths of his office scream otherwise. “Okay.”

Jake sets his wine glass down and looks at you with a seriousness that makes you lean back in your seat slightly. “I want to make something clear, though. I didn’t choose this life because I wanted to. My father chose me to take over even though it was Heeseung’s birthright.”

You frown, genuinely curious. “Why would your father choose you over Heeseung? And why would you even accept? You seem so different from him. Why would you want to be involved in such horrid crimes?”

Jake hesitates, clearly not used to talking about his family dynamics. After a moment, he relents. “Heeseung wasn’t ready to take over. He abused the fact that he was the heir. He partied, made reckless decisions, and endangered our entire operation. I thought stepping up would show our father that I was capable and might even fix my broken relationship with Heeseung.”

He pauses, his eyes distant. “I’ve always been undermined because I’m the bastard son. People are finally starting to take me seriously now that my father has given me full reign.”

He lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “You must find me pathetic, doing all of this because of daddy issues.”

You shake your head, empathizing with him. “Not at all. I understand more than you might think. Growing up, I was always in my older brother’s shadow. No one took me seriously because I was the youngest and a girl. I did everything I could to get our father to see me, to recognize my worth. But eventually, I gave up. It wasn’t worth all the pain I inflicted on myself and others.”

Jake looks at you with a newfound understanding, a bond forming between you. “I guess we’re not so different after all.”

You both sit in silence for a moment, processing the vulnerability you’ve just shared. Then, you remember the FBI agent from the engagement party. “Jake, what do you plan on doing about the case the FBI has opened?”

Jake shrugs, his demeanor calm. “I’ll deal with it.”

“How?” you ask.

Jake pauses, then looks at you intently. “Do you want me to be honest?”

“Yes,” you say, taking his hand. “That’s all I’ll ever want from you—honesty.”

He nods. “I’ll have the lead investigator, the one who threatened you, killed. We’ll make it look like a suicide. Then I’ll pay off the president to close the case.”

You nod slowly, having expected such a response. “I figured as much. Thank you for being honest with me.”

Jake squeezes your hand. “I promise, I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”

You return the squeeze, feeling a complex mix of emotions—relief, fear, and a strange sense of solidarity. “Thank you, Jake.”

With the heavy conversation behind you, you both return to eating your dinner. The atmosphere between you has shifted; there’s a newfound understanding and mutual respect. As you finish your meal, you can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, you and Jake might find a way to navigate this treacherous life together.

After dinner, Jake stands up and reaches for your hand. “Let’s go to the living room. We can talk more about the creative department there.”

You nod and follow him, feeling a bit lighter. Once you’re both settled on the couch, Jake starts outlining his vision for integrating your art into the company. You listen intently, offering suggestions and ideas, and for the first time in your life, you feel a glimmer of hope that you might be able to carve out a small piece of this world for yourself.

As the evening wears on, the conversation shifts back to more personal topics. You find It isn’t hard to relate to Jake the more you talk to him, surprisingly finding yourself enjoying your time with him. You’re more similar than you expected, and it dawns a new sort of appreciation for him. It was like this entire marriage would seem easier than you thought, especially with an understanding partner like Jake.

Jake shares stories from his childhood, and you find yourself laughing at some of his more outrageous ones. In turn, you share some of your own, and by the end of your last story, there’s a comfortable silence between you.

Jake looks at you, a small smile playing on his lips. “Are you tired?”

You shake your head and sip on your wine before answering. “Not really. Why?”

He grins, looking almost boyish. “How about a movie night? It’s been a long day, and I think we both deserve a break.”

You nod, feeling a sense of relief at the normalcy of his suggestion. “Sure, that sounds nice.”

You begin to get comfortable on the large, plush couch while Jake turns on the tv and scrolls through his streaming service before deciding on ‘10 Things I Hate About You’

You raise an eyebrow, amused by his choice. “Seriously?”

He defends himself, his grin widening. “It’s the best movie ever made. Don��t knock it until you’ve watched it with me.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “Alright, you’ve convinced me.”

Jake hits play and sits down beside you, draping a cozy blanket over both of you. As the movie starts, you find yourself relaxing more than you have in days. The lightheartedness of the film and Jake’s occasional commentary makes you forget, even if just for a while, the dark reality of your lives.

About halfway through the movie, you start to feel your eyelids grow heavy. You fight to stay awake, not wanting to miss any part of the film or the rare moment of peace. But before long, you find yourself leaning against Jake’s shoulder, the warmth and comfort lulling you to sleep.

Jake glances down at you, a soft smile on his face. He gently shifts his arm to support you better, careful not to wake you. “Pretty,” he mumbles under his breath, almost to himself. He reaches up and softly caresses your cheek, his touch tender and protective.

As the movie continues to play, Jake finds himself more focused on you than the screen. He watches you sleep, marveling at the trust you’ve shown by falling asleep on him. The weight of the day’s revelations and the growing bond between you settles over him, and he feels a strange sense of contentment.

Eventually, the rhythm of your breathing and the comfort of the moment lull Jake into sleep as well. The two of you sit there, wrapped in the blanket, a small bubble of warmth and peace in the midst of a tumultuous world.

In that quiet, shared slumber, a tentative connection begins to form. It’s fragile and new, but in the darkness of your lives, it shines like a small, precious light.

You wake up the next morning wrapped in Jake's arms, his steady breathing a comfort against your shoulder. As you gently shift, his eyes flutter open, and for a moment, you both just stare at each other, unsure of what to say. This closeness is new to both of you.

Jake clears his throat and slowly separates himself from you. "Good morning."

"Good morning," you reply, sitting up. "I’m sorry for falling asleep on you last night."

Jake waves off your apology with a soft smile. "Don't be. What else are my arms for if not to support my wife’s head?"

You laugh softly, appreciating his attempt at humor. "What are your plans for today?"

He stretches and then looks at you, his expression turning serious. "I have another meeting today. It’s for our... other business."

You catch on immediately, realizing he means the mafia. Nodding, you decide to take a bold step. "Can I tag along?"

Jake looks hesitant. "I don’t know if that’s a good idea."

"Think about it," you reason. "It would be a good look if we showed up together. It might help if no one thinks there’s any strife in our marriage."

He considers your words and finally relents. "Alright, but stay close to me. It’s not the safest place."

As you both stand from the couch, Rose enters the living room with a polite smile. "Good morning, Mr and Mrs. Sim. I'll take care of the living area while you get ready."

You nod and head to your room to shower. The warm water helps clear your mind, but your thoughts keep drifting back to Jake and the strange new dynamic between you two. After your shower, you find a dress laid out on the bed—a tasteful yet elegant piece that you can tell Jake picked out to match his own attire.

You dress quickly, feeling a mix of nerves and excitement. When you walk out, Jake is waiting, he gives you an approving nod. "You look perfect."

"Thank you," you reply, feeling a bit flustered under his gaze.

Jake leads you to the car, opening the door for you.

The car ride goes by smoothly and in no time you arrive at the outskirts of Seoul. The warehouse you pull up to is surrounded by extravagant cars, a testament to the wealth and power of those inside.

Jake places a protective arm around your waist and guides you into the building, and you’re met with familiar faces—associates of Jake’s clan and big-time mafiosos. He takes a seat at the head of the table and pulls you onto his lap, a clear display of possession and protection.

Sunghoon, Jake’s right-hand man, stands to give his report. “The situation with the baggie boys is getting worse. They’re stealing cuts of our product, and now men from the Lee and Jung borders are going missing.”

You tense at the mention of your family name but stay quiet, tuning into the conversation with more interest.

Jake’s frustration is evident, but he lets Sunghoon continue. “Also, the FBI knows about the illegal acts, not just the corruption within the government. This investigation might be harder to navigate.”

Jake hums in thought. “Have we spoken to the president?”

Sunghoon nods. “The president is keeping a close eye on the case, but it will take time before he can act.”

One of the mafiosos, Byun Baekhyun, speaks up, his tone accusatory. “Is there a rat amongst us?”

Jake’s eyes flash with offense. “You dare question my men?”

Baekhyun doesn’t back down. “It’s a fair question, Jake. How else would the FBI know so much? Someone must be leaking information.”

Jake’s grip tightens on your waist, his anger barely contained. “My men are loyal. Perhaps you should look at your own house before making such accusations.”

Baekhyun leans back, smirking. “I’m just saying, it’s a possibility we can’t ignore.”

The comment lingers in your mind, you make a mental note to discuss it with Jake later.

The meeting continues, filled with more bad news. Sunghoon informs the group that the police are cracking down on the remaining baggie boys, and they’ll likely need to pay another visit to the police lieutenant.

By the end of the meeting, you can tell Jake is out of it. Instead of heading straight home, you suggest, “Would you like to grab lunch with me?”

Jake agrees, and the drive to the restaurant is filled with conversation. “That meeting was intense,” you start.

He nods, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “Yeah, things are getting complicated.”

“What about the possibility of a mole?” you ask carefully.

Jake sighs. “It’s something I’ll have to keep an eye on. Baekhyun’s comment wasn’t completely off-base.”

You nod, sensing his frustration. “How’s your dad handling all this?”

“He’s not thrilled,” Jake admits. “He’s been cracking down on me, questioning my decisions. This new info Sunghoon mentioned is definitely going to make him question my leadership abilities even more.”

“I’m sure he knows you’re doing your best,” you offer, trying to comfort him.

Jake glances at you, a smirk playing on his lips. “Thanks but my dad doesn’t care about effort.”You frown, trying to think of something to say. “What about the rest of the team? Do they support you?”

“For the most part,” Jake replies, his expression thoughtful. “But there’s always someone ready to step up and point out your mistakes. It’s a competitive environment.”

You nod. “Yeah, I get that.” sielcne settles between the two of you for a moment before you add, “how’s Sunghoon holding up with everything?” trying to shift the focus slightly.

“He’s stressed, but he’s handling it well. He’s been a great support, especially with all the new information coming in.”

“That’s good to hear,” you say. “It’s important to have someone like that on your side.”

Jake’s expression softens. “Yeah, it is. I’m lucky to have him and the rest of the team.”

The car ride continues with a mix of silence and small talk until you reach the restaurant. As you step out of the car, you look at Jake and say, “Let’s try to forget about the meeting for a while and just enjoy lunch, okay?”

He nods, a genuine smile spreading across his face. “Sounds like a plan.”

As the two of you get out after he parks, Jake surprises you by taking your hand as you walk down the street. The gesture feels almost normal, like you’re a real couple. You blush but indulge in the rare moment of intimacy.

Seated outside with Jake beside you rather than across, you tell Jake to surprise you with the order. While he speaks to the waiter, you glance around your surroundings, trying to absorb the peaceful atmosphere. Across the street, a familiar figure catches your eye—your brother Sungchan. He’s sitting at an outdoor bar with another man, engaged in a heated discussion. You recognize the man as the chief of police.

Sungchan slides an envelope across the table before standing and leaving. You shrug it off, assuming it’s just work, and turn back to Jake.

He’s placed the order and looks at you, curious. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you say, forcing a smile. “Just saw someone I know. It’s nothing.”

Jake nods, accepting your explanation. The conversation shifts to lighter topics, and by the time your drinks arrives, you feel more at ease.

The waiter, a young man with a charming smile, returns with your meals. He seems overly attentive to you, his eyes lingering longer than necessary. “Is there anything else I can get for you?” he asks, leaning closer to you than Jake finds appropriate.

Jake’s jaw tightens. “We’re fine, thank you.” He subtly points to your wedding ring, hoping the waiter will catch on. “My wife and I are just enjoying our lunch.”

The waiter doesn’t seem to catch the hint and continues to hover, making small talk with you. Jake lets it go, expecting you to shut him down. But when the waiter comes back with the bill and you still haven’t said anything, Jake’s patience snaps.

He grabs your chin and kisses you sloppily in front of the waiter. The kiss is possessive, a clear statement of ownership. You’re embarrassed yet turned on, feeling a mix of emotions.

The waiter clears his throat awkwardly and leaves. You pull back, looking at Jake with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “What was that about?”

Jake’s expression is calm, but his eyes are intense. “He was hitting on my wife. I don’t like sharing.”

You nod, understanding his possessiveness but also feeling a strange sense of comfort in his protectiveness. After lunch, you head back to the car, and the drive home is filled with a comfortable silence. As you approach the house, Jake breaks the silence. “Thank you for today. It was nice to have you there, despite the circumstances.”

You smile, “I’m glad I could be there for you. Besides, think of it as a thank you for yesterday.”

Jake parks the car and turns to you, his expression serious but warm. “We’re in this together now. I want us to be a team.”

You nod, feeling a newfound sense of partnership. “Me too, Jake. Two’s better than one, no?”

Jake gives you a small smile, the warmth in his eyes unmistakable. "Who knows, maybe one day we can be more."

Taking a deep breath, you offer him one last smile before saying, "I'm going to head to the studio and try to paint for a bit. It helps me clear my head."

Jake nods. "That sounds like a good idea. Do you need anything before you go?"

"No, I'm good. Thanks." You give him a reassuring smile before heading towards your studio.

As you walk down the hall, your mind buzzes with the events of the day. The meeting, lunch, Jake's protectiveness-all of it swirls together, pushing you towards your creative sanctuary. When you step into the studio, the familiar scent of paint and canvas immediately calms your nerves.

You set up your easel and prepare your paints, letting your mind drift. The blank canvas in front of you feels like a challenge, urging you to pour out everything you've been holding back. You start with broad strokes, not fully aware of what you're creating until the image starts to take shape.

Hours pass as you lose yourself in the process. You paint with a fervor you haven't felt in a long time, each brushstroke a cathartic release. The image that emerges is raw and intense-a naked girl on a bed, covered in blood and semen, her eyes shut in pleasure. A male hand tightly grabs her right breast, the possessiveness and violence palpable.

As you step back to examine your work, your breath catches in your throat. The hand you've painted is unmistakably Jake's. The realization sends a shiver down your spine, a mix of embarrassment and arousal flooding your senses. You can't believe how deeply he's affected you, invading not just your thoughts but your art as well.

Feeling flustered, you clean your brushes and put away your supplies. You need to clear your mind, to stop thinking about Jake in such a sexual manner. Deciding it's best to get some rest, you leave the studio and head towards your bedroom.

Once in bed, you can't help but replay the day's events. Jake's protectiveness, his vulnerability during your conversation, the way he held your hand so confidently—it all stirs something deep within you. As you lie there, staring at the ceiling, you wonder what the future holds for you and Jake. You turn off the light, allowing yourself to drift into a restless sleep filled with dreams of paint and passion.

taglist: @dreamiestay @sumzysworld

[lou-struck]

Honesty

Solomon x reader

WC: 2.8k+

~ This is why you aren't supposed to bring food or drink into Solomon’s lab. (or maybe why you should)

Warnings: Potion consumption, reader having a few insecurities, suggestiveness , Solomon overworking himself, food and drink.

A/n: I feel like I'm getting out of this little writing slump. Things have been rough these past few months but I am excited to get back into writing and hopefully making things that you guys enjoy.

Sometimes, when you look at Solomon, you wonder how you and him can both be considered humans. 

He radiates this sort of otherworldly power that you just can’t seem to tear your gaze away from.

While the Devildom contains many mysteries, you have a feeling King Solomon the Wise has just a few more. He teases you with these little mysteries when you are working with him in his workshop. 

They come out as calculated little mutterings that leave you wanting to know more, but he never gives you the whole story…

“I didn’t mean to burn down the Library of Alexandria.”

“You would’ve loved Atlantis.”

“The Illuminati started out as a book club.”

Sometimes, you do wonder if the cunning Sorcerer is just teasing you, but you don’t mind it all that much. His vast history and little mutterings are what makes him so endearing. Truly a creature all his own. 

Solomon is always quick to brush off your questions and praises, directing your attention to one of his most recent experiments. And as you assist him in whatever trouble he is creating, you can’t help but feel as if you are not worthy enough to be at his side as an apprentice or as his love. It’s a small feeling, one that you are able to choke down easier than a bit of his abysmal cooking. 

But your heart locks away what it believes to be the truth…

Solomon is amazing, and you’re just you.

~

Your boots leave little imprints in the dew-covered grass as you cut across the lush lawn of Purgatory Hall; if you weren’t familiar with its inhabitants, you might’ve felt bad about disregarding the well-tended cobblestone pathway just meters away, but due to an unfortunate incident involving Satan and an enchanted flamethrower, you were late for your apprenticeship with Solomon.

It also didn’t help that Luke, the sweet little angel, sent you a text sharing his concerns about the Sorcerer who hasn’t left his laboratory since last night and skipped breakfast and lunch to perform his experiments or whatever it is he does in there. 

Your bag is filled to the brim with all sorts of little snacks and a few bottled juices, the glass bottles clinking suspiciously as you climb the steps of the enormous porch and let yourself in through the front door. 

You don’t even have to think, you’ve been here so many times before you find yourself outside the door of the lab. Save for the sound of shuffling feet and clinking glassware, all is quiet. 

You open the door as quietly as you can and see that Solomon is already hard at work. The Sorcerer is so entranced in his work, grinding some sort of luminous herb into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle. He hasn’t even noticed your presence yet.

But boy, do you notice his…

The sleeves of his white lab coat are rolled up to his forearms as he works diligently. Although he has been working non-stop for hours, he doesn’t look tired in the least. His snow-white hair is ruffled, and his skin seems to glow in the light of the bunsen burners. He is truly in his element, and it’s captivating to watch.

“Were you planning on just watching from the doorway, mc?” 

The playfulness in his tone pulls you from your ogling as you step further into the room, inhaling the citrus aroma that wafts through the air. 

“Sorry about that.” you grin half-heartedly. “It’s been a long day, and I guess I zoned out there for a minute.” 

It’s a lie, but one that you deemed necessary for the situation. It’s too embarrassing to be honest all the time. 

“Oh, I see.” His response is short, and your poor ears must still be off in wonderland because they seem to pick up a hint of disappointment in his tone. He tosses his ground herbs into a bubbling mixture that seems to glow a neon orange color. You’re sure there is a better term for it, but It honestly just looks like Sunny D.

“What have you been working on?” you ask, setting your bag down to the right of a crate of glass soda bottles, each full of something different. 

He smiles and gestures around the room. “A bit of everything, I’m afraid. I found this old potion guide at a secondhand bookstore and wanted to see if I could improve the outdated recipes.” 

“All of those?” you ask, realizing that he must’ve made at least fifty or so potions since last night. 

He gives you a proud smile and nods. “I may have gone overboard. At about four in the morning, I realized that I ran out of normal vials, so I had to improvise and use some empty bottles from the kitchen.”

“And did you eat anything while you were down there?” you ask, shooting him a knowing smile. 

“It may have escaped my mind.” he sighs. “Once I start working, there are very few things that can distract me from the task at hand. 

“Then you are lucky I came prepared,” you smile, looking down at your bag of snacks. “Wanna take a break and tell me about some of them?”

“You know me too well,” he sighs, teasingly approaching you and wrapping his arm around you. “So, what’s on the menu today?”

Your skin heats up under his touch, but you remain composed. You hide the shake in your hand as you reach into your bag and pull out two glass bottles of cheap Demonus. You like this particular variety because it looks like bright grape juice, and it may just be a placebo, but you think it tastes a bit like it, too. 

“Oh, drinking in the lab, are we?” he teases, twisting off the cap to his bottle as the liquid fizzles. “I suppose that’s alright for today since I didn’t make anything lethal.”

Your eyes land back on the crate of similar-looking bottles next to you. “What about these? Are you sure they are safe?”

“Boringly so,” he frowns, removing the first glass bottle from the crate and removing the cap for you to smell its contents. 

The Mint colored liquid smells oddly enough like Black licorice when you inhale it. “It smells good; what does it do?”

“This one here was originally designed to turn your fingertips silver; I tweaked the recipe to only target the drinker’s nail beds.” He explains, a smile tugging at his features when he sees the natural curiosity and wonder on your features. “It’s not permanent, but I thought it would be interesting to see it used cosmetically.”

You’ve only been in the Devildom for a short time, but you are sure there aren’t many individuals who are able to grasp magic as easily as Solomon can. His brown-blue eyes look ethereal as they shine from his passion. 

He’s Amazing

Brilliant

and far too handsome for his own good. 

As much as you wish to compliment him on each and every one of these things until your voice becomes hoarse, that little bit of insecurity masked as self-preservation holds your tongue. Opting instead to take a sip of your Demonus, the sweet taste distracts you from the wonder that is Solomon enough so you can think of a less embarrassing response. The sugar seems to help, and you set the bottle back on the table. 

“That’s so cool,” you say at last with true enthusiasm. You are unable to hide your curiosity as your eyes dart back to the crate of potions. 

“Still curious?” he asks as you nod eagerly; he sets the fist bottle back into its slot and grabs another; he removes the cap and swirls the purple liquid around just as he did to the other one.

“Here, smell this one,” he says, gently holding the bottle out to you. Just as you were about to smell the potion, your attention was stolen by a fizzling sound. Both of your heads jolt towards the source and see that the cauldron he had been working with earlier fizzles out of control as a fluffy of electrically charged multicolored bubbles pop in the air. 

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he states, setting the uncorked potion down and rushing over to lower the cauldron's heat and stop the potion overflow. “I hope the heat doesn’t alter the potion’s effects too drastically.”

“What kind of potion was that?” you call over as he carefully stirs the mixture.

“Nothing special,” he murmurs, “it just turns body hair into miniature porcupine quills; I’m planning on using this later, so it would be a shame if it were to be ruined.”

His response sends you into an ugly fit of laughter that has you choking on air. You reach for your juice on the table and take a deep swig to soothe your throat and save yourself from further embarrassment, but as the liquid reaches your lips, you notice that something tastes off. 

Instead of the sweet fruity taste of demonus your tastebuds are assulted with this dry sourness with just a hint of bubblegum. 

“This tastes like shit,” you find yourself saying. Your brows furrow from your little slip of the tongue, and you hope Solomon is too focused on stirring the cauldron to notice your little slip-up. 

But his eyes are on you, a twinkle of amusement on his features as he takes in every inch of you. The attention is nice, but it makes you feel a bit flustered. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Your tone is much firmer than you anticipated. It’s almost as if you are scolding the Sorcerer.

He raises his eyebrows, that signature smirk never leaving his face. “Take a look at your hand. It appears you made a mistake.”

You look down and see that he is right. Instead of your Demonus, it seems you had mistakenly gulped down a large portion of whatever purple potion Solomon was about to show you.

Your heart drops into your already unsettled stomach. “Oh my god, am I gonna die?” you mutter aloud, breaking your mental dam and flooding the room with worried word vomit. “Solomon, why on earth would you make a potion in such a normal-looking bottle? Did you do this on purpose? I’m such an idiot around you, and I hate that you have to see me as such a screw-up.” “Am I going to die?”

“If I die, I’m going to ruin the exchange program, and Diavolo will be upset with me. And do you know how bad it is to piss off the prince of hell?”

“I don’t, but I’ll certainly find out soon.”

Solomon processes your frantic word vomit quickly and comes to your aid. He places both his hands on your shoulders to prevent you from pacing across the room. “Mc, listen to me. The potion is harmless, I promise.”

“What?” you pause and look at him carefully. He looks calm, but in his eyes, his pretty, pretty eyes are a look of concern for you. 

“Heh, your eyes are pretty, did you know that?” you ask him, only to panic about your lack of a filter. 

“What?”

“Wait?”

“Why am I saying such embarrassing things out loud?” your face feels hot in shame as Solomon’s cheeks turn pink at your words, and he averts his gaze briefly before collecting himself. 

“So, have you figured out what the potion does yet?” he chuckles, hands still holding your shoulders.

“Is it a potion that makes me embarrass myself to death?” you quip 

“Not quite.” he chuckles, “What you just drank is a special kind of truth potion.”

“How is it special?” you ask, allowing him to guide you to one of the chairs in his lab. 

He beams, and you feel your heart tighten in your chest. 

“This little potion just makes you say what’s on your mind; it removes one’s filter, making for quite a chaotic conversation.” he hums, somehow still keeping the innocence on his face. “It’s not really useful for interrogations or anything like that, but I had planned on slipping it in at our next dinner together at the House of Lamination for a bit of entertainment.”

“That would be funny,” you say unabashedly, already dreaming up the chaos that would ensue if each of the brothers just spouted off whatever came to their mind. “But how long am I stuck like this?” 

He checks his pocket watch, “Don’t worry,” the results should wear off in a few hours or so, so hang tight. It may be best for you to stay with me tonight so I can observe these effects up close.”

“That’s a cute way of saying you just want to use me as your guinea pig.” you huff, shifting in your chair. “But if it means I get to spend some more time with you, that is a good thing.”

Despite the blush on his cheeks, Solomon remains composed. “Is that so?” he teases. “Do you really enjoy my company that much?”

Your loose tongue only makes you feel more emboldened as you answer that flirty little question of his. “I do.” 

“Then may I tell you a secret, Mc?” He smiles as you nod without hesitation. The potion affecting more than just your speech. “I think I enjoy your company far more than you enjoy mine.”

Your eyes find that all too interesting ground at his sweet words. “That’s impossible, you’re incredible, Solomon. Compared to you, I feel like such a disappointment down here.”

The Sorcerer’s snowy brow furrows in disbelief as you spill another troubling confession. 

“If that’s what it takes to convince you just how much I love you, then I suppose you leave me with no other choice.” he sighs, grabbing the half-empty potion bottle and downing it in one greedy gulp. 

Your eyes widen, and you reach for his wrist, but you’re too slow to stop him. “Sol, what are you doing?”

“Just telling you what you need to hear.” he grimaces as the foul taste of the potion dances on his tongue. “Wow, this really does taste foul, doesn’t it? I’ll have to tweak this recipe for sure if I’m going to use it later.” 

He sets the now-empty bottle back onto the countertop and looks at you with sincerity. “It hurts to hear you talk about yourself like you mean nothing.” he pauses and places his hands on your shoulders, and you wonder when they started trembling. “You are the most incredible individual I have ever met. You’re kind, sweet, caring, and and strong. You make me feel human.”

His word vomit differs from yours. Yours was panic, shame, and insecurity. His is honest-to-goodness love. You aren’t going to acknowledge the tears that spill from your glassy eyes. But you do know that he is right. You’re too cruel to yourself. 

“I love you, Sol. Thank you for being honest with me.”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice on the matter.” he smiles, leaning over you and brushing away a tear track from your warm cheek with the pad of his thumb. “But whenever you want me to tell you how I feel, all you have to do is ask.”

A smile tugs at your lips, and you lean forward in your seat. Your gaze never leaving his soft pink lips that hover temptingly above you. “Then will you show me?”

He smiles, his pearly whites shining like the moon, before crouching down to your eye level. His hands on either one of the arms rest as he leans in. “A million times over.”

He leans in and steals your breath away in the most honest exchange between the two of you all day. Your eyes flutter shut as your mind begins to swirl from the presence of the man who loves you. You can’t help but think about how honest this silence between the two of you is. 

You stay locked in this passionate embrace until the lack of air burning your lungs reminds the two of you of the limits of your humanity. 

It’s comfortable silence again, and Solomon looks at you as if he had just witnessed you paint all the constellations in the forever dark devildom sky.

It’s endearing, but thanks to this wonderful little accident, you have been presented with quite an interesting opportunity.

“Hey, Sol?”

“Yes, Mc?”

“Since you drank the potion too, I guess you have to tell me the whole Atlantis thing now.” you giggle playfully, ruffling his hair. 

His laughter is pleasant as he removes your hand from his head and kisses the back of it softly. 

“That’s not how this potion works, my dear,” he grins, watching your lip just out in a pout as you remember his words from earlier.

He’ll tell you everything one day, but for now, all Solomon wants to do while waiting for this little truth potion to wear off is to voice his plans for the future with you, not think about his past life without you. 

Tagging: @enchantedforest-network