#I know the poll isn’t over but I wanted to post this before work

[dante-winning-archive]

"Can I get uhhhhhhhhh..."

After their showdown in the parking lot, the Shit Twins went inside to get some lunch.

[aticklishpercivalwriter]

My Honey ♡ My Bee (fic)

Link to Art (credits go to @munchr00m (elaine !) on Twitter!): Sethos/Scaramouche

—

Summary: Wanderer and Sethos hang out, but Scara’s thoughts and uncertainty about their dynamic in the future end up eating at him. Sethos reassures him through convincing means.

A/N: SethoScara!! These two have me in a chokehold and the art and fanfics for these two are amazing. And here is my contribution :) Inspiration for this fic comes from this post. I did my best to retain Scara’s bratty attitude, but I also wanted to show a softer and vulnerable side to him. So, I’m sorry if Scaramouche seems OOC to you all. With that being said, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

P.S. There is a small scene that might be slightly NSFW to some, you’ll see it when you get to it, so you can skip the section until you don’t see any of the stuff you don’t want to see. Can’t reveal too much for spoilers. If anyone’s interested in me writing a smut fic (would be my first!) for these two, let me know! I’ll leave a poll :)

Word Count: 1965 Also on AO3!

—

The sky was a mix of red and orange hues as the sun set over the horizon. At the base of a tree outside of Sumeru City sat Wanderer and Sethos. The two of them have grown to like each other’s presence and made the tree their special spot to be with one another.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sethos spoke.

“You have poor taste in beauty,” Scaramouche answered, making Sethos chuckle. “That wasn’t supposed to be funny.”

“Hehe, I know. I never get tired of your responses.”

“Hmph, weirdo.”

A comforting silence settled afterward before Scaramouche spoke again.

“Why…Why do you keep putting up with me?”

The seriousness in his tone made Sethos look at him with concern.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a nobody. Someone who tried to become a god. A puppet that was thrown away because they were useless. One that makes mean and snarky comments. Why? Why do you want to be with someone like me?”

A surprised look crossed Sethos’s face.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because I like being with you.”

Scara’s eyes widened as Sethos continued.

“I was curious about your mysterious past and kept pestering you until you told me. When you did, I didn’t turn away disgusted or begin to hate you. All it did was make me want to be with you even more.”

Conflicting emotions and uncertainty ran through Wanderer's eyes before they were stopped by a hand on his cheek.

“You dare-” Scara started, making a move to swat Sethos’s hand away before Sethos started stroking his cheek with his thumb. He went quiet as he made eye contact with Sethos who had an endearing expression on his face.

“I'll take care of you.”

I'll take care of you.

A flicker of light is shown behind Wanderer’s eyes upon hearing those words. But as quick as it came, his eyes darkened with uncertainty.

“It's rotten work.”

“Not to me.”

Surprised, stormy eyes met determined, loving ones.

“Not if it's you.”

Those words were an arrow to his heart as tears from decades of sadness, anger, and hurt threatened to fall. The world seemed to blur around him as his senses were solely focused on the man in front of him.

“The things you mentioned are in the past. It's time for you to move on and not let them plague your mind.”

Sethos leaned closer, accidentally making Scara’s hat fall off his head. The latter could hardly care as he felt Sethos comb his fingers through his hair and his breath on his face. Not to mention the soft lips that were barely a millimeter from his own.

“You aren't useless, Scara.”

Sethos’s warm breath hit him in the face as he spoke.

“You aren't a nobody either. Since our first interaction with one another, I was obsessed with you. Your hat. Your past. Your attitude. But most importantly, what hid behind those stormy eyes of yours. And the more I got to learn about you, I began falling for you. I wanted you. I liked you. I love being with you. Your sassy attitude, you calling me a busy bee, I cherished those moments. In my eyes, you are the perfect being and you have a place in my heart. I will go to the ends of the world to fight with you. To be with you. To…love you.”

Sethos pushed forward, softly planting his lips on Wanderer’s. He melted into the kiss, kissing back with fervor as Sethos took the lead.

“Sethohh- mmm~”

Sethos smiled into Scara’s mouth, taking pride in making him fall apart. Taking it a step further, he licked his lips asking for entrance. When he met no resistance and instead Wanderer parted his lips, he dove right in.

“Se- mmph! Mmhmm~”

“Mmm~”

Sethos sucked his tongue, making him roll his eyes in ecstasy as he tangled his fingers in Sethos's hair. Sethos deepened the kiss, gently pushing his back to the ground.

“S- ahh! Mmm~ Aah! Mmphahh~”

“Mmochi~ Hah! Scaraah~ Mmm~ You have hah~ too many ngh~ na- aah~ names~”

They continued their make-out session, drowning in each other's embrace and letting out their feelings for one another.

They broke for breath after some time. Sethos towering over Wanderer with his arms on both sides of his head and the latter laying his head back on the grass looking up at Sethos. His face was flushed, complimenting the pink and orange hues of the sky and Scara couldn't help but reach out a hand towards his cheek, caressing him.

“Beautiful,” he breathed out.

A red tint started to spread to Sethos's ears and a shy smile started to form.

“M-Me?”

“snort. Yes, you.”

He wrapped his arms around Sethos, bringing him down to his chest.

“I hate how you make me feel so mushy inside."

There's no bite behind those words. Instead, love and affection.

“It's my job now, honey~”

“Argh, Sethos.”

“What? You call me a bee, I call you honey. Plus, you are so sweet-”

“I am not sweet.”

“Yes, you are. Especially your taste. Sweet like honey. No wonder I am a bee that is so attracted to you~”

Scara just groaned, his face flushed red. “Where did you even learn to kiss like that?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Oh, that. Heh,” Sethos rubbed the back of his head, rolling off him and laying beside him.

“You know how they say the quiet ones are the interesting ones? I'm far from being quiet, but since being in the Temple of Silence, I tend to be alone in my thoughts a lot and my imagination runs wild. And when I first laid my eyes on you, I never stopped thinking what it would be like to kiss those lips of yours.”

Wanderer’s heart fluttered in his chest, knowing that Sethos was thinking of him from the first time they met.

“And how did it feel?” he asked, turning to him.

“We both know the answer to that.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Sethos chuckled, facing him. “Alright, if you really want to hear it. It was the most amazing feeling in the world. The moment just felt right. When our lips touched, a pleasant tingling sensation traveled down my spine. Having your lips locked on mine, it just felt like we were meant to be together. Oh! Your moans. Don’t get me started on your moans. They were sweet as hon-”

“Okay, you are just teasing and trying to make me flustered.”

“Maybe~ Is it working?”

“Not even.”

“You sure about that? What's that reddening on your ears?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Make me.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“What do you think?”

“Oh, you are asking for it, annoying bee.”

“I'll like to see you- ack! Ahahaha! T-Tihihickling is cheheating!”

Scaramouche smirked, hearing his giggles as he tased his sides with ease. “Aw. Sucks to be you then~”

“Wahahait! Nohohoho fahahair!”

Scara draped himself over Sethos, lazily tracing random patterns from his shoulder blades to his neck to his chest and back again.

“Doesn't take much for me to make you giggle, little bee.”

“Hahahaha! Mohohochihi! Gehehet off mehehehe!” Sethos tried to roll around to no avail.

“Hmm, let me think about it,” Scara put on a fake thinking face for a few moments before he began to knead Sethos’s hips making him choke on a surprised laugh. “Nah.” A smug look crossed his face. “I want to do this all day~”

“GAhahaha! Nohohoho! You ahahare- NAHAHAHA! Nohot thahat SPOHOHOT!”

Sethos shrieked as his lover dug his fingers into his armpits causing him to clamp them down.

“You are losing, my love~” Wanderer teased, rubbing deep circles into his lover's armpits causing him to howl with laughter.

“AHAHAHA! HOHOHONEY! IHIHIT TIHIHICKLES SOHOHO BAHAHAD!”

“Oh really? Here, let me help. Tickle tickle tickle~”

“THAHAHAT’S NOHOHOT HEHELPING! YOU’RE MAHAHAKING IHIHIT WOHORSE!”

“How about this? Coochie coochie coo~”

“STAHAHAP TEHEHEASING MEHEHEHE! AHAHAHA!”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Scara said, playing dumb.

“YOHUHU LIAHAHAR! YOU- GAHAHAHA! NOHOHO!”

Sethos squealed as Scara used his thumb to massage his upper ribs.

“PLEheaSE ScahahARA!”

“Oh, my ticklish, little bee. Begging already? We are barely getting started~”

He decided to have a little mercy on Sethos, slowing down, so he could take a breather.

“Thahank youhuhu,” he giggled out.

“I’ll tell you what,” Scara started. “If you don’t laugh for 5 minutes straight, you win the challenge and get to tickle me to your heart’s content. If you lose, get ready to be tickled without mercy.”

“Pfft, 5 minutes. I can handle that. Challenge accepted!”

Wanderer inwardly grinned, his scheme working as he kissed Sethos with passion. Being caught off guard, Sethos quickly recovered, returning the kiss, unaware of the one hand that was inching closer and closer to his side until-

“MMPHAHAHA!”

Perfect.

“Noho! Youhuhu caught mehe off guahard!”

“I win~” Scara cheekily said. “Seems like that was your best… what a pity.”

“You planned that from the start!” Sethos pouted.

He stuck his tongue out towards Sethos. “Bleh, I win and that is all that matters. Come here and give me my prize.”

He lunged toward Sethos, leaving him no time to escape before he crawled his fingers under his clothes and attacked his tummy.

“I’ll geHEt yOUhu bahACK! AhAHAhAha!”

“Keep on dreaming little bee~”

After what felt like an eternity to Sethos of Wanderer skittering his fingers along his sensitive spots and teasing him to oblivion, his lover let up, lying right beside him.

“Mouchehe, you’re a ruhuthlehess tihickler.”

“Heh, that means that I’m still good at it or you are just too ticklish for your own good, or maybe both.”

“Scaraaa.”

They both fell into a peaceful silence as they stared up at the now starry sky, enjoying each other’s presence.

“Sethos?” Wanderer’s voice was soft when he spoke his name.

“Hmm?”

“Your words from before, I wanted to hear someone say those words to me for so long.”

“Which ones? You being sweet?” Sethos teased.

“Sethos,” Scara groaned. “I’m trying to be vulnerable here.”

“Hehe. Sorry sorry,” he chuckled, turning towards him and hugging him.

“I’m talking about when you told me you’d take care of me,” Scaramouche continued, snuggling into his embrace. “How it’s not rotten work to you and how you love me.”

He took a breath before continuing.

“It's all I ever wanted. Someone to say those words to me.”

A shooting star raced through the sky, lighting up his eyes. Sethos saw hope and a new spark of life in those mesmerizing eyes of his.

“I know I’m a bratty character and that’ll probably never go away, but I love you. I truly love you, even if I don’t show it at times. And…and I’ll go to the ends of the world for you too.”

Sethos could see the tips of his ears reddening and he inwardly grinned at how cute he was before going in for a quick peck on the cheek.

“Mochi, I love you so much. You are so freakin cute right now. But in all seriousness, I’m happy that you are in my life and I can’t wait to spend all of it with you. My sweet, honey love.”

“Archons, you are going to be the death of me you mushy bee.”

Sethos brought their lips together for a slow and soft kiss. Knocking their foreheads softly together, both of them stared into each other’s eyes, enjoying the moment before pulling away. Sethos was the first to stand up, grinning from ear to ear. Wanderer shook his head in amusement, picking up his hat and setting it atop his head before reaching out towards his lover’s outstretched hand. They started their way back into the city, hand in hand with fingers entwined.

My Honey.

My Bee.

—

More questions are in the Google Form if you want to provide more feedback. Plus, the question for a potential smut fic. Thank you again for reading and your time :)

Link to Google Form

[occamstfs]

To The Ground Floor

Heyo- Saw this next picture and just had to use it so here’s a businessman to dumb sub twunk TF! 

If anyone wants to suggest a prompt for my 1K follower post here’s the link- https://forms.gle/NE66kaH4KJxkhgPk9

Probably be wrapping it up/posting a poll soon! -Occam

I don’t know what my company was thinking when they scheduled our conference in Tenerife. It would be one thing if it was a retreat or team vacation, but it is nearly impossible to get any real work done with all these tourists stomping around and getting in my way. I was set to make it early to our morning meeting, as I always do, before this twat forced his way in before I could get to the close door button. He surely noticed since he glared at me before returning to focus on the only thing that seems to matter to him, his vanity.

In retrospect I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help but scoff as he started to take a picture of his reflection in the door. It was immature, but when dealing with this crowd of influencers or whatever these childish twits has put me off my usually stoic demeanor. He immediately responded with aggression, “You laughin’ mate? You lot all think you’re so much better than us eh?” He scowls once more at me and to his credit, I do think myself superior to him. Not afraid to say it either.

I open my mouth to shoot some clever insult at him but before I can the delinquent fully spits at me! Where does he get off! The elevator chimes as it stops at the sixth floor. I grab my handkerchief to wipe the spit off my dress shoes as I hear him run off, shouting “you’ll get yours ya git!” I look up to see the small of his back showing beneath his trailing coat and mesh top. I can’t help but stare as he runs, asshole he may be but, god, he is hot isn’t he?

I cough as I can’t believe I thought that! He’s absolute filth! Parading himself around dressed like that on a work day, my word! I don’t notice that there is no longer a handkerchief in my hand as I reach to wipe the spit off my shoes with my now empty hand. As I finally wrest my eyes from his pert body I notice that the villain pushed every button in the elevator. So help me god if I’m late to my meeting I will find him and- well, there’s not much I can do. I’m not exactly the peak specimen, unlike, uh him I suppose.

The doors click closed and begin to take me to the fifth floor. I consider hopping off to take the stairs but I’m sure he’ll be there waiting for me. I go to check my rolex when I notice I’m not wearing it? I would never go to a meeting without it though? My mind grows foggy as I thoughtlessly wipe the spit still on my hand on my suit. God it’s a little warm in this elevator isn’t it. I sniff the air and find that it still smells of that jerk. His cologne must’ve been something intense.

I continue to whiff the air before realizing that it is clearly not perfume but his natural body odor, blushing as I grow slightly jealous at his scent. I find my mind drifting as I think what a man he must be to smell so, mm. The only word I can think is, virile? Ugh, I need to get to work, this is going to set me back. The doors clink open to the fifth floor as the heat only continues to grow. Why am I wearing such a thick suit jacket anyway? It is so fucking hot on this island. I absolutely hate it here. I’ll just take it off for the rest of the elevator ride. Yeah, that couldn’t hurt right? My eyes glaze over as I think of his coat trailing off his head as he ran down the hallway and I bite my lip.

God that hot fucker. My jacket falls to the floor and before I can catch it it’s as if it was never there. I grunt as I think once more of my upcoming meeting. Surely they won’t judge right? My mind shuffles as I don’t even try to understand what has happened to my jacket. The fogginess in my head swiftly finds a form though as I see his smug smirk in my mind. Fuck I- I need to fuck him, or be fucked or? I grunt once more, my voice noticeably more dull. I try to fan my shirt open as the heat grows worse and I find myself growing hornier by the second. The elevator is already on the way to the fourth floor without my notice. I give up fanning my shirt and instead just open the buttons when I am suddenly met with something I cannot reconcile. When the fuck did I get, such, fuckable pecs? I press a finger into my own chest and start to drool as I see the depth of my muscle. I see my brown nipples grow and try to wipe the pooling drool from my mouth as I think how much my body looks like that uh, that twit? No that uh, that hot fucker?  I feel like I’m losing my mind. Or, losing myself? Uh..

The doors open and close on floor four as I struggle to think of absolutely anything but that, uh, stud. My own chest jutting out forces me to think of his own hearty pecs. The powerful curves of his body stretching his fishnet top, ugh. I see the biceps now on my own arms and struggle to not flex them thinking of that staring at himself in the elevator’s reflective wall and posing. I stare at the abs pushing out of my torso and think of his cinched waist peeking out from those sagging pants. God why didn’t I just try to fuck him then oohh.. Or no, Why didn’t I give myself to him..I moan as I loosen my belt, trying to allow my growing erection some air, instead giving my cock and ass more space to expand.

God his fuckable ass was impossible to miss even through those jeans. I bite my lip once more trying to stop myself from moaning as the doors open to the third floor. No one is there to see or hear me as my pants drop to the floor and disappear as if they were never there. As if I would wear pleated pants ever I think blushing. My cock begins to grow to fill my boxers. Or no hee hee- Surely I’m not wearing boxers right haha, giggling as I look down and see the clear imprint of my erection in my tight spandex. Mikey would never let me wear something so unattractive as boxers~

I feel an itch in my crotch as I think of Mikey once more, not hesitating to wonder how I could possibly know his name. Nor why he brings me such intense, feelings. It’s just, I’m so lucky to have him! Ah- I might lose control if I keep thinking about him, I need to keep it together for my uh, meeting? I shove my hand into my crotch to deal with whatever that itch is when I find it’s not my still growing cock, but a jungle of pubes that have begun to grow down there. I feel my fingers drag through them, now covered in sweat as the pubes begin to push themselves above my waistline. 

I giggle to myself as I see the thick black hair inch its way to create a perfect treasure trail up my stomach. I’ve gotta keep it looking good for Mikey after all! I play with the lengthening hair in my crotch, giggling to myself, as the elevator makes its landing on the second floor. I raise my sweaty hand to smell it as some prude stares in disbelief in the elevator lobby. I smile coily at him as he narrows his eyes in shock. He almost looks a little familiar but I’d certainly not waste any of my time on him haha!

He decides not to get on for some reason, not that I care as I look at my sharpening reflection. I play with my chest feeling the ebb and flow of my strength as I start to smell my own scent fill the elevator. I notice my feet are now bare on the dirty elevator’s floor. Ah, I hope Mikey won’t be upset if my feet are gross, smiling to myself as I think of him chewing me out. I feel a similar forest begin to grow in my pits as the elevator stops unceremoniously on the first floor before making its way to the ground floor.

I rub my hands all over on my now almost completely unclothed body as I feel my spandex shrink and tighten into a yellow speedo. My hands glide smoothly around the muscular curves, only ever getting caught on my tangled pubes as I giggle to myself. Wasn’t there something I had to do when I got to the ground floor? I raise my arm to bask in my scent as the elevator finally delivers me to my destination, and who could be standing there but Mikey!

“Mikey!” I shout at him! He looks so happy to see me, before responding, “well you’re looking great aren’t ya love.” He pushes and prods me as if he’s inspecting me as I proudly stand there giving him the doe eyes he demands. He smirks as he pulls me out of the elevator and plants his lips on mine. I can barely help but come right there as I feel my cock stretch at my speedo. I moan but keep it together, feeling his pursed lips grow into a smirk before he pulls away and laughs. 

I tilt my head at him before he speaks once more, “you remember what you’re supposed to be doing right now right, pet?” My face grows warm with blush, surely betraying my cluelessness as I struggle to remember. I had a meeting or? No, Haha As if! I, I could never work a stupid office job~ I try to look as coy as possible, inviting him to jog my memory. His eyes grow dark, not from aggression, but a hunger welling within him as he answers, “I need ya to get those posh wankers and bring them to me eh, doll? Need to them to submit yeh?”

My smile grows wide as my mind fills with excitement for this task. I’m gonna be so good and Mikey will be so proud of me! None of those boring businessmen will be able to resist me hehe! I begin to make my way out to the beach looking for any salarymen looking especially susceptible to my charms. I strut around, my body on display to everyone, monkeysuit suckers and other horny tourists alike. As if any of them have something more important going on hee hee! Soon they’ll all realize there is nothing more important than pleasuring Mikey!

[hoesoflamentation]

𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖔𝖓 // 𝖍𝖆𝖎𝖐𝖞𝖚𝖚 𝖝 𝖈𝖍𝖚𝖇𝖇𝖞!𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗 // 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI //

feat !! tsukishima kei, hinata shoyo, kuroo tetsuro, iwaizumi hajime

warnings !! reader is afab & written as gn as possible but please proceed with caution. individual warnings are listed for each blorbo. leave a shitty, fatphobic comment only if you want to be publicly shamed to all 1600 of my followers <3

a/n: hello fellow sluts, your overlord has returned. as a fellow chubby!reader, i am so happy & heartened that this won the poll. and don't think that my choice of boys was pointed at all; it was literally just self-indulgence... every hq boy would love the hell out of a chubby!reader >:(

// 𝖓𝖔 𝖙𝖔𝖚𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌 //

FEAT. TSUKISHIMA

warnings !! cam!reader/sex work, toys (on reader), just a lot of jacking off tbh

…is bored, so bored, of all the models who look the same, that the weekend he finds your Onlyfans page, he locks himself in his room and dedicates his weekend to watching you pound your plump pussy with every toy in your arsenal. For nearly 48 hours, he milks himself to your videos, until the craving becomes too intense to resist: You’re advertising a special livestream for your highest-paying fans, and Tsukishima knows he has to be one of them. His hand is still wrapped around his veiny shaft as he hastily types in his credit card information to send you an exorbitant tip. The day of the livestream, Tsukishima promises himself he will only look, not touch… but the sound of your fucked-out face whining “Thank you for the tip, Kei!” leaves him pumping his throbbing cock until it’s spurting hot, creamy white all over his stomach. Soon, Tsukishima is typing into the chat with his one free hand: "I'll give you $200 to say that again."

// 𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖙 𝖆𝖎𝖗 //

FEAT. HINATA

warnings !! chubbychaser!hinata, face riding, alcohol use

…isn’t one for locker room talk, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice the particularities of his taste. Shoyo Hinata can’t help it if he fantasizes about spending hours sandwiched between a pair of thick thighs, too pussy drunk to even consider coming up for air. So, when he meets you out at the bar where MSBY is having their post-game celebration, his rowdy teammates notice that you’re Hinata’s type even before he does. “That one’s yours, Shoyo!” one player calls out. “Yeah, they got Shoyo's name written all over them!” Hinata, of course, blushes and apologizes for their behavior, offering to buy you a drink. Little did he realize that those very same drinks would lead to him slipping a hotel key into your back pocket and stuffing his face in your needy cunt. You’re nervous to ride his tongue at first, worried he’ll suffocate beneath you… but Hinata laps up your juices so eagerly that soon, you’re the one who’s forgotten how to breathe.

// 𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 //

FEAT. KUROO

warnings !! possessive!kuroo, established relationship, lingerie, accidental exhibitionism (if that's what you call it lol)

…will listen to you talk for hours about anything on your mind, so you wouldn’t blame him for zoning out every once in awhile. Hence why you didn’t expect him to remember the time you complained about the difficulty of finding lingerie in your size at the store. The next thing you know, so many packages are arriving outside your apartment that the doorman calls upstairs and asks you to stop ordering things. Little does he know that it’s your boyfriend Tetsuro showering you in pretty little matching sets from expensive specialty stores you would normally never be able to afford. To thank him, you put on the number you know he’ll love most — a lacy thonged bodysuit in lipstick red — and video call him at the office. “So, Tetsu, what do you think?” you ask, striking a flirty pose that shows off all your best assets. Kuroo blushes… and you quickly realize why, as his coworkers cat call and wolf whistle at your display from off screen. “Baby, you know I love it... but next time, make sure I’m the only one who gets to see you!”

// 𝖌𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒 //

FEAT. IWAIZUMI

warnings !! iwa-chan the ass man, rimming (mention), spanking (mention)

…has worked out with some of Japan’s most talented athletes, but none of them ever made him as nervous as his personal training sessions with you. Because how is he supposed to tell you, his childhood best friend, that ever since he saw the way you stretched out those leggings while you were doing deadlifts, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about you? To stop imagining your bare ass cheeks jiggling in his face as he eagerly traces circles around your rim with his tongue? “One… two… three…” Your voice strains as you count reps. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi feels beads of sweat forming on his forehead, and not from the workout. With every squat, your perfect ass comes so close he can almost touch it. It’s all he can do not to let spotting you turn into spanking you. By the end of your reps, he’s gotten so desperate that his cock twitches just from you smiling at him. “Like what you see, Haji?” you tease. Iwaizumi clears his throat, turning to hide his hard-on against the climbing wall. “Y-yeah. Great form, Y/n.”

[flemingsfreckles]

Physio’s Daughter pt.5

Jessie Fleming x Reader

Read the previous parts HERE

Warnings: cursing

WC: 4.0k

A/N: hi :) enjoy (if you’re reading this the same day it was posted and want to help make a decision on the future of this story go vote on the poll on my feed)

The players ended up with way more downtime than the staff during the week before you all left for Paris they were really only responsible for keeping their bodies ready to play and showing up to get on the plane. You and the rest of the staff had meetings, more paperwork, you all had to pack your equipment away, it took more hours of your time than you had expected.

This meant you had to turn down Jessie on three different occasions when she asked you to coffee.

The first time Jessie shook off the rejection. Not thinking much about it, you were obviously busy with work and didn’t have the time that day.

“I’m wrapping up here. Want to grab a coffee this afternoon?” She stuck her head into your office.

“I would Jessie but I’m not out of here until 5 tonight. Plus should we be grabbing coffee?” You give her a questioning look. You had agreed to friends now, friends grabbed coffee but it felt like a gateway to something more with her.

“Oh, okay, sorry I didn’t realize you had to work so late.”

She shook you off, walking back over to her locker to grab her stuff and leave for the day, having to stop alone for coffee.

She didn’t stop asking, one thing about that girl, she loved to stop by your office and she also loved to get coffee.

“Coffee? Do you have a lunch break at some point?” Jessie’s head once again swung around your office door early in the morning when players were released for a couple hours break before having to return in the evening for film.

You sigh throwing your hands up, gesturing to the pile of papers in front of you “I’m supposed to get a lunch but I think I have more travel paperwork to do during that time, I don’t know Kelly from the administration called and-”

“Don’t worry about it.” You notice the tight lipped half smile she gives you. You so badly wanted to say fuck it to the paperwork and go get coffee with Jessie, you’d get coffee with that woman every second of every day if you could. But you had work. You were at work and she was your coworker.

Insistent on getting you to say yes, Jessie offers another plan. “What about tomorrow morning since it’s a later start? Before we come in?”

“Tomorrow I have to be here at normal times, it’s just you guys who get to come in late.” You give her a frown.

“Look if you don’t want to come to coffee with me, that’s okay, just say that though.” Her voice is quiet but she looks frustrated with you. Her eyebrows furrowed, upset lines on her forehead.

“No! Jessie, I do! I do want to get coffee with you, just, this isn’t a great week. I’ve still got a ton of work to get done before we leave. As the newbie on the staff I get all the simple but time consuming work no one else wants. Unfortunately the next few weeks will be just as crazy for both of us.”

“Okay.” She turns to leave “I’m sorry for bothering you.” Before you can really stop her to explain that she’s not a bother and honestly the short chats you get with her are the highlight of your day, she exits the door. And you're left alone in your office, a massive pile of paperwork to still get done.

With only two days left before you had to fly to Paris you were trying to get most of your work done today. You didn’t want to have to deal with work and the stress of packing tomorrow. You curse yourself for not packing sooner. You end up in the office until it’s dark outside checking your watch and seeing it was 7:30 at night. Your mom had left the office two hours ago, giving you a kiss on the head and telling you not to stay up too late.

You focus in, getting tunnel vision on the paperwork, racing through the stack of papers, until your phone goes off.

Jessie Fleming: what time do you have to be in tomorrow?

A text from Jessie has your phone vibrating in your lap. You pick it up and respond, wondering why she would need to know.

You: 5:30

You: Do you need treatment? Is your calf alright?

Jessie Fleming: So the facility will be open at 5:30? Calf is fine but I’m trying to get in some extra recovery and stretching, feeling a bit tight after today's work.

You: Yeah it should be, for all I know I might still be here when you show up.

Jessie Fleming: You’re still there?

You: I am

You: sent an image

You send Jessie a selfie of you, smiling in your desk chair, a significantly smaller stack of papers than she saw you with earlier in the day.

Jessie Fleming: sent an image

The image is her, in what you assumed was her Canadian apartment bed, a soft smile on her face, her head resting on a pillow with light gray cover on it. What also stands out to you is the way her sheet is pulled up, just under her collarbones. You can see her collarbones, she wasn’t wearing a shirt.

You: Why are you in bed this early?

You: Do you sleep shirtless?

You regret hitting send on the second message when you actually see that she’s typing.

Jessie Fleming: That’s professional to ask

Jessie Fleming: But yes

Jessie Fleming: Most of the time

Jessie Fleming: Obviously not when I have travel roommates or anything, but I’m in my own place for the next few days so I’m enjoying it before a lot of hotels with Janine.

Jessie Fleming: And I’m in bed because I’m watching a documentary and I’ve been told to get as much sleep as I can by the training staff at work.

Jessie Fleming: Especially this new young girl, she has been on my case about taking care of myself and whatever, but she’s cute so I gave her a pass.

The mention of Janine has your mind thinking back to the other day, Janine grabbing Jessie and whispering to her before she gave you a look that felt like she suddenly knew everything. You wanted to ask Jessie about it but now probably wasn’t the best time.

You: I sleep like that too, more comfortable

You: I’m sure that girl is just looking out for you.

Jessie Fleming: I know, right? I tried to tell that to so many of my teammates, none of them listen.

Jessie Fleming: stop texting me, go back to work so you can go home.

You: you’re the one texting me

Jessie Fleming: shhhhh

You: 🙄

You put your phone away, putting it on silent so there was no temptation to text Jessie, having no idea if she had responded. You finish your paperwork, finally standing up your back and knees both cracking as you stretch. You check you phone as you walk to the car, seeing it was 8:22. You’d have to go home, get dinner, shower, all to get up at 4:30 to be at work by 5:30.

A message from Jessie sits on your screen. You debate texting her back but you don’t want to wake her if she’s already gone to sleep.

Jessie Fleming: Have a good night, hope you’re not at work too late :)

When you sit back at your desk the next morning you feel deja vu, feeling like you never left. The only difference is there is no longer a pile of work in front of you, you thank yourself for staying to complete it all last night. You lean forward letting your head rest on your desk for a moment.

“Hi!” Jessie comes around the corner of your office, sounding way too chipper for 5:30 in the morning, but then again she was able to be in bed at 7:30. You look up to her to see her carrying two coffees. She approaches you and sticks her hand out offering you one of the drinks. You were so grateful, you had opted for 5 minutes of extra sleep in the morning instead of getting a coffee and you were starting to regret that decision.

“Should you really be showing up to my office with coffee? You do remember what happened last time you did that, right?” You question her, squinting at her across your desk and sending a glance to the wall where she had pinned you.

“Maybe that’s why I’m doing it, maybe I liked what happened last time.” She pauses, tilting her head, thinking back to the memory. “Except not when your Mom walked in, I didn’t like that, that was terrifying.” A quick grimace follows by a smile comes across her face.

“Jessie, we can’t.”

“I know, I know.” She sounds defeated. “I just figured since going out for coffee doesn’t really fit into your schedule right now, I’d just bring it to you. I promise I’m not trying to get anything out of you.” She sits down in the seat across from you.

“How late were you here last night?” Jessie’s phone buzzes on the table, she ignores it.

“Just before 9.”

“Oh wow, I was asleep by then.” You envy her early bedtime.

“Yeah so I am incredibly grateful for this, thank you.” You shake your coffee cup as her phone lights up with another notification. This time your eyes trail to it. You’re not trying to look at her messages but you just can’t help but glance at the lit up screen.

Jessie noticed your eyes' quick movement toward her phone, “Sorry that’s just Janine, I told her I was coming in to do some early recovery and she’s giving me a hard time about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s just teasing me.” She pauses, “about you.” She uses her coffee cup in her hand to point at you.

“Oh, did you tell her? She gave me a weird look the other day, after you came back and we hugged in the training room, you two walked out together and she sort of stared at me. So did you tell her? About the kiss I mean?” Finally getting an appropriate time to ask what was up with Janine’s look.

“It may have slipped out, one of the times I was talking about you. But she’s been teasing me about you since before that.” Jessie looks down to type back to Janine on her phone.

“Jessie!” Her head snapped back up when she heard you scolding her name. Knowing someone else knows about your kiss, someone you didn’t yet know well enough, makes you uneasy. “You can’t just be telling people that!”

“It’s Janine, she’s my best friend, she knows me too well, she knew something happened and asked. I didn't think it would be a big deal, she’s not going to tell anyone.” Jessie defends herself.

“I get that you think that Jessie, but if she slips up, next thing the whole team knows, then it gets out, you’ll get in trouble for sleeping with the student trainer, who’s 4 years younger than you.” You were spiraling, you’re not sure if you believe what you’re saying or if your mom had just scared you into it. You didn’t want your own career to be at risk and you definitely didn’t want Jessie getting in trouble.

“We haven’t slept together, plus you’re an adult, it’s not like I’m 20 and you’re 16! We’re both grown.”

“I know that, but good luck telling that to anyone else, they won’t listen!”

“I really didn’t mean to tell her, it just sort of slipped out and I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would be an issue.” Jessie crosses her arms across her chest, she feels less warm than usual, less friendly, less inviting.

Only, it felt like it was a problem that she had told people. You weren’t sure why Jessie would think it was okay to go around telling people about your kiss without at least checking in with you. A small bubble of frustration with the woman sitting across from you started to build.

“Jessie, if people find out I could get fired! Sure, it might temporarily make your image bad but you’re too damn good, you’ll stay Captain, you’ll keep getting your call ups, keep being desired by different clubs, it won’t ruin your career like it could mine.”

“Nothing is going to get out, nothings going to happen, it’s not that big of a deal!” Now Jessie is raising her voice at you slightly. She’s leaning across your desk.

“Maybe it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal that to you, but it is to me.” You yell back, thankful that no one else was in at the office yet. You take a breath realizing this argument was not something you needed to be doing at 5:30 in the morning. “You should probably go do your recovery. I have things to get done” You point to the doorway.

“Oh.” It’s obvious the sadness on Jessie’s face and in her voice. A sudden change from her argumentative demeanor. “Yeah, I’m going to do that.” She pushed back from your desk. “I’m sorry.”

You let her walk out without saying anything. She doesn’t close your office door on her way out. Feeling stupid about the argument, you let your forehead come crashing back onto your desk with a loud thud, a lot harder than you intended.

“You okay?” You hear Jessie ask, hearing the sound of your head against your desk from the other room.

“Yeah, all good.” You groan back. You didn’t want her to care and feel the need to check on you. You know you shouldn’t care about he either but you can’t help yourself.

Despite being quite annoyed with Jessie at the moment, you’re unable to look away every time she passes by your door, doing exercises or walking across the room to get equipment. Time goes on and then you hear her digging in the ice cooler, the sound of a plastic bag and some shuffling around.

“Stupid wrap.” Hearing her talking to herself you stand up from your chair, it was your job after all to help with these things. You see her struggling to hold and secure a bag of ice she had made to her calf.

“Let me help you.” You offer empty hands to take the ice bag from her, grabbing the wrap and squatting in front of her to help her get it tight on her leg.

“Thanks.” She gives you a smile, the way she was grinning looking down at you sent a shiver through your body.

“Is it still treating you okay?” You look up at her from where you’re kneeling in front of her.

“Yeah it’s been good, just being overly cautious with it still, that’s why I’m doing all this.” She points down where your hands were wrapping the ice bag. You just nod, returning your focus to what you were doing instead of staring up at the girl’s pretty brown eyes.

You let the silence sit between the two of you for only a second before you break it.

“I’m sorry for how I reacted in the office just now. I think I’m just a little paranoid, we’re adults, we’re allowed to do what we’re doing technically. I just didn’t think you’d be going around talking about me and the fact that you kissed me.” You stand up.

“To be fair, I’m not going around talking about you to everyone, it’s really just been to Janine, she made some comments about you before we had even really talked much, she knows me too well. She knew I was interested, so she made some comments about me finding you pretty to which I blushed and she was onto me right away apparently I’m not great at hiding my crushes.” She looks down at her feet.

“I just freaked out, knowing that someone else knows that you had me against the wall, in my office.”

“If it helps, she doesn’t know I pinned you to the wall.” Jessie’s face is now a bright red. It’s suddenly very obvious to you how close the two of you we’re standing, face to face. It’s apparent that you can make out all the little details of her face, where each freckle sat across her nose and cheeks, you could see it all. Despite still being upset and frustrated with Jessie for telling Janine about your previous kiss, you suddenly don’t care and have the desire to kiss her all over again.

“Jessie.” You stare at her lips while saying her name. You don’t know if she noticed you’re staring, but her tongue runs over her bottom lip, wetting it.

“What?”

“Don’t, what, me. You know what.” Your eyes don’t move from Jessie’s lips.

“No I don’t. You’ll have to enlighten me.” You do, leaning in your hands finding her face you pull her toward you. Your lips meet hers, they’re warm and soft and plump against yours. Her hands find your hips, pulling you against her hard. Her grip is tight, it feels safe. This time you’re able to finish your kiss, both of you pulling away just before you debate sliding your tongue against her lips.

“You really should stop bringing coffee to my office I guess, it always seems to end like this.” You let out once you both breathe for a second. Jessie lets out a soft laugh.

You hear the door to the training room open and you jump away from Jessie, turning to pretend to organize something, finding nothing, everything already being packed up. This leaves you just standing there looking at the wall. You and Jessie both look over to see Janine standing there, coffee in one hand, training bag in the other and a smirk across her face.

“Well you two aren’t suspicious at all.” She says sarcastically as she walks from the doorway further into the training room and in your direction. “I’d recommend actually doing something to make it look like you two weren’t just doing what I think you were.” You can’t read her tone as she speaks to you. “Looking at imaginary things on the wall doesn’t really work as a good cover.” She stops behind you to speak softly only to you. You stay facing the wall, not wanting to turn and let either of the players in the room see how bright red your cheeks are.

“I’m going to go change, I’ll be back in probably 5 minutes, behave yourselves.” Janine says to both of you, she walks away into the changing room.

“Whoops.” You turn back to look at Jessie who is still standing where you kissed her. You both have matching blushes on your face.

“At least it wasn’t my mom this time.” You shrug at her, trying to make light of the situation again.

“I guess,” she shrugs back.

“But seriously Jessie, we can’t keep doing this, we leave for Paris in less than 36 hours. You have to go, be focused, be this team's leader, we can’t, I can’t be distracting you.”

“I know.”

“So that means no more surprise coffees, no more private meetings, like Janine said, we have to behave. Strictly professional from now on. No more of this.” You use a finger to point between the two of you.

“Strictly professional, got it.” She nods at you but her smile tells you she’s not taking you seriously.

“I’m serious this time Jessie.” You try your best to be stern with her.

“So am I.” You were both lying through your teeth, and you both knew it but neither of you were going to call each other out and say anything.

“Or just until the Olympics are over.” You add, hoping she’ll maybe be interested in whatever the two of you were doing come the end of the games.

“Until it's over.” She flashes you a smile before turning to leave, following in the direction Janine went to change. She flashes you a smile before heading through the doors. You move back into your office leaning against the desk.

“Hey.” You jump as Janine flies around the corner of your office door. She walks in closing the door behind you.

“Okay I don’t have a lot of time, but I need to talk to you really quick.”

“What’s up?” You move behind the desk, looking for her file pulling it out. You start to open it and Janine’s hand comes down on it, closing the folder hard.

“This isn’t about me.” She’s staring down at you as you sink back into your chair.

You realized exactly what this was about. “Oh.”

“If you so much as hurt a hair on her head-”

“I won’t.” You interrupt.

“I wasn’t finished.” You nod, letting her finish. “Jessie is a special human and quite frankly she doesn’t need you. She’s perfect on her own, she’s strong and independent and she doesn’t need you, but she wants you, so I’m going to respect that, but please let her focus on this tournament. I don’t know what you two are really doing, she’s been pretty tight lipped, but please. She’s smart but she might not think straight with her crush brain, she might think she can handle starting something with you during this tournament, but she can’t. She needs to be focused. She’d hate herself down the line if she let someone get in her head and mess with her playing. She’s worked her life for these tournaments. This team needs her focused, not distracted because of you.” Janine rants at you.

“I know. We’ve discussed it. I won’t be a distraction to her or to anyone. I promise, I want what’s best for her and the whole team.” You mean it, you want what’s best for the team, and you don’t want to distract Jessie or anyone, you saw how hard they all worked and would hate to be the reason anything went wrong.

“You seem like a good person, and given that Jessie likes you so much, you must be. So I’m going to trust you.” Her hand comes off the file on your desk.

“Janine! Come play Teqball with me!” Jessie hollers through the training room.

“Ahh the queen of Canada awaits.” Janine says, looking at you. She turns to leave, her hand on the doorknob. “Just so you know, I’m serious, don’t hurt her, I’ll make your life miserable.” The way she spoke with still a large smile while telling you she’d ruin your life was slightly terrifying, but very much fitting for her Canadian personality.

“I know.” You just nod. And you did know. It wouldn’t just be Janine coming after you if you messed up with Jessie her entire team would hate you. If you distracted her from the tournament the country of Canada would hate you. You’d never get to work for a Canadian team, you’d never get to live that down. Your nerves build up a bit, even though you had no intentions to hurt Jessie ever, things happen, life happens.

Your spiral of nerves is diminished as you hear Jessie’s laugh carrying through the room. Just her laugh made you smile, your nerves ease. You were in deep, probably in too deep, but there wasn’t anything you could do now, except go to Paris and do your best to just be coworkers with Jessie. You needed to be invisible and not a distraction..

So that’s what you did. Or at least tried to do.

[tangerinesilk]

－ I CAN SEE YOU : TANGERINE X FEM!READER

tangerine is going on a solo mission… well, at least he thinks he is. with lemon missing by his side, he’s left with one other option that is supposed to make his job easier. unfortunately for him, you’re not the easiest to work with. stubborn, strong-minded and feisty. you’re both so alike yet nothing has made your bloods boil more than each other. 

rating ✷ r (18+ minors dni!)

warnings ✷ (very quick) smut: fem receiving, kisses all over bodies, a needy but quick hj, p in v, dirty talk, praising, implied rough (consensual) sex / others: cursing, drinking alcohol, mention and use of guns and violence, male hurting female (?) but not between main characters, mentions of blood and wounds.

tropes ✷ enemies to lovers!!!, person a is all talk no bite + person b knows that but still pushes them, playful banter, hiding together in small spaces, fake dating (?), if one is hurt– the other goes a bit crazy, says ‘i dont care’ then cares 5 seconds later. 

word count ✷ 6k!

songs that fit the vibe ✷ i can see you - taylor swift | moth to a flame - swedish house mafia + the weeknd | king of my heart - taylor swift | attention - charlie puth | nonsense - sabrina carpenter

a/n ✷ so i made a poll a months ago and this trope + pairing won! i’ve honestly been wanting to write a dave lizewski one as well and got a request idea. so.. we will see lmao. i will probably post then maybe edit later if there's still things i don't like... also, if you couldn't tell but im kind of a swiftie so i will love to write fics inspired by whole ass albums y'all.

but i hope this is what u guys expected and wanted. i actually do love writing for tangerine. just gives into my delulu thoughts. also, if you guys would like a plain pwp fic and not all of this fluff and dialogue stuffed inside, pls let me know bc i am definitely into that idea. 🫡

“You had to go and get yourself shot… then you wonder why you have to wear a bulletproof vest. Fuckin’ hell.” 

Tangerine kept his voice at a hushed tone, basically talking under his breath as he strutted through the grand hall of the hotel. Golden light glossed over his figure, passing by couples who were at standing tables with their cocktails.

“Well, Thomas said-”

“Thomas didn’t say shit. Don’t get me fuckin’ started now.”

Lemon already knew Tan was in a bad mood. Another Thomas the Tank Engine factoid wasn’t a playful move right now.

“Hey, mate. Don’t get all fussy wit’ me. You’re just mad about your new partner for the night.” Lemon rolled his eyes.

“Can’t believe I can’t be held accountable of myself. I can handle it on my own but you had to call the fuckin’ princess-” 

“She’s good. Your denial is obnoxious, bruv. It’s only a night, you get in and get out.” Lemon replied, holding his wounded side as he laid in his bed back in England, “What happened between you two that you’ve got beef like this?”

“No time to explain nor do I have the patience.” He arrived at the small bar to the side of the room, “If I leave her behind, can I take half the pay that’s supposed to be hers?” Tangerine asked.

“She’s supposed to be wearing a red dress. You’ll see her there… and please don’t cause a scene.” His brother begged.

“No promises.” He replied before hanging up. 

Tangerine blows a sigh past his lips, quickly asking for his drink of choice before scanning the mass of people around him. His blue eyes could only search so fast for the man that the hit was called on, causing him an instant frustration when he’s already worried about you ruining things regardless of how long you’re together.

“He’s next to the woman in the tacky gold ballgown… about two feet away from the ice sculpture.” Your soft voice suddenly spoke next to him, “But, I didn’t need to tell you that, right?”

The smirk on your face burned at his nerves and you noticed the clench in his jaw.

“Well, if it isn’t the fuckin’ Queen herself.” He said in a stern tone, “What? Germany was too borin’ for ya? Had to figure out a way to ruin someone’s operation?”

“Lemon is the one who called me in, and it isn’t about you. It’s about the pay out… you’re bound to screw something up with your ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ tactic.” You trailed, rolling your eyes as you turned your head away.

“And I’m certainly not afraid to use that tonight and not your fucked up, painfully long mind games like some fuckin’ psycho thilling killer.” He spat as his drink was place in front of him.

You narrowed your eyes at him, “Fuck you.”

“Darling, I’m flattered, but we have more important things to do right now.” He lowly groaned, purposefully looking at his target so his back was facing toward you.

Behind his tall stature, you glimpsed past his shoulder and saw your target chatting up a woman. 

He won’t be smiling for long, you thought.

“Alright, I’ll wait for him to slip away, follow him and you go through the kitchen.” Tangerine said under his breath, keeping quiet for only you to hear him.

“To go where?” You ask, walking around him to stand face to face.

“Erm…” He sighed, “Whatever car or vehicle you got here in, drive yourself back to whatever place you’re staying and I’ll figure out how to wire you the money.” He shrugged, downing the rest of his drink.

He took a step but you placed your hand on the center of his chest, “Not so fast. I’m not going down if you make a mess of this.”

“I don’t make messes. Well, actually, I get away with them once I’ve done ‘em so, I don’t need to worry about a liability.” Tangerine smirked, a bit of a tilt to his head. Cheeky bastard.

“The only liability here is the one who is ready to pull the trigger in his back.” You said before huffing, “I’m not sorry for what happened in Paris, but that was my choice. So, I’m going with you because it’s our operation. You know… I don’t need a fucking helping hand either.” You practically growled.

The two of you held a long gaze, creating a tense eye contact before he sighed, “Didn’t even say anythin’ about Paris, but if you’d like to assume I’m still mad ‘bout that, be my guest, princess.”

His shoulder bumped yours, making you clench your jaw before quickly following behind his tall stature. While he seemed persistent, you grabbed his hand which made him stop in his tracks in the middle of the dance floor.

He turned, “Am I your babysitter?”

“No, you’re my date. Hold my hand, you idiot.” Your eyes pierced through his.

As he looked down at your hand, he slowly grasped it, your fingers intertwining with one another’s before he proceeded through the glamorous crowd.

Couples swayed and waltzed between each step you took, assuming you were unnoticed by your target. Tangerine kept his eyes on him, easy to with the frosty-white full head of hair he had slicked back. The woman in the tacky dress ran her hand down his shoulder, pressing her lips to his ear to whisper something which made you and Tangerine veer to the side at a standing table.

“Are they movin’?” He asked, facing his back toward them.

Your eyes smoothly shift, taking a quick glance at the assumed couple. You ran your hand down Tangerine’s arm, accidentally feeling how toned his bicep was through the thick fabric of his suit jacket. You almost glanced down, wanting to give another squeeze before clearing your throat. A heat rose on your cheeks as you turned your head to face away from him.

“Y-Yeah, near the bathroom. There’s also a backdoor that leads up to the second floor… lots of private rooms for reasons that are obvious.” You said in a hushed tone, moving away from him to the other side of the table.

“Alright, since you wanna tag along, I’ll follow them and you cover the door.” Tangerine suggested once again.

You furrowed your eyebrows, “You do understand what teamwork is, yes?”

He chuckled, “Yes, I go up there, shoot a few rounds, then we make a getaway.”

“Will you just trust me?”

“Your trust means nothing… I need to know you’re not going to fuck anything up. Just like in Paris.”

You smirked, “So you do have that against me.”

“Well, it’s not like it was your best. Leave me with a shot in the arm, Lemon on the ground and you, little miss greed, get away with your cash. If we all did this job for money, we wouldn’t be riskin’ our lives just runnin’ around killin’ or resucin’ people just for someone’s dime. You obviously do though.”

You narrowed your eyes, “You don’t know me…”

“Nor do you know me so…” He huffed, “Let’s just do what we have to do.”

There was tension between you, as if there was more fo a protective instinct than hate toward one another. You couldn't figure out Tangerine’s deal. Why was he so hostile toward you? Yes, what happened in Paris was fucked up, but he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. He didn’t take shit from anyone, so why were you getting under his skin?

“Shit!” He grunted under his breath, seeing your target disappear into the hall.

The two of you hurry, yet still try to act casual to not raise eyebrows, and exit into the same hallway. As you push open the door, you hear the two talking in the stairwell before another door closes.

“You got your gun on you?” He asked as his hand slid into the back of his pants.

“Of course.” You scoffed, tearing up the slit in your dress. He saw the small pistol strapped to your thigh, making his mouth a bit dry.

He nodded, “Good…” 

Taking a quick breath, Tangerine opened the door. You slipped through and he followed behind, your backs facing one another as you scanned the hallway. It wasn’t narrow but if anyone slipped out of one of the rooms, they were right in your sights.

“I’ll take this one, you take that one.” He whispered, pointing his gun to the opposite door of his.

With your heart in your throat, you slowly crack the door open and don’t see anyone before a body flies from behind and slammed the door open from Tangerine’s side. The woman lied dead on the floor, blood all over his dress, and just as you turned around, a punch slid across your cheek. 

Instinctively, you ducked to dodge the second jab and swoop under to get on the other side of the man as Tangerine wrapped his arms around the guy to pull him to the ground.

Tan loudly grunted as he tried to gain control, basically attempting to straddle him in order to push his arm against his neck. Even with all his strength, the man gripped his hands around Tangerine’s arms to throw him off along with trying to push his knee between his crotch.

“Watch the door!” Tan directed to you. 

You nodded, catching your breath with your back against the wall by the door. The adrenaline ran through your veins and heard your heartbeat in your ears as one tear of blood dripped down your cheek. The crack of bones made you turn your head, seeing the man’s body go limp as Tan began to stand over him.

He quickly walked over the man, as if he was in the way, and comes to your side.

“He nicked you bad. Lemme see.” Tan said, your eyes meeting his as he held your cheek. The touch of his hand seemed to be some comfort, his thumb wiping the blood away and trying to see how bad the wound was.

“Bastard.” He muttered, “C’mon, let’s go before someone comes up.”

Without a word in, he grabbed your hand and dragged you behind his lead. You two headed for the exit door down the other side of the hall as you heard footsteps rumble from the other stairs you came up.

“Wait a minute.” Tan said, fiddling with his belt buckle.

Your eyes widen, “What on earth are you doing?”

He smirked, “Relax, darling. You flatter yourself too much.”

You rolled your eyes as the sound of his belt slid against the fabric of his belt loops before curling the leather strap around the door to keep it locked. The two of you fled down the stairs and suddenly found yourselves in the kitchen area. A few eyes followed as you both ran through, very obvious that you were running from something, but still aimed to get to some kind of exit.

With sudden luck, Tangerine saw his car across the street, instantly knowing which way he was supposed to go. Without skipping a beat, he grabbed your hand once more and the two of you ran across the street. Hopping into the passenger seat and Tan taking off was like a blur, just happening in seconds.

“Y/N?” Tan saying your name woke you from your trance.

“Huh?” You asked, shaking your head.

He quickly turned his head, “You alright?” He said with concern, one hand on the steering wheel and his foot easing off the gas.

“Y-Yeah, I’m okay. I don’t know what happened back there.” You trailed, a bit embarrassed. You were never one to let your guard down, well– enough to get hit right smack in the face.

“Are you sure?”

You turned your attention to him, “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?” You asked rhetorically.

“‘Cause of that big cut on your cheek.”

You narrowed your eyes, “Alright, what’s your big plan now, Einstein? Were just going to sleep in your car and hope we don’t wake up decapitated?”

He half-chuckled, “You truly think so little of me, don’t you?”

“Is that rhetorical?”

Tan rolled his blue eyes, “We’re goin’ somewhere safe.”

– – –

You wanted to believe you were strolling into some kind of trap. The lobby had a classic aesthetic to it, pale gold wallpaper and a wall of keys behind the person at the small front desk. You two placed your go-bags on the red carpeted ground as Tangerine checked into a room.

“Hello Mr. Tangerine.”

Oh, great. He’s some guest of honor here.

“‘Ello, Colin. My usual room.”

“Is that what you say in front of all the girls?” You tilted your head, standing behind him.

He rolled his eyes, “‘Cuse her.”

The man chuckled, crinkles by his eyes, “How many nights are you staying this time?”

This time. You could scoff out loud but you didn’t want to hear the tude from him.

“Just overnight. Nothin’ too serious.”

“Well, enjoy your stay, as always.” The man nodded before Tangerine thanked him.

The two of you head toward the old elevator, watching him quickly press the up button before you stand by his side. You half chuckled, “I’ve never seen you act so kindly toward anyone, tell me, does he see you bring girls through here all the time or-”

“Has anyone ever told you to shut your pie hole?”

“Hmm, not verbally. But, those eyes of your say enough for me… you’re too predictable, sometimes, Tan.”

He gave you a lingering look as the door opened, passing him into the elevator. The two of you make your way to the fifth floor and the hall is eerily quite for a hotel full of private contractors and assassins. You had your hands behind your back then patiently waited for Tangerine to jiggle the key into the lock, opening a door to a huge room with a surprisingly wide view.

“You’d think the curtains were closed.” You muttered as he walked over, closing them anyways.

Suddenly, he stripped from his suit jacket and you couldn’t help but see how tight his button up was around his biceps and chest.

“Did you get that a size too small?” You ask as you chunk your heels into the corner.

“Well, I certainly can’t kill fuckin’ bloaks wearing baggy clothes now.”

“But, you can in a three piece suit?” You cocked your eyebrow.

He licked his lips, “As if your dress is a flexible material.” Tangerine said as he pulled his rings off, placing them on the night stand.

“I can say the same for your pants.”

Tangerine wanted to look down but didn’t give into your comment. You place your bag down on the bed, grabbing your silk pajamas nearly folded on top and changed in the bathroom.

“God, just go to bed. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.” You somewhat groaned.

You sit on the top of the bed, unfolding the duvet before shoving it off to get underneath them.

Tangerine paused, “What the fuck do you you’re doin’?”

You furrowed your eyebrow, “This thing called going to sleep. Try it sometime, you’d be less grouchy.”

He rolled his eyes, “I know that, smartass, I mean what’re you doin’ in the bed that I’m goin’ to be sleepin’ in too?”

You rolled over, putting your weight on your elbows, “I know you’re dramatic but this takes the cake for top performances.”

He faked a laugh, “If you don’t get your ass out of that bed in two seconds, I’ll throw you in the tub with a pillow.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to. Fine, do it.” You said before laying flat into the mattress, staring straight at the ceiling.

He didn’t care for your equal amount of sarcasm, but he just gave you a cocked eyebrow.

“Okay, fine. I’d rather sleep on the floor anyways.” He said, stretching his arms up and behind his head. Your eyes quickly admired his muscles before turning back.

“Be my guest, princess.” You scoffed, slipping on your pajama shorts, “I’ll enjoy my big comfy bed.”

You pulled the heavy duvet over your waist, curling up with the dense pillow beneath your head. 

Tangerine stood there, biting the inside of his cheek as he watched you roll on your side. He tilted his head back before unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it on the desk chair. Although your eyes were closed, his side of the bed sunk in and you tried to hold back your smile at his faded stubbornness.

With your backs facing one another, you two just listened to the silence of the city. It gave you a moment to think of Paris– the last time you were with one another or much rather supposed to be against each other. You were a double agent, not exactly proud of it but you let greed take over your motivated justice. 

Having to scam Lemon and Tangerine wasn’t your finest hour either, you thought about it for months and finally coming face to face with Tangerine (out of the two, he wasn’t the one you would want to bump into again), all the guilt came rushing back like the snap of an elastic band.

– – –

The morning sun runs through the thin silk of the curtains, shining over your bodies in the bed. You wake up to the sound of light snoring, happy that you could sleep through it, and Tangerine in a deep slumber with his arm over the bed. He suddenly looked like innocence, so soft and tender, simply laying there like it was any other day.

You sit up, putting your hair out of your face then head to the bathroom. When you turn the light on, you’re almost surprised to see your reflection. Forgetting about the scar against your cheek, you look more rough around the edges. You sigh as you run your fingers over it, remembering the way Tangerine did last night.

After washing up, you go back out and Tangerine is now standing up and stretching his arms above his head. Your eyes quickly shift up his body, admiring the tattoos in their random places and how the band of his briefs rest on his hips. You sealed your lips from smiling at how sharp his v-line was accompanied by the happy trail disappearing into his pants.

“Sleep good with that stick in your ass?” You retort, passing him.

He rolled his eyes, “...You’re annoying, ya know that?”

“Oh, you’ve made that clear.” You mocked him as you closed the curtains more, “That’s why I love to do it.”

Tangerine flicked on the lamp, giving the room a warm glow.

“Alright, I say we lay low today. Better to be out of sight and–”

You cut him off, “Stuck in this room together?... are you trying to kill me t–”

He then put his hand over your mouth, looking deep into your eyes, “Yes, stuck in this room where we can keep an eye on each other and you can’t screw me over again.”

Your heart stopped for a split second, as if he couldn’t have been more of the controlling one. He took his hand away and you gulped, “Yep. Fine. Fair.”

Tangerine pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek before you go to your bag in the chair that’s pushed in the corner of the room. You slightly bend over to look inside your duffle and his icy eyes can’t help but look up the back of your thighs and straight at your ass and lower back. How he could easily put his hands on your hips and make you hold onto something.

He shook his head, feeling like he was coming down with something to even imagine that thought.

You pulled out an old novel and sat yourself back on the bed, hoping that the hours would pass as you sank further into the broken-in mattress.

Tangerine sat down in the chair nudged into the corner, adjacent from your view, and he pulled out his gun that was conveniently tucked into the back of his pants.

“Are you actually holding me hostage?” You furrowed your brows, but didn’t take your eyes from your sentence.

“Whatever fantasy you’d like you believe.” He trailed, opening his gun and emptying his rounds into his palm.

– – –

Suddenly, you leaped out of a deep sleep. Your book laid open on your stomach while an extra pillow was between your legs. Your eyes fluttered open, thinking the past few days has been a dream, until you noticed Tangerine wasn’t sitting in the chair. You quickly looked around before hearing the bathroom door open and he stepped out, shirtless and in new dark slacks that rested on his hips.

Your mouth became dry. How could you dislike him so much yet here you are, ready to jump his bones as he crossed the room.

“What are you getting dressed for?” You asked, rubbing your eyes.

He half-chuckled at your groggy voice, “I want a drink.”

“Oh, like you’re not just going to abandon me here like I did you?... Where you go, I go.” You warned him.

He rolled his eyes, “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“A bit hypocritical coming from you.”

Tangerine just ignored your smart comment and opened the door, letting you through first before he followed. His eyes, once again, trace your lower back and trailed down your legs. His cheeks flushed pink as he quickly looked away, clearing his throat as he caught up to you so you two were walking side by side.

You pushed the faded down button as you pushed a big breath past your lips. Tangerine put his back against the wall and crossed his arms, his muscles basically restraining in his light button up. As you turned around, you rolled your eyes– but not at him, just at yourself. How could you have any little feeling for someone who also annoyed you to your core?

He took your silence as a bit of a tease. To be fair, you two didn’t really know one another. You met once before and then you simply betrayed him. Quickly, you were dead to him, but now you’re forced to be together and it raised an important question to himself too. Why was he helping someone who obviously can’t be trusted? 

Tangerine furrowed his eyebrows at that thought, knowing he would have thrown you to the wolves last night after you closed your eyes. He played with his watch a bit before the elevator dinged and caught both of your attentions.

After entering, the low-sounding shifting mechanics of the elevator were the only sounds between you two. You heard Tangerine sniffle, seeing him stretch his neck out of the corner of your eye, but you kept a straight view to the doors. While Tangerine thought you were continuing to give him the silent treatment, you were lost in your own thoughts of the past.

You flashbacked to your last night in Paris together, and remembered how the guilt creeped up on you knowing that, in a few hours, you’d have to betray both Lemon and Tangerine. Before knowing them, you didn’t care, but now that you’ve realized how hard you were falling for Tan, it felt like a double edged sword. If you didn’t do it, maybe you could stay with him– have a life together. But, if you went through with your selfish heist, you’d lose the guy who made you comfortable with being vulnerable after a long time. 

Obviously, you regretted your decision.

“Is this what you want?” You simply asked.

Tangerine quickly turned his head, “What?”

You rolled your eyes before facing his direction, “This.” You gestured between the two of you, “The weird animosity and constantly arguing and nit-picking?”

He never thought you’d be so bold to point it out, “I mean, we don’t like each other. Simple, isn’t it?”

“I guess…” You trailed, facing back toward the doors.

Tangerine licked his lips, wondering if he should utter the words on his tongue.

“...But, that doesn’t mean we can’t start over.”

You looked over your shoulder once more before turning around to him, “You mean that?”

He arched his eyebrow, “Should I regret it now?”

Just as the elevator dinged, the doors slowly opened and the hotel lobby appeared empty. You smirked to yourself, “Why don’t we catch up over that drink, huh?” You sort of teased– not sure if it had purpose.

– – –

Your drink tasted smooth, easily trailing down your throat as you leaned your head back to finish off the rest of the liquor in your glass. Once you tilted your head back straight, you were met with Tangerine’s signature eyebrow arch.

“Don’t worry, I’m paying for my own drinks.” You sighed, placing your glass back down on the wooden table top.

“As long as I don’t got to carry you back up to the room.” He sighed, sounding more defeated than witty, then his blue eyes glanced down then back into your eyes.

You hummed, running your finger along the rim of the empty glass. 

“‘right so, what’ve you been doin’ since we last…” He cleared his throat, “saw one other?”

You crossed your leg over the other, “Not much. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve been out for a while. After leaving you guys, I laid low in Tuscany.”

“For how long?”

You shrugged, “Five months? I was on the countryside and I wanted to be alone…” then, you smirked, “I heard that you were in Kyoto.” 

Tangerine could chuckle about it now, “For a bit. Had a job to do for some psychotic, fucked up family. The dad called in us, they were all turin’ on each other. Whole fuckin’ thing…”

“As in…” You trailed, “Against one another? The whole family?”

He just nodded before taking a sip of his drink.

You raised your eyebrows, “Wow… and you got out with no bruises or cuts? Bullet holes?”

Tangerine licked his lips before he presented the side of his neck, lighter skin over his tanner tone to show the scar. You carefully reached out, brushing your fingers against it which made a tingle go up his spine. You sit back down as he turned back in his chair, and he seemed to tense up.

“Amazing you survived it.” You sealed your lips.

He crossed his arms, “I supposed…”

A comfortable silent fell between you, the light, jazz music playing at a low, and Tangerine’s eyes trailed up the side of your bare leg. He didn’t mean to stare this much, but he felt more vulnerable than usual. One thing you knew is that Tangerine was a layered person, you had to take time to get to the center of him and realize he’s not so cold once you get to know him.

“Five months in Tuscany, I bet that was lovely.”

“Not really. I isolated the whole time… I wanted to be by myself, but I felt bad about what happened… what I did in Paris.” You admitted, but didn’t look into his eyes, fearing that he would turn on you in a second.

Tangerine sighed, “You had to do your job, we did ours… that’s ‘bout all that can be said.” 

Assuming from the lack of eye contact and his tone, he seemed hurt too. You could easily let it boost your ego, but, you actually felt a relief. This hatred you’ve held against each other has finally come down and even though it wasn’t actually said, both of you can feel hostility leave the room.

You bit the inside of your cheek, “Remember, we’re starting over. Clean slate. I hope I’m making a good impression so far.” You raised your eyebrows, lifting your glass again just to drink the mixture of watered down liquor. 

He chuckled, “You’re just lovely.”

The comment made your face get hot. You blame the accent and how it can just get under your skin.

“I don’t think you’ve ever called me something so nice.”

Tangerine smirked, “Funny since we’ve just met, darling.”

Darling.

It was the first time you heard it as a term of endearment then pure spite.

You rolled your eyes, but you could humor that Tangerine was going along with it. This new cheeky side of him was something you didn’t think existed– maybe it was the liquor talking, but you hoped it wasn’t just that simple.

“So, what brings you here?” You continued to tease, placing your elbows on the table, “Business… or pleasure?” Your hand laid on top of his, brushing your fingertips along the chunky rings that perfectly fit his fingers.

Multiples thoughts sounded through both your minds.

“Maybe it’s the liquor.” “Maybe we’re a little over our heads.” “Maybe we’re bored.”

But, Tangerine held your hand on top of the table, gently holding it as his thumb grazes over your knuckles.

“Depends…” He trailed, now leaning in too, “What are you here for?”

– – –

In just a few minutes, you two were back in the room you felt trapped in for hours.

Tangerine pressed your back against the wall, a tingle running up your spine from the coolness of the wallpaper. Your lips pressed together over and over, tilting your head before biting his bottom lip. He effortlessly lifted you up with his hand under the back of your thighs, and your ankles meet around his back.

He needed so bad, desperate even… and the feeling was mutual.

He put you down on your feet again, pressing a kiss against your scarred cheek then another on your jaw. His light kisses run down the middle of your breasts as his hand lifted up the end of your skirt. You pushed your hips out as your back was against the wall still, watching him pull down your panties in an instant. You kick them to the side and Tangerine placed your leg over his shoulder, kisses along your inner thigh and your hand ran through the front of his curls.

Suddenly, his tongue ran over your swollen clit before sucking on it. With one hand in his hair, the other caressing your breast and running your thumb over your nipple.

Tangerine panted, moving his hand against your pussy lips. He pushed them apart, showing your tight hole and how you clench around nothing. He lowly groaned, running his fingers over your clit before sliding his two fingers into your pussy. You bite your bottom lip to hold back the moan stuck in your throat, watching him suck your clit and finger you at the same time.

Just as your climax neared, he felt your cunt tighten around his fingers. He couldn’t end it like this so, he took them away. You let your leg down, watching him come back up and tower over you.

“If I’m goin’ to make you cum…” He sighed, “I’m gonna be deep inside you when you fucking crumble.” He said so low before pressing his fingers against your tongue, and you tasted yourself.

You pulled his hand back, running your thumbs over his tattooed hand.

“Not if I make you cum first.” You trailed, moving his hand down so you could kiss him.

He could drop to his knees in an instant, but Tangerine surprisingly kept his composure. 

You smirked as you pushed him toward the bed, the back of his knees hitting it to make him sit down. As you stood in front of him, he leaned on his elbows as he watched your dress drop to the floor. It pooled at your ankles and when his eyes shifted back up, so glossed over, your bare body was the center of his attention.

“Hmm, I don’t think you’ll last.” You taunted.

As much as he could snap back, you straddled him and pulled apart his tightly buttoned shirt. Your hands ran over his toned and tatted chest before reaching down to his pants, unzipping the fly and he shuffled a bit to shift them off his hips. His cock was hard, restrained from his boxers and you felt flattered.

You giggled, leaning forward to share a slow kiss with him. Your bare pussy rubbed against his cock as you moved closer to him. A low groan mumbled between your makeout, and you pushed him back so you two both fell on the bed.

Your hands pressed into each side of the mattress, gaining strength to help yourself grind against his hard. His big hands tightly held your hips as you continued your smooth momentum, whimpering at your clit being rubbed by your harsh grind.

As heat rose in the room, your right hand dipped between the two of you, and ran over his hard cock once more. Tan’s lips now desperately met your jaw before taking a light bite at your neck. The feeling of your hand caressing through his boxers could make him release right there.

Becoming more impatient, you finally pushed your hand into the band of his boxers and he once more moved his hips to shift out of them. 

“Fuck, your cock is so big… can barely hold it with my hand. God, I want you to stretch me out…” You moaned, “Is that okay?”

You purposefully let him believe that he was in charge, and you were falling into the submissive role. Tangerine gained a bit of confidence from your desperate comments, and he sat more up on the bed.

“Fucking christ…” Is all he could say.

He moved the swollen and red tip against your wet slit, also aching and needing your walls to wrap around him now. At first there was pressure, pushing the tip inside your hole then slowly guiding your hips down to completely take in every inch of his cock. 

Once he bottomed out, your body lightly shook as your lips brushed against his. He was fully inside you, the tight and warm feeling making him wither beneath you.

Tangerine moved his hand, kissing your shoulder, “God, you feel like fuckin’ heaven.”

“Don’t stop. Please…” You huffed.

– – –

Then, it was morning. 

The rising sun peaked through the small split of the curtains. As you tried to shift, your body ached throughout every muscle. A small groan left your lips, but you were pulled back by a strong arm wrapped around your waist.

It snapped you back into reality. Last night really happened… and you were okay with that.

Tangerine’s tattooed arm unconsciously tightened around you, holding you close still as he still slept behind you. You barely look over your shoulder and saw his face, his eyes still shut and his curls looked wild.

You faintly smile as you turn around to face him, and that’s what woke him up. He pulled his arms back and rubbed his eyes from the brightness of the sun coming in. You run your finger along a curl on his forehead, pushing it to the top of his head and your heart melted from the sight of those blue eyes.

“Did last night really happen?” You mumbled, but with a faint smile on your lips.

He placed his hand gently on your cheek, caressing his thumb against your jaw. 

“I think the real question is…” He trailed, “Do we stay another night or go back to pretending to not know each other's existences?”

You bit your bottom lip, lightly giggling, “I think we pick secret option three and go somewhere else. Get away for a while… see where this is going. Don’t you?”

Just at that moment, Tangerine’s phone vibrated in his pants that were on the floor next to the bed. He turned over on his other side, reaching down to pull it out and reading a text Lemon just sent.

“Got a call about a job in Budapest. Are you in or overstaying your weekend?”

Tangerine smirked at himself, then felt your lips press against his neck. You placed another kiss on his shoulder, leaving a tender love bite before he turned back around to kiss you. Maybe it was the natural thrill of the chase, but you loved the not knowing. 

Whatever was next, you could only hope that he kept it interesting.

[ladyxskywalker]

In Exile, ch.iii

Anakin Skywalker x F!Reader/OFC

after a tense encounter in the mountains, anakin falls asleep by the waterfalls, completely exhausted of his power. but what he doesn’t expect, is for his kind lady friend to find him there

part one | part two

a choose your own outcome story ! weekly story polls posted at the end of each chapter ! hope you enjoy !💌

Dreams

He could only remember all the ways the entire mountain shook, an all consuming echo of vengeance that no one below could really trace. 

How the cliffs separated into sharpened boulders and flying rock all around. The fading sound of an enemy, disappearing from the swaying trees as debris rushed against them.

And then all went completely silent. 

An eerie kind of stillness that only comes from the force when things suddenly turn themselves dark.

Anakin’s hands were still wound shut into tightened fists, as if he’d been holding on to the overwhelming sense of energy that hadn’t been present inside of them anymore.

“What have I done?” He whispered to himself, slowly opening the palms of his hands, holding them out in front of him.

There was nothing tangible to be found there, only an air of pure exhaustion and sadness.

“Why can’t people just leave me alone?”

Walking nearest to the banks beside the waterfalls, he kneels down by the water; a leftover current from earlier, rippling all of it as if it had been a running creek or river. But instead, this kind of pool became nothing more than a mirror, the reflection of the man staring back at him then, was somehow unrecognizable. 

He couldn’t stand it.

The look in his eyes.

His unkempt hair.

Tattered edges ripped apart from his robes. 

What had truly become of him? He wondered to himself; veering off - drifting.

Tall blades of grass cradling him; finding himself wanting nothing more than to just lay down next to the one part of this place that brought him a sense of calm. 

…

everything’s too bright…

I’m done with this…

I should just leave, find a way out of here…

There’s a field of wheat surrounding Anakin in the light of the afternoon, a golden hour that makes everything look like it had all been just one color. An appearance of stray shadows that passes over all of his crops. He knows things have to eventually get cut down, but he’s too tired and frustrated to care about that enough right now.

I’m sweating…

this sucks…

So often, and against his own judgment, this is the time when he thinks to himself. That full mind of his, a complete mess of memories that makes him spiral. He thinks about the children and where they might have really ended up. If they had been separated, or whether or not they were with families that loved them.

I would have loved them…

Padme would have been a good mother…

He busies himself to try to drown out everything that’s been replaying in his head - her voice; Obi Wan’s…

A final hug shared between two very close friends, the kind that shouldn’t have been the ending between brothers before they had both fought. 

nothing makes sense anymore…

His hair in this type of heat feels matted against his forehead. It’s become too long now, so much so, that it’s falls into his eyelids, spilling over his brow. It makes him look angry and abrasive - the words overheard in the day time that others so often like to use, because they’re certainly not his own.

He wishes he could change his appearance, but what for? Nobody knows him anyway. No one’s ever cared to look. 

not true...

Trying his best to smooth the unruly waves out of his own way, he begins to fuss with tying up the back of it instead of focusing on his work. But the shred of material in his hands is just too short, he can’t seem to get a good grip on it. So easily becoming more and more stressed and frustrated.

If only Anakin could scream.

Shout into the void of clouds, and far away houses.

But each time he opens his mouth, he can only breathe out a huff of quiet.

how is it that there isn’t any sound?

Agitated with everything now, he begins to stare off without blinking, as if in a wordless trance - looking around for something. 

All of the flowers that once were planted, somehow are all gone.

They’ve all just disappeared, turning out beneath his boots to only be a patch of dust.

this isn’t real…

what’s going on?

And so, he grabs hold of his belt, where a pair of shears can be found. They’re the same ones he uses in the Winter to trim his sheep’s wool. It’s one of the only tools that he can reach right now to prove to himself that at least something in this place had been real.

these are sharp.

don’t touch them.

He remembers that kind interaction from long ago, telling you to be careful when working around him. The silhouette of your gentle face looking toward him so insistently, softening always in the light of dawn with a smile. An early morning mist each time adhering to your skin, before catching on.

I don’t care anymore…

I’ll just cut it all off…

enough’s enough…

“Wait! Lars! What are you doing?! Don’t!” you yell out toward him, like a startlingly beautiful sound. You think there must be something seriously wrong - that something else has been pulling at him inside that goes far beyond just getting overexerted at the farm. And so you run, afraid that he might hurt himself.

“Please…” you begin, patiently, before taking a soothing hold of his wrists. His mechanical arm, feeling smooth, and somewhat cold in your palms.

“Please…” you try again, “put those down. Let me, just…” 

So instead, you reach up, watching carefully as his eyes start to close, smoothing all the hair away for his eyes and the dampened skin of his face, careful not to pull at it all too tightly. That when his shoulders relax from all their tensing, he thinks perhaps your touch just might have saved him there - from the plague of all consuming torment; from the daydreams masquerading as all of his waking nightmares.

…

“Lars…Lars, dear, are you alright?”

Stirring himself awake, only then at the sound of your voice does Anakin realize that all the while he must have been dreaming. 

she called me…dear…

ha.

that’s funny.

“Sorry, there was some sort of earthquake. Must’ve passed out…”

“There certainly was. The whole village is somewhat destroyed…I think you actually might have been dreaming.”

“How…how did you…”

“I just had a strange feeling when I didn’t see you back home. Most of the people had already been accounted for. When I couldn’t find you I…”

“You were looking for me?”

“I…well…”

Anakin sits up, finding now that since you’d been here, his inner strength had been enough.

“It’s fine, I just…wasn’t expecting this. I’m still a bit shaken up.”

she’s laughing…

did I just…

“Now there’s a real pun if I’ve ever heard one!”

Anakin smirks, brushing himself off and stretching before standing back up from the ground.

“Like that, don’t you, my lady?”

“Mhmm, almost as much as you calling me that! While you were sleeping, I’m pretty sure you were mumbling my name somehow…”

“I was?”

“Although…I’m probably wrong…”

There’s a slight moment of pause held in the space between you then. It isn’t awkward, in fact, it’s just enough of an enjoyable back and forth for him. If only you had known his true, given name, that would make all of this all the more fun. 

“Not wrong…”

“Oh…well, what were you thinking about?”

“Something awful, and weird. Then you showed up. Made everything better.”

Looking down, suddenly you’ve grown quite bashful.

“I did? Well…that’s lovely…I mean good.”

“You always do that.”

“Do what?”

Anakin steps closer, engaging you with his words as you stand before him, watching intently as you hang onto all of them.

“You always tend to look away from me. Don’t.”

He whispers, finding himself brushing the backs of his fingertips along your face; caressing your cheek, then gliding softly toward your chin.

Tilting it…

But before you are even able to say anything else, he does all the speaking for you.

Through wordless action, and a comfortable safety that comes from being held.

His arms wrapping all the way around you and bringing you further to him.

Your loving hands, reaching delicately for the back of his neck in order just to rest there.

Expecting him to kiss you slowly…

Though, being patient, was never on Anakin’s radar…

Leaving you as breathless as ever just to enjoy the impassioned way in which he does.

…💐

Thanks so much for reading! 💌 the response to this story has been wonderful, and so much fun! Thank you again to everyone for reading & sharing. I would love to hear your thoughts ! what has been your favorite part so far? 💫 xoxo

[scrubbinn]

Slime HRT: ??? Months “Your choice”

“There you are! I was getting worried, your directions were awful for finding this café.”

“We both know I suck at directions, hope you didn't get rained on too much. Sorry for making you visit me over and over. I remember you said you’re not a fan of Hyper city”

“You know I like the rain, and this place makes it easier to visit you anyway. Now lemme just get the seat closer to you…

So how are you hun. Is the recovery going alright? Have you gotten any memories back?”

“A couple, yeah. I remember the name of that other slime I met a while ago. Sandy I think.”

“You think?”

“Memories are hard, please don't push me.”

“Sorry. Well it's good that you're healing, and you're not taking that stuff again right? 

… right hun?!”

“I'm not, I'm not. Tomorrow is the last day I have to wait before I can legally take it again. Right now I'm just wondering if I should wait longer or not.”

“Don't do anything that isn't safe hun. I know this means a lot to you, I can't say I know what you're going through, cause I'm not a therian or otherkin or whatever like you. But please be safe, I don't like worrying about you… What's that on your phone? You're clearly hiding it.”

“It's nothing, I'm just running a poll, I want to see what the internet would do in my circumstance.”

“Hun!…”

“I'm not going to make my decision based on what random people have to say. I'm probably not even going to post it. I mean it's a pretty cool, textbook grey choice. Survive less happy than I could have been, or risk everything to finally feel normal and free… Please don't look at me like that.”

“You sound a lot happier about one of those choices hun, and it makes me scared.”

“...Y'know I've actually been thinking about moving into Hyper city. Roommates are ok with it as long as I give them a few months to search for a new place. We could also visit each other whenever. There's still a lot of problems here, but it still feels like there's less discrimination here than back home. I even have a good idea for what I want to do here! I'm studying to become a psychiatrist and work for Dr. Erian. He could really use someone who has a positive amount of bedside manners. There's a couple other doctors there but-

“I thought the plan was for us to live together?”

“...We will, when things get better back home. At least here it's easier for us to see each other, and I don't have to pretend I can't hear people whispering I'm a freak. At least, not as much. Nothing's changed long term.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m sure, you don’t have to worry, everything is going to be fine. I’m not going to do anything stupid, but I don’t think it would be a bad thing if I started my HRT again after tomorrow. I know I can regain my memories slowly, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“There is a problem! You think it’s fine if you forget everything? Look, it's great that some of your memories are back, but that doesn’t mean all of them are gonna come back. You’re being reckless again. Your life isn’t something you can keep tossing around without expecting us to hold you down. Hun, you need to stop hurting yourself.”

“...I’m not hurting myself. I’m just trying to live my life. I don’t want to upset you, but you have to realize this is the most important thing for me right now. If I mess this up, then nothing is going to go well. I understand that you’re scared, but please think about how I feel. I’d be having heart palpitations if that were still possible. This choice needs a clear head to figure out. I don’t think either of us have that.”

“Maybe. You’re going to be fine right? You won’t die from this or anything right?”

“No, I’m not going to die. The doc made sure it’s going to be safe at this point. We just have to hope he’s wrong about the side effects, and before you go saying he’s a trained endocrinologist, you haven’t met him, and I don’t even think he knows all that much. Trust me, you’d realize what I mean if you met him.”

“But he knows more than you do hun.”

“Ok, yeah, but it’s clear this is still all new to him too. He’s never been right about when any of the changes will happen or what the side effects would be. He made me sign an NDA about slipping into a three day coma. He’s clearly more afraid his medical license will be revoked than any actual permanent damage he’ll inflict."

“Aren’t you breaking that NDA right now?”

“I don’t have to listen to that. Besides, as long as the internet doesn’t hear about it, then it’s fine. It's not like you're gonna shout this conversation to the rooftops… don't actually tell anyone else, I'd rather not get in trouble again.”

“So, where are you staying anyway? You said the houses here are pretty expensive right? Do you have enough savings to find a place?”

“There's a non-profit place called T.H.E.M.S, they can find me a place to stay while I try to find a more permanent residence here. They have an on-site doctor too, so you don't have to worry even harder now.”

“Hey, you can't fault me for worrying about my girlfriend! That's good there's going to be a doctor nearby. I'm glad. Stay safe hun.”

“I will, don't worry. Now come on, less talking about depressing medical stuff, more pictures of tiny foods! Right now I want to show you the cute cupcakes this place has!

“Oh they’re shaped like little dragons!”

“It's so cute, right?”

...

Click… Post sent!

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Mention list: @a-shramp , @calliecwrites

Thanks for reading slime HRT so far. It's been so much fun for Navi to write and we hope you enjoy it. This marks about a third of what we plan to do. If you're confused about the terms Hyper city or T.H.E.M.S you can check out information about them. Pretty important since this is gonna be the location for the rest of the series. Anyway, thank you for reading. It means the world to us. bye-bye!

-Sweetheart💖

[murkycran]

Misc. Vox Fic Rec List

Welcome to my Miscellaneous Vox Fic Rec List!

Soooo after a lot of consideration, I decided to make a third rec list. This one will be for miscellaneous fics, which can mean anything from smaller Vox pairings to fics that are not strictly Radiostatic or VoxVal. You'll see what I mean.

I will keep updating this periodically as I read more fics, too, so feel free to check back every once and a while! I'll reblog it when I update it, plus make a note with the date at the top. Trust me, this is by no means a complete list; there's fics I still want to add to this that I just haven't gotten to yet. I just decided to go ahead and post it anyways, because if I kept waiting until I ran out of fics to rec I'd probably be working on this forever.

These are not in any particular order; I'm going by both my Bookmarks list on AO3 and my memory of fics I forgot to bookmark. I also tried to make notes on what fics were written before season 1 released, but I might have missed some, so keep that in mind.

Please let me know if any links don't work or are wrong!

✨Before you proceed:✨ read the tags on these fics if you decide to read them. Many of them have heavy material - no surprise given the fandom, but still, felt like this needed said. On that note, there's also fics with explicit material and some fics are straight up PWP. Again, read at your own risk/heed the tags.

Fic Rec List Masterpost

Radiostatic Fic Rec List

Staticmoth Fic Rec List

------

Alastor Makes a Porno by Charnel_Goat, spappest

Summary: Alastor interrupts Val and Vox's personal time to get his rut over and done with, and they're just going to have to deal with that.

Basically, Alastor and Val try to have a threesome, but they keep arguing, everyone's injuring each other trying to figure out the logistics, and nobody cares what Vox has to say about any of this.

Notes: This has Staticmoth, Radiostatic, and Valastor. It's not strictly leaning more towards any pairing (tho Val does make a pretty sweet comment at the very beginning about Vox lol), which is why it's going on the Misc List. Porn with an edge of hilarity that - despite the tags - made it pretty funny. Three terrible people being terrible to each other. Vox suffers. Heed the tags.

He's Visual, Alright! by dead_boy

Summary: For Valentines Day, Charlotte Morningstar— Lucifer’s brat— had announced the hotel would be hosting a sweetheart poll, allowing winners to vote for the biggest ‘sweethearts’ in Pentagram City! How adorable!

— Of course, when Angel gets involved, things get a little twisted, and hell treats it as a most-fuckable-celebs poll.

Vox isn’t the only one surprised by how high he scored, and how concerning the amount of votes he received was.

But there was no way in hell this “demand” was enough to make him give into Valentino and Velvet’s newest fixation: Making use of this fame and making Vox do some modelling!

Surely he won’t mind the lingerie and toys provided by Velvet and Valentino respectively, right?

edit march 2024: i can’t believe he just won the hottest hazbin character poll. literally manifested

Notes: Poly Vees. Funny af. Vox suffers, but in a good way. Written BEFORE the hottest HH character poll, can you believe that? Lmao.

stray by vol_ctrl

Summary: How Vox met Vark. ♥

Notes: No ship. Written before season 1 release.

After the Credits Roll by leftofrevolution

Summary: Everyone knew the Magnes sometimes liked to spice up their sex life by dragging another demon into the middle of it.

Vox maybe should have paid more attention to that particular tidbit of information than he did.

Notes: Lilith/Lucifer/Vox. Chapter 1 written before season 1 release, with Chapter 2 being released after season 1 release. I read for the crackship, ended up liking the Lilith/Lucifer/Vox dynamic and world-building a LOT. Lol. Poor Vox. Or good for him? Still has yet to be seen.

The Shopping Cart Test by spappest

Summary: Angel never expected Prince Charming to have a TV for a head, but when Vox kills Valentino and saves him from his abuse, well… Maybe Hell doesn’t have to be all that bad. With Val out of the way, everyone can have a happy ending. Angel’s safe, Charlie’s happy, and even Alastor finds love.

Oh, wait. This is Hell. It’s always that bad.

Notes: Angel/Vox. Started before season 1 release. First Staticdust fic I read. :)

Hold Me Up by Sameko

Summary: Vox has been in and out of a relationship with Valentino for years. Always breaking up. Always coming back.

Then one night comes the definitive crack at the expense of one of Valentino's employees, to which Vox never paid much attention other than for shits and giggles.

One night, one word too many, might be enough to shift the perspectives of two people once strangers to each other.

Notes: Staticdust. Pretty bleak and dark at times, but so, SO good. Two broken people trying not to cut each other with their edges while also trying to help each other.

Cruel Melody by Hiding_Behind_a_Pencil_and_Pen

Summary: A man hopelessly in love with a monster, despite how much it hurts.

A person chained to a beast he can never escape, no matter how hard he tries.

Vox and Angel Dust have given their body and heart to Valentino, and neither know how to free themselves from his lies.

But maybe, even if it never gets better, they won't have to suffer alone.

Or,

What if Husk was just a little too late to get to the bar in episode four? And a certain media Overlord helped Angel instead. They find out that they're not so different after all.

Notes: As of now, I think this is Queerplatonic Staticdust.

Revelations in Technicolor by Awesome_Possum

Summary: Velvette had been dead for six years, part of The Vees for four, and fucking Vox for a little over two. They had a good thing going.

On one of their bi-weekly Vox-mandated movie nights, Valentino put a plan into motion and Velvette learned something new and surprising about her business partner and part-time sugar daddy that made a shocking amount of sense.

It ultimately ended up bringing The Vees closer and if Valentino claimed that was his intention all along, no one had any reason to believe him.

Notes: The Vees are a V and Vox is the hinge, so he's in a relationship with both Valentino and Velvette. Interesting headcanons for Vox's human life. :) (What is the ship name for Velvette/Vox again?)

System Shutdown by Swoolie

Summary: Taking a leaf from Alastor's book, Vox goes on a small break from everything.

He doesn't stick around long enough to see the chaos that ensues after his sudden disappearance.

Notes: This is tagged with both Radiostatic and Staticmoth. It's too early in the story to tell definitively which direction it's going to end up, so for now it's going to be on the Misc list. I'll probably move it when it becomes more clear what the main pairing will be.

Dapple Rose by The_Penny_Tails

Summary: Everyone always assumes the same thing about Alastor and Vox's relationship: That it's one-sided, that it's based on fixation, and that the reason for their falling out was due to the obsession turning into something that couldn't be controlled.

All of those assumptions are correct. The only problem is, everyone gets the 'who is obsessing over whom' part of the equation wrong.

When Vox and Valentino end up stuck at the hotel, suddenly the entire relationship between the radio and television is put on display, casting it and Alastor in an entirely different light.

Notes: Tagged with both Radiostatic and Staticmoth. Due to both this and the entire story itself (you'll see what I mean when you read it), it's going here on the Misc List. I freaking love this story, because so far I've not seen another fic where Alastor was obsessed with Vox while Vox was not obsessed with him in return. :3 Everything Penny_Tails writes is gold!

Here I Come by Heliosolar

Summary: Vox contemplates his lackluster life as he stands over the edge of the city.

Or, the fall of Vox, both mentally and physically.

Notes: Written before season 1 release. No ships, just Vox. Heed the tags.

Entertainment for Two by Heliosolar

Summary: With the radio demon joining them for the night, Vox puts on a show the two overlords will never forget.

Notes: Written before season 1 release. Staticmoth and Radiostatic, at the same time. 😳

Proposition by Snorp_Lord

Summary: Alastor does not, strictly speaking, have a 'relationship' with the King of Hell. But they certainly have a something.

A something which does not include Vox. But Alastor is at least willing to indulge Lucifer in whatever this new idea is.

The new idea is Vox.

Notes: Contains Radiostatic, Radioapple, and Staticapple, but for this installment, Radiostatic is definitely the focus. Very intense, pretty sweet. 😳 Has 2 more parts in the series which are definitely worth the read, though they don't feature Vox as much.

meteor shower by spoondrifts

Summary: alastor, rosie, vox, and a study in non-traditional love.

Notes: QPR Alastor/Rosie/Vox. Very good! (What's the ship name for this?? Radiostaticrose?? Radiorosestatic?? Roseradiostatic?? Staticradiorose??)

spiraling down thy majesty by spoondrifts

Summary: “Okay, um, time out,” Lucifer said, because he felt like they were maybe losing the plot a little. “I feel like I should remind you that I’m not here because I was like, uh, overwhelmed with lust for you, in particular. I’m here because Husk said you were Alastor’s ex and I have poor impulse control and thought it’d be funny, but I’m realizing now that this is actually just really weird and you, my friend, have some serious issues that I am not equipped to handle.”

Or: Lucifer and Vox have a shared problem that starts with Al and ends in stor and has a in the middle—thankfully, there's a solution! (The solution is sex. It's just sex.)

Notes: Staticapple. Revenge sex. As in...they're both getting revenge on Alastor...using each other. Lol.

(Fic rec list to be continued as I read more)

[whosthere54]

I can’t find my original post about it but I did do a poll a while ago on what fic I should finish. Yes it’s been a WHILE but I finally did it so here’s the “If Icarus got that hug in family reunion” fic cause I can

Until Ao3 Works you get it here :]

The TWs for Family Reunion are Panic, Yelling, and Manipulation. Let me know if you believe anything else should be added and I’ll edit the list.

You know how it is, these themes will carry over to my fic so pls make sure to take care of yourselves first <3

“I never asked to be here at all. So why do I still have to face the fear of loosing it?” - Song: The fear of loosing this by Florist

Or - What if Icarus got that hug?

—=+=—

There’s a moment of silence between the two brothers, Rae glancing at Aax before speaking again.

“Do you… do you want a hug?”

They look up, surprise and confusion washing over them before they’re able to adjust their expression to something neutral.

“I… yeah. Please.” Their wings adjust on their back, draping themselves over their shoulders as they move their arms to cross over their chest.

Rae nods, glancing at Aax again who gives him a nod back. He takes a few test steps forward, when they don’t move he walks over to them. Aax follows, keeping a decent distance between her and Rae- letting him have space but making sure he’s safe. They can’t exactly blame him, like they said- the two don’t have the best track record when it comes to “talking” right now.

Rae gets close, and they instinctively take a small step back, feathers flaring for just a moment before settling again.

Rae stops, holding his hands out placatingly. He gives a gentle reassurance, a simple repeat of what they’d said before- another “we’re not here to hurt you” “I-I’m not mad.” and some other quiet reassurance they didn’t quite hear.

After a moment of hesitation, they take the next step forward- Rae immediately pulling them into a hug.

It was nice. They couldn’t remember the last time they had a hug from Rae.

Trying *so hard* not to let tears escape, they look at Aax over his shoulder. Though immediately regretting it when she just looks so… sad. Pity held in her gaze that makes them feel sick.

They hid their face against Rae’s neck, quiet shaky breaths the only indicator that they were trying not to cry. Rae sighs softly, and when he speaks again it sounds like he’s close to crying as well. “It’s gonna be okay Icarus… I’m still going to try- I promise I’m not going to give up on you.”

Maybe that causes some of their tears to fall, and maybe Rae holds them just slightly tighter.

When their knees shake and threaten to give out Rae adjusts them so they’re both sitting in the wet grass, not letting go of them. (Not letting them fall, even if it’s something as stupid as this.)

They hear Aax settle to sit nearby, facing away from the brother to scan for threats. It was comforting, they couldn’t do it themself and if Fable came back and did something to him they don’t think they’d be able to forgive themself.

They sit like that for a while, Rae occasionally murmuring soft reassurance not once loosening his hold. It was nice, a comforting pressure- a distraction away from the cave they were still sitting outside of. Rae seems to think of something then- adjusting slightly and causing Icarus to pull away. Not completely- just enough so the two brothers were looking at each other. Icarus tilts their head just slightly as Rae looks at them with renewed sadness- pity in his eyes causing them to look away, fidgeting with the hem of their sleeves.

“I… Icarus it’s four months today isn’t it…” He says it so softly and they can’t-

“Shut up-“ They mumble.

“Icarus-“

“No-no. He isn’t… he isn’t gone I can fix it I’m going to fix it! He’s gonna come back-“ They wrap their arms tight around their chest careful of the ever-changing wound still concealed.

“Icarus…” Rae tries again, but they cut him off just the same.

“No- if you’re gonna say what all of them have been saying I’m not- I don’t have to *mourn* him he’s gonna come back, I don’t have to think about it because when I fix it it’ll be fine… you can go back to normal and it’ll be fixed…”

Rae’s face contorted into something confused, and then shocked and it crumbles into something sad, he blinks tears away so he can see them clearly.

“Is that… is that why you’re working with him?”

They give him a weak laugh, head angled down so their hair covers their face- goggles having fallen to their neck earlier that day and they didn’t bother to put them back up.

“Icarus…” they can’t handle this. They can’t handle the way he’s talking to them, holding them so gently like they’re something that’s going to *break.* they can’t handle him looking at them like that- they can’t-

“You have to go.” They say their voice firm and monotone.

“Icarus no-“ Rae’s brows furrow slightly and his hands linger on their shoulders.

“Please”

And that makes Rae pause.

“I don’t… Icarus I don’t want to leave you alone here. I- even if I don’t… *like* him Fable isn’t here right now. I’d rather you at least have him here.” When Icarus frowns at that Rae asks another question that leaves them thinking- more than they should be. When they think it doesn’t usually lead to anything good.

“Icarus how long has fable left you alone?”

They shrug. They really haven’t been keeping track of the time he was gone.

“He’s… he’s busy. The faster he gets whatever he’s doing done, the faster we can get this over with.” They mumble. It feels like they’ve said the same things over and over and *over* again and it still seems like nobody understands what they’re doing even after they explain it. Geez how many times have they done this circle of conversations with the things in the past four months?

“So you’ve been… you’ve been alone out here most of the time?”

They shrug, and nod. (They don’t want to lie anymore. It leaves them feeling sick and *wrong*)

“Icarus…”

Aax gets up quickly, face contorting into muffled anger, motioning at them to get up as well.

Rae turns to them- “Icarus-“ but they shake their head, getting up and helping Rae up as well.

“You have to go-“ They repeat the words, this time fueled by anxiety.

“Icarus!”

“Rae!”

“Icarus!” Fable’s booming voice echoes through the small clearing and they back away muttering a quiet apology under their breath that only Rae was meant to hear.

“Are you alright? Are they… are they here for anything?” He pulls out the reaver and it takes all of their power to look away from the blade glinting in the rain dimmed light.

“I’m okay… I ’m-I’m okay.”

“We’re not here to fight.” Rae’s gaze lingers on them for just a moment to long that it makes their skin crawl, arms wrapping around their torso and wings pulling slightly tighter to their back as Fable sighs.

“Of course. I see that it is only the two of you.”

Aax moves to stand only slightly in front of Rae, trident out and ready to attack if necessary. His voice carries confidently actress the clearing, low and sharp. An easy enough warning to understand. “We wouldn’t be stupid enough to come just the two of us if we were here for a fight.”

“No. You wouldn’t be that… stupid. No one would be.” He looks at Icarus then, solid gold meeting heterochromatic gold and purple. His eyes are too sharp, and they look away, casting their head down again.

He turns back to Rae, head held high. “But why are you here?”

“I’m here for Icarus.” They look at Rae through unkempt bangs, eyes darting between Rae and Aax as if analyzing them for a threat.

“Because they don’t need to be alone out here with just you, isolated from everyone else.” His tone holds more anger with Fable than it had with them.

“I’m not alone.” They say, loud and probably too sharp. They wince at the sound of their own voice casting their eyes to Fable when he looks at them again.

“Yes.” He looks away, and they do too. “They have me, they have Ven, they have Arisanna…”

“Which don’t know where you are?”

They cast their eyes down once more shuffling their feet.

“This place is supposed to be a secret for a *reason*, Rae. To keep others safe.”

“From… what, exactly? We’re not the ones running around hurting people.”

“Perhaps not now.”

“You haven’t changed! You’ve always hurt people! I’m starting to remember more of that now! You’ve always been like this… and now…” Rae turns to them, his voice softening just slightly again. “Look, Icarus he’s not a good person!”

“Neither am I!” They hold their head up as they say that, regretting it immediately in the way Rae shuffles and glances between them, Fable, and Aax.

“None of us are good people right now, Rae.”

He starts talking, he starts talking and they try so hard to tune him out. They don’t want it- they don’t want him to say more stupid words that get them to comply because they’ll comply regardless of what he says. They don’t think he knows that, but they will. They don’t… like him. They don’t trust him. But they’re good at putting on a show, and they can pretend they do. (Maybe deep down they do. They try not to, they know he’s wrong and they know what he’s doing to them -they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that it *is* working- but they love him. He’s their dad after all, and when they have no memory of their childhood he’s something that they can cling to)

“You hit me!” Rae says, anger disappearing to leave a suffocating tone of sadness fear, and *betrayal* that lingered in his voice.

“I did.”

They just look between him and Rae feet shuffling against the grass, begging their head to go blank like it tends to do. They’re feeling too much and it’s too wrong and they’re thinking- thinking leads to questioning and questioning leads to things they don’t want to know-

“Where is she.” Rae’s voice wobbles with anger and unshed tears. They glance up to Fable as he turns to them- “Where…”

“Icarus, do you wish to see your mother?”

They blink, looking back up at him with a muted look of confusion. “Yeah…” they said it too quietly, too much emotion filling their voice that wasn’t supposed to be there. They can tell in the way they feel Rae’s gaze on them again. They try to cover it up- “Yeah, yes, yes.” But then Fable starts to walk towards the stupid fucking cave and-

“W-wait- wait” they stare with wide eyes as Fable creates a small opening, just enough for them to get through. “Uhm..” Rae glances at them again, Aax moves to stand in front of Rae, trident in hand face contorted into disgust and then anger. “Wait-wait where…” He pulls his shield out.

“It was the one place I did not think anyone would go.” He breaks a small hole through the stone, just enough that they would be able to walk through. Rae walks closer to him, while Aax lingers behind.

“Uhm…. Um…” They walk towards him, stopping about the same distance Rae is away from the entrance for a moment before moving up to stand beside Fable.

They don’t want to be here anymore- they don’t want to be that close. They don’t want to *see* it again- they can’t…

Their breathing shakes.

“Where are you… where is…” Aax moves quickly back in front of Rae. “Where is that? What are you…”

“She is in a pocket dimension. Just as Enderian had held her before.” He says his sister's name with a sneer. “I will bring you Rae, and I will bring Icarus to see her.”

They can’t breathe- they look through the space Fable had cleared into the cave. The first thing they noticed was that there was still blood on the floor… theirs or Centross’s they couldn’t quite tell. Their eyes fell on the slab, seeing their blood still dried on the smooth stone and splattered on the ground in front of it. Fuck they can’t breathe… their chest *hurts* they can’t-

They manage to pull their gaze away from the cave back onto Fable as he speaks again.

“I’m sorry, Aax, but I will not let you see her. I cannot take the risk.”

“Why… why does it smell like death in there?” They turn to look at Aax, his tone settling on a heavy undertone of sadness as they speak.

They try to bring themself to explain.

“It… it’s-“ Fable cuts them off sharply. “Because it is a place that I thought was of life. I was *foolish* enough to believe it was of life. But it is a place of death. This is where the first mortals were made by me. This is the place where I first mourned them when they *died.*”

“This is where… Centross… died.”

“And you’re taking him in there alone, just the two of you?”

“Yes. I know you do not trust me…”

Their chest aches. They have to take a moment to breathe through a wave of pain that courses through their chest, through their ribs. They tune back into the conversation a moment later when Fable says their name again, though they don’t pay much attention. Their mind won’t stop wandering, and the things won’t stop talking.

“If *anything* happens to him. Know that I will be hunting you to the ends of the earth.”

“As you should. Rae is important to you, as he is to me.” He turns and walks into the cave, but before they can even *think* about following him Aax stops them.

“Icarus. I need you to promise…”

They nod, trying to get their thoughts to work to the current conversation. “Yeah… I’m- he won’t-“

“Promise me he’ll be okay.” Aax asks, and they nod firmly this time.

“He’ll-he’ll be okay.” They can’t tell if they’re trying to reassure her or themself.

“Okay.”

Icarus turns to the entrance, hesitating a moment before heading inside.

“Are you ready?”

“We’re going… in?”

“Yes. I did not think Enderian had this power. I thought she could simply create the bubbles, but she could move if she wished it. If she had other abilities I now hold. She might have been able to escape at any time if she had known. If she could’ve held the same powers I now have .”

They have to take another minute to even out their breathing.

“She couldn’t escape. She- she gave them to me. She was trapped there.”

“Just as Isla was. But now we can move freely to see her.”

They nod lightly. “Okay.”

Fable inhales, “Here we go.” They teleport into the small pocket dimension.

It was a bright, glow stone blinding encircling the small space. As soon as they looked up at their mother- blonde hair blocking a face they couldn’t even remember- they felt an overwhelming sense of dread. It was almost like anxiety, the way it thrummed through their veins. Just a sense of something was wrong.

They couldn’t tell if Rae felt it, but when they got in there they knew he was more distressed, probably at the sight of their mother in a stasis chamber than anything else.

“Icarus I can… I can help. You don’t need him- I can- I can help her! I can help us…” They don’t know what to say, but they get cut off by Fable before they could respond.

“How, Rae?”

“I… I’m not going to tell you. I’m not going to let you do something else to her. Or screw up trying.” He spits the last part with lingering anger, tears beginning to form in his eyes.

“Rae…” He turns to look at them a moment before turning back to Fable as he speaks again.

“You will not give me the chance to help your mother? *My wife?* To bring her back to us.”

Rae doesn’t speak, he simply shakes his head.

Fable frowns. “No?”

��No.” Rae says softly.

“You’d have her stay here?” Rae’s expression crumbles.

The next time they look back at Isla, they can’t look away. This is the first time they’ve seen their mother in person. They don’t have any image of her in their memory other than the portrait that’s sat locked away in Fable’s house. She looks different, they can’t quite see her face but she seems so… tired. A lingering sense of sadness seems to be all she has in that small tube, and it almost physically pains them to see her like that. (To have her feel so similar to what they feel locked up in their house.)

“I have Enderian’s powers now. I could wield them.”

They look back at Fable then. “What?” They glance between him and Rae.

“You could do this! You could hurt her all over again!”

They frown. “He wouldn’t.”

“He did it the first time!” Stray tears are beginning to fall down Rae’s face now that make them stop.

“As a *mistake*, Rae.” He tries, but Rae isn’t having it.

“So what’s preventing you from making the same one?!”

Fable sighs. “Remembering what happened the first time. Seeing my wife’s face, and having it haunt-“

“She doesn’t want to be yours!” Rae yells, his voice echoing in the small chamber. There are more tears spilling down his face, and Icarus can’t help but take a step back as they take another shaky breath. They watch Fable's face, but he doesn’t seem to react. Simply responding calmly, anger quiet and reserved (as if that doesn’t scare them more.)

“She gets to make that choice. Not-“ Rae cuts him off again. “Does she?!”

Fable frowns, and his tone comes out just slightly more angry than he probably wanted it to. “Yes. When she is well, Rae.”

“You don’t get to make that choice, you tried to take that choice away from her. I won’t tell you shit!” Rae talks over what he tries to say next, words hitting their mark effectively when Fable sighs again.

“Rae!” They start, trying to maybe help in some way, try to get that information. But they go quiet as Fable talks again.

“I understand. If that is what you wish.” He inhales sharply again, and they are teleported back outside the bubble. Back into the cave.

They can hear Rae’s breathing shake, as he is ushered out of the cave by Fable. They take a lingering glance back, eyes falling on the slab, and then spot Centross died before Fable pushes them out.

They linger near the cave entrance as they hear Fable walk out behind them with a sigh. Rae goes to huddle next to Aax with his head down as he wipes the lingering stray tears from his face.

“Rae. When you are ready to help your mother and to fix our family, now you know where we are. You said it yourself, you can do that Rae. Bring her back to us. I have made mistakes in the past, but I have done my best to watch over *you* and your brother in her absence. I have protected you and your brother as best as I *could.*”

His tone changes then, more earnest, more desperate. It was all tinted with an undertone of anger a force perfectly covered as he says the words that hit their mark as Rae seems to cower as he says them.

“It was not perfect, I admit this, none of this has been perfect. None of this had been perfect. I have not been perfect, Rae. But *you* gave me a chance. All the same. As you have given so many others. *You* freed me from purgatory Rae. I owe you my life. You can do the same for your mother. You can give her a *chance.* When you are ready to give her that chance, we will be here.”

There’s a deafening silence as Rae takes a few steps back, eyes moving between Fable and Aax.

“We should go- we should go.” His voice sounds like he’s trying so desperately not to cry and something in them feels concerned, it does, but as Rae and Aax fly away all they can think of is that he didn’t say goodbye.

All they can think of is that he didn’t even look at him after they left the bubble. All they can think about is how he left them alone again without saying goodbye. He’d just said he wasn’t going to give up on them. That he wasn’t going to leave them alone here again, but that’s all they feel like is happening.

Fable ends up coaxing them inside. They take the confirmations and reassurance he gives them, ignoring the fact that they know that sometimes he’s lying to them. They ignore the things all yelling, ignoring the way they erupt again when Fable apologizes to them. Apologizing that he couldn’t remove Quixis from them. They ignore them as they say he just apologized for not killing them that day.

They just don’t want to think about it anymore. (They don’t want to remember… and that’s a concerningly familiar wish for them.)

Fable finally gets them to take their mind off it, changing their focus to the birds lingering at their bedside.

They eventually lie down, Fable leaving them to their own thoughts again. The things leave soon after that, sleeping or going somewhere else they still don’t exactly know.

The silence is so so much worse. They curl in on themself under the covers, their birds having fallen asleep a bit ago on the birch next to their bed, so they weren’t making any noise either.

There’s a lingering feeling they can’t quite explain. It’s something under their skin that just makes them want to cry. It’s the lingering feeling of their brother’s hug, his hands running through their hair and his arm wrapped securely around their back. Their wings try to compensate, wrapping around their curled-up figure tightly as their arms wrap around their chest and their tail falls over their legs.

They want their dad. As stupid as that sounds. They want their dad, they want Rae they want… they want Centross.

Four months.

Their hand moves to stifle a quiet sob.

They miss him- gods they miss him so much.

They miss him randomly interrupting what they were doing to get them out of their house. They miss talking with him, joking with him. They miss being *near* him, as pathetic as that sounds. His presence was always comforting. Something that made them feel *safe* and fuck they missed that feeling.

They miss his voice, they miss and they miss and they miss.

They *swear* they’re going crazy when they get the phantom feeling of fingers running through their hair, just closing their eyes and willing themself to just sleep as their breathing shakes through more muffled sobs.

It takes too long in their opinion. By the time they fall asleep, they’ve run out of tears. Sitting in heavy silence for too long until they finally fall asleep.

Maybe sleep isn’t much of a release, the only thing they see is the memories of their best friend, the happiness stained by a lingering sadness and guilt that follows them when they wake up in the morning because of the memory of the cathedral that the dream always ends with.

Soon.

That’s all they have to remember.

It will be over soon.

[luffyvace]

Chrollo Lulcifer x outgoing reader

no gender specified here so i guess you can count it as gn. btw this is separate from my phantom troupe hcs i’m planning on grouping those :)

(for the record I will still do the rest of the poll results just wanted to post some hxh content as I haven’t in a while <3)

enjoy<3

seeing as though your outgoing if you didn’t meet from the troupe you probably came up to him first

but for these headcanons im gonna go with a reader who’s in the troupe

and childhood friends troupe too :)

ngl your special

your just as important to him as pakunoda

and canonly she was dear to him

so when you came up to him all excited about those tapes they were doing

something sparked in him and he wanted to be your friend instantly

back then you had to be careful who you trust

so he didn’t rush in and become best friends with you overnight

but he definitely enjoyed the time he spent with you

you even got a few episodes in the tapes!!

that was the happiest moment of your childhood

back to present 😋

Chrollo doesn’t mind your need to be active and in fact it’s motivating to him to be as well

he takes you out to as many events and outings as you want

although i’ll say he’s more reserved so your doing the talking and he’s doing the nodding and smiling

he doesn’t mind when you have plans with your friends but just make sure to make time for him

it’ll make him feel lonely if your out having fun and he’s just sitting around with the realization that he has no friends

that’s not in the troupe anyway

its like despite being in the troupe you’d still manage to find a somewhat normal life

he kind of envies that

to be able to still have a sort of morals and such

and not be alienated, y’know?

having a sense of self, in a way.

he does suggest more indoor or private dates and activities

and as much as you love him you just would prefer going out and doing something fun

so he finds loop wholes :)

mounting climbing! your still out and about but your alone!

and since your in the troupe he doesn’t worry about falling much

seeing as though you can handle your own

still keeps and eye out for you though

especially if your not the strongest physically

you also put forth effort for more one on one dates

like watching movies in the bed

its perfect for when your sleepy especially

like you have a whole routine of fun yet tiring mini adventures

and then you get to come back and cuddle with your lover 💗

isn’t that sweet?!

your probably a physically affectionate person

you can give him as much affection in private as you want

with just you two, you can kiss on the cheek, lips, forehead, hands, neck, hug him, cuddle, whatever!

in public it’s more so just occasional cheek kisses, holding onto his arm and holding hands

sometimes you turn things into a game or your just really playful

splashing in the supposed to be a romantic bath

hoping on his back and making him give you a piggyback ride on what was supposed to be a romantic walk

he loves you though, so he never says anything about it

it doesn’t really irk him like that anyway

its another one of those

‘it’s you, so it’s endearing’ moments

buys you all kinds of gifts

typical for chrollo headcanons but i just had to mention it

oh did i say buy?

i meant steal

its not like you don’t know or anything

especially since your in the troupe yourself

i will say pda is hands off in front of the troupe

hes the boss, and your boss, and needs to keep up a reputation

he’s cried in front of the troupe before in that one scene

so it’s not really him being afraid to be vulnerable

it’s just that this is business

he needs to focus

not kisses and cuddles right now. okay honey?

he talks over the troupe’s next moves with you before telling the other members

even more so if your highly intelligent or good at planning

alr im gonna end it here<3

it’s a little bit short but i think it’s a decent length🧍‍♀️. anyway i’m gonna work on some more drafts now cyaa! hope you enjoyed💓

[tamamatango]

“Keroro Gunsgo To The Polls”: The Possible Behind-the-Scenes of the Ad-nime Short Nobody Expected

A much less existentially depressing display of political campaign buffoonery.

Here’s yet another unplanned post from me. The other long-form ones I was talking about before I keep putting off because of work and also another pretty ambitious project I’m putting together taking my attention—I don’t know how or when to talk about it here juuuuust yet, but it exists in public and some of you already know what it is/have seen it, so stay tuned perhaps.

As you can see from the video link/photo, this post is a writeup about a surprise video apparently commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that uses the Keroro characters to encourage young people to go out and vote in the upcoming elections for the Governor of Tokyo. It came out about a week ago, but I initially glossed over it because…well, I thought it wasn’t new. After all, the copyright DOES attribute the copyright to 2014 and it looks very similar to the Flash anime at first glance, so…this must be a reupload from the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election or something, right?

Upon looking more deeply into it, no. There’s no record of this ever existing before this week, and it was later confirmed to be new via social media channels. Which means this is technically a brand new piece of animated Keroro content, which I pledged I would report on. So here I am. Whoopee.

This post is going to be about the short from a production standpoint, primarily. I’m not going to spend time on the plot (if you want to call it that lol), as it was already pretty succinctly summarized by this post here by @unfo11owmelol , and I can say it’s more or less accurate, so thank you! I will make a comment in that the Dororo ranting about plastic thing seems to just be a running gag he has now—he was always an environmentalist of course, but his hatred of plastic specifically is kind of new; it was even a major punchline in this month’s manga chapter. In fact, this short has the manga’s quirks written all over it. It’s almost as if Yoshizaki himself was heavily involved in it. Oh wait, he was. But we’ll get to that.

The Context

As previously mentioned, this short was commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and posted exclusively to their YouTube channel. This is where I was going to have a few sentences about how it was literally exclusively on the YouTube channel because none of the official social media accounts posted about it, but as I was writing the last 40% of the post, Keroro PR and one of the Tokyo government accounts finally mentioned it. So give a pat on the back to ol’ Kirb’s amazing procrastination abilities. Anyways, for the whole week before they finally decided to acknowledge its existence, it literally just dropped on YouTube with no warning and the only reason anybody on social media knew about it is because people whose YT feeds it popped up on were like hey what the fuck is this.

“What the fuck is this” is a pretty good question. While the fact that it’s about the gubernatorial election specifically isn’t directly mentioned in the video, it was pretty obvious given the timing, as it’s set to occur on July 7. I am not the most knowledgeable about Japanese politics as a whole, but this year’s race for governor is apparently particularly competitive, with over 50 candidates running. Here’s a short article giving a rundown of the race so far. The top issue is unsurprisingly the low birthrate, which has been causing panic over the fate of Japan’s economy for a considerably long time now. That’s why the government is very concerned that the voter disparity is incredibly polarizing, with young people voting much less than the elderly.

Well, what better way to fix low youth vote turnout than with anime? After all, the Zillenials want nothing more than to obsess over fictional characters while the world crumbles around them into inevitable disrepair I’m not projecting at all. The irony here is that, when the anime was originally in its prime at least, Keroro’s target audience was elementary schoolers. Indeed, the short definitely has the aura of a PSA they’d show to children, but obviously children are not voting. There’s even a point in the video where Tamama says going to the polling place is an opportunity to visit your childhood school, which is a statement more relatable to young adults. I guess at this point the main audience for Keroro really is considered to be the people who grew up with it in their child/teen years—unless the actual new anime gets a primetime kids’ TV slot, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Considering this is the most viewed PSA about the election on their YouTube channel by far, I guess it worked to an extent? It’s currently hovering just under 20k views, which isn’t really too much in the grand scheme. But now that it’s been officially shared on social media, perhaps that’ll give it a boost. Will most of these viewers actually go out to vote is the question…

Production staff peculiarities

As with any animated Keroro content following the end of the Flash anime—which until the new show airs has basically just been this, the new project announcement trailer, and some anti-piracy ad they were doing in movie theaters that they ironically scrubbed from the internet—BN Pictures is credited as the animation studio (though the studio Sugarless Factory assisted; they pretty much exclusively do production assistance for various projects). This is interesting because it looks completely unlike anything they’ve ever done. Unless I’m missing something, none of the anime they’ve produced before have been done in a similar Flash-like style.

Now, as we Internet addicts all know, Flash has been officially dead for a few years now. However, it might still be used very rarely in lowkey web animations like this, although a friend who knows more about anime production than I do told me even those are more commonly made using Live2D now. The credits for this short are very…short, but the director and a couple of other animators worked on a particular Flash-animated series called Oshiri Kajiri Mushi (“Bottom Biting Bug”) that first aired on the TV channel NHK in 2012. I’m guessing these staff are freelance, as that show was produced by the studio Kinema Citrus (a team founded by ex-members of Production I.G and Bones), and were possibly brought on to this short because they had experience with the software. If it is animated using something like Live2D, the experience still applies, as it’s apparently more similar to Flash than something more commonly used in anime like Clip Studio Paint. The director also has 3D CG credits and there is a credit here for “motion” that includes his name, so maybe a little of that was used as well. (Wouldn’t be able to tell myself—most experience I have with 3D animation is a one semester Maya course I took in high school lol).

Curiously, despite the potentially similar animation software and very similar artstyle + color palette, none of the animation staff, as far as I can tell, worked on the 2014 Flash anime. That is, except for…Mine Yoshizaki.

On all animated Keroro media, Yoshizaki’s primary official credit is “original creator,” of course. As the series creator, he would of course participate to a degree in most things related to the 2004 series, doing stuff like sitting in on some writing and recording sessions, contributing ideas/concept art here and there, and so on. There’s actually a Newtype article from around the announcement of the first movie I dug up that was officially translated into English, in which Yoshizaki talks about the pressure of being in that role. Most mangaka interviews I’ve seen about their involvement in their works’ anime adaptations are pretty overwhelmingly positive, but he was definitely more mixed. This might be a post for another day, since I have some speculations about his relationship to the anime as a whole. Damn, I need to stop coming up with essay ideas that are probably too big for my pea brain.

Anyway, Yoshizaki was quite a bit more involved in the 2014 series. He served as one of two people responsible for series composition (scriptwriting), though that could be because the Flash anime was a much more direct adaptation of the manga than the original anime, which might as well have been an entirely different series. IIRC, some episodes of Flash were literally 1:1 with the manga’s script…so I guess that counts as writing the anime too lol. He also storyboarded a few episodes and wrote the opening theme song’s lyrics. The next Keroro animation after that was the anti-piracy theater ad in 2021, which he storyboarded for. But you’ll notice with all the credits we’ve discussed so far that he was never involved with the animation proper past the storyboarding stage…until now!

Not only was Yoshizaki credited as original creator as usual, he also did directorial supervision, storyboarding, and was a key animator—the only key animator, in fact! I know it’s just a five-minute short, but the Flash series’s episodes were even shorter than that and had multiple key animators per episode, so this is kind of a big deal. It also might explain why the character designs look just a little bit more on-model to the manga designs than Flash’s did, even though they look almost identical at a cursory glance. It’s easiest to tell by looking at the less-rounded head shapes, plus a few minor details like Tamama’s eye highlights and the bridge of Kururu’s glasses. I am very normal, how could you tell?

So yeah, this makes this short the most Yoshizaki has ever been involved with the actual animation process. I can’t say it gives him the most additional credits, as it’s tied with the Flash series for three extra, but it’s something!

Closing out the staff section, some notes about the cast. As you might expect, the usual actors reprise their roles. Most notably, Mamiko Noto is back to play Mois for what I believe (unless I’m missing a random collab or something) is her first time in the role in ten years, and she pretty much didn’t miss a beat! In addition to Fuyuki and Natsumi’s VAs playing them recently at the Keroro expo, that’s three additional voices besides the Keroro Platoon’s that presumably are still going to be able to return for the new anime.

Otherwise, the platoon sounds pretty much like they did in the anniversary trailer and various other small projects like the anti-piracy ad and Tales of the Rays collab from last year (they each had multiple spoken lines there). Keroro sounds a tad deeper; Tamama has some of the Jibanyan nasal now; Giroro didn’t really talk much but sounds mostly the same; Dororo is also a bit deeper and sounds kinda awkward but I think that’s less the voice direction and more Yoshizaki possibly wrote the dialogue and he speaks more assertively in the manga lol; Kururu sounds literally the exact same because Koyasu is a magic man.

Made in [Insert Year]?? (Ft. A lesson in trademarking)

I mentioned this at the beginning of this post, but for a solid few days, I really thought this video was just an ancient (2014 feels ancient now anyway) reupload. After all, the copyright string says 2014, and only media produced during the Flash series era has that copyright year, so I brushed it off. Here, let me show you all the anime copyright strings per the current anime portal:

There’s no 2004 date on the TV series’s copyright, probably because it covers the entire series from 2004–2011, plus now 2024 onward (and possibly the anti-piracy ad from 2021 as well), and also most anime-branded merch and things. But when the show was airing proper, it was attributed to 2004 (you can see this in the opening credits of any season). The 2006–2010 dates are for each individual movie. And there’s the 2014 copyright that’s the exact same as the video’s, though here it is for the Flash anime, as there’s pictures of it on the anime portal site. As an aside, before 2015, Sunrise was listed instead of BNP. At some point all anime rights got retroactively transferred from Sunrise Inc. to BNP—not sure how or when exactly that occurred. For the movies, there were slight shakeups in the production committee as well (you can see my new project trailer analysis for more on that kind of stuff).

As you can see, copyright strings for the series are attributed to the year each individual “product” came out in, for the most part. But now we know that this ad is brand new. So…does this mean this political ad is counted as part of the Flash anime? They obviously didn’t plan to include this specific video ten years ago (unless Kadokawa bought out an oracle or something, wouldn’t surprise me). Maybe they left the door open to more episodes of the Flash anime proper, but that isn’t what this was advertised as.

Well, I have a theory. A theory that might be totally wrong, but a theory nonetheless. Let’s go on a massive tangent about the Japanese trademark system! (Disclaimer: I have no formal training in the legal field. I just have really weird research hobbies.)

I’m going to focus on two basic principles here. First, once trademarks in Japan are officially registered, they are active for ten years before the copyright applicant must reapply to renew ownership of the trademark for another ten years. Second, trademarks have to be filed under certain classifications that basically tell the JPO (Japan Patent Office) what goods and/or services the applicant plans to use the trademark for. This means that sometimes the same trademark will be filed multiple times for different use classes. The classifications are each given a two digit class number, which is further subdivided into five-character group code(s).

You can actually search through all public patents yourself on J-PlatPat, and the site is machine translated into English (though you still have to type the copyright you’re looking for in Japanese). Let’s take a look at the three different filings for ケロロ軍曹 (just the name of the series itself, not the logo).

I’m on my phone so I couldn’t fit the entire window, but the important information is here. Kadokawa Corporation is the filer for all of these, though Yoshizaki’s name is probably also on whatever application documents they sent, which aren’t viewable. The three versions of the trademark were filed on different dates about a year apart. You’ll see that class 16 is there twice. For the first filing, it was class 16 and multiple group codes designating different kinds of goods (class 28 also contains goods-related things); the second filing covers a single group code protecting “printed matter” (presumably this was to cover any physical distributions of the manga).

I’m going to take a closer look at the third filing, which was officially registered in 2004. Class 09 covers a shitload of different goods and services, like way too many to list. What I’m thinking is that the first set of goods trademarks filed in 2001 was just to cover the kind of stuff they’d attach to issues of Shonen Ace and volume releases as giveaways—paper goods, board game-type items, and toys/dolls are all covered under it. Then in 2003, in preparation for the inevitable merchandise and collaboration dump the anime would lead to, they opened the floodgates to literally any Material Thing they could think to cover. Like, I’m pretty sure we never got any Keroro-branded egg candlers, fire alarms, or “cigar lighters for automobiles”, but might as well cover all your bases. Wouldn’t want the local fire department handing out emergency gear with your cartoon frog on it without permission, you know.

Included among these materials are some items that might be a bit more relevant to our case here. There’s a number of clauses related to physical and digital film, photography, and other media: “CD-ROM and DVD and other recording media, electronic publications, downloadable music, downloadable image[s]”. Now, while this doesn’t cover “animation” specifically, it can possibly be stretched to fit that definition. This is especially because, in Japanese, the term the MTL output as “images” is actually eizou, which can refer to both images and video.

So, the version of the trademark registered for the brand in 2004 likely covers certain media-related things. There are other classes that include the word “animation” specifically, but it’s possible that those classes weren’t classified the same way back then as they are now, and maybe anything film-related could’ve been interpreted by the law to include animation. Nowadays, though there are specific classifications for animation, specifically “animation available for download.” This subgroup actually happens to fall under class 09, though other classes contain similar items as well, such as class 41. You can search classes by number or keyword if you’re curious about this.

As I pointed out before I presented this data, all of these particular filings are for specifically ケロロ軍曹, not ケロロ. If ケロロ is to be used in isolation, it would have to be specified as such in the registration data, because what’s actually stopping someone else from coming along and trademarking just ケロロ? Now, remember the name of the Flash anime? That’s right—ケロロ. Just “Keroro”, not “Keroro Gunso.” Incidentally, this video is actually not formally titled under ケロロ軍曹 (despite what the thumbnail says). The only name in the title of the actual video is ケロロ.

So here is my theory. Maybe it’s a hypothetical, but I’m going to treat it like it’s concrete for argument’s sake. In 2014, to prepare for the Flash anime and related branding, Kadokawa filed for the trademark ケロロ—individually, without 軍曹. Because it was the 2010s at that point, it’s possible that downloadable animation was more specifically defined in the group codes filed for, even though the Flash anime did air on TV (again, the strategy to this is about covering as many potential use cases as possible for maximum copyright protection). Maybe it was under class 09, maybe it was another class, or even more than one. For whatever reason, the trademark is not publicly available. But because of what kind of animation/video/whatever that specific trademark covers, this little election video is covered under that 2014 trademark.

You might recall how I said trademarks have to be renewed every ten years. Incidentally, it just so happens that 2014 was ten years ago. Most likely, the (secret?) trademark was recently renewed so that stuff like this would be allowed to be made and can continue to be made in the future, independently from “Keroro Gunso” as defined by the 2004-verse and the manga proper. And because 2014 is the original filing year of that trademark, that is the year that is displayed with this project, even if the trademark was renewed in 2024, or some other recent year. By the way, all the ケロロ軍曹 trademarks I covered were also renewed this decade, so Kadokawa can keep on doing whatever exactly they were doing with those. There’s probably even more hidden-from-public-view trademarks, who knows, there’s a thousand potential asterisks here but you get the picture.

Fascinating, isn’t it? As I said, it’s possible that I’m just talking out of my ass and all of this is either way more simple or way more complicated than I’m making it out to be, in which case I just wasted multiple paragraphs of your time. But hey, at least it was a fun lesson, right? I’m not the only one interested in this, right? RIGHT?!?!?!

Okay, I’m just about done here, but I’m going to tell you something plot twisty. Do you know what actually first clued me in to the fact that this was not made in 2014 before it was confirmed to be the case? Not the upload date. Not the fact that nobody ever talked about it prior to a week ago. Not even all the probably useless copyright shit I just spent a whole other post’s worth of words on.

It was this part of the video:

See, in this screenshot, if you look really closely, you’ll notice that Kururu is using an iPhone parody with three cameras. The first iPhones with three cameras were released in 2019. Therefore, this could not have been made in 2014. This stupid detail is what it took to get me to think about this video for more than thirty seconds.

Thank you, Kururu’s crippling iPhone addiction.

So yeah, go out and vote or whatever, wherever you guys are. Otherwise you’ll have to look Mois in the eyes and tell her no, and that will make her very sad, and she might blow up the planet as consequence. Not that the planet isn’t already being destroyed. Any of my fellow Americans want to join me for a screaming session following the last few days of federal fuckery? I’ll bring chocolate-covered pretzels to snack on and we’ll write the names of corporate lobbyists on them, it’ll be fun.

[sykosomatic]

detective hoffman x apprentice!male reader <3 (nsfw!!!)

cw: reader gets fucked in a saw trap, no plot just porn, reader giving hoffman head, rough sex, no condom/lube for plot purposes (but you should use those things irl!), hoffman spits at reader, reader is submissive, reader bottoms, hoffman cums in reader’s throat and ass, famous saw bathroom makes an appearance(!).

((as voted on in the poll i posted a couple days ago!))

••••••••

your head was throbbing from dehydration, your eyes opening to a harsh blue light. the blue only made it worse, your eyes straining in the fluorescents. you couldn’t remember much about where you’d even been before this… working on a trap, maybe? that’s the last thing you remembered, but something could’ve happened between then and … whatever was happening now. “ugh…” you groaned, trying to move and get up, and finding out that your wrists were strapped down to the chair you were sat in. and your ankles as well..? what the hell was going on?

“hello..? guys, this isn’t funny…!” you groaned out, your own voice making your head throb. your shoulders felt heavy, and you looked down to see that there was in fact a trap around your neck. you recognized it; amanda had been working on this one. was it finished? was she trying it out on you..? “amanda?” you croaked, hooding for an answer. now that your eyes had adjusted, you knew where you were at. that damn bathroom.

you felt hands on your shoulders — well, they parts of your shoulders not carrying the shotgun trap on them — and you jumped a bit, looking for the owner as he walked around to the front of your chair. you frowned thoughtfully, wondering what had spurred him to put you here, looking around for a timer. what had you done to warrant a trap? you minded your own business, helped when needed… and besides, you’d already survived your own trap. a second wasn’t necessary; you still had the scars from the first. “hoffman..?” you mused, watching him take something out of his coat pocket. a tape recorder. your stomach flipped.

before you could object or voice your concerns for being tested again, he set the tape recorder in your lap. he reached in and pressed a button on the side of your collar, presumably turning it on. there wasn’t a timer — amanda had wired it to be set off some other way. hoffman pressed play on the tape player and his own raspy voice played from the tape.

“hello, young apprentice. i want to play a game.”

hoffman shifted forward. you watched him undo his belt and slide his zipper down as his voice over the tape told you what to do.

“i want you to prove yourself to me. you deem yourself worthy of being an apprentice, and yet you’ve done nothing to prove you can handle it. do you have what it takes?”

hoffman’s cock was what you’d expected for his build and height; it was girthy, and probably a bit above average length. he stroked it slowly in front of you, making your face hot.

“you want me to suck you off,” you gathered, from the very obvious information in front of you. his lopsided grin gave you butterflies. you hadn’t thought of him sexually before, not really, and as you looked up at him you wondered why. he had a nice muscular, dad bod build. his face was attractive, and when he did decide to speak his voice was raspy and rugged.

instead of answering, he pulled a little switch box out of his pocket and pressed a button. you heard your collar beep, as if activated. you’d thought it was already activated… evidently he’d tweaked amanda’s design and added a timer.

“you have two minutes,” came his voice from above you; his real voice, making you shudder. what, you had to make him cum in two minutes using just your mouth to prove you deserved to live? was that what your life was worth, a blowjob? little did you know, he had a lot more in store for you than that.

you leaned your head in and met him halfway, wrapping your lips around the head of his cock. you figured you obviously didn’t have very long so you had to skip the niceties of a really good blowjob; you had to give him a good, fast, sloppy one.

you swirled your tongue around the head of his cock, bobbing your head and trying to fit as much of his girth down your throat as possible. you fought back a gag, clawing your fingernails into the wooden armrests of your chair. his hand found the back of your head, driving his shaft down deeper and making you choke. drool dribbled down your chin, slathering all over his cock as he made you gag on his length. he seemed to like the sound, and hey, if he was gonna help you win, who were you to object?

your drool coated his cock as you gagged, practically streaming down his length and balls. he grunted in pleasure after a moment, shoving your head down even further. the hair at the base of his cock tickled against your nose and chin. he held you there for a moment, his grip tight on the back of your head as he growled lowly, cumming deep into the back of your throat. you sputtered and choked, drooling his cum out of your mouth. you tried to swallow what you could, not knowing whether or not that would get you penalized.

you expected him to disarm the collar once you were through sucking him off but he didn’t. he undid your leg restraints, and you stayed put. why hadn’t he disarmed the collar?

hoffman undid your wrist restraints, grabbing you roughly and turning you around, shoving your knees into the seat of the chair. you grinned in protest but didn’t say anything else just yet. what else was he going to do to you?

hoffman restrained your wrists on the top of the back of the chair, tying your wrists up between the rungs. “i… won.. didn’t i?” you asked. as soon as the words left your mouth you knew better than to have asked them and your face went red as hoffman yanked your pants down, exposing your bare ass to the undeniable chill of the room.

“oh, am i mistaken? have you proven yourself worthy to me?” he spat at you, first in his tone and then actually spitting at the rim of your asshole. he was going to fuck you. why did the thought of that make you so aroused?

“well.. my two minutes was up.. wasn’t it?”

hoffman chuckled, like he knew something you didn’t, and he wasn’t going to tell you.

“did you like my mouth so much you wanted the real thing?” you asked playfully, biting your lip as you awaited his response. he smacked your ass, hard, and you gasped. “fuck!”

“maybe so,” he muttered, chuckling at your reaction. you could feel, but not see, his cock aligning at the entrance of your asshole. it made you clench up in anticipation but you quickly realized that would be a bad idea. you relaxed your body as much as you could as you felt his slobber and cum covered cock sink into your asshole. god, was he so girthy. you moaned deeply, spreading your legs the best you could to give him room. his cock was warm and wet as it slid up into you, making you whine as he sheathed himself all the way in.

he gave no warning as he slid slowly out that he’d slam back into you, and you hadn’t expected one, but it would’ve been nice. you saw stars as he pounded his cock into you, hitting that oh-so-special spot about the third time in. it had you unraveling in seconds, drooling and whining. his hands held tight to your ass, so tight you were sure there would be bruises. and occasionally spanked you to get a good reaction.

“oh, fuck!” you cried out as you came, splattering the chair with your cum. your legs shook as he kept taking you, making your eyes water. he was fucking you so hard you’d started getting lightheaded. you moaned and whined incoherently, your head bobbing with his movements like you were some sort of rag doll. god, it felt so good.

“shit, shit!” you cried out as he milked a second orgasm out of you. how had he done that? your asshole was raw and sore by the time you came from him pounding out that spot. that was three now? your wrists were rubbed raw from the writhing and wriggling he was working out of you, and you couldn’t bring yourself to care that much.

hoffman was quiet save for the occasional grunt or groan, right up until the end where he started almost growling. you could feel him being impossibly rougher as he got to his orgasm; he was clawing at your sides, back, and ass. as he came, he held your ass cheeks flush against his hips, keeping you there as he unloaded himself into you. he filled you up, making you moan out at the sensation. “fuck…” you breathed out as he finished.

hoffman pulled his cock out of your ass, slow and deliberate as he watched his cum spill out of you and down your thighs. he smacked your ass one last time, pressing the button to disarm the collar — finally — making relief course through you. he undid your restraints, unexpectedly, and wordlessly walked away. “i had fun too..!” you called to him as he walked off, leaving you there covered in his cum.

[slowandsteddie]

Lazy Petals

AO3

Okay. This work is NOT completed. I cannot guarantee an update schedule because only the first chapter is completed. However, I DO have everything plotted out (assuming it doesn’t get a mind of its own) and the goal is to be 50k+ words.

This story is very personal to me. I’ve taken my grandparents love/live story and made it Steddie. The characters are going to be OOC. Just letting you know right off the bat in case that is something you aren’t interested in. Also, this is a No Upsidedown AU.

My grandparents were immediately obsessed with each other, but didn’t date until after they had graduated high school. Which means that while this isn’t a slow burn, it is going to be slower than the stuff I usually write.

I don’t want to give too, too much stuff away. There there is a post where I described the main highlights and asked your opinion on reading it. There is also a poll where I asked if I should start posting before it was finished, and I got a pretty definite yes.

I saved the divider that I plan on using for this series back when I first started talking about it. I have since lost my note that told me whom to give credit to. If you know who made it (or know how to find that information on mobile!!) please let me know.

I think that’s enough of a preamble. Without further ado, here be the CW’s and the first 3,489 words.

Content Warnings: Steve was hit by a car and in a full body cast for over a year - he makes a bowling joke about it, his parents are very distant, his grandparents got very distant after his injury and he doesn’t understand why, Wayne is very careful while babysitting to make sure that no one can accuse him of being inappropriate, mentions of his mom overmedicating him so he’s easier to deal with, mentions of how weak he got from being in the cast. And as always, let me know if I missed anything.

Steve didn’t remember much about that night.

His mother said that it was a blessing and refused to fill in any blanks for him under any circumstances.

His father, however, if he had drunk enough whiskey, would look at the six year old Steve as though he were a much older man and sigh before telling him anything he wanted to know.

Which meant that Steve knew that the car that hit him swerved in order to do so. (He didn’t know if the lady in the little blue car did it on purpose, or if she was a distracted driver. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know that.) He knew that she had to have been going over forty miles per hour because the impact sent him flying at least a dozen feet before he slammed into that bus stop. He knew that the driver kept going and that at least half a dozen people ran to his aid and that one of the women had screamed because he was unconscious and she was so certain that he was dead. His little body was so broken and bloody and they couldn’t see him breathe.

He also knew that his father got to his hospital room before his mother, sweat pouring down the older male’s body as though he had showered in his clothes because he had run there from work. His mother showed up over twenty minutes later, all put together like she had taken the time to clean herself up before appearing. Something his father wasn’t sure if he could forgive her for. (This was one of the few times that his father would express just how much that he loved Steve, and he would carry that warmth with him forever.)

He knew that they had to revive him four times, that they had done twelve surgeries, that they had put him in a full body cast because nearly every bone in his body had been broken, including parts of his spine. He knew that his parents had been told that he would likely never walk again. He knew that a specialist had pulled his father aside to inform him that his brain wouldn’t develop normally after all of the trauma that it had been through after being smacked around in his skull. They’d have to be careful, and that they’d have to understand if he never progressed much past the age that he was now. That he could be in his fifties and still acting five and that there was nothing that could be done beyond what they had already done – remove a small part of bone behind his ear to help relieve the pressure and pray for the best while preparing for the worst.

And, while he couldn’t remember the absolute agony that he must have been in. He did have the descriptions that he used to tell his father. That there was lava in his veins and his bones were shards of ice cold glass threatening to tear him apart completely. His father had only told him that part once, with tears in his eyes. “There wasn’t anything I could do to help you, boy. I couldn’t take the pain away. I would have died to save you even a fraction of that.”

That was one of the few times that he could remember his dad hugging him. He had been so careful and gentle while pressing his face into his hair. He inhaled deeply and he cried. And Steve had done his best to hug him back despite the plaster that made it near-impossible to move his arms at all.

At first, Steve had thought that it was really cool to be stuck in bed all the time. He didn’t have to do anything. That got boring within a week and he still had at least a year ahead of him where he was meant to stay in bed unless he was in the bathroom or at a doctor’s appointment.

Even eating in bed, something that had once been unacceptable and even punishable before, lost its novelty pretty quickly.

He liked having his mom read him notes from the teacher and his classmates. He liked her reading him his homework assignments and writing down his answers for him so that he would still be on track. It made him feel like an important man, like his dad was going to be, with a secretary.

The thing is, though, that he really missed going outside. He missed playing in the woods outside of the trailer park where he lived. He missed going to his grandparents house with the pool and the stairs that he’d probably never be able to walk again. He could climb them, though, after the cast was removed. He was pretty sure. He might not have a lot of muscle left at that point, but that would just mean that he was lighter and had less to have to move anyway.

When Steve brought that up to his mother, her lips would turn into a very tight, thin line and something he couldn’t name would flash in her eyes. “You are not going to go to that house any time soon, young man. It’s best to let those ideas go.”

“But I miss Grandma Marty and Grandpa Pete, and they won’t come here,” he whined.

“The Harrington’s won’t come to the trailer park and you know that.”

“We’re Harrington’s too,” he’d say defiantly.

She’d leave the room at that. Effectively ending an argument that they had had multiple times before. But what else did Steve have to talk about? He didn’t really have anyone else to talk to either, other than their neighbor that he had taken to calling Mister Wayne.

Wayne was probably a few years older than his dad and lived alone in a trailer that had always seemed so lively despite the quiet man who lived in it. He always had the tv or the radio on when he was home and Steve lived for that. Because his window was always cracked open for the breeze, which meant the sound could drift to him as well.

It was better than the quiet of his house that only seemed to get broken up with arguments and slamming doors. He was so used to it, but he still flinched every time and did his best to pull the blanket over his head as though that would muffle the sounds.

Sometimes, Wayne would come to his window and read him a book that his own nephew liked. The Hobbit. Steve fell in love with the adventure of it, and Wayne never seemed to mind reading him the same book over and over, a few pages at a time while he smoked.

More often than not, Wayne was the one who came over to babysit once he noticed that Steve had been left alone. He never once complained about it, never once gave someone else the chance despite all the ladies who would come over with food. And wine for his mom, when they could spare it.

Sometimes, Wayne would talk about his nephew. He was a scrawny kid, a few years older than Steve, named Eddie. Had a dark mop of long curly hair, and eyes that always seemed to have mischief in them. They’d like each other, Wayne was pretty sure, and he’d introduce them the next time that Eddie came to visit.

Steve would want to ask when that would be, but he never did. He had Mister Wayne and that was more than enough for him. His dad was staying later at the office, trying to prove that he deserved that promotion that would get them the hell out of the trailer park, without his parents' money. His mother was getting into yoga and book clubs, and Steve was being left alone a lot. Because, what kind of trouble could he get into when he was stuck in bed? Besides, the neighbors could hear if he shouted for anything and Wayne seemed very invested in making sure that he was okay.

Steve never knew why the older man made sure that his curtains were always wide open and that his light was on so that others could see that he was reading to him, or talking with him, from a chair that was always at least three feet away. Maybe it was so they would know he wasn’t alone? He wasn’t going to ask about it, not wanting to chance scaring away the one adult who never raised his voice at him, who never abandoned him when things got hard like his grandparents seemed to.

Months went by like this. His parents not being home, his grandparents not even calling about him, and Wayne doing his best to fill in the difference despite his own job. The other neighbors would come on occasion, but Steve was very sullen with them where he would laugh with Wayne. That didn’t deter them from coming over as he would have liked, and begrudgingly he found himself becoming friendly with a few of them.

It was the beginning of summer when Steve was finally able to get the casts removed. His father took him to the appointment, and he tried to not be disappointed that his mother wasn’t there at first. By the time he was wheeled out to the front of the office, though, his mother was sitting where his father had been.

He did his best to not look at himself. He was pale and scrawny and kind of stinky from not being able to wash himself properly because of all the plaster that had basically covered him for over a year. Most of his bones had healed great, according to the doctor. He wouldn’t know because he still hadn’t looked.

His father came back from wherever he had been, paid the bill with tight lips, and then took Steve out to the car. His mother helped him into the seat before covering him with a blanket that he was grateful for. It wasn’t that he was cold, he just didn’t want the chance to look at himself yet. He wanted to do that when he was home, where if he broke down and cried, no one else would know. Or, he wouldn’t have to see them knowing in any case. And that was enough for him.

They stopped for ice cream on the way and Steve asked for a small strawberry cone. Strawberry wasn’t his favorite, but it was what Grandma Marty had all the time, and he missed her even though she didn’t acknowledge him anymore. Wouldn’t answer his calls, wouldn’t call him back. He didn’t even know if she got the letters that Wayne had helped him write.

When they got home, Wayne wasn’t home. Not for the first time, Steve found himself deeply upset by that. He’d never voice it. Adults had responsibilities outside of him. And he knew that he only got about an hour with Wayne a day, maybe two if he was incredibly lucky.

His father came to help him out of the car, because he had more muscle if Steve should happen to fall. He clung to his father’s arm with all the strength that could muster as he walked like a baby giraffe toward their trailer. Well, he called it walking. It was more like wiggling his lower spine and hips while throwing his legs forward. After maybe five steps like that, he found himself being lifted into his father’s impatient arms as he was carried the rest of the way in and sat on the couch.

“Thank you,” Steve said instead of complaining about not being able to use his legs. He had wanted to walk, to prove that he could.

His father simply grunted in response before going to the kitchen to grab a drink. The same way he always did when he was home for the night.

His mother was inside a few minutes behind them, having stopped to talk to a neighbor briefly. She looked at Steve on the couch and tilted her head at him with a calculating look in her eyes.

“Would you like a bath?”

“Yes, please.”

This time, Steve did get to walk on his own two feet to the destination. He was leaning heavily on the wall, almost gripping on to it with one hand as he practically threw himself forward. He was breathless by the time that he got to the bathroom and pain seemed to radiate out through his entire body, starting at his tail bone.

“You can have some meds after your bath,” his mother said gently. “And I’ll get you your refill before dinner, okay? So you don’t have to worry about running out.”

Steve didn’t think it was time to refill his medicine yet, but he didn’t question it. His mom was on top of it. He was a kid who lost track of time a lot.

He sat on the toilet and he watched his mom prepare the bath for him, knowing that she would only let him have the water a little above room temperature. His skin was sensitive and the steam wouldn’t be good for him with the medicine that he was taking. He couldn’t even have hot food without the steam making him nauseous.

Carefully, he was pulled back to his feet and stripped of his clothes before he was helped into the tub that seemed to be more bubble than water. He sat down carefully, wincing a bit as he did so, before letting himself lean back in the water that felt warmer than it probably was because of his weakened, cool skin.

He sighed in contentment as his mother washed his body for the first time in what seemed like years. He was nearing seven years old and thinking about years in the past, it would make his dad laugh if he shared that thought with him, an idea that made him smile.

His mom washed his hair, tilting his head back and using a hand to make sure that no soap got in his eyes that he had squeezed tight. He got to play in the bubbles for a few minutes, his dad standing at the door as his mom got him some comfy clothes and a towel.

It was his dad who dried him off and helped him get into his clothes.

“Thank you, Daddy,” he said softly. He knew he was expected to thank his dad for everything he did that was above and beyond, which meant he ended up thanking him for everything.

Steve was carried back to his bed, something that he would have whined about if he wasn’t so tired and in so much pain. He was tucked in and his mom came to give him some toast and juice to take his pills with. He knew he was only meant to have one, but he took both that his mother gave him anyway. He washed it away with grape juice and half of the slice of toast she had brought him.

“Thank you, Mommy,” he murmured.

“Get some rest, love,” she replied while kissing his forehead. “You had a big day today.”

Steve nodded in agreement, wishing that it could be that easy to just let the sleep overtake him. He closed his eyes as his mom left the room.

His father checked on him once a day, his mother gave him two pills instead of one, and made sure he at least had breakfast and dinner. One of the neighbors made sure he had lunch and new puzzles to work on, new toys to play with. Steve would wander around the trailer as best as he was able, and Wayne would read to him before he went to bed.

Days turned to weeks like that.

One day, Wayne wasn’t at work and both of Steve’s parents were gone. He wandered over to his bedroom window and opened it wide.

“Mister Wayne, if I can get to the front door, can you help me out?”

His walking was still unsteady and stairs were very difficult for him.

“Are your parents okay with you being outside?” Wayne asked sympathetically.

“Uh. Dad said I could as long as I either finished my puzzle or put it up first.”

Wayne gave him a knowing look. “Okay, you little hellion. But only because I know you’d hurt yourself trying to do it anyway.”

Steve beamed and closed his window most of the way before making his way to the front door. It was a struggle to unlock the door because of the latch chain, but he managed. Wayne was waiting there for him with an unlit cigarette hanging between his lips.

“Getting outside used to be easier,” he sighed before reaching out.

“Maybe it’s the weight of knowing that you’re doing something you shouldn’t be,” Wayne teased as he picked Steve up and set him back down on the ground.

“No idea what that means, but thank you for helping me pass the stairs.” Steve grinned widely, the dirt and grass squishing slightly beneath his toes. It felt so good.

“You’re welcome, brat.”

Steve giggled before doing his version of walking. He took maybe ten steps, very much aware of how closely he was being watched. His breath came a little harder from the effort, the times between walking so close together. Shakily, he sat down as carefully as he was able. Movement caught his attention and made his head snap up to look toward Wayne’s trailer.

“You gotta ghost!” He exclaimed.

Wayne laughed at that, shaking his head. “That’s the nephew I’ve been telling you about. He’s staying with me for awhile. Treat him like a skittish cat until he’s used to ya, and I’m sure y’all would be good friends.”

“Eddie,” Steve said happily. “Can he come out so I can meet him?”

“I’ll send him out after I smoke my cigarette,” he said as he put more distance between them before lighting up.

“Thank you!”

Steve laid down flat on the grass, spreading his arms and legs out as much as he could without the pain becoming unbearable. It wasn’t very far, but he didn’t care. He got to grip the green strands in his fingers. He got to feel the light and heat of the sun soaking into his skin and settling into his bones. He was beyond convinced that the bright yellow thing in the sky was much more healing than the meds that made him feel tingly from his head to his toes.

He must have fallen asleep like that, because next thing he knew he was being awoken by a toe nudging his shoulder. His eyes flashed open and he was met by the most dark, beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen.

“Uncle Wayne said you just got released from the mummy’s curse.”

“He said that?”

“Well. He said your name was Steve and you just got a full body cast removed a few weeks ago.”

“That sounds more like him.”

“So…What happened?”

“A lady tried to go bowling with me and her car. The only pin she knocked down was me.”

Eddie snorted. “Shoulda planted your feet more firmly, she woulda gotten a strike.”

Steve’s lips tugged into the widest smile that he had ever had on his face. “My parents don’t like it when I joke about it.”

“Parents are stupid.”

“Yeah. How long are you stayin’?”

“As long as I can.”

Steve hummed in thought. “You any good at reading out loud?”

“Depends. What book?”

“The Hobbit.”

Eddie’s entire face lit up, his huge smile showing off the chipped front tooth. “My favorite book in the entire world? Yeah, I’m pretty good at reading it out loud.”

“We should read to each other. I have troubles with some words, but I am trying.”

“I’d like having someone to read and play with.”

“Oh, uh. Playing is hard for me right now. I’m still trying to get my strength back.”

“It’s okay. We read The Hobbit, we gotta have a pretty good imagination. We can pretend to play.”

Steve blushed and looked away. He never had someone his own age willing to work around his limitations before.

“I heard about a game with dice where we can talk out stuff and the dice decide how well it goes,” Steve said suddenly.

“Dungeons and Dragons!” Eddie apparently decided that he was tired of standing because he flopped down next to him at that. He rolled around in the grass before eventually settling on his side, propping his head up on his hand. “I can find a way to make that work with just two people.”

“Oh.”

“Turn that frown upside down, friend. I like a challenge. We’ll make this work because it sounds like fun.”

Steve beamed.

Taglist (let me know if you want added or removed! I was just trying to get who I remembered to seem interested!):

@estrellami-1 @eriquin @epiclazershark @morganski-19 @ellaelsinore @y4r3luv @valinwonderland @thespaceantwhowrites @jackiemonroe5512 @spectrum-spectre @princessstevemunson @ghost--enthusiast @gothwifehotchner @kas-eddie-munson @auroraplume @salisbury-at-the-stake @currently-steddiebrainrot @finntheehumaneater @marshmellowpaint @littlewildflowerkitten @perseus-notjackson @sapphirecobalt-1 @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @gloomysoup @anne-bennett-cosplayer

[miracles-and-butterflies]

Though the poll was surprising, it does mean I can post this now.

About Dolores and Mirabel; and the interesting things one hears. Set in the Miracles Plus AU.

Comments are always appreciated.

Warning, very sensitive topics below.

~~~~~~

But When? And Why? And How?

December 1961

For the Madrigals, there were two ways of discovering pregnancy.

The first being the door. Golden, untouched and full of potential. Even the door handle was yet to receive its initial - that came when the baby was named.

The second was Dolores herself. She heard everything, after all. Which included the tiny heartbeats and minimal movements of unborn infants - it was jarring to hear Camilo before anyone else knew about him. This was more generalised and something she could do for any potential parents in town, not limited to the Madrigals.

Back to the point…

When the door appears, it’s unclear. There is another floor in Casita and the doors seemingly go above their parent’s or as close as they can.

One of Julieta’s girls, obviously. But who? Isabela doesn’t seem against the idea of having more children, her kid is at the age where a sibling is now appealing. And Luisa hasn’t been totally against the idea of having some herself.

Regardless, none of the Madrigals pry.

Days turn into weeks that roll into months and there hasn’t been a peep.

Antonio and Camilo have a bet going on who can find out first. Bruno refuses to even glimpse into the future to find out. Julieta and Agustín practically hang on each word and action, trying to workout which one of their daughters it is.

The baby’s heartbeat is steadier now but still quiet and at every meal, Dolores tries to pinpoint exactly where the noise is coming from. It’s never quiet enough.

She can’t blame Luisa for not admitting yet, or she’s impressed Isabela’s managed to keep her mouth shut this long. 

But then, one day, the Madrigals are sat eating dinner, and all of a sudden Dolores hears a flutter like sound at the end of the table. At first, she thinks it’s one of Antonio’s animals. But none of them are here right now. Only Bruno’s rats scurrying on the floor, looking for scraps from the two animal lovers.

She looks around the room, wondering if she might be reacting to something too quiet for the others to notice. Something so insignificant it’s not worth looking for. But then it happens again, Dolores locks her head at the end of the table.

No.

She knows that sound, that feeling.

It’s a baby kicking.

She tries not to look, instead focusing on the plates, moving closer to the source. Though Luisa definitely thinks she’s listening into her conversation with Mirabel, because she suddenly stops turns and decides she’d rather talk to Antonio. And Dolores almost laughs at it because yes, she absolutely wants to know how Luisa flexed the sleeves off her shirt to impress a woman and now needs her sister to fix it. 

There’s nothing, and then it happens again.

And Dolores squeaks, putting a hand over her mouth. What if— but it couldn’t be—

But everything she’d thought before about this situation was wrong. Because when she looks up from the plate closest to the source of the sound, she’s looking at Mirabel.

~~~~~~

It feels unbelievable, and Dolores is trying not to cry and laugh all at once. She feels stupid.

All this time they’ve been focused on Isabela and Luisa. No mention of Mirabel. And of course, she’s the one who’s pregnant.

But— when? Why? How?

As far as Dolores was aware her youngest cousin had no romantic or sexual interest in anyone.

Why hasn’t Mirabel told anyone? What is she going to do with a baby? God, she isn’t really putting that working through pregnancy and labour idea into motion to prove a point, is she? She’s not that stubborn, right?

Dolores closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, as tries to push down the questions rising inside her.

Just… Talk to her.

So, she does. Or tries to.

It’s hard. Mirabel has always been closed off when talking about her feelings or personal things.

Every Sunday, after Dolores has worked it out, she takes Mirabel out. Just the two of them on a picnic, in a quiet spot. In the hopes her cousin will say something of her own accord. She doesn’t.

It’s the fourth Sunday.

And Dolores screws waiting for Mirabel to tell her.

“Do you want to tell me what is going on?” She asks, leaning over to the picnic basket and handing Mirabel a plate.

Mirabel doesn’t drop her smile. “What do you mean?”

Dolores raises an eyebrow, “I know there is something going on. You’re more tired, your mood has been all over, and you haven’t been eating right.” She sighs and then tries more softly, “I’d like to help you. But you need to tell me.”

“Overworking,” Mirabel says sullenly, after a beat. “With the new baby there’s a lot to do - new cloths, blankets, clothes and such. It doesn’t help that my sisters won’t tell me who’s it is. I can’t settle on colours and buying fabric is useless. I’ve fallen out of my sleep schedule because sleeping next to the nursery is not practical and I was never great at eating lunch, it’s an unnecessary meal if you ask me.”

She stares at her cousin a long moment, unblinking.

“Are you okay, Dolores? You look—”

“Primita, I know you’re pregnant.”

Mirabel straightens up immediately.

“Pardon?”

Dolores hardens her gaze, “You seriously aren’t going to me you’re pregnant?”

Mirabel blinks. “I’m not pregnant. I assure you, Dolores. I can’t be. I’ve not done… any of that stuff.” She wrinkles her nose in dramatic and somewhat childish disgust. 

“Don’t act stupid. You can’t act and you certainly aren’t stupid,” Dolores snaps. She’s getting annoyed that Mirabel can’t take this seriously. “There’s two heartbeats coming from you, primita. I can hear it. I have heard it for weeks. I didn’t want to push, but it’s getting ridiculous now.”

“There can’t be,” she shakes her head. “You must have misheard.” 

The two try staring each other down.

Dolores rolls her eyes. She’s right, she knows she is. And she’s not dealing with Mirabel’s denial or whatever else she’s doing, not over something as important as this.

She stands full height and drags Mirabel to her feet.

“Where are we going?” 

“Taking you to a midwife, so you can’t live in denial about it.”

An hour later, found them at a midwife’s office. The midwife, Adriana, must have been around the age of their mothers, maybe a little younger.

Mirabel had tried to argue that she didn’t need to be checked at all, but eventually gave in. Dolores wasn’t going to let her leave without a clear answer.

So Mirabel was laid on the bed, looking extremely uncomfortable and trying her hardest not to cry in discomfort. Yet she kept focused on Dolores, as smug as anything. And maybe, just maybe, Dolores was starting to consider the fact that she might be wrong. 

“You’re definitely pregnant,” Adriana called, finally. “Six, almost seven months, I’d reckon.”

Dolores scoffed, glancing at her cousin, who no longer looked smug, but before she could say anything Mirabel sat up.

“But I’m not. I’ve been having my period.”

“You haven’t. It may look and feel that way, but that won’t be menstrual bleeding. It is common to experience bleeding in early pregnancy.” The midwife said, firmly. “But you are definitely carrying a baby. Are you familiar with cryptic pregnancies?”

Mirabel swallowed shakily. “But I’ve… I’ve not had intercourse. I never have.”

There was a grim moment of silence.

As the midwife returns to her desk, starting to schedule things and fetching medication, Mirabel sits frozen.

“You really didn’t know?” Dolores asked, half unconvinced.

Mirabel didn’t answer. Her lip quivered, she sobbed and clung to Dolores like a lifeline.

[caplanbuckybarnes]

BrokenHearts4Caplan Challenge

**ignore the graphic, i did it in literally two minutes lol.

So it's been a little while since i hosted a challenge, and since my last one sadly flopped, i ran a poll over sometime, and an angst challenge won the poll. (don't worry, im still gonna do the other writing challenge soon!)

But on the note! here's the newest challenge for you all!

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Rules:

It’s not necessary to follow me, but it’s always appreciated.

There are no deadlines, but please keep me updated on your fics.

Tag the fic #brokenheartsforcaplan

Also tag me in the authors notes (along with the hashtag so I know which Masterlist to place the fic when I post it)

Please tag the proper warnings before the fic

Must be MCU characters only

prompts are all up for grabs. they will not be crossed out if taken

No RPFs

If you’d like to write for more than one prompt, please make them separate fics

Can be however long you’d like the fic to be. (If it’s more than 450 words PLEASE use the keep reading feature.

If I do not respond to your fic being posted in 24hours of you posting the fic, please message me a link.

Send me an ask or a DM with your prompt and the character you’re writing for.

Prompts are down below

“I can’t pretend to love you anymore.”

“Please don’t do this.”

“I loved you, with every fiber of my being. And this is how you return the love?”

“Why don’t you trust me?”

“This can’t be goodbye.”

“Don’t come back ever again.”

“First time seeing a dead body, eh?”

“Please don’t walk out.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“We were never meant to be.”

“I just wanted to be enough for you.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

“Stop saying sorry! It’s always ‘I’m sorry’. When you really aren’t!”

“Get up and fight, you coward!”

“I know you’re lying.”

“I’m so stupid to think we had something.”

“You never cared about me.”

“This isn’t working…”

“I can’t believe you thought this was real.”

“No. We can’t… we are too toxic for each other.”

“Why me..?”

“Us? There was never an ‘us’.”

“No, we can’t- we can't do this.”

“Someone might see us- stop.”

"... What else am I supposed to do?"

“Where else can I go?”

“What do you mean, you’re dying?”

“How could you do this to me?”

“You were never supposed to survive that mission!”

“Leave them; they’re mine!"

“Did you really mean that? you don’t love me?”

“If you don’t love me, prove it to me. prove to me that you’ve never felt something towards me. look at me.”

” Is this what you wanted, huh? you could just make me fall in love with you and then just- just fucking leave? do you really expect me to be okay with that?”

“I wish we had more time.”

“This isn’t the real you talking.”

"Freedom is just a concept, isn't it?"

"I'm not some toy you can play with!"

“Don’t you love me?”

“What did you expect me to say?”

“This will be the last time you lie to me.”

“How did you think this wouldn’t hurt me?”

“I hope you're happier.”

“At least you got what you wanted.”

“I was miserable, and I still loved you.”

“Stop pretending. You wanted me like this… You wanted me broken and you got what you wanted.”

“You don’t own me.”

“I was nothing to you. I was only a toy for you to manipulate and I fell for it.”

“I spent so much time hoping you’d come back to me.”

"You mean nothing to me."

“If I leave, you will never see me again.”

“Don’t – Don’t make me fall in love again.”

“No, please, I don't want to die!”

“Why can’t you be happy for me for once?”

“We shouldn’t be together anymore. I’m supposed to hate you.”

“Why would you do this to us?”

“How could I be so oblivious.”

“Why did I even think I could be enough for you?”

“I needed to hold you once more.”

“I don’t understand... Wha- what are you saying...”

“I don’t want to say something I’ll regret later.”

“Haha! You think I love you? That’s pathetic.”

“What the fuck do you mean, you killed him?”

“You don’t get to leave and then come back after all this time and expect me to welcome you with open arms.”