#I had already prepared this art before and I really wanted to post it because I don't have so much else to do and..

[mel-loly]

-Hey, dear Mike! <3

@manpleblog

[felassan]

There was a post a little while ago where someone mentioned that Solas had been bringing back the magic for longer than we think but I can’t find it anywhere and I was wondering if maybe you might know what I’m talking about (I think it was epler)

Mostly I want to know if I imagined this, and if it does exist or not 😭

hello! ◕‿◕ could this be the passage you're thinking of?

"Epler, who writes Bellara, tells me about her place in Thedas as an elf and the connection elves have to the magic of the world. He says if you’ve paid attention to the franchise, you likely already know that elves are historically an oppressed people in the games. Now, with two of their gods on the loose in Veilguard, magic has poured back into the world in a big way. [...] A Quick Detour: Magic During my discussion, Epler spoke about magic’s place in the world and how it differs in Veilguard from previous Dragon Age games. Here’s what he said: "Historically, as you’ve mentioned, we’ve been in the south of Thedas and south Thedas is Ferelden, Orlais. Both are fairly still oppressed, they still have circles. Mages are viewed with suspicion, but Tevinter has always been this land where mages rule, mages are in charge, mages make the rules, mages run the show. So what does that look like? And as we’ve gone through [Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition], magic has become more and more present. And part of that is because Solas has been slowly preparing this ritual for longer than anyone in the Dragon Age universe is really aware of, but also, just going into the spaces where magic is, by definition and by the lore, much, much more present. And it’s been fun because, again, we do have rules; we want to make sure we’re not violating the lore or violating things we’ve said before. But it’s also, again, that permissiveness of, ‘Okay, what is the most interesting way to do this? What’s the most interesting way to tell the story? [In] Origins, II, on the Eclipse engine, we could talk about this fantastical magic, but the engine didn’t really allow us to show it. For the first time, we’re really able to let the visuals speak for themselves and not have to tell the player, 'Trust us, it’s spectacular; this magic is really cool.’ We can actually show you and let you drink it in." [post this is from, archive post of the original article as that went down when GI did]

There is also this:

Lore/art direction: “Magic has started seeping into the world through Solas’ ritual”, “and so you’re seeing the effects of that on the space, and on the visuals as well” [post this is from, original source. original source is a John Epler interview video]

[erinwantstowrite]

Let me just quickly say, cross-overs can sometimes get REALLY difficult to map out and write in a cohesive way but you have absolutely NAILED IT!! I absolutely ADORE LoF!!! I usually don’t even bother reading fics with the ‘Richard Grayson is Richard Parker’ premise cause I felt like they were super confusing and overcomplicated but this fic?? SUPERB. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. OH MY GOD I ADORE IT. Everyone’s characterizations are so nice and wonderful aaaaaaah!!!! <33333

Ok ok I did actually have a question as well: would you be willing to share what your writing process looks like in terms of a chapter you’ve already posted? I was just wondering since I’m also currently working on my own fic (it’s been a few years but I managed to get fixated on an idea and it grew legs lol) and I’m currently fighting the organization of it haha.

How do you keep track of the plot points and/or foreshadowing you want to get a ‘lightbulb!’ moment for later? Do you have any tips?

Thank you so much! I absolutely adore your writing AND your art is so gorgeous omg it adds so much to the incredible story :DDD I hope you have a good day!!

I have a secret: I actually didn't like "Richard Grayson is Richard Parker' tag for a while for the same reason. Sometimes they felt like they missed the mark or it's just. A thing that's there? I almost didn't include it for LoF, but I'm glad I did because it changed the direction in such a big way.

Another secret: this made me incredibly happy because I have read so many wikis and scoured the internet to make sure that I had enough info on both fandoms so LoF could make sense to anyone who's reading it, whether they know Spider-Man, Batfam, or neither at all. Sometimes I worry a lot before I post that I'll miss a mark and will confuse people.

As for the question: I definitely am willing to share what my writing process looks like!

Be prepared for under the cut, I love to yap. It's in my blood to yap. And that's why it took a minute to get to this ask haha

(Spoilers for Leap of Faith!! Everything mentioned has already been published ((Chapters 1-11))

I had to go and find out which chapter I wanted to use as an example and I think we're gonna go with Chapter 5 for the most part :)

My writing process is, as described by alighterwood:

I think the description fits because while I'm all over the place, I have to be very detail oriented and I store everything in one spot.

Starting with the overall process, what I find is most helpful for me, when organizing, is having a notebook rather than doing it all digitally. I've been using a 70 sheet notebook that I had lying around waiting to be used, and as of yesterday, I officially filled the entire thing front to back. It's been an incredible help, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it's a lot easier to remember something I physically wrote down than it is to remember something I typed. I'm now on to my second notebook for LoF, and I might even have to get a third.

In another ask, startupkat asked me this:

And I shared a little about my outline process there, but I'll try to go into a little more depth here. Emphasis on little because this is so long.

I write a truly insane amount of outlines in this notebook.

This is just what I can show you, but a good chunk of the notebook is just outlines. Over and over and over again. That's because they're always changing/adapting based on so many different factors. Sometimes I get to a chapter I thought I had fully planned out and then realize it just doesn't work anymore. Other times, I get to the chapter and realize I don't want to write that anymore/isn't as interesting as I thought it would be. A few times I got halfway through a POV of a scene I was struggling on and decided to switch POV's, which will change up the outline for a chapter every now and then.

Which is why I don't write incredibly detailed outlines and try to keep it vague until I actually get to that chapter. It's a lot less daunting to rewrite a chapter outline than it is to rewrite the entire outline.

Fic outlines and Chapter outlines look a lot alike.

This is what I said in the other ask, but I didn't elaborate on it all the way.

I make a list just like that, and then I try to put it in chronological order/in an order that makes sense. I keep the Fic outline vague by writing down "Goals" for a chapter rather than scenes. But I also keep notes to myself if I really think something is important. The more important I think a scene needs to be, the more details I write down to make sure my future self recalls what I had in mind when I thought it up.

Really simple example:

Chap 1 Goal: Peter gets to Gotham and meets Babs while running around. Meet Nightwing too? Get shelter.

Chapter 2 Goal: Bats are like "???" about Peter. Batfam dynamic important... Peter stalking Batfam back? Peter meet Batman >:)

When I get to a chapter, that's when I make a far more detailed list of wants/needs/goals. It's the Step 2 from the Step 1. Here are some examples from Chapter 5:

Needed to have:

More POV's from universe 1299 (Peter's home universe)

Tony's POV more specifically, how he's doing/feeling, what he's figured out

What they've figured out on 1299 side vs what's going on in 1300 (Gotham)

Explaining more about Peter's trauma/his past

Dick learning more about Peter, and vise versa

Wanted to have:

Ned being a more central character

Natasha :)

Loki being a little shit

Tony and Cap bickering

Peter talking to Nightwing again

The last name Grayson

Gymnastics!!

(This is the shortened list, because the chapters are so long)

When I looked at this list before writing my outline, I had to figure out how I could incorporate everything. If I needed more 1299 POV's, and I wanted Ned, Natasha, and Loki, there's one scene accounted for. I had to get their side of things and wanted that trio together. I needed a Tony POV, and I wanted Tony and Cap bickering, so those went together, plus I got 1299's POV of Ohnn and his plans explained.

I needed to have Peter explaining more about his trauma, and Dick and Peter to talk/get closer. I wanted a Nightwing POV, to have Peter say his last name, and them doing gymnastics. I knew Peter wouldn't willingly talk about that, so I had him have a nightmare. Not only did it give readers perspective but it made Peter more susceptible to talking to Nightwing because he was more emotionally vulnerable/lonely, and that's how that scene came together.

That's when I would write down the chronological order of these events by writing out "Scene Blocks." (This is what I wrote down but my handwriting was so bad I can't subject y'all to it):

scene 1- Ned talking to Loki. Natasha should be nearby and observing Loki's behavior. They are not on friendly terms. Ned is more worried about Peter than he is as to what Loki could be up to, so Natasha takes on that role.

scene 2- Tony is freaking out about Peter being in an alt dimension. He should attack Ohnn when he's not prepared for it. Beat his ass? Beat his ass. Cap there too.

scene 3- Peter's nightmare. "Ben, where do you go when you die?" "Where do you think?" "With you. Where you went."

scene 4- Nightwing and Peter.

Of course, things come to attention when writing. Like originally, Tony and Cap were arguing in the Tower. But it was a little too much like his and Natasha's argument, and I kept in mind that Tony is smart. Sometimes I forget that the characters are smarter than I am, so I have to account for what they would figure out. So Tony would have picked up the puzzle pieces and come to more conclusions than I originally thought about, and I figured he'd be way more proactive about it than just. Being in the Tower and waiting.

Which means that that scene ended up being as listed above: having a squabble with Cap, learning more about Peter's dynamic with the Avengers in this universe, and seeing how Tony is reacting to it by throwing himself head first into trying to capture Ohnn.

I'll realize I need something else to be mentioned or put in and I'll have to shimmy things around, but that's basically how it goes.

As for other forms of organization:

Keeping a timeline is so important because it tells you a lot about the environment your characters are in. It's also important to remember what a character has on them, what money they've spent, who they've met/who you have mentioned, every alias that is being used, to read your work and write down edits you want to make before you make them, to write down ideas beforehand of situations you can use, and, most importantly: MAKE A MAP!! This has saved me so many times. Sometimes your brain WILL trick you or make it harder on you to envision a scene. Make a map of where your characters are physically!! It will save you too!!

As for foreshadowing and plot points, I'll let you in on yet another secret:

Your subconscious is doing a lot more than you think it is.

Sometimes when I foreshadow something, I didn't even know I was until I got to it. I very often go back to read chapters that came before this to see what I've mentioned and what I haven't, and when I do, I'll see something and go "I have to bring this back" or "I almost forgot about that!"

Other times, I am very aware of what I'm foreshadowing, and that's because I follow a mystery plot formula. You have to keep in mind everyone's intentions, all the time. How are they feeling? What are their motivations? And: what are they doing right now, while this character is doing this?

Like Beck and Ohnn. From the very beginning, I knew I had to make sure that it was obvious Ohnn wasn't working alone. From there, I had to weave through the story and slowly build him up as someone who's working behind the scenes. Even from Ned's first POV, I made sure to mention that this person knows Tony and is tech savvy.

My biggest tip is to make sure you reread your work or at least skip through it, because sometimes you don't even know that you placed something there.

And sometimes, it's very purposeful. :)

I hope this helped! I really tried to keep it short but I am insane and the process is sooooo long. It sounds complicated but it really is simple when you're actually doing it I swear

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

update on the good omens grieving process

Hello hi yes maggots your mascot sacrificial goat here, none of your ominous bloody warnings prepared me for this. On the advice of one of you I took a break from tumblr today so I thought ah, yes, I shall not think about Good Omens during this time. Hahahaha bet. This is a long post, about a series of disturbing good omens moments that haunted me anyway. Proceed with caution.

It was nine hours away, out of which I slept through four.

During the first nap, it became clear how tumblr brainwashed me. You'll never guess what I dreamed of. If you said Good Omens the answer is no.

I dreamed that someone on the television was reading out an audiobook of a nature arts and crafts book I had as a kid. And there were six pages dedicated to praising Neil Gaiman.

So then in the dream I wrote a tumblr post about it saying, "I thought y'all were kidding about the whole Neil being in our falafel thing but goddamn he really is everywhere".

Then, still in the dream, I remembered I wasn't supposed to be on tumblr, so I tried to delete the Neil Gaiman falafel post. Instead tumblr fucking glitched and set the post to 'lo-fi mode'. I kept trying to delete it.

At this point my screen was covered with pop-ups of tumblr yelling at me and a goddamn timer counting down from 41,000 minutes. Tumblr informed me that their 'delete post' function is actually run by BitCoin.

Currently due to their skeleton staff and the fact that this hellsite is held together with washi-tape and queer trauma, they were having negotiations with BitCoin and so I could not delete my post. I tried again anyway and the entire site hung. Then I woke up. This is some @one-time-i-dreamt shit.

The only social interactions I had were with the two irl good omens fans I know, whom I informed that I had finished Good Omens.

One of them sent me an audio clip of him screeching about trauma and six months and children of divorce at the top of his voice.

The other one texted ASMIIII YOU'RE A CHILD OF DIVORCE HOW ARE YOU COPING WITH THE PAIN. Two hours into my tumblr break I was already facing withdrawal and I wanted to sob that's what the maggots call me but that would have led to them saying BECAUSE THAT'S YOUR FUCKING NAME and I didn't wanna descend there yet.

I then went on Amazon and tracked my good omens book package like a creep. I then went on the US Amazon to cry over all the Good Omens merch that I cannot buy and isn't available here.

I then went on Pinterest to look at Good Omens tumblr screenshots. It was all going well until I found a stupid fucking post that said the duration of the song playing in the Bentley during the final fifteen and the duration of the kiss are the same. So he was replaying the kiss in his head before stopping the music.

Naturally, this then made me cry over Crowley. Painfully.

I looked up Good Omens ambiences on Youtube and cleaned a whole half of my desk while an Aziraphale's bookshop ambience played with rain and shit and when the lockdown audio came I smiled again.

And now here I am. Back. In pain.

[seoul-bros]

Jikook Week 27 Complete ✔️(11/06 - 18/06/2024)

Their twenty seventh week in the military is now complete. They are hanging in there even though it is far from being the place either of them really want to be. Physically they look well but their handwritten Festa letters speak to how much they miss performing. I hope the fact that there is now less than a year to go and that Jin is out there carrying the BTS torch for them all will give them strength to continue even on the most tedious and slow days.

This week we celebrate another seven days under their belt with a look at what they were up to in June 2019.

Festa 2019 was in full swing and on 11/06 Big Hit released this JK memories of BTS video with a Euphoria remix as a backing track. Lots and lots of JK and Jimin is either there in front of the camera with him (albeit mostly cropped out) or behind the camera with lens focused lovingly on his Jungkook. They've been causing problems for Big Hit content editors for years.

For the big day itselt (13/06) Jimin prepared a gift for ARMY. It's the first time I've ever seen this video and I love how he captures the personality of each of the members (Hobi and RM in particular are hilarious) as well as giving us a glimpse of what it means to go on tour together.

It was a time of peak happiness for the BTS team before COVID sent them spiraling along with the rest of the planet. The BTS Festa dinner that year was Bangtan Attic a festival of yellow and purple. Gone were the doubts of the previous year and they had a pretty frank and humorous conversation about their past, their present and future.

There is so much going on here it's difficult to pick out highlights but one thing is very clear, BTS really begin to move forward as a team when the powers that be let Jin and Jimin drop the personas they had been assigned at debut and let them be themselves.

On 15-16/06, BTS were in Busan for 5th Muster Magic Shop.

5th Muster is one of the holy grails of jikook's history so much so that there are already full posts exploring this concert series including this amazing post by @wingzie. The ring incident in Busan still has me scratching my head. We never heard anything about it after that day.

The Busan boys were also in action on Vlive while BTS was in Busan. Jimin went live on the 15/06 and was positively glowing. The show had gone well and he was still on a high from the overseas tour. He wanted us to know how thankful he was for ARMY's support. He showed us Gwangan Bridge all lit up in purple...

... and he spent time talking about his martial arts training including cutting bamboo, newspaper slicing and extinguishing candles with a sword (a skill he retains to this day).

The next day it was Jungkook's turn. His room set up was identical to Jimin's so also overlooking the river but he had the blinds down so no view of the Gwangan Bridge that night.

He was in an excellent mood and opened a bottle of wine to celebrate - just two glasses - a rule he has since put aside. He talked about how he wanted to get back to GCF filming but with their schedule he hadn't been able to settle upon a topic.

He explained that he couldn't make the live very long because some of the staff were staying up to monitor it and wouldn't be able to rest until he had finished. This is what he said about that.

"We need to be considerate of others. Only then can we understand each other and get close to each other and become one"

I don't think he was still talking about the staff at this point. Look at that cheeky satisfied smile behind the glass. Happy times in 2019.

Post Date: 18/06/2024

[mistylune]

How I manifested an iPad (without realizing it.)

Hello! It’s been a bit a time since I last made a post. I’ve been pretty busy lately, but when I was thinking about what I wanted to post next, I remembered a success story from a while back. This story is definitely one of my favorites.

So to clarify, when I say that I manifested without realizing it, I mean that I manifested before being fully clear about the law. Back then, I wasn’t a part of the community, so I had no idea that what I was doing was manifesting, nor did I know either of the laws. I’ve come to learn that we manifest all the time subconsciously, and now I know how it is utilized properly. But in this story, keep in mind that this was before I was on tumblr.

So there are two types of LOA. Law of attraction, and Law of assumption. I used to confuse the two all the time, so I’ll quickly define them. I know you all have probably seen them defined a million times, so I’ll keep it brief.

(Also please note that these are my personal descriptions of them, so they may not be entirely accurate, nor make sense, but this is just how I would define them.)

Law of attraction is the belief that your thoughts are what attract things into your life, and by focusing your thoughts positively into the things that you desire, you can attract them into your life. For example, bringing money into your life.

Law of assumption is the belief that your thoughts are what shape your reality, and thus if you change your assumptions about yourself and your life, you can change your reality. In this case, instead of bringing, or attracting the money in your life, you would already have it.

I ended up using a mix of both when manifesting my IPad, so when I say LOA, I’ll be referring to both of them.

So onto the story.

A couple of years back, I got back into drawing, and while I enjoyed traditional art, I wanted to branch out into digital art. Many of my favorite artists that I saw on social media were drawing digitally, and I wanted to experiment in the medium. But the only device I had was my phone back then, and a school computer. When researching on what a lot of artists used for digital drawing, I discovered that many of the artists I admired used IPads for their artwork. And so, I decided then that I wanted to get one.

I remember that I focused a lot on what I would do if I had one. I would watch digital drawing tutorial videos, make Pinterest boards for inspiration, I followed my favorite artists on instagram, and would get inspired by watching speed paints and looking at their art. I remember how I would bask in the feeling of excitement at the thought of having my own iPad and creating my own artwork, focusing on the positive feelings that would arise when I thought about having one. Just thinking about it filled me with joy and motivation. I didn’t think of how, where, or where I would get it. I just knew that someday I would get one.

A few months later, it’s summer and I’m offered a spot on a team for a contest. After accepting, I attended a lot of meetings discussing the competition and preparing, we left two weeks later to compete. We worked really hard, and I had a lot of fun being on that team. When we competed, I was super excited but also full of nerves because we each had a part and I had to speak in front of a crowd. But it ended up paying off.

When the award ceremony came, I was full of nerves again, because I was unsure where we would place, or if we would even place at all. I remember seeing that a team I thought would win got second. At that moment I wondered which team was good enough to beat them for first place. And it ended up being my team. I felt a rush of excitement and emotions as we went up on stage and accepted our medals. It was my first time winning a team competition, so it was fun celebrating with the people I had been working with for two weeks. It was rewarding knowing that our hard work payed off. But the kicker was what happened after that.

After celebrating for a bit, and heading to the awards banquet, we learned what prizes we would receive for placing first. We received three prizes, and among them was…an IPad.

Now, I was in complete shock. I had heard from my mentor that the tech prize would be a computer. But it ended up being an IPad instead. The very thing I had said that I wanted. I remembered thinking it was just a very lucky coincidence, and I joked with my parents that I had gotten what I wished for. But now I know that in reality, I had actually manifested my iPad.

Recently, when I was struggling with manifestation again, and feeling stuck in a loop of negativity, I made a list of all the things I had already manifested to pull myself out of it. Through that, I was able to remember this story. Realizing that I had manifested before I even knew that it was a thing motivated me so much, because I realized I was putting so much pressure on myself to do something I had already done several times.

So I think the best advice I could give is that if you are struggling with doubt and negative thoughts, please remember how powerful you are. You are capable of manifesting anything that you want. I know it seems unbelievable at times. It was for me too, which I why I first saw my manifestation as a lucky coincidence. I’ve realized too that putting a label on the law often adds this extra pressure, because we aren’t sure if we are applying it correctly. But we are the creators of our realities. There is no wrong way to manifest. Just do what works best for you. But don’t give up. If you do, you could miss out on receiving your desires. The law cannot fail, and neither can you.

Thank you so much for reading! I truly hope this post was able to motivate or help you in some way. I’ll see you guys in the next post!

With love,

Lune.

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[takaraphoenix]

This is going to be a deeply personal post that I want to share because I hope it can also be somewhat inspirational and motivational for others.

I started a new job a month ago and I deeply love it. I mean, genuinely love it. Love the place, the people, the work. I'm happy going to work and I find joy in what I do and time passes startlingly fast at work because I'm enjoying it. Plus, I make good enough money (sure, it could always be more, but it's already more than my last job which is great).

I honestly didn't think that was a thing. Growing up, I always thought that work is that thing you force yourself through for the sake of money. The requirement. I thought it was crazy when people claimed they liked their work. But damn, I love my work.

When I finished high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Fourteen years ago. And it's been a longwided and bumpy journey, but it brought me to a place where I'm happy and where I can see myself working for the next thirty years.

Not knowing where you want to go, or how you could get there, is incredibly, overwhelmingly frustrating. But sometimes, you just have to keep going and figure it out along the way.

(The more long-winded journey under the cut.)

I had no idea what I wanted to do after high school, partially because my school never really prepared us for what comes after.

Our local university is large, and it intimidated me beyond belief when I was eighteen, there was just no way I could go there.

But there was a small, private art school around where I lived and everyone always kept saying turn your passion into your profession, right? So sure, why not. Let's go to art school.

Four years later, I had a Bachelor's degree in art and had also fully lost my passion for drawing. It had become a chore. So I knew that... that wouldn't work out for me. I needed to find something different.

I've always admired the teachers who could inspire others and make you feel welcome in their classes and I was pretty good at teaching others, so I figured, maybe I could become a teacher?

I first signed up for English and Philosophy (with the goal of teaching ethics). I made friends in the first semester in both classes, but I had to switch out of English after one semester - mostly because the teachers were actually insane. They prided themselves in failing at least 10% of first semesters and made the beginning unnecessarily hard and no... fun. I think learning should be fun.

So I switched from English to German and, ultimately, after five years, got my Bachelor's degree in German philology and Philosophy. During the high-time of Covid. My last two semesters were exclusively spent in remote zoom classes.

The thought of becoming a teacher - of being in a room with thirty students for ninety minutes, before class ends and the next thirty students file in for the next ninety minutes, in an endless circle of hell - absolutely terrified me. Heck, the thought of going back to classes to get my Master's degree to actually become a teacher was already mortifying.

So, once again, I stood there, without a plan, but with a useless BA.

I didn't know what I wanted to do, to be quite frank. I was running out of motivation to find something new, because it started to feel like I was truly just failing one thing after the other. I was 29 and had absolutely nothing to show but two Bachelor's degrees.

I became a temp, after a year of unemployment, working in an office in an insurance company. And I liked it alright. The work more or less, but the feeling. Oh, the feeling of working in a small team in an office absolutely delighted me!

I lost that job at the end of last year and went back to being unemployed for half a year. Until a friend of mine, who was working at our alma mater as a secretary, told me about how happy she was working for our university and how she had also started there because she had no prior work experience and none of the required qualifications. She also told me that our university has its own job hunting website and that they never put their job listings onto foreign sites.

I went looking the same day, applied to a job that I got a job interview for but that didn't entirely fit for me. A week later, I applied to another one - and it fit like a glove. I got a job interview before the application phase even ended, I was invited to spend a day observing the work and was supposed to give a yes/no on whether I want to move forward with the process the next day, which I did. All I expected in return was a thank you and to be told when I might hear back to them after they saw other applicants. Instead, I got the job that very day.

During every single step, I felt like I was failing. After my first Bachelor, that seemed useless. After giving up on getting my Master and having yet another useless Bachelor. When I lost the temp job.

But every single step in my journey was... necessary, to get me to where I am right now.

Because I wasn't ready for our big university when I was 18, I needed the small, private university that eased me into college life to have the courage to apply to our city's big university.

And the friend who told me about the job website? I met her in my one semester of English. Yes, even years later, even though we were only together in one class during that first semester, we are still friends. And if I hadn't attempted my second degree - if I hadn't started out with and failed out of English - I wouldn't have met her.

If I hadn't gone to this university, I wouldn't have been eager or able to find a job there.

And if I hadn't had the temp job, I wouldn't have discovered my passion for office work.

Who knows, maybe there is an alternate life where I get on the "right" track when I'm eighteen and end up happy too, but for the life I have now, things worked out well and they only did because of every single thing I had failed or changed out of.

Sometimes, you do need the failures to learn from them, to draw something from them that will help you find your way later.

[st-asya]

The stabbing scene, my beloved. I feel like I'll never run out of something to say, gonna be a habit of mine to never stop talking about it. My first post about it was the first thing that came to my mind, then I read the posts in the reblogs (and discovered a whole new world of the fascinating details I didn't even think of before), and they made me think of taking a closer look at this scene, but from a different angle.

Originally the post was supposed to contain nothing but the third paragraph, but I got a little carried away, so... (I swear to God, someday I'll write a book about this scene). This is gonna be endless cause making several posts doesn't feel right for some reason. I've never used so many parentheses in one post till now.

Ed somehow managed to make 'stab me' sound more sexually charged than 'fuck me', talk about having a way with words. I mean I know the whole scene imitates life (hence this scene is art), well, a certain intimate part of life, obviously, but still...

He is not even trying to make it sound at least a little less intense. He sounds almost demanding, but it's with a pretty soft touch to it still (dare I say seductive?) ('stab me') and very calm, collected, encouraging ('run me through') as if not to scare Stede off cause this whole training session is taxing enough as it is already, Ed's hesitation or uncertainty wouldn't make things better for sure, so he needs to maintain an aura of a confident leader. He calls the shots, after all (and he just wants to be yours, Stede).

The way Ed carries himself in this scene is beautiful, charming even, to the point it's a tad sad, to the point you might wanna find a way to protect him for his own good, so there's this bittersweet kinda feeling. He's being borderline painfully sincere, there's no pretence of any kind because that harsh manner of dealing with the situation is the only one he's familiar with so he gives it his all, cuz there's literally nothing else to channel this energy into, I suppose. I find it marvelous cause he's so authentic in his ability to show it completely unashamedly (not only out of necessity, you gotta have balls to do it too). That's just who he is, take it or leave it (well, so far at least). The sad part is to be sincere is to be vulnerable, soft, to let your guard down (and it's scary as fuck) and, understandably, Ed has a certain kinda problem with that.

It's not a fight with an enemy, he doesn't have to be worried about being killed, but he still chooses to teach a lesson by letting Stede hurt him basically, of his own volition (he had it done to him dozens of times, he's a tough guy, we get that, but stabbing is stabbing, he can get used to it alright, but it doesn't change the fact that he still has his guts rearranged somehow and I'm sure it can't really feel good (well certainly not when a bloody sword is involved and not some other thing that can also penetrate the body which is not the case, even if it looks like (is meant to look like) some bizarre interaction of some pretty intimate nature, the situation is far from the possibility of either of them being docked, cause the damn ship is in the middle of nowhere, and the damn sword goes somewhere it does not belong under ordinary (well relatively) circumstances). So if we're not talking about the metaphorical interpretation (which is hard to ignore), it's a pretty tough way to teach someone how to do something.

What I'm saying is they didn't have to go all the way cuz it's a simulation (but piracy is very much real and it's not exactly a bed of roses, you gotta be prepared or you're gonna get killed, brutal and unfair as it is, it's the way life operates), but Ed still went for it. A pretty selfless thing to do, and what's interesting about it is it's not about feeding his ego (maybe it's because it's well-fed already btw, I mean all the legends, rumors and whatnot, I'm not saying Ed is full of himself, the analogy about being hungry and being fed has just crossed my mind for some reason, and I wanted to put it here), he clearly cares and not for some selfish reasons (even though he could, oh God, that's starting to look like a separate post).

I may be overthinking and overanalyzing it (not only this part, but the post as a whole, but oh well), but there's another fascinating thing about this scene, and it's the placement of the wound. It's in the stomach. In some Slavic languages 'stomach' literally means 'life' if we talk about its archaic usage, they even sound similar there, in English it's the word not only for a body part, but also for the ability to put up with something (well, with a certain kind of discomfort that Ed needs to endure for it to be profitable for Stede in the future in this case). So one would say it's a pretty vital part of a body (Ed himself admits there are important bits there, after all), and Ed doesn't protect it from Stede, doesn't conceal it. Even if it's essentially counterproductive. Not only does he say 'stab me', he literally shows where, gets the jacket out of the way, partially gets rid of the leather that's become his second skin which helps him feel safe, protected, an extra layer distancing him from an unpredictable outer world he's defenceless against and has no control over, shows he's vulnerable, naked if you will. Literally, cause there is a sliver of bare skin.

He literally trusts him with his life. With a fraction of it for now. Voluntarily. But he's still in control cause he knows how to navigate Stede's newfound ability to cause damage in such a way that he doesn't get hurt badly (it's 'I cleverly took the sword on the left', not 'you ran the sword through there', but at the same time it's 'you managed to avoid all the important bits' (he freaking WINKS at Stede (well, kinda.

or I'm just going insane cause I've stared at this bit of the vid and rewound it an unhealthy number of times), can you be any less subtle, my dude, you're down BAD), that sounds like an encouragement of sorts, like a 'well done' from a teacher helping his student gain confidence, I would even say it sounds kinda like a thank you for not betraying his trust, for not abusing his vulnerability, I mean Stede hardly comes off as some batshit insane type with no knowledge of boundaries, but you never know, especially when you've just met him). Ed trusts him, but he's still alert. But he's already ready to risk his comfort (which includes a wide range of things) for Stede to stay safe if his life is ever in danger.

The question which one of them fell first might be up for debate, but the fact that Ed fell harder is pretty evident, I think.

[lemonflavoreddishsoap]

Hello!!, I saw that you were accepting requests so I wanted to ask for a LS with a S/o who is a member of a punk band!!

PS: sorry for my bad english… I'm using a translator to send this:(

Since I already kiiiind of did similar headcanons for Formaggio and Risotto, I won't include them in these headcanons, I hope that's okay!!

ADDITION IM ADDING NOW AS I FINALLY WORK ON SOME DRAFTS HOOOOOOLY SHIT AM I SORRY I'VE NEGLECTED MY DRAFTS FOR SO LONG I'm going to try to get back into a writing groove!!!!

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La Squadra with an S/O in a punk band

Illuso

He makes everyone and their grandma listen to your band. He's boasting about how good your music is, he's practically a living advertisement. If you don't want people to get sick of your band's music, please try to ask him to stop

If you're the singer of the band, he'll sometimes start singing your songs, hoping you'll start singing with him.

Hell, even if you aren't the singer, he'll do it.

Makes his way into as many concerts as he can - his stand comes in handy here as he sneaks in pretty damn easily...I mean I don't really know if he needs to but he does anyway?

Prosciutto

Music-wise, it's not exactly something you two connect on, however, he recognises talent when he sees/hears it.

And while he may not listen to your band's stuff on his own time, he will never turn down watching you practice a song or an instrument either on your own or with your band.

Your sheer concentration and skill captivates and attracts him, he loves it.

If you ask for it, he's willing to give feedback when you play him works in progress - he's very fair with his comments, never too harsh, never too soft.

Pesci

He is CONSTANTLY praising you. Number one fan all day every day, supporting your band as much as he possibly can.

I've said before that I think Pesci's music tastes are a bit of everything, so he has a good appreciation for the kind of art you make and you two can bond over music pretty easily.

He's very nervous about talking to any of your bandmates, but he always asks you to pass along compliments to them. Appreciation for everyone! aughghghg i love him

If he has the time, and you're okay with it, he loves to help with performances!!! If you need help setting ANYTHING, he is willing to help out

Also...be prepared for a very proud, mushy Pesci after any of your performances

Melone

"You've been playing together for how long? And your biggest inspirations are...?" idk why I just think he would like. Be a major contributor if you guys had like a wikipedia page or something. He's interviewing you and tippy tapping away (there's a post showing off how silly he types, I need to find it again)

He's asking about all the instruments, all the equipment - if you'd be so gracious as to possible teach him how to use any of them he will be thrilled.

He's just generally super curious about it all, he possibly asks too many questions...as in, you're wondering if he already knows the answer and just wants to listen to you talk.

Similar to Pesci, Melone spreads the appreciation all throughout your band!! No one's talent goes unnoticed to him, and in time he'd like to befriend the other members of the band.

Ghiaccio

Watching you perform does something to him. He's completely fucking silent and his eyes are GLUED on you. It's kind of scary from an outside perspective but to you it's absolutely adorable.

He's listening to your band all the time. Ghiaccio, at least in my thoughts, has such a deep passion for music and pays deep attention to how each individual in a group plays their instruments, how it all comes together to create a unique sound. Obviously, this is a million times more special for him listening to your stuff because well...it's you.

In previous headcanons, I mentioned that he blasts music into his ears when he listens as a sensory thing. With yours, he likes to close his eyes and imagine you and your band are right there.

No because now I can't stop thinking about it. Ghiaccio would love to have a musician s/o. He would love that so much holyshit?

You find him in heated arguments against random people in the comments of videos of your songs. Classic Ghiaccio.

[roseykat]

Tempest Needs

Word count: 5.1k

Pairings: Minho x Jisung x female reader

Warning: minors DNI, I post NSFW SKZ related content and I know I won’t be able to regulate/monitor every single potential interaction with those posts so please do not engage with my work or page whatsoever. Much appreciated. 

Tags: polyamorous relationship, swearing, teasing, unprotected sex, oral sex (reader receiving and giving), bondage, use of traffic light system (green), orgasm denial, oral fixations. 

Summary: Jisung can be a menace when it comes to teasing. Unfortunately for him, he ends up getting a taste of his own medicine.

Note: Thank you for the love on my previous work!! I’m currently in the midst of figuring out a schedule to upload posts since I work a 9 to 5. But I have a lot of concepts that I’ve already started on so I’m far from low on inspiration. 

-

Jisung has always been the mischievous type; always riling someone up, provoking or taunting either you or Minho here and there. But at the end of the day, it’s all in good fun. 

In hindsight, it’s one of the benefits of being in a relationship with more than one person, because you have someone - like Minho - to balance Jisung out.

That being said, he is one perverse individual when it comes to the art of teasing, knowing that neither you nor Minho know how to cope with his antics.

He can be out of the blue, spontaneous, and strikes when one leasts expects it. There are times where he can bait Minho with his charm or entice you with his words. Overall, he can be an outright torment.

Suffice it to say, Jisung had it coming for him after the very subtle yet obvious accounts of teasing towards you and Minho. Even in public he was a menace.

For instance, Sunday’s are specifically allocated to prepare for the week ahead. When the three of you went grocery shopping, Minho was in charge of pushing the trolley. Jisung - who was supposed to be scouting for items on the list, wrapped his arms around Minho’s waist in a hug, penguin walking right behind him.

To top it off, he’d slide and caress his hands under Minho’s shirt, smoothing over the plains of his lower abdomen.

The other instance is where Jisung would come up right behind you and press his hips flush against your ass when you were examining things on the shelves. He tried to pull it off as if he were looking at things too when in reality, he just wanted to tease you.

His needy behaviour lasted almost a week and a half. That’s when he brought to your attention that nobody had slept together in a fortnight, which for his calibre in bed, explained a lot.

“Everyone’s been so busy,” Jisung tried not to sound as if he was whining, but that’s exactly what he sounded like.

He was sprawled out like a starfish on your bed while you sat at your desk cramming notes for an important up and coming test. Jisung was lucky that he only had assignments to hand in which he worked on relatively early. In turn, this freed up a lot of his time.

“It’s almost the end of the semester,” you reminded him. “Everything is due practically all at once.”

“We haven’t fucked in two weeks,” Jisung moaned, flat out ignoring the real reason why he’s in this sort of predicament.

Your fingers stilled over the keyboard on your laptop, “two weeks? Has it actually been that long?”

“Yes!” He really whines this time. “Minho is tired these days too, and all I get is making out with him for five minutes before he wants to sleep. You’re the same as well.”

It almost made you laugh at how needy Jisung was. Then again, it sometimes escapes your mind that he actually has a pretty high sex drive which you and Minho were obliviously ignoring.

If there was one contributing factor to blame, it was University. Being a full time student with a strenuous timetable means a lot of sacrifices. Unfortunately, Jisung felt the sting from being a result of those sacrifices you and Minho had to make.

“I guess it has been a while,” you started to ponder on the thought. “Maybe we should make time for it this weekend since we finish on Friday.”

“God, please,” Jisung begged and kicked his feet.

By the time that conversation had ended, Jisung had packed his gear and left the house for the gym. It gave you roughly half an hour to get some real study done when Minho had arrived from his last lecture of the day.

That's when you decided to raise the idea with him.

“This weekend?” He repeated, unpacking his bag as soon as he got into his room. “I don’t see why not. Plus with all our studies out of the way, we’d probably be less tired right?”

“That’s what I thought as well,” you said to him. “I guess we'll let him know when he gets back. He’s been dying to get some action.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, “that needy for it is he?”

“Oh come on,” you replied. “Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t act that way if Jisung and I unwillingly ignored your needs.”

You had a valid point.

Similar to Jisung, Minho could and would fuck on a daily basis - and has done. Only until the near end of the semester is where he dedicates all his energy and time towards his studies. It gets to the point where there’s not much room for any other activity other than working out, sleeping, or eating.

However, if that wasn’t the case, and Minho was in Jisung’s position, he would have no trouble mirroring the same feeling of neglect.

“I suppose,” Minho responded. “Did he have anything specific in mind?”

“Not necessarily,” you answered. “Maybe we could do something he likes since he’s waited for so long? Like…tying one of us up.”

Minho nodded, briefly thinking about the times where he had you or Jisung bound and tied in the bedroom.

At that thought, a sick idea pops into his brain.

“I wonder what he’d do if he had to wait a little longer,” Minho started to think out loud.

Your eyes narrowed at him as one of his signature conniving smiles spread across his face, “what do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but he’s been a real tease lately,” Minho began to explain. “And I want to give him a taste of his own medicine while also giving him what he wants.”

At that point, he had put a spin on Jisung’s original suggestion. When he pitched you his full idea, you initially thought it might be slightly…cruel. However, all the times where Jisung had openly teased the both of you within the past couple of weeks seemed to justify what Minho had in store for him.

He preferred to think of it as an enhancement whereas you, on the other hand, just rolled with it.

From then on, the three of you headed into the rest of the week looking forward to that specific night. If you weren’t absorbed in tests, deadlines, and homework, then you were thinking about finally gaining the chance to spend time with the two people you love.

Therefore, Saturday night couldn’t have rolled around any quicker. By the time it did, you and Minho were free from studying and assessments. Both of you were in good spirits, but not any more than Jisung.

That morning, he was handsy. When Minho had woken up to make himself some coffee, Jisung followed him into the kitchen like a puppy and tried to smother him in kisses.

Then, when you were fresh out of the shower with just a towel wrapped around your body, Jisung had to restrain himself from taking you over the counter in the bathroom right there and then. Instead he found his hands gravitating towards your waist, pulling you in just to make out with you.

That alone was tempting enough to risk having another shower and though you’re not one to oppose bathroom sex, it would defeat the purpose of what was about to happen later on in the day.

When the time eventually arrived, Minho had made the minor preparations. He chose the lounge of all places in the shared apartment for this to happen. All he needed to do was move the coffee table away from the couch and replace it with a chair from the dining and kitchen area.

The next step was retrieving black rope that they had stored in a box full of other bedroom related items - items that weren’t going to be of much use to him today. He just wanted to keep it simple.

As Minho laid out the rope over the chair, a confused Jisung walks in with you trailing behind him in his black bathrobe with nothing on underneath.

“Who are these for?” Jisung picks up the lengths of black rope. “And what’s with the chair?”

“They’re both for you,” Minho answers.

Jisung clicks onto the concept, “you wanna tie me to the chair?”

“Only if you want to,” you reassure him.

Jisung had voiced in the past that he’s okay with on the fly, spontaneous bondage. In some way, he gets a kick out of not knowing what’s next until the last second, magnifying the thrill and exhilaration of it. Even so, both you and Minho know that it’s still very important to ask.

“Of course I want to. I’m not even questioning that, it’s just…” he trails off. “I just thought we were all doing it together.”

Not even the softness of his words could throw a determined Minho off his plan. He’s not stepping down from it, especially since Jisung doesn’t suspect a thing.

“Just wait and see,” you reply with a highly ambiguous answer that causes him to smirk.

“I trust you both as always,” he says before his hand gently reaches for your waist, leaning to kiss you. He then turns to Minho, also placing a kiss on his lips before taking a seat on the chair.

“Shirt off, pants stay on,” Minho instructs.  

Jisung peers up with confusion even though he’s playing good and doing what he’s told. He does trust what you and Minho have planned, but usually in these circumstances, all items of clothing are removed.

Nonetheless, Jisung is excited and tosses his shirt to the side. He sits patiently, beginning to reel inside with eagerness.

Being a knowledgeable person that he is in the realm of bondage, Minho takes hold of the black rope after manoeuvring Jisung’s arms behind his back. He coils it round and round his wrists, securing it tight with a knot.

He then takes the next few large pieces of rope, creating a fastened ‘X’ shape across his chest. You’re glad to see it exposes both of his pecs when Minho fixes the ends around the chair to stop his upper body from moving.

Minho progresses onto tying another portion of the rope which he winds around and just above the band of Jisung’s jeans. This would stop him from potentially trying to lift his hips to gain any sort of friction whatsoever.

Then he loops and tightens some more rope around his upper thighs which frames Jisung’s groyne where his dick is already beginning to fill out.

Lastly, the piece wouldn’t be complete if he were able to move anywhere below his knees. So, Minho fashioned two final restraints with rope just above his ankles and anchoring it to the two front legs of the chair.

“Too tight?” Minho checks with him, looping his finger through the centre of the ‘X’ across Jisung’s chest to feel the tension. “Can you move around a lot?”

He tests the bindings around his body and shakes his head, “nope.”

“Good,” he responds. “Colour?”

“Green.”

Minho seals his answer with a lengthy kiss on Jisung’s lips before brushing past you with his hand lingering over your stomach. He stands behind you, untying the loose fuzzy belt around your front and peeling the robe off of your shoulders.

Jisung visibly gulps when he sees you naked before him, and not being able to touch you. Minho then drapes the robe over the back of the couch where he goes to take a seat, temporarily leaving the other man in your care.

You lower down onto Jisung’s lap, mouth inches away from his before you close the space between the pair of you. It was a small, sweet kiss at first. His lips are soft as usual, eager too as he inaudibly starts asking for more.

Jisung’s arms jerked so as to try and grab your waist, yet quickly discovered that they weren't going to move. No part of his body was going anywhere anytime soon.

It’s frustratingly arousing being restrained to one spot. He can only sit there and feel you do all the work. Your hands go from tenderly cupping both sides of his face to his neck, down his bound chest, to the sides of his waist, and back up. You want to feel all of his bare body, as much of it as you can.

Beneath you, Jisung’s cock continues to harden as you slowly roll your hips over it. Once he starts moaning into your mouth and getting greedy, that’s when you know he’s in the type of state Minho wanted.

But there was one final task that sprung to mind as you slid off of Jisung’s lap, lowering to the floor on your knees between his legs.

“Yes,” Jisung hisses out as he watches you eagerly, completely oblivious to what’s truly in store for him.

You unbutton and unzip his jeans, freeing his now fully hard dick through his underwear as well. The tip rests on his abdomen, sticky with precum.

Prior to the situation coming to fruition, Minho didn’t think his plan had any faults in it on his behalf. The only thing that stood in the way of being perfectly executed was Jisung’s choice of clothing - that being his jeans.

He would still be able to get friction with small movements if he tries, so Minho wanted to eliminate that right out of the equation.

He could’ve asked Jisung to take them off before they got started. Then again, it would’ve extracted a solid portion of teasing which was more than necessary to include. Plus, he wanted every part - if not most parts of Jisung - to be restricted, except for his dick.

“Fuck,” Jisung’s eyelids snap shut when you take his length in hand, slowly stroking and running your thumb over the head. It takes everything in your power not to suck him dry the instant you see his cock.

You know that he thinks he’s about to receive a blowjob, but with satisfaction riddling your brain, you take your hand away and crawl back to Minho.

Jisung lifts his head and mumbles incoherently, “what…what are you doing? Come back.”

Ignoring him was difficult, like swimming against your tendency to comply with whatever instruction you’re given in the bedroom. Unfortunately for Jisung, his needs were superseded by Minho’s request - what he asked of you prior to this entire scene materialising.

As you're still on your knees now turned to face Minho, he gives a fond smile and leans down, kissing you slowly. He licks his way into your mouth, tongue gliding along your bottom lip which leaves you breathless and hungry for him. It’s a loss when he pulls away, leaning back into the couch as his eyes scan up Jisung bound body and smirks.

He knows for a fact that Jisung is confused, pissed off, and horny, a truly foul mixture of feelings to experience at the same time.

The things he would do if he weren’t tied down to that chair…

His thoughts are derailed when you begin to palm over Minho’s hardened cock through his sweatpants. His hand rests at the side of your face, the pad of his thumb gently caressing your cheek when you free his dick.

“Fuck,” Jisung grunts, the chair creaks as he tries to move his arms once again. The rope across his chest now making lines of red on his skin, indicating that he’s been trying to use his torso as well.

“Go on baby,” Minho encourages you before you even attempt to look back at Jisung.

Those three words are enough for you to take Minho’s cock in your mouth after giving him a couple of slow strokes. The hot, wet, velvety sensation caging around his length has him leaning back once more.

From this position, he cannot only see your head bobbing up and down, but he can also see Jisung behind you - dumbstruck and rendered speechless.

Even though Jisung doesn’t have a full frontal view of your lips wrapped around Minho’s cock, he has no choice but to picture how obscene your face is.

As his imagination takes shape, his mind starts relocating memories of erotic occurrences where you’ve given him countless blowjobs, recalling how shameless you look. He knows you can get greedy and hot under the collar so to speak when his dick is in your mouth. This time, he can only witness that from a short distance.

“Such a good girl,” Minho purrs in a sultry voice, carding a tender hand through your hair.

Moaning at the praise, you carry on, head bobbing up and down until Minho feels like he’s on the brink of an orgasm. Refusing to let his impulsiveness take over, he gently brings you to a halt, ushering you onto the space beside him on the couch.

You lie down for him. Your knee closest to the back of the couch is propped and bent while your other leg remains resting flat. This was forcibly for Jisung to witness everything Minho was about to do to you.

Eager and impatient, he hooks one hand under and around your bent leg while using the other to gently caress his thumb over your wet entrance. He has you squirming and wriggling at the merest touch of pressure, yet hasn’t even arrived at the main event.

“Remember what I told you,” Minho hints.

Seconds away from being able to recall what he meant, Minho fills you with one finger, slowly sliding into your pussy as he plants distracting kisses down your lower abdomen until he reaches your clit. A moan rips through your chest when he begins to suck, your back arching which lands you closer into his mouth.

It doesn’t take him long to have you panting and whining which is where he feels the urge to add another finger. Using a repetitive curling motion, Minho strokes effortlessly over your g-spot that the continual motion makes your eyes flutter and roll back. Then, even as overwhelmed and worked up as you were, Minho’s reminder floats transiently in your mind…

“I want you to say his name,” Minho asked you beforehand. “I want him to think that he’s the one fucking you when it’s not.”

“That honestly sounds like borderline psychological torture,” you replied sarcastically.

“Good, because that’s what I’m going for,” he joked.

Looking at it now, it might not have been a joke.

As unfocused as your eyes are, they remain solely on Jisung as you try to concentrate on Minho’s mouth and fingers, dragging you over the verge of coming.

“Ji…Jisung,” you call out, almost sounding like a sob. “Wanna come so fucking bad.”

There’s warfare in Jisung’s mind. He knows he’s not physically able to touch you even though every single fibre of his being craves and screams at him for it. He’s forced to envisage himself where Minho is; face buried between your legs, making you whimper and shake around his head.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Jisung whines with a contorted face. 

“Please Jisung,” you cry out, trying not to squirm your hips too much so that you can still feel all of Minho’s mouth. “Please, fuck, I’m gonna come.”

As your words reach Minho’s ears, the pace of his fingers steadies to a leisurely drag. Part of you regrets saying it out loud - now wishing you could’ve held off more or came quietly without Minho knowing.

But it would’ve been a terrible feat against the person below you who has an untamed tongue and fingers that make your toes curl.

Both Minho and Jisung know your body like the back of their hand. They would’ve known well and truly if you came without telling them.

After pulling away completely, Minho uses his thumb to swipe at some of the wetness on his chin and sucks it clean off. His eyes track yours to gauge what sort of state you’re in - grinning when he sees your scrunched face, clearly annoyed that he had just robbed you of a mind shattering orgasm.

His gaze then darts over to Jisung who remains painfully hard and completely untouched that Minho now starts to feel a slight pang of sympathy for him.

For a moment, he decides to abandon you on the couch and stands over Jisung.

Minho’s fingers were still glistening wet under the dim lights of the room, hand protracting towards Jisung’s lips who took his digits willingly. He allows Minho to prod softly around his mouth and over his tongue, taking them so obediently.

“Good boy Jisungie,” he praises him. “I knew how bad you wanted to taste her, so I thought I would be nice.”

There’s a long line of spit from Minho’s fingers to the other man’s mouth when decides to retract his hand. Minho then bends down ever so slightly to make Jisung strain and stretch up for a kiss.

He chuckles lightly then pulls away before their lips could even touch, “so needy.”

Jisung groans, throwing his head back out of pure frustration - utterly enraged that tears begin to form in his eyes. As his head tilts back up, they roll down his cheeks, splashing down his abdomen.

Two whole weeks Jisung has been waiting to get laid. He was so good at trying to give you both the space you needed to focus on your studies, and yet, this was this reward - or punishment for lack of a better word.

Despite that, Jisung had been a total tease, and in Minho’s mind, that’s three strikes.

He pets and rubs under Jisung’s chin who in turn looks up with absolute contempt, “Jisungie’s doing so good holding out.”

“Fuck you,” he mumbles with watery eyes and an exasperated expression.

“Cute,” Minho replies, a sweet smirk spreading on his face.

He’s going to enjoy every ounce of teasing Jisung.

Minho retreats to the couch where you still remain splayed out, anticipating what’s about to happen next. With the help of his hand, you’re able to sit up and stand before he takes a seat again. Minho then guides you around by your hip so that you’re facing Jisung.

At that point in time, he understood the trajectory of the situation. His dick throbs watching you align Minho’s cock with your entrance, seeing the wince on your face as you stretch over him and gradually sink down.

“Shit,” your fingernails dig into Minho’s taut thighs as he sits up, his cock slipping just that little bit deeper inside you.

“That’s it,” he breathes out. Minho missed being inside you so much that he almost forgot what you felt like.

One of his hands rests on your hip while his other arm wraps around your body, snaking up to one of your tits and groping to his content. Your head lolls back onto his shoulder, feeling like you’re melting as you adjust to his length.

Nothing feels more satisfying than being filled out by either Minho, or Jisung for that matter. They both feel pleasantly different inside you, consistently hitting spots that will always have you screaming and shaking.

When it feels right, you start rolling your hips little by little until you’ve built up a steady rhythm. Both yours and Minho’s moans begin to fill Jisung’s ears and he has no choice but to listen to it. His stare glues to your body as it rocks over and over again on Minho’s dick.

“Tell Jisungie how you feel,” he squeezes and kneads one of your tits again, forcing another sudden moan from your throat.

Your eyes flutter, barely able to hold eye contact with the man in front of you, “so…so fucking good.”

“Yeah?” Minho taunts daringly.

“I wanna come,” you whine, swallowing down a set of profanities before they leave your mouth. “Please.”

“No,” Minho grits flatly. “What happened to everything I told you?

You had to wonder at that point if Minho was punishing you as well or if he was just extremely determined to force Jisung through hell.

He was bound and deprived of touch, whereas you were getting what you wanted, but not the entire package. Then again, you never wanted to abandon the tingly bliss escalating inside you, even if it meant being deprived of multiple orgasms.

“You don’t wanna ruin the fun for him do you?”Minho provokes, his grip tightening on your hip.

You manage to shake your head, “n-no.”

“Good,” he responds. “Let me use you first.”

The effect that those certain words have on you are always a valuable asset to Minho and Jisung. Hearing them makes you feel like nothing but a ‘thing’ for them to fuck, and there’s some odd facet about it that makes it so tantalising.

Now you’re stuck with an insatiable need for them to use your body however they see fit, and the thought of it drives you insane.

As you continued to grit your teeth and hold off for Minho, you realised very quickly that it was taking every ounce of strength not to give in. Hearing his small grunts, heavy breathing, and embracing the way he clutches onto you makes it all the more challenging.

Suddenly, Minho swears against your skin, eyes clamping shut as he comes hard. The warm, almost fuzzy sensation you feel inside when he does now has you slowing down the pace of how you roll your hips over his cock, easing him throughout his orgasm.

“Good girl,” he sighs out contently, trying to steady his breathing. “So good for me.”

At this point, you’re utterly over sensitive after being built up to two orgasms already but forbidden to go over the edge. 

Minho places a kiss against your back and taps your thigh for you to hop off him. It takes a moment to reorient yourself, legs jelly-like but you ultimately make your way across to Jisung.

Wearing a face of absolute devastation and pain, he blinks up with damp eyelashes. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard in his life that it has every muscle in his body twinging from trying to twist and turn out of the rope.

“Please,” he begs quietly while his eyes are tracking your hands to see where they’re heading.

Thinking that he’s had enough of the teasing, you waste no time. Straddling over his lap, you adjust his neglected cock so that it slides into you with ease as you fully sit down.

“Fuck!” Jisung curses through gritted teeth.

Meanwhile, from the small distance, Minho smirks to himself when he sees his own cum slowly leak from your insides when you start to lift your hips.

Jisung’s fingernails are digging into the palms of his own hands, the only outlet he has to manage the overbearing pleasure and relief he’s forced to receive. The alleviation induced by how hot you are inside consumes his body. It’s like an itch he had been waiting to scratch.

As you rock down over his dick, it’s hard not to pass up on watching his expressions. How he looks so relieved, in a state of bliss, and spaced out at the same time.

“Yes…” he sighs out, eyes rolling slightly as his head tips back over the chair. “Feels so good.”

“Yeah?” You ask him. “Been waiting too long haven’t you?”

He can only nod and barely speak, but he’s truly thankful on the inside. His moans and mewls are heavenly when your hands smooth over the lines of rope across his chest reminding him that they’re still there. 

As gorgeous of a sight Jisung was to admire, you couldn’t ignore the growing ball of pleasure taking shape for the third time so far. This one feels different - stronger, like the force between two giant magnets repelling from each other when trying to connect them.

“I’m gonna come,” you whimper, feeling tears prick your eyes from the amount of pressure intensifying. “Gonna make me come so hard.”

Within a few moments, you’re clinging to him for dear life, rhythmically squeezing around his cock as your thighs tremble. A string of curses leave Jisung’s mouth right up to the point where he’s about to come. After that, he goes quiet with nothing but a silent scream on his face.

His head sways languidly back and forth like a doll each time you rock down on him to ride your orgasm out. It drives him to coat your walls white, his body shuddering in waves when he does.

At any point either of you are rendered voiceless, that’s when Minho knows you’re coming hard. The pleasure is that powerful it makes you incapable of speech or any sort of noise for that matter.

Once you’ve both ridden over the crests of your orgasms, the two of you remain as a conjoined mess, limp and breathless. Your body is slumped over Jisung, still sensitive and stretched over his cock.

Minho promptly rises from the couch to untie all the knots he secured to the chair. The rope loosens around Jisung’s chest, then his waist, thighs, and ankles. All of his energy has been drained as he rests there, completely fucked out.

“Good boy Jisung,” Minho kisses the back of his head and quickly dips out of the lounge, into the bathroom to get the shower running.

Your eyes open ever so slightly, and as soon as you’ve regained a bit of energy, you peel yourself back just a bit to take a look at Jisung. Minus the fact that there’s a faint smile on his face and his pupils are blown out, he was in total bliss.

“Jisung,” you whisper softly, squishing his cheeks together to see if it gets him to focus.

He bats his eyes a couple of times, “hmm?”

“Feel better?” You ask him.

Jisung’s hands smooth over your hips then behind to the small of your back. His fingertips slowly trail up and down your spine while he buries his face into the crook of your neck, resting there.

“So much better,” he mutters, warm breath fanning over your skin.

“Let’s hop in the shower,” Minho appears again, offering his hand out to you to help you up off Jisung.

You inhale sharply from the overwhelming sensitivity of having to move yourself off of Jisung’s dick. Once your two feet are on the ground and you have some balance back, Minho helps Jisung with his other hand.

“Had I known that you two were conspiring against me, I wouldn’t have worn jeans,” Jisung says to the ceiling when the three of you are in the shower.

His arms were crossed over his tender chest and head tilted back while Minho was shampooing his hair.

“We weren’t conspiring,” Minho retorts. “Call it a reward.”

Jisung scoffs, “reward my ass. Who’s idea was it anyway?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Minho almost laughs. “You got what you wanted didn’t you?”

“Uh, it does matter,” Jisung corrects him. “Because the next time we do anything like this, it should be that person's turn.”

“Guess it’s Minho then,” you say.

“Fine by me,” he shrugs.

-

Note: I strictly do not permit any copying, editing, rewriting or remakes of my work nor do I allow them to be uploaded to any other site or social media platform. Tumblr is the only site I will be using to post this type of content so if you see it elsewhere, then it has been stolen.

[senorabond]

Rumor Has It: Chapter 5 Peña x f!reader x Pike

Pairings: Javier Peña x f!reader; Marcus Pike x f!reader; future Peña x f!reader x Pike

Chapter 5 Summary: Peña has done more than you expected by making you the Customs Agent in Charge, and you’re already starting to feel the pressure. While preparing to give your first official brief, you reach out once again to Marcus for reassurance. The call leads you down memory lane to the last conversation you had with Marcus face to face.

Rating: 18+ (Minors DNI), Explicit sexual content, additional warnings may be added for future chapters

Chapter Warnings: no use of y/n, previous relationship (Marcus x f!Reader), drinking (pity party of 1 - your wine is ready), flashback, semi-public/workplace sex (evidence locker after hours), unprotected p-in-v (stay safe, folks), probably talking about cum way too much?, Dom/sub dynamic, soft Dom!Marcus, praise kink, you are such a good girl, cockwarming, aftercare, denying all the feels, ohh the yearning

Reader/Character notes: Reader is fem!afab; No mention of Reader’s body size, shape, composition, or skin color.

Words: 4.6k

Author’s Note: This chapter contains the final installment of the Last Night in D.C. Flashback, as I’ve dubbed it in my head. It was certainly a challenge, and I’m oddly proud that I actually made myself cry a little while writing it! I plan on posting the entire D.C. flashback while I’m working on the next chapter if you’d like to read it in its entirety. I’m excited at where we are in the story, because the events in this chapter will make a lot more room for Javi to work his magic.

All the smooches and hugs to @kilamonster who puts the B, E, T, and A (*giggity*) in BEAUTIFUL - thank you, lovey! 

Masterlist || Previous Chapter

Texas Present

A copy of the assignment paperwork shows up on your desk the next morning. Next to your name states your role in the case: CBP Agent in Charge. 

Peña did more than make good on his word to keep you involved. You’d told him you didn’t want to be just another liaison or consultant, but you weren’t expecting this. It doesn’t feel right, truth be told. You wanted this level of involvement in a case, but only by earning it on your own merit – not because your connection at the FBI panned out. 

Your conversation with Marcus the previous day still lingers in your mind as you try to get some work done. It was good to hear his voice again so soon. Great, actually. You admit that you missed the sound of his smile when he spoke and his reassuring tones. He actually listened to what you said and remembered things you told him. Marcus was going to make somebody very lucky one day, and they had better deserve him. 

Marcus had been gracious when you fessed up and told him that Peña wanted you to use your connection to the art squad to help with the case. 

“I know how bureaucracy really works,” he’d said. He was surprised to hear that Peña had already tried calling, and you offered to ask Peña who he’d spoken to in their office. 

You stare blankly at the paperwork in your hand. You’re officially attached to the case now, but it’s still squarely in the DEA’s jurisdiction for now, which means the ball is in Peña’s court. The man is always so busy, you could be waiting a week if you don’t put yourself in his path. Smoothing your skirt, you decide to walk by Peña’s office to see if he’s free to talk. 

The butterflies in your stomach wilt a bit when you see the door closed. The blinds on his office windows are parted, and through the slats you observe Peña leaning back in his leather office chair, holding the phone receiver against his shoulder. Held at that angle, his neck is elongated and you notice the tight cords of tendon and muscle flex as he speaks. 

You pause a moment, wondering if you should pass by and continue to the breakroom for coffee, or head back to your desk. Before you can decide, Peña spots you and sits up in his chair. He beckons you forward, and you approach his door. The butterflies return as you turn the knob and walk in just as he’s hanging up his phone.

“I see you got your copy of the detail agreement.” He nods at your hand, where you’re grasping the paperwork.

“Yeah, I did.” You take a breath. “Thanks for that.”

“You earned it.”

Choosing to ignore his platitude, you direct the conversation to figuring out your first tasks. 

“When do I start?” You notice the chair in front of his desk is still empty from your last visit, so you sit without being invited. As you cross your legs, the sheer material of your stockings makes your legs glide together smoothly. 

“Right away, if you can. We’ll have our first team briefing Monday morning.” Javier adjusts his tie and clears his throat. A smile tugs at the corner of your mouth as you catch his eyes taking in your movements while you smooth the fabric and tug the hem of your skirt down to a demure length. Javi must be a leg guy.

“I want you to present your strategy to the team,” he adds, eyes cutting up to meet yours and catching you off guard.

“My ‘strategy?’” It takes you a moment to register what Javier means. “You mean my idea that we talked about at the bar the other night? I wouldn’t exactly call that a strategy.” 

“You’ll need to flesh it out a bit more, of course. Prepare for questions.” Javier props his elbows on his desk and leans over, his voice softens slightly. “Can you do that for me?”

His question – the sincerity in his tone, the earnestness in his face – makes you want his approval, makes you want to please him. Nodding, you say, “Of course. I’ll get started right away.” 

He smiles appreciatively. “I’m looking forward to it.” You stand up to go, and he adds distractedly, “That’s why I made you the Customs AIC.”

“What?” You look back at him, stopping in the doorway.

“Your strategy. It’s what’s going to make this case successful.” You’re intrigued by this shift in Javi. He’s different: more open and forthcoming, generous with his time, giving you a peek at a softer side of him you couldn’t have known existed.

“I was doubtful at first,” he concedes. One of his large hands smooths his mustache and he smiles wryly. “But somebody reminded me that I don’t know shit about art.”

You flush a bit, remembering how forceful you’d been with him at the bar. That kind of assertiveness was new to you, but the case you worked with Marcus had helped you build up your professional confidence. 

Drawing yourself up a bit taller, you smile back at him. “Well, that person sounds very smart. I’m glad you listened to them.” 

Javi smirks and relaxes back into his chair, bridging his fingers together contemplatively. As you turn to leave, you hear him say, “Me too.”

~~~

Now that you know the reason Peña made you the Customs Agent in Charge of the case was because of your idea and not just your connection to the FBI, you feel an even stronger drive to excel. You know you tend to be unrealistically hard on yourself, but you justify this impulsive need to not just succeed, but to exceed all expectations, with the fact that a positive result in this case could get you the promotion you’d been gunning for back in D.C. 

Marcus was always good at grounding you when you went a little too far and started spiraling. He understood that the standards were different for female agents. He witnessed the endless patriarchal bullshit you and the other female agents had to put up with on a daily basis, and did his best to be an ally from within the institutional boys’ club of federal law enforcement. 

Marcus had a knack for knowing when to say something to pull you out of a spiral, and when you needed to push yourself through it. He was never condescending nor patronizing, but his natural empathy made you feel seen, heard, and valid.

Making a solid first impression with the rest of the agents on the case will be paramount to getting everyone on board with the strategy. Thankfully Peña is on your side, but you don’t want the others to go along with it just because he tells them to. You want to instill them all individually with confidence in your idea.

You’ve already been at this most of the day. For comfort, you decided to move from the small dinette table in your kitchen to your bed, where an open bottle of red wine now sits on your nightstand. 

You’ve gotten stuck trying to poke holes in your strategy, identify the risks and vulnerabilities to prepare for any hard-hitting questions. It’s hard to see things from an outside perspective. Sighing, you reach over and pick up the glass of wine sitting next to your phone. You could really use a partner right now to help prepare this briefing. 

Your eyes go back to your phone, and you consider calling Marcus. It’s a Saturday, and he might have plans, or could just be enjoying some quiet time outside of work. You decide to send him a text first, just in case. 

After agonizing for several minutes over what to say, you decide to send a simple: Can you talk?

Blowing out your cheeks with a big exhale, you turn back to your presentation. A few minutes later your phone dings and you rush to grab it.

Sure, let me get somewhere quiet. 

You let out a groan and feel bad that you’re obviously pulling him away from something, but you’re feeling pretty desperate. Resolved to make it a quick conversation, you’re poring over your notes and then jump when your phone rings. 

You answer immediately, imbuing an apologetic tone to your voice, “Marcus, hey, I’m so sorry–”

“It’s Javier.” 

You blink, too stunned to respond. Glancing at your phone’s screen, you see the call had not actually come from Marcus as you’d assumed.

“Who’s Marcus?” His tone had turned teasing and you hear the clink of ice in a glass. “You standing some poor guy up?” 

You recover enough to stammer, “Uh, no. No, he’s just a friend.” You don’t know why you felt the need to give Javi an explanation. 

“Mm, okay.” He exhales slowly, and you think he must be smoking a cigarette with his whiskey. “Whatever you say, cariño.” His voice is a soft purr from deep in his chest. 

You’re suddenly very aware that you’ve never spoken with Javi on the phone outside of work, and it feels strange – not in a bad way, he has a nice voice. But you do feel off kilter, and a touch of vulnerability makes you stomach flip. 

“So…” You pause, not sure what to say without sounding rude. “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you, actually.”

Wrapping your sweater more tightly across your chest, you wonder if your nipples are pebbling from a chill in the room or the idea of Javi helping you with something. You really need to get laid; you can’t focus on this case this tightly wound.

“Like what?” You take another sip of wine and wonder what the whiskey in Javi’s glass tastes like, and if the tobacco you smelled on him the other night in the bar is what he’s smoking now. 

“The briefing on Monday – that’s a lot for one person to manage, especially one who doesn’t have any resources assigned yet.” 

Resources. That means an actual team, with actual funding. You take a deep breath to steady yourself. That drive to impress and succeed can make you do stupid things, like take on way too much for one person, and set yourself up for failure. You’re starting to feel that sense of overwhelm that happens when you feel like you’ve taken on too much but force yourself to rein it in. 

Needing help is not a weakness. Asking for help is a strength. Accepting help when offered, especially from somebody like Javi, is the right thing to do.

Swallowing your pride, you say, “Yeah, that’s actually what I’m working on right now. It is a lot. What kind of help did you have in mind?” 

Ice clinks in his glass again and you can almost picture him licking the cool, golden drops from his mustache.

“How about I meet you tomorrow to go over what you’ve got so far, and we can go from there?” 

“Meet me – you mean at the office?” 

“Or your place, wherever you’d be most comfortable.” His tone is purely professional, it doesn’t sound like he’s feeding you a line. But the idea of Javier Peña being inside your apartment fills you with something akin to panic.

“The office is good,” you rush to answer. 

Javi’s chuckle is low and breathy. “Whatever you want, cariño.”

You agree on a time to meet the next day and hang up, just in time for your phone to start ringing again a moment later. Downing the rest of your wine glass, you answer with a choked, “Hello?”

“Hey, sorry, it took me forever to find a quiet spot to call – you okay?” Marcus is raising his voice slightly to hear himself over the music and conversation in the background.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine – sorry to bother you right now, I can tell you’re busy.” Setting the empty wine glass down next to the bottle, you begin to feel flushed and flap your sweater to cool off.

“It’s okay, just a work thing for, uh… for my girlfriend.” 

Your bed disappears from beneath you as your stomach drops. The dregs of the wine burn a trail down your throat. 

“Oh,” you manage.

“She’s a lawyer, just won a big case.” He continues. There’s an edge to his voice you can’t place, which makes you uncomfortable. You used to know his voice better.

“That’s awesome!” There’s a little too much enthusiasm in your response, and you try to dial it back a bit. “That’s so great. Good for her. I should let you get back to her, then.”

“Well, uh. What did you want to talk about?” Oh. Right. You’d asked if he could talk. 

“Oh, god, it’s stupid, I’m really sorry. I’m briefing my strategy at the kickoff on Monday…” 

“That’s great!” Marcus’ voice is filled with genuine warmth and excitement and you can’t help but smile.

“Yeah, except I’m shitting myself over here,” you try to chuckle. “I know these DEA guys are going to grill me and I want to have an answer to every question.” 

“You’re going to blow them away, I know it.” His words make you smile a bit. Marcus has always had unwavering confidence in you.

“Thanks, Marcus.” You try and fail to mask the tinge of defeat in your voice as you pour another large glass of wine. It’s your pity party, and you’ll drink if you want to. 

“Listen, how about I–” He’s cut off by a woman calling his name in the distance. That must be the successful lawyer girlfriend. She probably looks like Heidi Klum.

“I better let you go, I’ve already taken up enough of your time.” The words rush from your mouth. “Thanks again for calling – oh, and congrats to your girlfriend.” 

“Oh, okay. Well, if you need anything…”

“For sure.” Your false air of confidence is transparent. “Thanks, Marcus. Goodnight.” You hang up a little too quickly and take a hefty gulp of wine. 

Marcus has a girlfriend. Of course he has a girlfriend, he’s a total 10. If you’d just been able to get your head out of your ass back in D.C. – no, you won’t let yourself go down that road; not tonight. You’ve got way too much to do before you meet with Javi.

Work is a welcome distraction now, and you find yourself laser focused. By the time the glass of wine is done, your mind is too tired and fuzzy to be productive. You decide to pack it in for the night and get started again bright and early so you’ll have something halfway decent to bring to the office. 

You brush your teeth, down a full glass of water, and climb into bed with your wine-soaked brain swimming with thoughts of the two phone calls you experienced this evening. Javi’s call may have been totally unexpected, and you are resolved not to read too much into it, but Marcus’ led your mind back down memory lane to your last face-to-face conversation. You fall asleep thinking of how things might have been a bit different if you’d only been brave enough to stay.

~~~

Washington, D.C. 6 Months Ago

“Good girl,” he rasps. “My good fucking girl.” He kisses your forehead and temple, then presses his lips in a trail down to the crook in your neck where he rests and catches his breath. 

“Thank you, Sir,” you whisper breathlessly. 

“I should be the one thanking you,” Marcus says softly into your hair. “You did so well for me.” As you begin to regain the strength in your legs, he runs a hand across your cheek and cups it, kissing you gently. His other hand trails featherlight touches across your breasts, then tweaks a nipple making you gasp. 

“Do you still want my cum?” This makes you clench around him with a moan, and he smiles. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

Slowly, he pulls out of you with a small groan, making sure you’re steady enough on your feet before letting go of your waist. 

He removes his shirt entirely and reaches for the chair nearby where his coat and tie are draped across the back. Laying his shirt on the seat, he sits and opens his arms, beckoning you. Walking forward, you step between his parted knees, looking hungrily at his shiny, slick-coated cock. 

You want him in your mouth. You want to clean your cum from his cock and feel his hardness slide against your tongue until it hits the back of your throat. Saliva is already pooling in your mouth at the thought. But you know you have to ask permission first. 

“Sir, can I please suck your cock?” Marcus lets out a hungry groan and you lick your lips when his cock twitches in response. You start to go down on your knees when Marcus stops you. 

“Sweetheart, I would love to feel your mouth, especially now. But I can’t let you kneel on this hard floor. My good girl doesn’t deserve that.” He takes your face in his hands and kisses you sweetly.

“Besides,” he cradles your cheeks until you meet his eyes, “I want you riding my cock so I can watch your face when I finally fill you with my cum.” Smiling, you straddle his lap obediently, eager to have him back inside you, however you can have him. 

Marcus holds his cock to line it up at your entrance once again. Audible sighs pass both your lips as you begin to lower yourself down onto him. Marcus hisses between his teeth from the heightened sensitivity of being so hard, still so close to his own finish. 

“God, yes,” Marcus whispers when he’s fully sheathed inside you. “This isn’t going to take long, baby.” 

An electric sort of thrill fills you at how close Marcus is, his orgasm now in your hands. Rocking your hips experimentally, you search to find the best way to move together on the chair. Hands on his shoulders to steady your movements, you begin moving up and down on his cock, your arousal making the glide easy. 

“That’s it. That’s my good girl.” Marcus urges you on with unceasing praise, kisses your breasts and clavicle and moans against your neck. Leaning back, he looks up at you. “Fuck, sweetheart, you look incredible riding me. You’ve got this, keep going. Good girl.” 

Emboldened, you find your rhythm, and delight in the words and noises coming from Marcus’ mouth. Tilting your hips one way on the upstroke, and rolling them on the way back down, Marcus’ breath comes out in pants and grunts each time you bottom out on his dick. You watch Marcus watching you, head tilted back to look up at your face, eyes bright and shining. “Beautiful,” he whispers, as though to himself. “So beautiful, so good… So fucking perfect.”

He grabs your ass, a cheek in each hand, to support your rise and fall. Furrowing his brow, he thrusts his hips up to meet yours. He’s getting close, trying to reach that peak. On the next downstroke you press yourself to him, grinding your hips into his pelvis and he lets out a guttural noise. 

Marcus pulls you down into a passionate kiss and you moan into each other’s mouths as he ruts up again. The chair begins to creak beneath your combined weight and vigor, but you’re both too far gone to take any notice. This combination of depth and pressure is getting you perilously close to your own climax, but you desperately want him to finish with you this time.

“Please. Sir,” you gasp. “Please, I need it.”

“I’m gonna give you my cum, baby. So close. Don’t stop.” Marcus has an arm wrapped around your waist to hold you in place as he fucks up into you, his grip nearly bruising on your hip. Running his other hand up to cup the side of your face, fingers twining into your hair. “Look at me, sweetheart. I want to see that pretty face. Fuck–” he grunts, so close. “Eyes on me… Good girl.”

Gazes locked, mouths agape, you and Marcus inch closer to that razor’s edge together. The building pressure is almost too much and you struggle to keep your eyes open against its blinding power. You need him to fill your already soaked cunt. 

“Marcus, oh fuck, I’m gonna cum – Marcus-” 

A strangled cry that sounds like your name tumbles from Marcus’ mouth as he erupts, the swell and jerk of his cock being the final push you need. He’s holding you so tightly, crushing his mouth against yours as you ride out your pleasure together. Each spasm pulls your bodies together, like waves crashing over rocks, drowned out only by your blended moans. 

Panting to catch your breath, Marcus sprinkles feather-light kisses along your brow, beaded with sweat from exertion. As you slowly come down, you begin to shiver a bit – probably from both the adrenaline and the cool, dry air of the room. Marcus rubs his hands against your arms and back and pulls you close for warmth. 

“Good girl, I’ve got you.” He reaches behind him to pull his suit jacket off the back of the chair and drapes it over your shoulders. Perhaps it’s the intensity of the physical sensations, the comedown from such a high, or something else, but tears start to prick at the backs of your eyes. 

You’ve never experienced this amount of passion and sensuality with any other person in your life. Marcus is more than just a sex partner, he’s your lover. He’s also a friend, and a rare one at that. 

Aftercare is so important to Marcus, he never lets you rush or skip it. He sits there patiently as you recover and ride out the aftershocks, huddled against him with his cock still inside you. Marcus strokes your back and kisses your temple, whispering things too quietly to hear over the sound of your heartbeat in your ears. Breathing in tandem, you feel both your heart rates begin to co-regulate and beat together.

Eventually, and only when you feel ready, you begin to get up off his lap. 

“Good girl, nice and easy.” Marcus is a sight to behold, sitting there. His lap is soaked, his chest and neck damp with sweat, hair delightfully mussed. 

Marcus hands you your panties and you slip them on before his cum, infused with your own, can leak too much and make a bigger mess. 

Slowly, naturally, the electricity in the air begins to diffuse and a comfortable quiet takes its place. The two of you redress and straighten the evidence room, finding plenty of opportunities to smile, touch, and help each other. You even share a couple of laughs at the wet spot on Marcus’ shirt. 

“At least it’ll be under your jacket,” you offer, trying to smooth out the deep wrinkles in your skirt a bit more.

“Yeah, I’ll just have to figure out a way to explain it to my dry cleaner.” Marcus grins, revealing his dimple.

Marcus insists on walking you to your car and carrying the box of stuff you’d packed. He laughs at the sheer amount of office supplies you’d thrown in before leaving for the parking garage.

“I’m loving the silent protest, but do you really need three staplers?” 

“The patriarchy has a lot of paperwork,” you shrug innocently and press the unlock button on your key fob. 

Marcus secures your loot in the backseat and turns to face you before you get in and drive away. His shoulders have noticeably slumped and there’s a sad half-smile on his face. You step into his open arms and he envelopes you in a warm embrace, kissing the top of your head. The prickles have come back to your eyes and you burrow into his shoulder and neck even deeper, trying to memorize his scent.

He mumbles something, but you can’t hear him, just feel the rumble in his chest. You pull back without unlocking your arms from his torso, “What did you say?”

“I said ‘I’m going to miss you,’” Marcus repeats, tucking an errant lock of hair behind your ear. His face goes blurry and you quickly blink back the tears threatening to form. 

“I’m going to miss you too, Marcus.” 

He leans down to kiss you, but you shy away and look around nervously out of habit. Marcus grabs your face and plants his lips on yours, kissing you with determination. You sink into him with a sigh, and he deepens the kiss, caressing your tongue with his own. The kiss builds until you both have to break away for breath. 

You get a naughty idea and bite your lip, glancing around. “Hang on, I want to give you something. Keep an eye out.” Hidden from view by your open car door and Marcus’ tall form, you discreetly pull your panties off from under your skirt and tuck them into the pocket of his suit jacket. 

“A memento,” you say with a wink and he kisses you again.

“It’ll keep me warm on cold nights,” he teases, with a cheeky lift of his brow. 

 The somber mood returns, and the two of you stand there quietly again, neither of you ready to say goodbye just yet. 

Finally, Marcus takes a big breath and speaks. “I…” he falters, and has to clear his throat. “I don’t know if I’m going to get another chance to say this, and I’m going to regret it forever if I let you leave without saying anything.” 

His words come out quickly, but his voice is thick with emotion. 

“You shouldn’t go. I mean, I don’t want you to go. You won’t talk about why you’re leaving, but I get it – I do, even if you think I don’t.” You have to look away, and swipe harshly at the tears beginning to spill over. 

Marcus gently cups your face and thumbs away one tear, kisses another off your cheek. Your throat constricts, and you can’t find the words you’d say to stop him if you could. He keeps speaking, every word breaking your heart a little bit more. 

“I really think that there's something special here, with us, and I–” His voice breaks, and you see emotion swimming in his eyes. You cover his hand with yours, and turn your face into his palm, placing a kiss there. 

Tears are falling freely from your eyes now, and there’s a deep, aching part of you that needs to hear what he has to say, even if it kills you. 

“I care about you. Very much.” He meets your eyes as he says this. “I don’t expect you to feel the same–” 

Rising up on your toes, you quickly seal his lips with a bruising kiss. You and Marcus cling to each other in a crushing embrace. 

“Please,” you say against his lips, kissing him again. “Please, don’t–,” another kiss. A sob breaks loose from your throat. “I can’t–”

“I know,” Marcus whispers, ghosting his lips across your cheek, temple, forehead.

“I have to go.”

“I know,” he presses his forehead to yours. “I know.”

Pulling back, you can’t tell if the wetness shining on Marcus’ cheeks is from your tears, or his own. His arms remain locked around you, holding you to him.

“I have to go,” you repeat in a hushed tone. Marcus nods and presses his lips to your forehead one last time. 

“Goodbye, Marcus.” Without looking at his face again, you turn away, breaking free of his warmth.

You manage to get in your car and drive a full block before you finally break down.

Next Chapter || SeñoraBond's Masterlist

Additional Author’s Note: I am so thrilled at all the folks who have liked this story and that I get to thot thotfully with you fine folks. Thank you so much to those who have commented, reblogged, and recc’d my fic! I don’t think this has gotten enough traction to warrant a taglist, but I’m more than happy to tag anybody going forward as I post subsequent chapters! Just send me a DM. 

As always, I would love-love-love to know what you think. I really want to become a better writer, so any and all feedback is welcome! Thank you for reading! 💜

[ask-the-bone-boys]

ATBB's Future

Hiiii y'all, its uh. been a minute huh

Now that it's been a bit over a year since I put this blog on hiatus, a loootta stuff has happened and changed and i've been doing a loootttta thinking!

Looking back on it, like really really looking, my biggest reason for the hiatus was that at some point the blog just kinda became more of a chore than something I wanted to work on for fun. Ask blogs are a lot of work, even when you're just using talking portraits rather than drawing out every individual answer, and with how much ask culture on tumblr has died out over the years there just wasn't really enough payoff to make it feel worthwhile to keep burning myself out.

I think it's a really good thing I stopped it when I did, because having to deal with all that in my senior year of high school would have been a nightmare. I've actually just finished up my first semester of college now, and there's no way in hell I would've been able to keep up at any rate! With all of this in mind, I've gained a newer perspective about how to approach things going forward.

I'm still really attached to this story. With how much time I've spent thinking about it and developing it in my head, I can't let it go, even if the blog isn't really working out anymore. I keep thinking of different ways I could fix the decisions I made early on, as well as the super cool directions I could take it in in the future, and I just. I GOTTA.

So, I've decided to reboot it entirely as a fic series!

This means that, unfortunately, there won't be nearly as much artwork to accompany it, but it's far more likely for the story to actually progress! Writing is way less draining for me and once I get going I can do it much quicker than art anyway, even though I do still sorta wish I had the spoons to just turn it into a full-blown webcomic instead haha

This DOES mean that updates won't be nearly as linear as they were here, seeing as right now I've mostly been working on backstory fics that took place before the blog's main story, but that can at least give you guys more context for how the characters interact with each other! I'll also state that while I do write faster than I draw, I still do it a hell of a lot less, so updates will still probably be pretty infrequent. But at least they'll happen at all, right?

As for the state of this blog itself, obviously I'm going to leave it up! I still love looking back on the old interactions you guys had with my characters and your reactions to certain plot points (your reactions to Fluff tagging along with the rest of the group were my favorite by far) and I think it would actually kill me to erase them. I'll be posting the fic updates here too, just like I did for Self Hatred!

And even if it's not going to be an ask blog anymore, because of how much I still miss that kind of interaction with you guys, I think I want to do a sort of "last hurrah" event, to finally send off the asking format with some good vibes.

You see, there's a character I made up around this time of year two years ago. He's a pretty cool guy, but he doesn't actually show up until a specific turning point later in the story. I've been excited for you guys to talk to him since the day I made him, but a little bummed lately that you may not ever get the chance. I still need to get a lot of stuff prepared, so I'm not quite ready to announce or start anything just yet, but there's a reason I waited until my winter break to start thinking about this seriously.

I think you guys would really like to meet him.

But anyway, that's about all I wanted to say for now! This is a very long post already so it's time I start wrapping it up. As always, thank you all so much for sticking with me, even though I really haven't been consistent through the years. I hope this change doesn't come as too much of a disappointment, and that you'll keep sticking around for the reboot!

[lammy-art]

In the last post with Whiteboard, what are your OCs? Can you tell us more about them?

Sure I will, but I will simply highlight their distinguishing features. I will provide personal information about those kids from other posts in the future.

Amity

- Amity is an extremely friendly and sociable person with everyone, especially the new kids. She was truly honored to introduce them to everything about the kindergarten she was attending ( She will be the first to volunteer to talk to you )

- Amity really likes to make friends, she can make friends with anyone ( As long as they are friendly people )

- She is an extremely honest person ( You should be careful with her if she catches you doing something bad )

- She is very sympathetic to the teacher due to her honest nature ( She also does not want to mention all of the mistakes other students have made in school.but her honest nature is hard to ignore. combined with the strictness of the person asking the question is the teacher, she had no choice but to confess everything )

- She smiles a lot and is rarely sad.

- Amity really loves painting.

- She is Monty's cousin ( She doesn't like him )

Aether

- Aether doesn't like talking to anyone, he's quite rude.

- Aether will punch anyone who bothers or angers him.

- He’s a fashion model for children's fashion magazines (Famous since he was a child, that's pretty amazing)

- He's can use a butterfly knife quite well ( I think he and Bugg could be friends, I wonder if Aether would agree ._.' )

- From the beginning, Aether didn't really have that angry personality. Ever since his younger sister Emily disappeared without a trace, he fell into despair, combined with the stress from the job his father imposed on him at a young age, making him more rude.

- He really doesn't like the teachers in Kindergarten. He also suspects that those people kidnapped his sister ( He also intends to kill all of those teachers but he still doesn't have a specific plan )

- He really hates One Eye Girl because she once broke his right arm during martial arts class ( That pretty hurt )

John

- He is an extremely shy person, not good at communicating with people and always avoids new people ( It must be said that he is suffering from Social Anxiety )

- Is a genuine nerd on par with Monty.

- Can read and read very well ( You would think that you wouldn't need to pay Monty to read for you, but rather ask John. However, before you asked him to read for you, he must already run away. As I already mentioned, he dislikes meeting new people )

- He is also good at calculating.

- If you truly want to start a conversation with him, you should go with someone John has known for a long time ( A classic example is Amity, but if not, you can ask One Eye Girl for aid nevertheless because she always sits with John in class )

- He is quite easily bullied.

- John loves reading books alone in the school library ( You will see him reading books alone in the library during recess )

Livia

- Livia is also quite a friendly person like Amity but not too much like her.

- Livia is one of the people that has a close relationship with the Principal ( Not like their child, but like a relative )

- She is someone who loves taking pictures of everyone and the surrounding scenery ( That's why she always carries a camera with her to take pictures of everything )

- She also has individual albums for each of her friends, even the teachers at school have them ( Maybe when the new kids come, she'll probably have to prepare more albums  )

- can also read and write but only basic words.

As for the last person with the nickname One Eye Girl given to her by Nugger, I'm almost done writing about her background and along with the unfinished comic, I'll post about her soon. .

( That's all the information from the OCs in Kindergarten au. Well maybe I can edit it a bit in the next articles or maybe I can keep it like this. Depending on my inspiration :3 )

Byeeeee X3

[hikaritakaishi]

Grief (Yamato & Takeru)

Disclaimer: This is a small piece of work that I wrote for the Takari Week that I could not post, but that I really enjoyed writing, so I decided to share! I love the family dynamics that we have in Digimon and everything about these two siblings’ relationship!  Enjoy!

─────  ♡  ─────

“Dad as always is going to come home late.” Yamato said while putting a hand full of spaghetti pasta into the boiling water pot. “Is mom home?”

“I think by now she is. But she must be locked in the office writing some article for the newspapers. You know, the usual.”

“Those two have more in common than they would ever admit.”

“I guess you have a point.”

Takeru took a sip from the tin the Coca-Cola Yamato had given to him. “Maybe that is the reason why they are no longer together; they are too similar to stand each other.”

“It can be.” Yamato laughed a bit. “I am very proud of you for being able to talk about it so openly now. Not a long time ago you would dismiss the topic and pretend you didn’t hear my comment.”

“I’ve been making some progress. As time passed, I think I just accepted the fact that some things would never change, and I have been trying my best to heal from it the best way I can. Writing my feelings down help a lot.”  

“I understand.” Yamato bent down and took out of a wood drawer a jar with the word 塩 (salt) written in hand, and another with the word 黒胡椒 (black pepper). “Your therapy is writing, mine is creating music. I would never admit it to them, but some songs I have wrote are inspired by them.”

“There is beauty in transforming pain into art. At least their story can be signified as such.”

“Exactly. You thought that line yourself?”

“I have been practicing.” Takeru smiled shyly noticing how Yamato observed his sentence.

“I can tell.” Yamato carefully put a pinch of salt and black pepper in the pot where the pasta was boiling. “You said you wanted to talk about something on the phone. What could it be?”

“Oh…that. Well, I think I may need some… dating advice.” Takeru said and felt a sudden urge to hide himself under the table out of shyness.

“What?” Yamato turned around quickly to face his brother with his mouth wide open. He was still holding the jars.” Who is it?”

“Ah…” Takeru looked away and started to tap his hand on the table insecurely. “Do you think Taichi is the jealous type of brother… or would he be ok if I…?”

“Taichi? No way!” Yamato quickly pulled the chair next to him and noisily sat down in front of Takeru. “There is no way you are dating Hikari!”

“Theoretically, I am not…Yet. I invited her for a date on Saturday… and she said yes.”

“I see…” Yamato was speechless. “I mean, congratulations! How… did that happened?

“It is a very long story. But the thing is, I have never been on a date before, I am kind of nervous. I don’t exactly know what to do, how to plan… “

“You never asked a girl out?”  Yamato interrupted him.

“If I never told you, it's because it never happened.”

“Make sense.”

Yamato let the idea sink into his mind. Not that it wasn't something he had already imagined, or even discussed with Taichi himself. But they always joked about it, he was not prepared to face it in real life.

“So…” Takeru broke the silence. “You are going to help me…?”

 “Let me… finish dinner first. A few minutes and I can answer you. Now I am too busy being surprised.” Yamato stood up and went turning off the pan.

Takeru rolled his eyes and kept drinking the Coca-Cola.

Yamato finished cooking in few minutes and served it, making slight jokes about the topic they were discussing before.

They expressed the typicalいただきます(itadakimasu) before anything else.

“Now that I am calmer.” Yamato started trying to look as serious as he could. “What happened? And please hide unnecessary details I don’t want to know.”

Takeru laughed at this and took a few seconds to summarize everything that have happened on this mind. It was still fresh and some things he would admit did not have processed yet. But one thing he was certain of: He could not be happier.

 “You know, I have been receiving love letters from girls at school, and many of them confessed to me. I think I told you about this already.”

“Yes, I remember.” Yamato took the chopsticks and divided them, listening attentively.

“In the quickest way I can summarize this, another one was too much for us to keep pretending we did not care about it. Hikari distanced herself and it was unbearable for me. I knew it was hurting her, and we talked about it after class. And we kissed. I mean, I kissed her.”

“Basically, we two just needed a good excuse to stop playing dumb about how you feel about each other.”

“I can confirm that.” Takeru followed his brother in the previous act. Divided his chopstick as well.

“Well, I don’t think you need to do something incredibly complicated for your first date Takeru, really. Your friendship with her naturally evolved into love and I think you should keep things as light as possible. Without pressure, you know her since you were eight, just trust yourself and your feelings.”

“Oh wow, I never expected to hear it from you.” Takeru seemed kind of surprised.

“I know, I know. But after several years in a relationship, you start to think about things differently.”

“I can see it.”

“Just take care of her and your relationship properly. Everything will be ok.”

“I… don’t want to commit the same mistakes mom and dad committed you know.”

“They are a good example of not taking care of a relationship properly.” Yamato said with as much sincerity as he could. “Dad was never at home, and mom needed to work and take care of us alone most of the time. He was always too busy working. And she needed support. Not financially, but all the other kinds, and dad just let it go. They had a very deficient communication. All I can remember were they screaming their problems at each other, frustrated and confused.”

“I remember that too. And for some reason, I remember blaming myself for it, most of the time. I think dad never expected mom to actually… leave.”

“I felt that as well. I blamed myself not just for the screaming, but for the divorce. Mom just couldn’t take that anymore.”

“I don’t want to… be like them.”

“We are not our parents, Takeru.” Yamato smiled at him, reminding the time he started to date Sora, when he had the same mental dilemma Takeru was having.” We were there, we know what happened, and we have the tools to do differently. “

“I know.”

Takeru smiled sadly, trying to remove those dark days from the focus of his present-day memory. At least he knew that Yamato understood him and these waves of old grief feelings. It didn’t matter what happened in the past, if he now got the tools to create a better future. Yamato was right, he needed to trust his feelings, and trust Hikari. Trust that they were able to create a relationship with a solid base of love and respect. He was the one in charge of creating his own fate, and he chose her to be his other side of the mirror.

[frozenwafflesagain]

I saw @lookingforhappy’s art of Five holding Diego and Lila’s child and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since so here are some scrambled thoughts about Uncle Five:

- Post S3, Five eventually manages to track down Diego and Lila because let’s face it, Lila’s the only one to ever seem to know what she’s doing and Five needs someone with at least half a brain cell right now

- He ends up staying with them; where else is he going to go? He’s a 13-year-old senior citizen who apparently can no longer teleport, so it’s not like he has many options that won’t raise a LOT of eyebrows

-Five finds out about Lila’s pregnancy when Diego accidentally leaves his copy of “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” in the bathroom

-Diego’s embarrassed, Lila’s pissed, but Five just mumbles a rough-but-sincere “Congratulations” and lets the matter drop entirely

-Months go by, and Lila starts to show. Diego is becoming increasingly both excited and flustered, and this manifests in quite a few late-night drinking sessions with Five

-“I just want to be a good dad, you know?” Diego admits around a beer. “Better than we had, at least.”

-And Five means it when he replies: “You will be.”

-But aside from those moments, Five really isn’t too involved with the preparations for the baby. He has more pressing matters to attends to, the Hargreeves-themed universe reset and his own disturbing lack of powers being at the top of the list

-Diego’s at the store when Lila’s water breaks, though, and Five is the only one there to help

-Five is a high-trained assassin with years behind the trigger, has killed more people than he can count, and saved the world from 3 separate apocalypses. Getting Lila to the hospital proves to be the scariest moment of his entire life

-But he does, and he sits anxiously in the waiting area until Diego arrives, the hurriedly scribbled note reading “BABY” Five had left for him clutched in his hand

- Diego follows a nurse into the hospital room, and Five is alone. He has nothing to do but wait

- Eventually, Diego stumbles out of the room with an expression Five has never seen on his face: shock, terror, exhaustion, but most of all…breathless joy

- “It’s a boy.”

- Soon, Five is allowed into the room as well. He sees the tiny bundle in Lila’s arms, and something clicks

-Five is an uncle.

-He knew he was already, he knew about Claire, but never seeing her in person made her more of an idea in Five’s mind than anything else. Something he was working towards - Claire was the representative of the future

-But Lila now holds Five’s nephew right in front of him, and it’s like he forgets how to breathe. He can’t find anything to say as he gapes at the baby, so Lila speaks for him

-“Come on, old man, don’t you want to hold him?”

-And before he can comprehend anything else, Five is oh-so-carefully lifting the infant from Lila’s arms, not sure how firmly he should be cradling the baby and absolutely terrified of hurting him

-A part of Five wonders why Diego and Lila trust him to even be near their child - they know how many people he’s killed, they know his penchant for violence. He’s taken so many lives, does he really deserve to bear witness to this new one?

-But then he’s sitting in the chair against the wall with his nephew in his arms, with Lila next to him and Diego’s hand on his shoulder, and Five feels tears on his cheeks for the first time in at least twenty years.

-Because this boy…he is the reason. He is what Five has been fighting for all this time. This baby is his sibling’s son, which means Five saved them. He gave them a future. The proof is right there in front of him.

-And he’d do it again a million times over.

-“His name is Five.” Lila whispers beside him.

-“What?”

-“No, I’m joking. It’s Stanley.”