#I need to start reading ch7

[drkstxr]

good boys

[exhaslo]

Over-Time Ch9

(CEO!Miguel x Shy/Clumsy!Reader)

Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4,Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8

Warning: MINORS DNI, sexual thoughts, smut, slow-burn, mentions of sex, bullying, cussing, fluff, touch starved, grinding

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You did it.

Exhausted and a little burnt out, but none the less, you did it.

It was the night of the Fall Banquet and you were currently finishing with your dress. You had wanted to arrive earlier to make sure everything was fine, but Miguel insisted otherwise. Which thank god because you needed the extra sleep.

As you worked on your hair, you could hear your door bell ring. It was far too early for Miguel to be here. Perhaps it was your landlord? As you went to the door, to your surprise, it was Miguel.

"Ah! M-Miguel, it's early. I'll hurry-"

"No need. I just wished to have you a little to myself before we face the wolves," He said with a light chuckle as he shut the door behind him, "What a cute little place you have."

"Thank you and sorry for the mess. I didn't expect you so early!" You whined, trying to pick up some stuff you had scattered on your table.

"Please, it's fine. I did spook you," Miguel hummed, eyeing you in the dress, "I can't wait for everyone to see you that you're mine."

"Hm? Oh, would you like a drink?" You asked, not hearing his whisper.

"I'm fine, thank you."

You just smiled and told Miguel that you were going to finish up. All you had left was your hair and make up. As you returned to your room, you tried to get ahold of yourself. This was the first time a man has ever entered your apartment.

Especially since that man was your sexy boss, to whom you have strong feelings for. Glancing at Miguel through you mirror, you watched as the tall man examined your old photos.

"Hair done!" You nearly stuttered, hurrying with your make-up.

Upon hearing a chuckle, you glanced into the mirror and saw Miguel stand behind you.

"No need to rush, mi amor (my love)." Miguel hummed lowly as he pulled the clips that were still dangling in your hair,

"Oops,"

"Take your time," Miguel whispered into your ear as he kissed your shoulder, making eye contact with you through the mirror, "Why do you look so exhausted? I haven't done anything to you yet,"

Your cheeks started to burn up, "I-I....I stayed up late to memorize important people for the party...I...I don't want to look like a fool like I did with you."

"Awe," Miguel smiled as he faced you towards him, "You never looked like a fool to me."

Your breathing shuddered as Miguel spoke sweetly to you. Unable to stop yourself, you leaned towards Miguel, wanting to kiss him...and as if he read your mind.

"Mphm!"

Miguel held your messy head as his lips made contact with yours. Your body being pressed into your small chair as Miguel hovered over you. His tongue licking your lips with every chance he got, demanding entrance.

Unable to deny him, you parted your lips and gasped as Miguel explored your mouth. You grabbed onto his jacket, leaning into him as Miguel made quick work of you.

His other hand roamed your body before picking you up. Caught off guard by the gesture, you gripped onto him even tighter before feeling the bed under you.

"Mhm~" You tried to get some air.

Breaking the kiss, Miguel just chuckled as he looked down at you. His body pressed against yours.

"How lovely,"

---------

Miguel was in awe over you. He wasn't able to resist your temptation and devour your mouth in a passionate kiss. As he placed you on the bed, his attention was focused towards your shy and needy expression.

"How lovely," He whispered.

Leaning back down to capture your lips in another kiss, Miguel withheld a grunt as he slowly grinded into you. Your legs were spread open as his body quickly filled the space, wanting to feel as much of you as possible.

Your body being pressed against his felt so right. Honestly, Miguel just felt so touch starved. He needed to feel more of you. As his tongue ravished your mouth, his hands kept roaming your body. His hips softly grinding into yours, listening to your cute little moans.

This was hot.

Miguel could feel his erection rising as he kept feeling your body. You were trembling. Miguel never felt this good. Breaking the kiss once more, watching your face turn red. It was hot as you tried to catch your breathe.

"Miguel," You whispered.

Miguel groaned as he pulled away from you. His eyes wandering your body. Drinking in the view he had of you laid against the bed. Your hair a mess and your panties soaked.

"Aye, if only we didn't have to go to this party."

--------

Your body was burning up as Miguel stood before you. Grabbing Miguel's hand as he helped you up, you were still trying to catch your breathe.

"Sorry, amor, I got ahead of myself. Let me help with your hair," He offered.

Easily accepting his offer, you returned to your seat still feeling dazed. You also needed to change your panties now. Finally calming down, you glanced at Miguel in the mirror. His hands fixing your hair as if he did nothing.

"I know what you're thinking," Miguel started as he fixed your hair, "I think you shouldn't wear any underwear," He whispered against your ear.

Your face turned bright red as you tried to cover your face. Miguel chuckled in response, finishing your hair and facing you.

"I'll give you a reward for being a good girl for me,"

Oh, those words made you melt.

"I'm...clumsy, Miguel. W-What if I fall and everyone sees?"

"Then I'll catch you. The only one who is allowed to see those lips are me," He smirked, kissing you against as his fingers stroked your clit, causing you to flinch.

"Mig-"

"I'll behave. Put your make-up on and we will go. I promise to try and keep my hands to myself as much as possible."

You knew damn well that was a lie.

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Next Chapter

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[patroxlos]

home base . ch7

"friends who use their phones in bed" - 5.4k words

ultraman: rising (2024). kenji sato x reader

can be read as a stand-alone. However, if you want to read their first kiss, you may do so for added context.

master post. ao3 link.

previous: ch6. "friends who are stuck together"

next: ch7. "friends who are for the people"

cw: EXPLICIT. First time fellatio. frottage.

Two weeks after your first kiss, you and Kenji get more comfortable with your new dynamic as friends with benefits.

And even in the heat of things, you still find something to argue about.

---

Los Angeles, Ten Years Ago.

“Any plans for tomorrow?”

You look up from your dinner as your Auntie Emiko asked. She sits across you at the dining table where you sat beside Ken. “Hm…I think we might stay in again for the day. Right, Ken?”

Ken is in the middle of shoveling some more grilled salmon into his mouth when you redirect the attention to him, and he nods in agreement, his voice muffled. His mom and you have matching looks of disgust on your face as he tries to speak with his mouth full.

“…yeah. It is stay-in day tomorrow,” you confirm.

Emiko looks puzzled. “But Kenji doesn’t have practice tomorrow. Don’t you guys want to head out to the city?”

“We don’t really know what else to see,” you say a lame excuse. In response, she curiously looks at you then at Ken, who finally swallows his food.

“You both rarely leave your room lately when last month you were bouncing to explore the whole state.”

“Training really tires me out,” Ken smoothly responds, rolling his neck from side to side in an exaggerated stretch. “Leaves me with no energy to want to do anything else. After a week on the field all I want to do is lie back.”

She pauses momentarily as she looks at her son, and you force yourself to maintain a calm demeanor. Is she onto us? “Maybe…when you have your days in, you can leave the door unlocked and open?”

Before Ken can protest, you subtly step on his foot to tell him, Don’t complain.

“Is this because you feel lonely, Auntie?” You ask sweetly. Emiko looks a bit taken aback by your question. “I understand it might feel like you’re all alone in the house when Kenji and I are holed up just playing video games together.”

“I…I guess it does…” She let her guard down slightly around you. She can expect Kenji to pull something, but you? The daughter she never had?

“How about tomorrow morning we head to brunch? Just the two of us! We can even schedule a last minute appointment to the salon,” you spun the dream mother-daughter bonding day. “We’ll be back in time for Kenji to wake up at noon.”

“Hey I don’t wake up—”

“Of course we can spend the morning together.” Your auntie places her hand over her heart, touched. All business with the door and how they spend their time completely forgotten.

She does not need to know what you and Ken do in your spare time nowadays.

And with the door locked for the evening, she definitely does not need to know how the sweet little girl she is so fond of has her head in-between her son’s legs.

“What was that earlier?” Ken asks, breathless. He sat up by his arms as he looks down at you, tracing with his gaze the path your lips followed, edging closer to the front of his boxers. You left the lights on, and it reflects off your trail of saliva on his inner thighs.

You don’t respond immediately, busying yourself with the soft, flexible skin good enough to bite. You expect everything about him to be taut and firm, an athlete to his core. It’s cute that he can get so pliable when your touch melts him like so. You anchor your palms at the back of his legs to hold him open as you continue to tease his thighs.

You hear your name tumble out of his mouth when your tongue swipes a fat line at his growing bulge, against the salty wet spot of his boxers, his muscles tensing under your hold. “You really want to talk about your mom right now?”

“I…I— oh…” He can’t think straight when you start nuzzling your face against his swelling size. “Shit—”

You continue to lick him through the fabric, his musk filling your senses. You try not to giggle when you feel him twitching eagerly against your tongue. You lift your head to give a small kiss once more to his thigh. “Mind taking it off?”

You’re still fully clothed, in your sleep shirt and shorts, compared to him. Shakily, he pushes himself to sit up properly. His hands reach for the elastic band of his boxers, trying his best not to look too eager when you help him tug it off his legs. Without the fabric keeping it down, his dick jumps to attention, long with a slight curve towards his right.

“Take it slow…” he encourages you, his voice a little breathless as you lower your head closer to his wet tip. He deeply inhales when you clasp your left hand around his base. His eyes screw shut, the anticipation making his toes curl.

A pleasant prickle crawls up his spine when he feels your warm, moist breath hit the head of his cock.

Your hand slides up along his thick vein, following his natural curve.

And as soon as it started, he feels a draft of cool air down below when you move away.

“Wait.” You back up and reach for your phone nearby on the mattress. “What’s the next step again?”

Ken freezes, and opens his eyes.

You’re busy tapping out your lockscreen passcode.

Ken flops backwards to the bed, his palms covering his face in frustration. “Oh, fuck me—”

“I’m getting there,” you snap as you scroll through your digital notes.

He groans impatiently, his erection growing painful as it stands proud in the air. His legs are still spread wide. “Just put your mouth on it, I said I’ll teach you.”

“And I said to wait.” You crawl back between his legs but your gaze doesn’t lift from your phone. “Maybe you should sit at the edge of the bed and I’ll kneel down? Or maybe sideways in case you want to finger me while we—”

“The current position is fine…” He tries to sit back up but you push him down with a hand on his chest.

You begin to mutter to yourself, running through the steps you have written down. “Mmm… warmed you up, yeah…consent?” You look up from your phone to Ken expectantly.

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, you did have my consent,” He hisses.

“Okay…hm…take of your shirt, kiss down your chest, tease your inner thighs…leave a few marks?” You glance down, at his legs. “Haha, yeah, nice—”

“Are you done? Because I’m growing soft here.”

“Hey, keep it hard, I’m doing my best,” you whine.

“Well all this talk isn’t helping.” He swats your hand away and successfully sits up, his elbows resting on his knees as you still sat in between his legs.

You roll your eyes and put down your phone to remove your shirt, exposing a modest bra. “There, have something to look at.”

“Can you at least take off your—” He does not finish the sentence as you throw the bra at his face. Grumbling some more, he tosses it to the side.

Normally, fooling around with you isn’t so clinical. Ever since your first kiss by the pool almost two weeks ago, it’s hard to remember a time when his hands aren’t on you. Your normal trips around town are now defined by rough makeouts in alleyways and end in hurried handjobs at the backseat of his jeep when you cannot wait to get back home. Your touch is an aphrodisiac at this point, and he fears he may overdose. Maybe you should have had separate rooms, because he is starting to feel the recklessness of his libido.

Because when you asked him the previous night if he could help you learn how to give a blowjob, he nearly skips training earlier today in anticipation for what is to come.

Apparently, no one is going to come at all now with how Type A you are with something as instinctual as oral sex.

Normally he will find it cute how your nervousness can translate to overpreparing. However, he needs to figure out how to turn your brain off.

“Okay, look…” He reaches forward to touch your bare shoulder. You hesitantly rest your phone on your lap as you hear him out. “How about you lie down and I eat you out? How about that?”

“No,” you reject him immediately, like how you rejected him the dozen other times he asked, offered and even begged. “I want to do you first.”

Even if you’re both equally stubborn, Ken still tries to be patient with you. Slowly, he shifts closer, pressing himself against you as he begins to rub your arm. “But, princess, how are you going to know whether a guy is doing it right if you won’t let me go down on you?”

“I don’t think this arrangement allows for pet names,” you huff, and he rolls his eyes. “Besides, I don’t get why you want to that much.”

“Baby,” he sees your eyes twitch, “it’s because you taste good.”

You slap his knee, flushing from the obscene compliment, but you can’t say anything back.

Taking it as a good sign, he lets his hand drift a bit lower to your waist, giving you a light massage. You let out a deep sigh, and you lean forward to give him a kiss, reaching forward to clasp around his girth. Your other hand loosens its grip on your phone, and it falls off your lap and onto the ruffled navy bed covers. 

He groans into your mouth deliciously with every shallow pump. Your lips are gentle, yet deliberate, and he marvels at just how good you move against him when you were a stammering amateur weeks ago.

You pull away, slowly, yet your hand still loosely holds him. Your thumb lightly swipes the slit of his head and his mouth falls open.

“You always make me feel good,” you murmur. “I want to make you feel it too. Wanna prove to you that I deserve it. You teach me so much so I want to show off what I now know.”

“God you’re so stupid.” He laughs without malice. “You don’t have to blow me to prove anything. I already told you that if the guy likes you enough it’ll always feel good.”

“You don’t like me that way though,” you point out. “So I need to prove my skills.”

“What skills?” He makes a face. “You can’t automatically expect yourself to be the blowjob expert on your first time. Just feel it out and avoid showing teeth. It isn’t something you can just practice—“

You turn away.

“…you practiced?”

“…I wanted to impress you?” You fiddle with your phone. “I studied really hard and tried to apply what I learned—“

“Woah woah, did you— did you, with other guys—“

“No! No, I never…I practiced in other ways.”

Neither of you understand why his body sags with so much relief when you say that, or why it mattered if you did anyway.

Still, he needs to pry. “So…how?”

“God I’m not telling you, you pervert.”

“Your hand is on my dick.”

You smear said hand against his face, his pre-cum wiped against his nose. He laughs and grabs your wrist with his left to keep your hand there.

“What are you doing?” You tug to get your hand back but he keeps it right in front of him.

“Just look at me.” His exhale tickles your fingertips.

And without breaking eye contact, his mouth opens a bit more, then closes softly over your index and middle fingers.

“K-Kenji?”

He responds with a gentle suckle, his lips passing your second knuckle. You feel the rough texture of his tongue run over your fingertips, pressing flat against its pads. A soft whimper leaves you, as a familiar heat unfurls from deep within. He notices the way your legs unconsciously shift closer, seeking pressure to alleviate your spreading itch. He chuckles, and the vibrations run through your body and settle just below your navel.

The entire time he continues to watch you, catching every quiver of your lip and twitch of your brow. He’s let go of your wrist at this point, yet you hardly notice, your eyes fixated on how your fingers disappear into his mouth.

You only break from your stupor when he scrapes you with his teeth.

“Ah— Kenji!” You flinch, and he chuckles as you take your fingers out his mouth.

“And that’s what I mean by no teeth, except it’ll be ten times worse down there.”

You cradle your hand to your bare chest, then slowly nod in understanding. “Okay…I see…”

“Did it feel good?” He smiles wider when you glare back. “Don’t be shy, baby, tell me.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sweetheart.”

He lives to make life harder for you. You push down your pride. “Yes, Ken, it did.”

“How good?”

“Don’t.”

He grabs your waist to pull you onto his lap, and you hardly resist. Your legs fold beneath you as his own straightens out. You stabilize yourself on his shoulders, and as you properly sat onto him, you feel his dick wedged between your abdomens. You can feel him throb against your clit, only separated by two thin layers of fabric.

His head dips down to the top of your breasts, his hair tickling your nose as he begins to lightly kiss the start of your cleavage. He stretches the band of your shorts before snapping it back against your hips. “You’re overly dressed.”

“H-Hngh… can’t take it off tonight until— ah, shit—let me taste you.” Your stubbornness will be the death of you.

“Dumb rule,” he sasses back, before he cups your right breast to push it upwards to his mouth.

You nearly cry out, the hot wet sensation on your nipple and the soft massage of your breasts are a dangerous combination. You rock your hips forward on his lap, greedy for more. His teeth grazes your nipple in response, hissing harshly when he feels the underside of his cock scratch pleasantly against your shorts.

Your head is thrown back, and your eyes are tightly closed. His hair brushes against your chin as his tongue makes its way to your left breast. He smiles against your soft flesh, rolling your hard bud around in his mouth. “Shit, you’re getting close from this?”

You sharply tug his hair, pulling him off your chest, too embarrassed to admit that you are. Yet, instead of the annoyed grunt you expected, the pain on his scalp causes Ken to let out a strangled moan. Oh, you are stunned, he’s freakier than you thought.

He grins, bringing his left hand up to cup your face. You rest your cheek in his palm and your lips part, sighing at his foolishness. He rests his thumb on your bottom lip, coaxing you to open up further. “Your turn.”

“Hm?” You hum against his touch.

“Show me.”

Maintaining eye contact as he had done, you gently kiss the tip of his thumb, until you take it whole into your mouth.

“Oh fuck…”

His right hand grasps your hips to guide you into a rocking motion on his lap. You pant as you grind against him, the head of his cock tapping against your belly button. He presses down on your tongue, as you lean more into his palm for support. As your panting slows, you begin to suck lewdly on his thumb to stop yourself from being too loud.

You are close. Shit.

And he can tell from your sloppy pace as you grind against him without any real rhythm, to the fucked out look in your eyes. The only goal bouncing in your empty brain is release.

“Can’t even talk?” He teases. His balls feel heavy and painful as you suck his thumb, and he aches to feel your mouth elsewhere. “Open wider, princess.”

Your eyes narrow slightly, showing you’re not as out of it as he expected you to be, but still you comply. His thumb slides out, replaced by his index and middle finger. Your eyes flutter closed, puckering your lips to take more of him in. You gag as his fingers nearly brush the back of your tongue, and the sound shoots straight to his dick. You haven’t even fit it fully in your mouth yet.

 “Fuck…god you’re so hot. You’re also so, so stupid.”

You let out a garbled protest, still every bit of the fighter you are, yet he pushes his fingers deeper into your mouth until your front teeth nearly scrapes against the base knuckles. Your chest heaves at the sudden intrusion, yet you clench your thighs at the sides of his lap.

“Do you think I’d do this for just anyone?” He interrogates you, fully knowing you can’t respond. “You’re so smart, baby, but god can you be so fucking clueless.”

The other hand on your hips slides towards your shorts and dips low over your clit, rubbing circles over the fabric as you reach your high. Ken’s ego swells as you suck his fingers harder, your senses going overdrive from the pleasure.

“You’re getting off to this?”

His fingers are spat out of your mouth when you fall forward to rest your forehead on his shoulder, trembling from his touch. “Fuck you, Sato. Fuck you fuck you—“

“That’s it, ride it out…” He coos, kissing the side of your head as he slips his hand into your shorts to directly stroke you through your orgasm. He lightly pinches your bud. His other hand pats your hair soothingly. “You can bite, I don’t mind.”

You sob as your teeth bluntly sinks into his shoulder, and he groans from the pain and the dampness that coats his fingers. His dick weeps against your stomach from neglect.

You raise your head as he cleans his fingers with his mouth, groaning at your taste. “Oh god—” he curses even if this is far from the first time he has had a sample of you.

“Don’t…be dramatic,” your words are slightly slurred as you calm down from your high.

He kisses you in response, his neediness spilling out and his grip digging into your waist. He swallows your gasp as he guides you down to the mattress, caging you down with his body. “Please…” He murmurs against your lips when his thumbs hook on the band of your shorts.

He begins to pull it down by an inch.

You roughly push him away by his shoulders, appalled. “Motherfucker, you’ve been trying to distract me.”

“And I was so close too,” he grumbles when you catch him, and he tries to lean back in but you hold him at arm's length, your hands splayed against his defined pectorals. “You get all ditzy when you’re in it.”

“No.”

“Fuck, please just a little taste…” He lifts one hand from your shorts to cup your mound, your wetness having seeped through the cotton. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

You kick him lightly on the shin in response, and he rolls his eyes. You push him off of you, and he does not resist, but he still pulls you close to his side as you sit up on the bed. His hand tries to dip once more into your shorts but you stop it just as it tries to pass your navel. “I just came.”

“That’s even better.”

You shove him back down onto the bed, trying to resume your position from the start of the night. His dick blooms an angry red now, frustrated from being ignored for so long. “That looks like it hurts,” you comment as you settle in between his legs again.

“It does,” he confirms, pushing himself up by his arms as he lays bare, all for you.

You have always been intimidated by his length, and every time you hold it you worry at the back of your mind just how on earth it would even fit if you two ever cross that point. Of course you’ve never told Ken— he doesn’t need to know you’ve deeply thought about how he might feel inside you, or how the curve of his dick may pulse against your walls.

“Are you just going to stare at it?” He snaps you out of your thoughts. Ken tilts his head to the side, a bored look on his face.

Flustered, you shake your head immediately. “I-I just need a moment to…”

“You know, there’s a way to ease your nerves.”

“Really? What is it?”

“So the first step involves my tongue against your—“

“Ken. I’ll smother you in your sleep.”

“You know how many girls would kill for their boyfriends to go down on them?” He continues.

“Well you’re not my boyfriend.”

“Exactly, because boyfriends don’t go down on you. And with your type for guys I definitely don’t think any of them would be as generous as me right now,” he says as if it is fact. He’s conceited, but wouldn’t you also be if you were in his position?

Think about it. No one else can give you as good of a first time as he can, because no one knows you like he does. He pities you, really. Because no other guy would be as patient and careful as he is with you. They won’t take the time to hold you the way he does, to feel for what you like and push your comfort zone. No, all other boys just care about getting their dick wet, and they won’t even look half as good as him. You’re too pretty to settle for anyone less than himself. Six foot and still growing. A wide chest, slim waist. And he knows you know he’s a lot bigger than average. He has visible abs for god’s sake, does that mean nothing to you? It’s terrible but he is such a good, giving best friend. He could’ve left you alone to kiss mediocre boys and eventually marry a mediocre man, most likely someone your parents picked out for you. And you’ll never know the touch of what you deserve. He’s doing this for you. So at least when you go on to pursue whoever can give you that mediocre love, you’ll always know there’s someone better out there. It’s cruel to curse you to a perpetual state of wanting, but he can’t help it. You deserve the world, and you need to feel what it’s like to have it all, even if you may never find what you had with him ever again in someone else.

And Ken wishes he can say all that to you, but he knows you’ll just bash him on the head for even implying that you can’t get any better than him. Except he won’t even be implying. You just don’t get it— he can’t imagine anyone being good enough for you.

Unaware of his internal monologue, you search around for your phone. “Okay, but let me run through my notes again—”

You reach for it when you spot it close to his foot, but he reaches for it faster. He grabs your phone and flings it towards the sofa.

“Ken what the hell—”

He pulls you back between his legs, stopping you from chasing after it. “Don’t.”

“You could’ve broke my screen!” You nearly shout even if your phone is safe amongst the sofa pillows.

“I’m a varsity baseball player. You think I don’t know how to aim?”

“I can’t believe you—”

“Do you want to suck my dick or not?”

“I do!” You say weakly. You really do.

“Then you need to get it in your head that you’re being an idiot.”

You try to slap him but he grabs your wrist.

“Not every guy is blessed to have a pretty girl willing to even touch them, and if it’s you? You’re practically doing charity. All you have to do is bat your eyes and drool a bit and they’ll come before your lips even touch the tip.”

You’re…oddly reassured.

“Sweetheart,” he continues, sarcastic. “Why do you think we’ve been messing around this entire time?”

You’re confused, but answer anyway. “Because you’re helping me learn how to—”

“Wrong.” He cuts you off. “We don’t have to makeout all the time to teach you how to do it.”

You think for a moment. “Practice?”

“We cuddle.”

“Okay, that doesn’t mean anything—”

“Exactly. It doesn’t mean anything. So why are you trying to tackle this like I’m grading you?” He gets you there.

You actually don’t know what there is to be nervous about. And why are you giving him the satisfaction that he does make you nervous?

“Listen, we’re not dating, and I’m mature enough to admit that this ‘teach ‘me’ thing is just an excuse. You like this. I like this. We’re friends who make each other feel good and there’s nothing weird about it.”

His grip loosens on your wrist, but holds it just the same.

Your shoulders slump, realization sinking in. Kenji is right.

He presses your hand onto his chest, and gently, he drags it downwards. You swallow, still scared, but you let him take charge. “I’ll talk you through it,” he murmurs. “So don’t think.”

You feel him purposely brush your fingers against his toned core, just to let you feel how deep the ridges are. You snort, and give him a look to say ‘really?’ Arrogant prick. Show-off.

He ignores you, and soon, he guides your hands to touch the pulsing base of his cock. “Gently,” he whispers, “It hurts a bit now, since all your stalling gave me blue balls.”

“That’s not a real thing,” you scoff, but you soon lower yourself down with your face a few inches from his tip.

“I thought I’m the one teaching you. Your only job right now is to listen.”

“Did you shave?” You giggle, not listening at all as your other hand gently cups his balls. You feel his freshly-shaven stubble.

He hisses at your touch, and nearly bucks into your face, but he steels himself with his waning self-control. “Shut up. I thought it’ll make you more comfortable.”

“Is that why you were nearly late to practice today? I thought you just needed an extra long shower after what we did this morning.” You give him shallow strokes down his length, light enough to ease the blood pressure that built up inside.

“Just…if you want to tease a guy…try licking around at the base first,” He changes the subject, entering his teaching mode.

“Hm…” You nod in understanding, ducking your head down lower just for him and slowing the shallow pumps of your hand.

Tentatively, you lick the bottom of his base, tasting the salty tartness of his sweat. You close your eyes to gather a sense of courage, and soon, you let go of your shame and carefully begin to give him long, broad strokes highlighted by the roughness of your tongue.

You hear a strangled noise from above but you paid him no mind, getting lost in his flavor. The masculine musk clouds your judgment and you bump your nose against his pubic bone. With one hand still cupping him, you brought your lips down towards his balls, planting an open-mouthed kiss on them before carefully putting them in your mouth to suck.

You felt him jolt beneath you, your name ringing out to the room. “Oh, fuck—“

His fingers brush against your cheekbone when he rushes to grip his legs. His nails dig into his skin while you remain oblivious to his waning self-control. Because who taught you that? Not him.

His mouth is locked open. His chest rises and falls as he tries to maintain a semblance of sanity. Ken is so pent up right now, he’s worried he won’t be able to hold himself back from releasing prematurely.

But here you are— dick resting on half of your face, as if measuring your head against it, with your mouth on his balls and your sultry eyes lazily blinking open.

You whine when he hastily pushes your face off of him, and his dick twitches from the sound.

“Don’t look at me like that,” his voice is hoarse.

“Was it bad?” You ask, confused as to why he suddenly made you stop.

“I-It’s okay. It was good.” He’s going to blow any minute now. “I…I need you to take it slow.”

“Okay,” you nod, leaning back down.

“You can, uh, kiss up the shaft from the base,” he struggles to remember how to talk. “Then when you get to the tip—“

You push your head close to his crotch before he can say anything more, and he nearly keens when your longue laps at his protruding vein, following it up to his tip. Your head is spinning, eager to please and to draw out even more sounds from his throat.

You let a puff of hot air hit his angry head. You look up for assurance.

His cheeks are dusted with a light pink, eyes unfocused, but he still manages a weak nod. “Yeah…yeah, just spit on it.”

You gather your saliva in your mouth, and let it dribble on his cock. He curses, louder, and you’re glad that the Satos are rich enough to afford thick walls.

Because when your lips finally envelope his head he loses his filter.

“Shiiit….Baby that’s it, just take it—ah— take it slow… Remember to breathe through your nose, yeah? Yeah— oh fuck babe…”

You struggle to pay attention to his words, but you slacken your jaw to accommodate his size and try to breathe as he said. You are getting dizzy from how full your mouth is. You rub your own thighs together, your brain swimming with the thought of this inside you, and you clench over nothing.

Mindful of your teeth, you try to move a bit further down, greedy to see how much more you can accommodate. He notices, and immediately his hands reach for the sides of your head to stop you. “D-don’t push it…” he slurs. “You’ll choke.”

Your eyelashes flutter, and you feel tears forming at the corners of your eyes. You don’t mind that at all.

Still, you’re realistic with yourself. You can’t make it to half of his length without gagging, and you feel him twitch in your mouth when you do. He likes it when you’re noisy.

You grab his hips to hold him down, aware of how he’s struggling not to buck up into your mouth and fuck your face. His fingers massage your scalp as a thank you for the added leverage.

“Does your jaw hurt, princess?” He reaches for the hinges of your jaw. His thumbs press down and lightly massaging your face. “Fuck— I can tell by that dumb, pretty look on your face that your brain s’all empty.”

You hollow out your cheeks, and your tears fall as you bob your head up and down dutifully. He wipes your tears as they slide down your cheek, cooing about how cute you look.

“You’re so good to me.” He brushes your hair out of your eyes. “You like sucking dick this much, huh, girl? — Oh god, that’s it. Drool some more for me sweetie… You’re a natural. Wouldn’t have guessed from how much you hate shutting up.”

You let your bottom teeth poke out slightly, and he pulls your hair as a warning. “Hey, ah-ah, behave.”

Your tongue is placed flat against the bottom of his cock, warm against his pulse. He lets out a relieved sigh, patting your cheek condescendingly. He can’t help but want to be a little mean to you. “See, baby? Don’t even need me to tell ya what to do. You lying about being shy? Only wanted to hear me say how much I like you?”

It’s so embarrassing how much you needed him to say more.

His grunts grow staggered, and his breathing picks up. He tugs harder on your hair as he gets closer to his release. The burn on your scalp feels so good when you’re deprived of oxygen.

“I-I’m…gonna…” He tries to properly warn you. “Don’t swallow. You’re not ready.”

He tries to pull your head off of him but you’re stubborn, sucking down even harder. You hate it when he tells you not to do something.

He curses out your name. “Fuck, I’m being serious, don’t—”

You flinch at the hot release that hits the back of your throat, and you sputter around his cock as the amount quickly overwhelms you. It leaks out the corners, dripping down his length and onto the sheets.

He wishes he can take a picture of your fucked out, tear-stained face. You look up, his cum still on your lips when you take your mouth off him. “That good?”

God, you’ll be the death of him.

A/N: hi i hope this wasnt awkward it's my first time publishing anything explicit fsdihodfs.

this was about to be a 15k word chapter with three acts: bedroom, gas station, first time— they all take place one after the other. the chapter wouldve been called "friends who run a marathon" bc it was just marathon sex lmao i wanted to convey that the two kind of fall into this hedonistic routine That is Actually Kind of Bad for them! still...15k words of you two fooling around like who wants to read that in one go (i did. i rlly did. i rlly didnt wanna split this chapter but it narratively makes sense fsdiohdfs)

i was starting to feel bad about how long it will take me to update if i stuck w the original plan so I decided to split the chapter into two and reserve the gas station and first time for chapter 9! next chapter we will go back to the main timeline. i dont want to write them too much in their teen years bc they are a lot crazier when theyre young adults, which is why i wanted to cram it all in one long chapter.

[perotovar]

into the beat of the night (interlude) "skin"

pairing: frankie morales/oc!river price (they/them) rating: E (18+) content: talks about top surgery, river is afab and nonbinary, pwp, unprotected p in v, multiple orgasms (referenced), overstimulation, nipple play, dom!frankie, sub!river, praise kink, takes place sometime after ch7, could be read as standalone as long as you know that this is frankie's first relationship with a nonbinary person. i promise river will get to dom tf out of frankie next time lol word count: 1k dividers by @saradika-graphics beta: @scenaaario

a/n: written for @romanarose 's pride event, for the prompt: "transitioning". thank you so much for reading! ♥

series masterlist

for future updates, follow @oakslibrary and turn on notifications~

“Frankie, I’m–!”

“I know, amorcito,” Frankie grinned, panting into River’s ear. His lips latched onto their shoulder and sucked hard, hips hammering into them. “Another.”

River panted underneath him, face twisted in pleasure and flushed a deep red color. They gripped the sheets in tight fists and their face was buried into the pillow. Drool, sweat, and bite marks covered the soft material. “I–I can’t,” they whined.

“Do you need to stop?” Frankie breathed, slowing down the speed of his hips, but not letting up on the intensity.

“N-no! Please, keep going,” River groaned weakly. They turned their head to look back at him, eyes glazed over and pupils dilated. 

Frankie’s face softened a little as he looked them over. Their long, inky black hair was stuck to their sweaty skin, covering them like a blanket. Those big green eyes of theirs were pleading with him to let them come. 

He gripped their hips, large hands feeling more powerful than they usually did when his thumbs dug into the dips and dimples there. He turned their body onto their side and lifted one of River’s legs to rest on his shoulder. Each of his knees were planted on either side of one of their other thigh.

Frankie slowly eased back inside of them, the stretch making River moan openly. “Good,” he praised, the hand not holding their leg in place pressed to their stomach comfortingly. “Taking me so well, baby.”

River bit their lip and watched his face closely, their eyebrows turned downward in pleasure and pleading. Frankie started picking up the pace again, the obscene wet suck of River’s pussy pulling him in further and echoing in their ears. “Oh, fuck,” River whined, head lolling back into the pillow. They panted hard, their chest heaving rhythmically with each of Frankie’s deep thrusts.

From this angle, Frankie could see everything; their damp skin, the way River’s lips trembled, and the way their tattoos glistened in the low light of his bedroom. His eyes dragged over the defined muscles of their thighs and trim waist, then landed on the distinct scars on their chest. 

“Play with your nipples for me,” Frankie breathed, hips bucking into theirs. He looked down and watched as his cock fucked into them, the sight of River’s slick covering his cock giving him chills down his spine.

River obeyed, tweaking their nipples as the heat built in their core. “F-Frankie, I’m gonna fucking come,” they whined. 

“Do it. Come for me,” grunted Frankie, planting one foot on the mattress to drive into them harder.

River let out an obscene noise before stilling as they came, their hips bucking with the waves of their high. 

“Good, Río,” Frankie panted, and leaned over to kiss them deeply as they shook with the aftershocks. “So fucking good,” he groaned into their mouth, the lewd plap plap plap of their hips sending him over the edge with them. He bit and tugged on their bottom lip as thick ropes of come covered the walls inside them. 

River hummed and purred like a happy cat at the warmth and sticky feeling between them. They brought their leg down and curled it around Frankie’s waist, their arms doing the same at his neck. “C’mere,” River breathed, kissing him languidly and tangling their fingers in his damp curls.

Frankie got comfortable and laid on top of them, softening cock still inside them snugly. Their kisses were lazy, but deep, and lasted for a long time. River always got especially clingy and affectionate after sex, and Frankie was hardly going to complain.

Eventually, they came up for air, and looked at each other. River snorted at his hair sticking up in all directions and pecked his cheek. “I gotta pee so bad,” they groaned. Frankie laughed and slowly pulled out, watching as his come dripped out of them. He smirked at the sight, thumb rubbing at River’s inner thigh.

After River went to the bathroom and Frankie removed the dirty sheets, they got comfy under the covers and cuddled close. Frankie looked down at their head, hair now pulled back into a loose braid. “I’ve got a question for you, Riv,” he said softly.

“Anything,” River smiled, kissing his pec before looking up at him. 

“How bad was it?” 

River raised a brow and frowned. “How bad was what?”

“Your… When you got top surgery.”

River blinked, but smiled softly. “Where did that come from?” They chuckled.

Frankie blushed, his eyes going wide. “W-well, I was just curious! When we– While I was on top of you, well. I looked at the scars, and I just sort of wondered.”

River laughed quietly and cupped his face. “Do you wanna know the whole process, or…?”

Frankie shrugged. “Only if you wanted to tell me.”

River hummed, exhaling a heavy breath as they thought about it. “Well, the healing process sort of sucked. I slept like shit.”

Frankie frowned, concerned.

“I’m fine now,” they rolled their eyes playfully, poking him in the nipple. “But my left nipple still isn’t as sensitive as it used to be.”

Frankie looked down at their left nipple and tweaked it teasingly. River giggled, and covered it protectively. “Hey!” 

He grinned and gave them a kiss on their shoulder. “Go on,” he chuckled.

“But yeah,” River continued. “I had a really good friend come with me and we both cried afterwards. It felt… right. I think I even told him that I was always meant to look that way.”

Frankie’s eyes rounded softly. “Oh, Río,” he smiled. “I’m sad I wasn’t there.”

“Me too,” River nodded. “But you’re here now. And now I don’t even remember what it felt like to have breasts.”

He hummed thoughtfully, nodding. “I love you, River,” he said softly, cupping their face and rubbing his thumb on their cheekbone.

“And I love you,” River grinned, kissing him deeply. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“Wondering. Accepting me,” they shrugged, looking at a freckle on his chest.

“Of course,” Frankie said seriously, making them look back up at him. Deep brown eyes bore into green, and it made River’s breath catch. “Always.”

And River believed him when he said it, too.

[maskedemerald]

Weaving Webs CH7

Here is chapter seven of my Invisobang fic and the last one of the week! We are now half way through the fic but I need a little time to tidy up the other chapters because of IRL chaos so after this I'll be only posting one next week while catch up.

The wonderful @pricklenettle did some fantastic art that you'll see embedded through out the fic! If I had to pick I would say that this chapter has my favourite art but that is mostly because I was just so excited to see a certain gremlin Danny that shows up at the chapter's end!

You can check out the fic here or on AO3!

If you like this consider dropping us both a follow!

Warnings: Body horror, manipulation, Spectra is her own content warning, Burns, Spider - for like 2 chapters then it goes away.

The Fenton parents were there when the accident happened, they saw Danny die in an act of sabotage. Now they’re just trying to go on with the strange ghost that is all that's left of Danny. While their old college friend is wondering where the subjects of his revenge are.

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Chapter Seven

Maddie leant against Jack on the sofa, the week had left her drained from all the stress on top of the grief. She watched him stitch, the needle going in and out. His hoop had been returned, after some convincing. The hoarding behaviour hadn’t been an expected trait. The ghost was currently sitting on the floor cuddling Jazz’s Bearbert while Jazz was reading in the armchair.

Danny’s ghost made a strange popping noise, like pressure bubbling up against the glass face plate. It spasmed a shiver and then shook its head. A pale white mist hissing out of the cracks in the face plate. Maddie watched cautiously as it happened another two times. Was this it? Was this the ghost becoming more like what they expected? Or was it some other anomaly they hadn’t known ghosts did.

Jack beside her laughed, “hiccups? Were those hiccups? Can ghosts even have those?”

Maddie frowned, “that requires breathing Jack,” she stated.

There was little point considering the hypothesis. It might be something like a hiccup but an actual hiccup required breathing. Depressurization of the suit was more likely but that still required it to act more like the real physical version of the material and by this point the suit should have been long since depressurized with the torn open arm. It made the noise again, this time the spasm and noise harsher and longer lasting.

“A sneeze?” Jack questioned beside her.

Once again that required breathing. Also irritants and she couldn’t think what might have triggered that. Before she had much time to further ponder the strange action that seemed to be confusing the ghost as much as it was her. It tilted its head. Then there was a rush of green. Ecto green shapes bursting up from the floor. A swirl of limbs. Danny’s ghost carried off with them. Jazz scrambled back, knocking over the armchair.

Maddie leapt to her feet grabbing her ecto gun. One she wished she had reached for the moment the, for lack of a better word, hiccuping had started. Jack was not far behind her. Flashes of teeth and claws slashed at the ghost’s hazmat body, splattering green as they pulled it up through the ceiling followed by a couple of just too late shots from her blaster.

She rushed for the stairs, Jack behind her and Jazz clinging to him to avoid getting carried off as well. She hated that she was hoping that they were intentionally just targeting Danny’s ghost. At least the ghost would fare better than Jazz.

There was a crashing sound from their bedroom and she burst through the door. The ghost of a ragged looking wolf had been somehow thrown from the mass of ghosts attacking and into their mirrored closet door. It shook off and bounded back to the mass, she took it out with a strong blast that appeared to knock it out. She didn’t trust it but there wasn’t time for much more. The ghosts had to be dealt with before they ended up putting the ghost proofing of the roof to the test.

Jack had found the bazooka, she noted as he barreled into the room behind her as she shot into the mass trying to break up the ghosts. She didn’t get the chance to warn him to watch his aim. The blast fired, a large mass of charged ecto green. It slammed into the ghosts, repelling them till they impacted the walls. Danny’s ghost was not an exception and was the exception she had wanted to warn Jack to watch out for. She winced as it was thrown against the wall. A nasty thud and the sound of something impacting the glass of its visor.

No ghosts moved.

Maddie held her pistol ready, eyeing the other ghosts as she approached Danny’s. Jack rushed past her.

“Danno! Sorry… sorry! Arg… idiot,” he called himself.

The lights flickered overhead and the alarm clock whined. The ghost looked up, its eyes wide but dazed, green spots failing to actually meet his. A green splatter marked the inside of the visor glass where its forehead would have been. The suit scattered with scratches and cuts. There were clear bites glowing green as they leaked ecto.

She crouched down, “just a bump, the others took most of the blast. It will probably be fine Jack.”

“But… I shouldn’t have even… I just didn’t think about it affecting him.”

The ghost pushed itself up and slumped against Jack. Another whine.

“What a strange ghost,” Maddie commented, her grip tightened on her weapon for a moment, “it clearly doesn’t blame you.”

Jack gave a sad smile, “he still got hurt.”

“Pass it here, I’ll take it to the lab and do what I can to patch it up, while you check on Jazz,” she offered.

She was the one more experienced in first aid though how much use that would be to a ghost was another matter. Then there was the matter of Jazz, dealing with the defeated ghosts and making sure there wouldn’t be anymore.

Jack let her take the ghost from him, “any ideas what to do with the ghosts? The other ones?” she asked, they didn’t really have any tried and tested containment.

“There’s still some leftover anti-ecto insulation. I’ll grab it!”

She scooped up the ghost, finding it not quite what she had expected. She hadn’t really touched it before. It was cold yes and sent shivers down her spine from the cold but she hadn’t expected the feel of the hazmat to be so realistic. She avoided the burnt arm, not wanting to feel the cracked, charred skin.

Jazz lingered in the corridor, “is he going to be alright?... I mean… you know…” she asked looking worriedly up at the ghost in her arms.

“It will be fine, just going to get it patched up,” she comforted again. Probably best not to let Jazz know that Jack accidentally shot him. Jack didn’t need the worried big sister attitude right now. He already felt bad enough.

As they approached the lab stairs the lights above sparked and there was an electrical whine. The ghost started to squirm and phase awkwardly through her. It really was like it was concussed in the fact that it failed. Was there some sort of cognitive center like a brain that had hit some sort of outer shell during the impact.

She cringed as she found herself hushing the ghost like it was Danny. It was but it also wasn’t. Though would it really hurt that much to treat it like it right now. It was clear there was no malicious intent and it did seem to feel something.

She comforted it on the way down into the lab, mentally throwing out the ‘ghosts don’t have feelings research’ that she should have dealt with days ago. It became more and more aware as she did. More on edge. It’s grip tight but not struggling. Lights flickered and whined. The only light that didn’t change was the dreaded portal that green eyes latched onto. It… he stared at it as she set him down on a workbench as far from the portal as she could get.

Danny’s ghost sat on the bench, his legs swinging back and forth. They twisted between legs and half formed tail. Eyes darting around the room as the dazed state lowered. Still its eyes would always drift back to the portal. She would say the adrenaline of being taken back to a traumatic place had shook off the majority of the dazed state but ghosts didn’t have adrenaline.

Maddie paused as she hunted for the first aid kit, would it even be any use. She shook her head and pulled it out anyway before returning to Danny’s ghost.

She gently brushed the antiseptic over the fresh cuts in his exposed arm, it was hard to differentiate with the already mangled and burnt state of his arm. It also probably didn’t matter, he was a ghost and their previous studies indicated that any flesh was just a mimic of it. That as far as ghosts went even Danny’s hazmat was a mimic. That hazmat might well be his body now. Ectoplasm leaked from scratches in it just like it had from his exposed arm. As if it was his skin.

She eyed the extra glow beyond his visor, a splatter of ecto green. She hadn’t expected a ghost to be able to bruise. Not that ghosts had been anything like she had expected. Cuts in the skin made sense but the equivalent of a bruise didn’t. His body shouldn’t have had any real structure under the skin layer that was the Hazmat. Aside from maybe something like a brain. Bruises required sub-surface vessels. Vessels he shouldn’t have. There was little she could do about the bruise. It was probably as superficial as the cuts had been once she had gotten a closer look. The glass itself was intact aside from the crack he had gotten when he’d… died.

Even as she checked him over one more time she could see the plastic start to knit itself back together on the slightest of cuts. The exposed arm was slower but still healing. Ghosts were far more elastic than humans. It was fortunate it was him who was carried off and not Jazz. He’d be healed up before long.

The clasps on his collar caught her eye, shiny and silver against the burnt black. He still had the clasps. It was a perfect mimic of the hazmat that he had been wearing. Would it move like it? Could the clasps come undone? What would that mean for the helmet? Could it come off? She reached for them and there was an audible click as she flicked it open. Danny’s head tilted wondering what she was doing. What did it mean that it opened? She clicked open each one. It hadn’t fallen right off. She wondered if despite the clasps it would be sealed to the neck. Just a surface imitation or maybe…

Maddie’s hands shook as she settled them either side of the hazmat helmet. If this worked would there be something to see? She almost wanted to see nothing. Nothing rather than the burnt and broken dead face. Blackened and charred down to the bone. There was another part that wanted so much to see his face, his face the way it should have been.

She cringed as Danny’s rough burnt hand touched hers. His hands joined hers and then they were lifting together. There was a light hiss, almost like it had been under a vacuum even though with the burnt away arm that was impossible. At the flash of singed skin of his neck she froze. Her mind realled, at war with herself. A deep breath was taken and she steeled herself. She had to know.

She lifted the helmet the rest of the way. Translucent almost pearl-like white hair fell round his face. A face that was marked with a sharp series of lichtenberg scarring that arched up his neck and across his cheek. It lanced across his eye where the crack in his visor had been. The skin around the scar was burnt but it faded out into smooth skin. Unnaturally so. His freckles were so familiar but even they glowed like little specks of starlight. Bright green eyes blinked at her, squinting in the bright lights of the examination table. His hands lowered from hers to shield them.

That was him, more him than she’d ever thought the ghost would or could look. There wasn’t supposed to be an underneath. The imprint should have been surface level only. Seeing his face hurt. Maddie choked back a sob that caught his attention. The helmet dropped to the floor, Danny caused the lights to crackle and flicker out leaving his glow the only source. He shuffled back, back and off the table into the air. Hands now covering his face in a way that was no longer about the light.

The black of the collar oozed and warped. It twisted up and wrapped around his head once again hiding his face behind the visor. The lights made an almost tentative popping noise as they flickered back on and Danny lowered his hands hesitantly as he hovered closer.

He thought he had upset her, did he think she didn’t want to see. She didn’t but at the same time she did. She hated seeing his face like that, dead but that face, there was something comforting about it too. That despite the expected. Despite the theory. Despite everything that should say otherwize there was enough of him there to create a face when it should have just been the hazmat and nothing else. A face she was worried he might not remember enough to recreate.

She grabbed him and pulled him close into a hug. “Its okay, I’m okay… just a little surprised. All fixed up right? We should head back up.”

Danny nodded and seemed to brighten, the edges of his eyes crinkling. Maddie let him go and led him back up to the kitchen.

“Mads, how’s he?” Jack asked, her blaster and the bazooka on the table in front of him.

Jack unscrewed the bazooka’s casing and removed the barely spent battery. That was a bad sign.

She paused, “just a few scratches. He’s healing fast so none of it was as bad as it looked by the time we got down there.”

She dropped into a seat, “the ghosts?”

Jack shook his head, “gone, fled before I’d gotten the insulation. Guess that means we need to figure out something that actually works.”

She sighed, she had guessed that was the case. Jack being this prepared to change batteries after only one shot meant he expected to need it again. Her own pistol was probably already changed. As he spoke the battery was waved along with his arms.

Danny watched him like a cat. Perched on the back of a chair that he had floated to. Then at the widest wave of Jack going on about how they might contain the ghosts next time he lunged. Snapped at the waving vial, his visor opening up like a mouth. Pointed broken glass like teeth in the black empty void. Said teeth clamped round the battery as Jack froze. Pulling it from his hand before retreating to the floor. Maddie stared, she couldn’t help but think about how that void should have shown his face.

Maddie pulled herself quickly out of her shock. Scratches were one thing but the ecto battery exploding in his face was going to be more damaging if he broke it open wrong. She wrestled the battery away from him to a crackling whine of the electronics in the room.

“Danny! Don’t eat that!” she tried to get him to let go of the battery.

The fridge growled for him, as he chewed on the battery.

“Its not safe Danno,” Jack approached, hands raised placatingly.

Another whine but they were able to pull the battery from his… mouth?

Maddie sighed, “I think we might have some less volatile samples in the lab,” she slipped downstairs to lock up the pistol batteries and returned with a sample flask.

Danny guzzled it down, still without a face.

“So ghosts eat then?” Jack laughed a little watching Danny

Maddie groaned. “You saw that too right? He didn’t have a face…”

Loook at this creature! The art is so cool! As I am writing this I am realizing that I now have three fics with Danny having some sort of broken glass/porcelain imagery. I swear I don't have a problem, I can stop reusing the imagery whenever I want... I just don't want to.

For this fic it was basically a case of I wanted to have ghost hunger but not loose the hazmat aspects for other future parts of the fic and then this idea happened.

[First] [Previous] [Next]

[gnashingwailing]

Kept notes on a reread I was doing of The Art of Love and War because I am so obsessed with the gay little borrower darkfic... sharing with u @fireflywritesgt

it falls apart at ch12 because that is where i consistently turn into a puddle under my covers kicking my legs and making sounds only audible to shrimps.

I HOPE THIS IS A SMALL TOKEN OF APPRECIATION FOR HOW GUD THIS FIC IS, SINCERELY... LIKE I SAID PUTTING THIS IN SOMEBODY'S INBOX IS PROBABLY A WAR CRIME. SO.

There is soooo muuuuch I want to saaaay. I did a reread and excuse my being verbose but.

Ch10 where Harry reads about how tinies don’t ask for things and prefer to do favors for them — how extra insulting that makes his message in Ch1!! “Just ask” no wonder Joe was so pissed!!

ALSO him feeling “dirty, somehow” about accepting chocolate that didn’t kill him… was he having a little bit of feelings for “the kind man” and it got transmuted into self-loathing… 😭 oh internalized homophobia tag we’re really in it now…

Re: ch2 I would kill for Joe’s pov of this… I’m also so fascinated to pick up the detail that Joe apparently talked to himself regularly, for Harry to hear him through the radiator pipes… one assumes Joe doesn’t have guests. Poor guy! He’s really smart! He likes talking! The assistant job is perfect for himmmm.

Re: ch3, i wonder how much Captain Calloway’s “if you die it’s your own damn fault” has influenced Joe’s life ethos of fucking around and finding out (btw… Harry would be sooo horrified to know Joe had been poisoned 3 times and still tried that chocolate 😭 yet another fun! anecdote of his) … im also kinda curious about Gutters. What’s that guy’s deal. And OF. COURSE. How Captain got all his injuries. It’s also so very sad he feels this tension with the guys, what they’d do to him if they knew more about who he really was. I love this as a metaphor for homophobia…

Ch5 I’m still fixated on the giants who are guarding the place. Hundreds of tinies going there every day… you’d think there’d be snatchers all over the place 👀 and the other great worldbuilding… lab tinies… “they were corralling everyone everywhere and the women and kids went one way…” GOD. also them building tiny capitalism plus tiny race science is just 😭😭😭 noooo… the way Harry reinforces their shared dignity and humanity by showing genuine interest in Joe’s art.. ouuuugh it hits every time.

ALSO I WAS SO SUSPICIOUS OF HILL WHEN I FIRST READ CH6 BUT NOW THST I KNOW HE IS A BONA FIDE WIFEGUY ALL IS REDEEMED. I AM so curious as to why he keeps tiny town schematics in his office if he dislikes it…

Ch7 profoundly funny to me how Hill is like “miniature is the academic term” and Joe is like what. Tinies.

I really appreciate how Harry started off having some uh. Idk. Colonizer savior complex stuff + noble savage ideas about Joe? Like “oh it’s in mother nature’s hands whether he survives then… I see…” as if the tinies social constructs about Pets are some immutable fact of nature instead of. A social construct !! It’s really well-done, how you show him gradually understanding that he needs to listen to Joe, not assume he knows what’s best for him just because he read a 50yr old anthropology book!! It makes me love Harry all the more that he managed to grow through it out of fondness for Joe 🥺

AND OF COURSE. THE G/T GOODNESS. My god. I loooooove that Joe is so creeped out by giants that he has to keep his eyes closed to stomach it… just feels. Hmm. Realistic?? It would be so overwhelming. I love that his trust gets rewarded with the doctor not hurting him…

The rapport they establish being based on talking to one another… it’s just suuuuch a perfect central theme for this story… Joe being able to tame Harry’s anger by reminding him of Joe’s own humanity. “Please don’t do that, doc. This is mean. You’re being mean.” And “you’re treating me like I’m not even… not even…” UGH. RENT FREE IN MY HEAD, WARREN. “Maybe he could do it; maybe he could sit in the same room as a giant for five minutes. He would only have to do it once, and then he would never have to do it again, he reasoned.” Bitch u thought… get loved and cared for idiot…

Joe asking him “why not”, echoing Harry’s words that stuck with him…

And then him being sooo pissed at the phone it’s just absolutely amazing stuff. Wagging his finger at it/Dr Hill lmaooo. I was hootin and hollerin when I realized this foreshadows him being the assistant!!! He can talk on the phone just fine!!!!

His legs threatening to give way from the prospect of Harry seeing him at ground level after he escapes using the phone receiver… ouuugh. It’s SO GOOD. He’s come such a long way…

“Touching every wooden beam he passed for good luck” is INCREDIBLY cute mental imagery.., he’s happy… poor guy has awful luck tho so Harry is just pissed 😭 HIM NEARLY DESTROYING THE PLATES BECSUSE HARRY SCARED HIM SO BAD HAD ME FEELING.. SOME KIND OF WAY…

Ch8 also has the first mention of Joe’s books… I’m sooo curious where he got these.. did he perhaps make them…? 👀 YEAH HARRY SHOULD FEEL LIKE A MONSTER THO. YOU TERRORIZED A LIL MOVIE STAR!!! HE ONLY BROKE A FEW THINGS… Making him hide under his covers like he saw a monster… 😭

I love their first god awful handshake lmao. Incredible subversion of the usual g/t first meetings… Joe’s just like OK 👋 NOW GET THAT THANG OUTTA HERE

And then Joe going “I know about that!” Joe protested, his voice growing stronger. “It’s up to me, doc. If it happens, it happens and it’ll be my own damn fault.” … something tells me when Harry finally comes to understand Joe’s recklessness with his own life and what feelings about its worth may be underpinning that, he will be so sad 😔

Joe losing his toes to frostbite… realizing that could very likely be from when he was kidnapped and enslaved with O’Grady… uuuugh he’s so brave to want to connect with anybody at all let alone with Harry!!

Ch9 professor wifeguy moments… yesss… I love that he wants to hang out with another tiny too 😭 Joe is making friends!! I can’t wait to find out about Lorraine and what “other place” she knows about!!! Lmfao I can tell she’s going to be incredible just from the little bit Joe hears of her. I wonder too if she’s been marked… aahhh I’m so excited to learn more about these two. How interesting of a parallel, too, that Harry noted Dr Hill might also be a former soldier… something-something folks unable to fully integrate into society finding and building community with each other…

Also PROFOUNDLY interested to note on a reread that the tiny town on his wall says “a SAFE place to be” and the one in Riverdale said “a CIVILIZED place to be” 😬 a damn prison indeed… I also really wonder just HOW the tinies are paying their rent(?) to stay there, if they’re all as disdainful of “borrowing” as a career as O’Grady seems to be…

MAY I JUST NOTE that Joe stimming around is sooo charming to me. He’s kickin’ his legs. He’s pacing back and forth. He’s doing something like that in the walls when Harry was first listening to him. I LOVE HIM.. aND I love how this chapter we see him going from “that tall bastard (derogatory)” to “that tall bastard (amused)”

AND POOR JOE ON THE MOST CURSED FIELD TRIP IMAGINABLE. There is much to love here but I absolutely adore this imagery: “Joe buried himself in the curtain as the doctor, dressed to the nines in his work clothes and vaguely resembling a horse in a brown suit, sidled over to him and towered there and seethed.” HE’S TERRIFIED 😭 and Joe learns that other people value his wellbeing more than he does… wow Joe no need to ponder that any further until Ch15!!!

There’s SO much incredible prose in this chapter… the haaaaands oh my god the hands. The tinies are on the order of 2-3 inches tall, right? You really get a vivid sense of how big and dangerous everything is to them… absolutely A+ stuff.

This part also slays me everytime I think about it: “Joe was hidden inside [the pocket], and the thought of how unhinged his dear neighbour must look to his fellow giants as he walked and talked gave him no small amount of delight.” HE WOUUUULD.

The mystery of just what Joe created as a boy… what he can’t find it in himself to articulate… why he can hardly fathom talking about himself and his inner world to anyone …

PART 10… the difference in the way Joe confronts Harry here vs with the assistant in part 16 is somehow heartbreaking to me. I think the anger must just be displacement for how he’s really feeling (worried, uncomfortable…) and he’s more able to show his feelings to Harry with the assistants than he is now… but Joeeeee. I don’t ever want him to feel hopeless with Harry, like he just has to accept whatever he wants 😭 I love him in this chapter… Arms crossed, eyes narrowed… red faced… clawing at the air as he ranted Jdhdhdj GOD HE’S SO ICONIC: ““Nope. Not gonna happen! Veto!” Joe leapt up from the box, strode all the way to the edge of the table, and jabbed a finger at him. “I don’t know what kind of sick, twisted doctor things you intend to do to people but whatever it is, it’s not happening in my house!”” I guess I want him to still be comfortable with yelling veto at Harry lmao!!

And then Joe being like WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU SAVING ME THE OTHER DAY. THAT MEANS NOTHING TO ME, A WILD AND INDEPENDENT TINY WHO HAD IT ALL UNDER CONTROL, AT ALL.

ALSO: the way he words this, I have a strong suspicion he does not know the word “patients”?! “”Let’s make a deal in exchange for patients. Give me something in exchange for patients.” Joe stammered. “You do that and I won’t make any trouble.””

Harry thinking of Joe as “the little bastard” in counterpoint to Joe’s “the tall bastard” really makes me smile too, hahahah.

AND THE FURTHER G/T TROPE INVERSION… just because he was willing to get in the giant’s hands one time doesn’t mean he’s suddenly fine with it!! I love how pissed they are at each other over this misunderstanding lmfao. He’s 👏 a 👏 wild 👏 tiny 👏 ‼️

And it’s so meaningful to me that the two of them bond more over sharing art with one another… Harry wants to introduce Joe to an amazing piano player… and Joe is so happy!!! The idea for a Charlie Chaplin bit with a rich miniature woman is SO inspired btw, I was as delighted as Joe was 😭 Harry being like “oh shit wait is this offensive” and then Joe just being like “THIS FUCKS SO HARD LMAO IT REALLY DO BE LIKE THAT”

And then the tragic aftermath… Harry NOTICING that he didn’t even know that he was doing anything wrong by bringing Joe there, it just FELT so dreadfully taboo (enough that Hill, who is MARRIED TO A TINY, also seems like he’s been caught doing something wrong when Harry first meets him)…. and then of course society reinforces that fear in a terrible way. Only a shared humanity regarding love of art saves poor Joe.. how lucky he’s gotten enough exposure to be able to speak in the presence of giants. You have to ponder how many tinies just as wonderfully complex as him have died for not having that skill. It’s so very sad!!! THE IMAGERY OF HIM ON THE LAMP LIKE IT’S A STREETCORNER JUST TWISTED THE KNIFE. Your writing really is so excellent, the way you can carry us through so many different emotions… Joe my belovedddd. I’m simply obsessed with the implications of him NAMING HARRY. WHAT IS /THAT/?? And the way that the narration in the story from this point on swaps to using Harry as his name… it speaks VOLUMES without you needing to elaborate on it at all. Joe has changed him! He’s becoming someone he likes better than Herman! A day we had good luck… Harry is good luck… Luck as a concept very different from what giants think of… I am absolutely enamored with how clearly he has a whole other world, another culture, that Harry can only guess at and be grateful to be included in.

JOE GETTING A NICE BATH AND A COMFORTABLE BED IN THIS CHAPTER IS JUST SO WHOLESOME (even if it will torment his Calvinist sensibilities later…) I am also so charmed to imagine how Joe must have woken up and been like “what the FUCK did I do last night. Where the HELL am I 🤨”

And then in Ch11 he’s like I WILL PROCEED NOT TO THINK OF THAT AT ALL. <- clueless

Ch11 is one of my favorites I think… we really get a good glimpse into how much heavy-duty rationalizing Joe is doing LMAO. “Taking food is fine, because I’m just using this tall bastard.” “It’s fine if I have leisure time.” “It’s fine if I like Harry and his company and I miss him when he’s gone and I want to give him a name.” “AS LONG AS I DON’T GET COMFORTABLE ALL OF THIS IS FINE.” This line is such a banger lol: “Joe Piccoli was many things as he went to sleep that night, but he was not a pet, and he was not comfortable.” And then the mouse!!! That Joe decides to draw rather than kill!!! Look at his needs being met!!!!!

IT ALSO ABSOLUTELY FUCKIN KILLED ME WHEN I REALIZED IN THIS CHAPTER THAT THE BOYS HAVE JUST. FULLY LEFT THAT FLOORBOARD OFF LMFAO??? THAT’S HIS SKYLIGHT NOW…

And then. Good god. The arm scene… it’s just. Soooo. 👌👌👌👌 I’m so … 😵‍💫💖❤️‍🔥…

“I’m a wild tiny!” “You’re going to be a dead tiny if that gets infected.” Their dynamic is so fucking funny. AND THE TENDERNESS OF HARRY TOUCHING JOE… Joe being so overwhelmed not exactly with fear but HMMM I WONDER WHAT EMOTION AND WHY HE MIGHT FEEL SO OVERWHELMED HE STILL NEEDS TO CLOSE HIS EYES AND PRETEND HE’S HIDDEN UNDER THE FLOOR AGAIN… 🤔🤔🤔 whyever would the touch of this kind giant make his hair stand on end and make him contemplate the reverence he’s being touched with and leave his cheeks burning… it is a mystery

And then Joe being so afraid the mouse would be hurt because in contrast to the kindness he’s been shown, he still has this long history of awful experiences with giants.. this part in particular made my heart hurt:

“Don’t kill the mouse, Harry, please don’t kill it. It’s just like me. It hasn’t done anything to you.” Joe begged.

Followed by him remembering that this is /Harry, his friend, who he knows/:

“The words hit Joe like the breaking of a spell, and he stood in the kitchen windowsill feeling downright foolish. Of course Harry wouldn’t kill the mouse, Joe realized - of course he wouldn’t do that.”

OUGH. This story is SO delicious I’m beyond obsessed…

The two of them having a much less Charged encounter after Joe has resolved some of his internal conflicts, at least for the moment… chatting away like they’re two normal friends while Harry touches him… 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH‼️

Their motorcycle shenanigans… Harry showing Joe his precious Contraption and Joe absolutely hating it omg it was so peak 😭 PLAYING “WHO’S-MORE-BORING CHICKEN”… the way Joe is like “I would rather Die than have to listen to this guy talk about how he’s more exciting than me. Absolutely not.”

I also very much appreciate the foreshadowing of the street car on this re-read…

AND may I say I really love that they went on a little nature trip together!!! I have thought often of the potential of a g/t story set outdoors, where the normal sized person and the tiny are both made small by how all-encompassing the wilderness is. Something to do with camping or backpacking! Maybe something I want to write one day! This gave me a delightful taste of that.

AND ANYWAY THE ACCEPTING OF COMFORT EVEN AS IT FLIES IN THE FACE OF EVERYTHING HE’S BEEN TAUGHT TO ROMANTICIZE AND VALUE… ouuuughhh GET LOVED IDIOT!! GET SEEN AND KNOWN AND TAKEN CARE OF!!!

And then ch12… Harry’s realization that Joe won’t ever bring up anything if it’s just for his own benefit. Which by the way, on a re-read I can appreciate how cleverly you’ve set this up, if I didn’t write that clearly enough before! There’s something cultural there but also, I think, something uniquely Joe that Harry maybe can’t fully see yet. Harry’s watch from his parents breaking down at the same moment he’s trying to change his relationship with Joe, the new most important person in his life (at least I presume! He doesn’t seem to have other close friends/family) … very very good. This sentence is so evocative. Simultaneously funny and sad: “With the way Joe’s eyes shifted from side to side one would think the doctor had suggested they go rob a bank.” It’s very good angst realizing how much Harry is asking of Joe without him even knowing it…

BTW this part is so delightful. They’re so interested in each other!!! “When his footsteps announced his arrival, he could see the tiny’s movements through the missing floorboards as his neighbour crossed the floor and climbed back up to the windowsill above the counter.” <- guy who absolutely has NOT been gotten

“Joe smiling. A rare sight indeed.” JUST…. My heaaaart ‼️‼️

Also hilarious how Joe and now Harry have both had “mmm I do NOT like the way this guy is smiling right now” moments 🤣

GOD tho, Joe’s opening up about getting snatched… much like Harry, it made me feel absolutely beside myself.

^^^ AS YOU CAN SEE. I'VE FULLY FALLEN APART.

[abubblingcandle]

For the word thing: small, sleep, safe, and/or sound

Small - from Like a Black Hole

“JT come on. It’s not the end of the world. You’re back here and coach’ll realise that you deserve the pitch time when he’s stopped being mad at you,” Paddy sighed, pulling Jamie’s head down to rest on his shoulder. Jamie as boneless and let himself be manipulated into the half hug. “I’m getting sold at summer. And no one will want me now,” Jamie whispered, finally letting the dread escape from its pool in his gut where it had been welling him down all day. “Jamie don’t,” Paddy started some inane platitude but Jamie’s chocked laugh cut him off. “Miss Welton told me. It wasn’t a real developmental loan. It was a loan to sell. They wanted Richmond to start to depend on me so the price would be hiked up. Now the price’ll be so small. God damn it,” Jamie growled.

Safe - from A Treatment Room Doors Moment Ch9

“I know you are going to swear at me for this but there’s not much more you can do,” Roy grumbled back. “For fucks sake Roy,” Jamie growled back. “There’s gotta be … there’s gotta be something,” the heat and the fury was draining out of him like someone had just pulled the plug. Anger and offence replaced by emptiness and desperation. “You’ve got two options. Fight, or flight,” Roy just keeps talking. “I ain’t ever run from nothing,” Jamie spits back but Roy ignores him. “Fight, you stay and you keep doing everything that you are doing and you keep pushing until you either get what you want or you don’t. You do everything you can, leave it in Pep’s hands. Or flight, ask for a transfer,” Roy sighed. “I can’t leave,” Jamie whispered, “it’s Man City. It’s the dream I can’t leave.” “There you have it then. We keep working,” Roy stated. “We keep working. 4am on Monday?” Jamie’s breathing was starting to even out. Roy could believe he was safe, that he wasn’t going to do something stupid. “4am on Monday.”

Sleep - from Where the Hell is the Karma?

He was peaceful in sleep. Georgie rushed straight over, the need to have Jamie in her hands to prove to herself that he was here was understandable. He gripped Jamie’s hand in both of hers and pressed a tender kiss to his temple before she started to sob. Simon followed at a more sedate pace but with no less desire to confirm that his boy was back with them. He rested one hand on the back of Georgie’s neck and the other on top the blankets over Jamie’s knee. They were the picture of a family. Jamie had his family back and the Sutton family had their Jamie back. Roy, however, was rooted in place.

Sound - from Snap Ch7

“That should be good for you. All of you to have that time to reconnect,” Beard smiled. Jamie didn’t. He had been mutilating a defenceless tissue for the whole conversation and it was looking worse for wear. Jamie’s very good at putting on a mask when he wanted to and Beard should be honoured that Jamie didn’t wear a mask at their meetings. But when he opened the portcullis in his impressive mental walls, Jamie was as easy to read as a ladybird book. “Sound, yeah, I mean, totally,” Jamie rambled, the tissue in tatters in front of him. Yep, Jamie was stressed.

[zukkacore]

HI FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. PLEASE THIS SECTION.

“To the Mountains of Chaos.” He’s never seen Porter so. Cheerful. He reaches out to rest a gentle hand on top of J2’s, but it feels white hot. Imbued in his touch, a memory, vague but distinct in its sharp contrast to the past cavalcade of warmth, longing, grief—a flash of red, of rage, of a want so strong he had to have, to own, to destroy. Then Failure. Guilt. But mostly hope. Like the cresting of the sun over the horizon at dawn. The hope is kind of beautiful, when he thinks about it...

(There was something Jace said. He can’t remember.)

Porter's starting at him, eyes intense. “I think you should come.”

(i might be back. i need to go cook.)

HIIIII sorry i put this off for a hot sec my brain has just been all over the place! Actually. I'm glad that this got pulled off in a way that like. As far as I can tell like. Was effective! B/c that paragraph did give me a tonnnnn of trouble actually went through quite a few drafts.

Guess I should preface to say. There was an old version of Ch7 that didn't involve a detect thoughts at all! And tbh i think i was just feeling like oh this is kinda mundane w/out some use of magic, that's what its there for lol. And. I was worried it would be kinda redundant with IYWD but also. I do think J2 is just not that adventurous lol. But like. I do think for J2 to understand the full weight of like. Wtf Porter wants he would need to Go There. And I realized I needed to address the thing that Jace told J2 in ch 6! That's why I added the Porter scene at the end of ch6, it's why I made so many edits to ch7 like. The night before lol.

Anyway, I remember you saying it, so i'm honestly relieved it came across that like. This scene is meant to convey the memory of Jace getting killed and shatterstarred! I was genuinely worried it would be too vague. And there was meant to be something abstract abt it (like you said before, literally everyoone in this story from J2, to Jace, to Porter refuses to look directly at it). But i was worried that making it so abtract would soften the blow, the cruelty of it i guess? but i think ultimately, i hope it works.

Actually, this is the original version which i do think is interesting in its own way, but i realized didn't work:

“To the Mountains of Chaos.” He’s never seen Porter so. Cheerful. He reaches out to rest a gentle hand on top of J2’s, but it feels white hot. A memory of—a flash of red, something crushing and brutal and unceremonious, quickly snuffed out. “I think you should come.”

I'm not like. Dead set on Unceremonious Jacedeath where he gets his head bashed in as the singular vision for what happened (i like a "romantic" reverent wedding-ish ceremony as much as the next person), but i think in my head it's what happened until i realized that thematically it just didn't make sense with the themes and throughlines being set up in Almost.

B/c Almost is so much about like. Ownership and all the Jaces' desperate desire to live. Like. I said this before, but Porter wants everything, J2 doesn't even own himself. Porter's desire to Own Jace and his desire to Own j2 come from the same rot. I think it made more sense to to go more abstract, connect Porter's murder of Jace to those emotions. That's the

a flash of red, of rage, of a want so strong he had to have, to own, to destroy.

part.

Then "Failure. Guilt" is the tie-in to IYWD. When Jace read's Porter's thoughts and sees how Porter feels about letting Jace getting dropped in the woods. I almost had the same line about Porter being a barbarian, a shield, but it felt out of place. But. Porter's guilt about Jace getting dropped is not just about that specific event. It's about EVERYTHING.

But mostly hope. Like the cresting of the sun over the horizon at dawn. The hope is kind of beautiful, when he thinks about it

And then the Hope. Because Almost is about J2's failure to live up to jace. Obviously i've joke-posted abt this, but yeah! Porter gets to have that magical First Falling In Love with a prelapsarian Jace, just like he's always wanted, he gets to be Jace's First, and he still would trade it for the fucked, imperfect thing he has with his Jace, Jaceprime.

And then it felt natural to make the connection between hope and dawn and ankarna with this idea of like. Getting a new opportunity, a new beginning.

And I've jokeposted about J2 not just worshipping Porter but in a way, coveting the starbreaker relationship. Which i think is where the "the hope is kind of beautiful, when he thinks about it" comes from. His feelings on Porter loving Jace are so complicated. He wants what they have, he sees how much it affects Porter, he sees himself as the product of Jace loving Porter to the point of invention. He hates Jace but I think he pities jace, and DEFINITELY pities porter, so he wants what they have but also can't help but tell Jace in ch 6 that Porter still loves him.

And he's already been convinced of his own half-truths that I talked about here because of the Devil's Honey on Porter's tongue (TL;Dr the other thing, the half truths being "I want this", "I want everything", and "porter deserves everything"). He's convinced himself that he's ok with sharing porter with Jace because Porter deserves that. Porter deserves to have everything, right? He's not just ok with it. He wants it.

(There was something Jace said. He can’t remember.)

Can I admit I'm really proud of this one? B/c of the Devi's Honey, the half-truth's he's telling himself are literally changing his memories. There's the fear he experienced in Porter's office after Jace told him about the shatterstar. I think until then he really was kept in the dark about the violence Porter inflicted on Jace who before then, he saw their love as like. Yeah it's fucked but also its deep and beautiful and true. And he's so used to being like a precious object from Porter because he's the last vestige of Jace. So Porter is so Comforts of a Gilded Cage with J2. There is a point where he is being reeled into the violence, but he can turn away from it because—yeah they're the bad guys but Porter likes him, Porter gives him purpose, and he's precious, he's a gift, in some ways he's jace (better yet, he's the old jace that porter misses), he's an exception.

But Jace was never an exception. Especially not the old jace.

But he's forgotten all of that. In fact, this idea of wanting something so badly you have to own it. To destroy it. J2 wants everything. So he's ok with even that.

So he wants jaceporter to get back together. And he's happy to be asked to be go with Porter to the mountains of chaos.

I think that's also why I didn't like the older version of the shatterstar memory that was focused on the brutality. I was afraid if I was too direct about what happened, it would... i guess imply that J2 was with certainty going to die in the mountains of chaos or meet the same fate. So like. Hopefully it comes across that. It's not that J2 is definitively going to die. Or that Porter is going to kill him.

The aim to me that. J2 is disposable now. Not that he IS going to die in that cruel way that Jace was killed, but now, he can die and Porter honestly? Probably wouldn't be too perturbed. Like. When you said it was a Threat, it was right on the nose. And I don't think there's anything really malicious abt Porter asking him to come, he means it sincerely b/c J2 WAS doing the heavy lifting as like. Both a precious vestige of Jace and as Porter's clothmother and J2 still kinda is clothmother, he likes J2 he wants J2 around but he's unspecial now. Porter has never cared abt danger except when it came to treating J2 like a precious thing. He no longer cares about the danger.

And like. I don't think that has to be the sole interpretation. If the takeway is that J2 is also going to be killed like Jace, if he's going to be claimed and absorbed into the whole, I think that's also a reading. Is being disposable worse than being claimed, being owned? I don't know. If J2 got a shatterstar too (could he??) would that be worse? i don't know. I just didn't want that to be the ONLY definitive takeaway and I feel like with the old version, that felt way more what it was doing.

Something something IYWD sister stories. In IYWD there is this brief fleeting moment before Porter chose the plan over Jace, where Jace realizes that Porter can't lose him, even though he's already lost him. To Porter, he is irreplaceable. Until he isn't. And Almost is about how J2 has been "protected" by his status as Jace's gift and Jace's replacement, only to realize he was always disposable. He's spent the whole story being Jace's replacement, being the precious piece of Jace that Porter wants to grasp onto. (He's grown so afraid that he'll lose what he owns. That what he doesn't know is what he's defending is already gone.) And now he's getting the old Jace back. And J2 is happy with that. Or well—

(I'm skipping ahead slightly past the quote you chose, sorry):

Through repetition it becomes prayer. I want this. I want everything. Porter deserves everything. He believes that, doesn't he?

"Doesn't he?" to me is the indication that the effects of the Devil's honey is just starting to wear off. J2 is happy with this. Isn't he?

-

Anyway thank you so much! I am fairly proud of this scene. Like i do think it's a good culmination of all the goddamn agonizing i did over chapter 7. And to me the ending was always going to be some variation of this. I didn't have all the additional stuff abt the devils honey, but the idea that Porter was always going to get back with Jace. (and the sting of it happening RIGHT at the moment Porter is both giving J2 everything he wants but also using him to be Jace but also willing to open his mind to the idea that he could make something Real with J2? Like. Yes the most cruel and on the nose way possible but what can i say i love the drama).

I do like it. Even tho I do feel. Idk anxious abt how goddamn sad the ending of Almost is. Idk why i'm anxious about it being so sad, but i am. Like. And i always feel like im overworking something. Or it's too obvious when i explain these things that its like "yeah, obviously janelle". Or the text is not clear enough. Or worse, too on the nose. And maybe I worry about being too much of a bummer. Like. IYWD IS a tragedy to me as well but I really liked that it still ended on this moment in the past where they get to see themselves happy. And J2's story is much more. Unabashedly sad. And a part of me wonders if like. That's even my place to write about. Sorry to be such a downer at the end, but this was genuinely fun to talk about and. It did feel kinda god to get off my chest. But like. The fact that you guys have been so so so so so so so incredibly kind and awesome and supportive is like. The most heartening thing and like im just anxious so having that assuaged never really happens but this is the closest it gets. I've cried over this. Like. You guys are seriously awesome. I'm moved. I say that a lot but its true. It doesn't feel fair. In a good way. if that's possible.

[hazbinextgeneration]

(John) Doe Eyed Ch7 The Conflict And The Resolution

(Hey everyone. I just wanted to thank everyone who read this far and liked my story enough to read it to it's end. I had a lot of fun writing it and it makes me happy knowing some people loved it enough to read it fully. If you liked this consider checking out my other works. Thanks to everyone for reading this, faving it, or leaving a nice comment. And thank you to Mortisfox for creating such wonderful characters and giving me the opportunity to make this wonderful story.)

"Fae!! Fae, wake up!! You've been out for long enough."

"Is she dead?"

"Don't worry. She only fainted. I think the situation was a lot for her to take in at once."

"Oh...Is that my fault?"

"Of course not. This happens a lot more often than you think."

It was dark when Fae came to. What were those voices? Who was that? What happened? What was going on? Pink eyes slowly blinked open again and blinked again at the introduction of bright light. Slowly the eyes adjusted to the brightness and her vision cleared up. She could make out two figures looking down at her. One was the concerned face of her cousin and the other was a wide smile of John.

"You're awake! I'm so happy! ," he gushed as Fae blinked.

"Fae, are you alright?," Rose asked pressing a hand to her forehead. "You fainted after you saw him. Does your head hurt?"

Fae slowly blinked again as the realization of what happened with the memories of it. The Fuzzball monster, what Rose told her, John suddenly showing up- Both jumped as Fae shot up sitting up wide eyed and shaking her head before reaching a hand up to just grab her head.

"What happened...That really wasn't a dream was it?"

"Afraid not."

"Then that means you were telling the truth." Fae pointed at Rose. "And then that means that he's-" She slowly pointed at John whom gulped and smiled wider as she frowned deeply. "You're that little furball. Aren't you?"

John visibly gulped wringing his hands nervously and smiling widely. "Um..Y-Yes?"

There was then silence for a long LONG moment as the three just stood there before Fae inhaled deeply and slowly sighed.

"Rose. Can you give us a moment? I need to talk with Doe alone."

Rose and Doe exchanged a look before she looked back to Fae and nodded. "Um. Sure. I'll just go and get started on cleaning the bathroom then. If you need me I'll just be upstairs. Ok?"

Fae nodded. Rose gave one last look at the both of them before turning and leaving. It wasn't until Rose was fully upstairs and out of sight that Fae moved, reaching up both hands to rub her face tiredly as Doe just shyly stood there in the awkward silence. Eventually she broke the silence and spoke.

"Doe." He jumped looking at her. "Be honest with me. Was everything Rose said true or are you both pulling a bad prank on me?"

"I-.." He winced. "It's all truth."

"So that hairball really was you?!"

"Yes."

She finally looked up from her hands and gave him a frown. "So you're not even human?! And you didn't think to tell me such an important detail while we were dating?!"

He shrank a bit in on himself with a kicked puppy. "You were happy without knowing. I never lied about anything."

"Keeping the truth from someone is just as bad as lying, Doe! What was your end game here?! You couldn't just hide this from me forever!," Fae looked at him with a hurt frown. "What else did you keep from me? Do you even work as a collector?"

"I am a collector. I just ...collect things I like that people throw away."

"So you don't do that professionally?" He shook his head no. "This is too much." Her hands grabbed her head again. "I-I need some time alone."

He jumped looking horrified. "Y-Youre breaking up with me?!''

"I don't know, Doe! But I know I can't do anything without thinking about it first! And to do that I just need some time to think about things away from you! When Rose leaves go with her... I need some time to myself."

That was the last time she saw him for the past week. She made sure he left when Rose did even if he did look really hurt at her but she needed time alone to think and clear her head and just...process what happened. It was hard for a while and just left her not knowing what to think about this situation. Which lead to today when she was at her job lazily leaning against the counter top behind the register, when the bell over the door rang out and she immediately looked up.

"Hey. How can I-" She paused. Blinking widely and staring as a man with long black hair and wearing all black. "...DOE?!"

The man whom stood there looked EXACTLY LIKE DOE!! Only...he looked a lot less scraggly and more .. straightened out. His hair was still curly but a lot less messy, his clothes were straightened out especially his jacket, and his face was more... human. His eyes didn't look yellowed anymore and his features looked more... regular looking. He smiled a normal amount as he approached and waved.

"Hello my darling!," he said sounding as normal as the next person. "I've been thinking hard about what you said and I fully realized I was in the wrong, so I've come to apologize for everything."

Fae only gaped in shock still before shaking her head. "Doe? What happened to you?! You look so..."

"Normal?"

"Different! What happened?!," he seemed to pause at the concern in her voice and face. 

"Nothing happened. Don't worry." He held up a hand. "I figured it all out. You didn't like it when I wasn't human, so while I can't change what I am I can be as human as you possibly want!" He smiled a bit wider but nothing that could be considered unnormal. "Don't like this? That's ok. I can be anything you want! Just say the word and I'll be whatever you want."

"What?! NO!!" Fae yelled out making him blink. "Don't do that! Doe, I just said I needed time to think about everything. I never wanted you to just literally change yourself to try and impress me!"

He suddenly looked so lost. "But...I-I CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY!!" Fae blinked as he suddenly grabbed her hands on the counter leaning closer a weary smile on his face. "just tell me what I did wrong and I'll fix it! I...I just don't understand. I did everything right didn't I?" He became more distraught the longer she didn't respond. "Don't you love me?"

"I-..." Fae sighed looking down. "I think I do love you, Doe."

"YOU DO?!" He looked up hopeful.

"But not when you're pretending to be something you're not." Her hands tightened a bit on his. "I liked how you were before. I like how you treat me and listen and how cute you look when you get confused about something..But It hurts knowing you're keeping so much from me when I told you so much about my life. So if we're going to be together then you gotta promise me you won't keep anymore secrets. Promise?"

"YES!!" He broke whatever disguise was in take by grinning a LOT more widely than normal again happily. "I PROMISE YOU SO MUCH!!"

"Then I think we've got a lot of talking to do."

[ageless-aislynn]

As somebody who didn't realize just how RIDICULOUSLY rigid I am in how I write... I'm finally beginning to make some actual progress on "15 Minutes" ch7 using the methods cobbled together from the advice of several awesome friends. 💖

A Tumblr draft is my home base (thank you to @sarnakhwritesthings who recognized my need for practically continual autosaving).

At the end of a writing session, I update the Tumblr draft to AO3 for extra safekeeping.

I use Editpad to give me a word count (thank you to @authortobenamedlater for that one). I might could use Editpad also for writing but I haven't stopped to see its save options, etc. But it definitely came in clutch to let me know that I've got 2,159 words entered so far!

That's putting this chapter on course to be about 4k words? 👀 But I've had people tell me they'd rather read long chapters so, hey, we'll go for it! Unless that's too big for the Tumblr draft? Oh, better check on that one. 🤔

There's a decent cut-off point before the cliffhanger ending of ch7 so I miiiight end up splitting it so that I have a little more time to get currently numbered chapter 8 (still in hand-written form) a little further along ready to post. We'll see!

It's just nice to be doing something other than researching computer repairs. *whispers* It hasn't blue screened or frozen/locked up today and has been on for nearly 10 hours. *pats it gently* I know you're a good computer, Georgette! You just need for those old bad conflicts to leave you alone!

I'm also not sure when I named this computer Georgette but at some point I just started referring to her by that name. 🤷‍♀️

Peace, out, frens. 🤗💖

[sterkeyra]

PLUST - Wataru Eboshi Main Story 1 - Walkthrough + CGs

Wataru's route finally came out in JP and I couldn't resist reading it, after a friend showed me a summary of it. It contained some of the drama I was expecting but I was still surprised by a few things! While PLUST overall is rather slowburn, Wataru is more taking steps a bit further. Though you know how it is when the guy shows you affection early - Drama is still about to happen.

It was interesting to see how they used his brother, though i'm not much of a fan of it. We finally also got to see his fan that was not present in the other guys routes.

.... and you might become a fan too if you check out the spoilers beneath the cut.

SPOILER!! Screenshots, Special Campaign, Walkthrough and CGs below

Wataru is the leader of PLUST and a bit like the mum-friend of the guys, as he manages everything, cooks and has an open ear for them. However behind his mature facade he is also insecure. Since he's taking on all the talking to the directors, appears as a weather man in a weather forecast program on tv etc, he doesn't have much time to practice and falls behind, he also does not have a talent he excels in like the others and it starts to show in the statistics. Wataru himself thinks PLUST doesn't need him or they might be even better without him so he thinks about quitting (which was more than obvious in his censored bubble). He approaches MC earnestly to make her his fan, but there are no feelings involved at first. He greatly regrets this for the rest of the story as MC seems to shine brighter and brighter and helps him out of his misery to boot!

Eboshi Bros!

Kakeru makes his entrance next to Wataru as well and sincerely cheers for his brother. MC gets to work with both of them and Kakeru is a sweetheart. The good looks and fame certainly run in the family too as he's a famous soccer player. Compared to Wataru he is more forward and honest about his feelings, so he's giving Wataru a hard time when he gets interested in MC.

Special Collaboration Campaign - Tsugaru (Her Love in the Force)

If you unlock the SHE within the first few weeks after release, you are able to unlock a story where Wataru and MC meet Tsugaru in the streets. For a campaign story it has a decent length with 2 chapters. Wataru and MC are on their way to the shopping mall where they meet Tsugaru. MC is of course flabbergasted by both of them and the clearly tease her on purpose with it. Also YES Tsugaru messes up PLUSTs name in absolute Tsugaru fashion. He is just that bad with (band) names. He even mixes up Wataru with Claude who he met before and joined the fanclub of haha. But the story also has a more serious background as Tsugaru distracts them from going to the mall as there was a bomb warning.

To unlock it in time feel free to use this guide. You can unlock the SHE and the campaign story without hearts, you wont get the CGs however.

WALKTHROUGH - Heartless

Ch 1: C C: What do you think

Ch2: C C: Hide it with your body

Ch3: C C: Push him back by his chest Ch4: B B: Hide behind him

Ch5: C A: Let him replace | 6 ❤️ C: Turn him down Ch6: B A: Why did you kiss | 15 ❤️+ CG, B: Freeze

Ch7: A A: Finger Hearts

Ch8: B B: Ryoga should open the door

Ch9: B A: Blocked by Wataru (His Pov) | 11 ❤️ B: Don't exchange contacts

Ch10: C A: Indulge in Wataru's kindness | 15 ❤️ C: Push Away

Ch11: B A: Touch Wataru | 18 ❤️ + CG B: Cover face with blanket

Ch12: B B: Wataru should leave first

Ch13: B A:Talk to Wataru | 16 ❤️ B: Talk to Ryoga

Ch14: A A: I don't know

Ch15: C C: Press the shutter

Ch16: C A: Take Wataru hand & go home with him | 11 ❤️ C: Don't take any hands, we should go together

Ch17: B (no rise in affection no matter what) A: Listen to him | 19 ❤️ B: Don't listen to him

Ch18: C C: I didn't meet anyone

Ch19: B A: I want to hear how you feel | 21 ❤️ B: I won't ask Ch20: C C: Rice Ball / Onigiri

Ch21: C A: I want to know Wataru opinion (his pov) | 22 ❤️

Ch22: C C: Still thinking

Ch23: B A: To Watarus mouth | 23 ❤️ B: To Claudes mouth

Ch24: C A: Stare at Wataru | 25 ❤️+ CG C: Look at the reaction of the audience

Ch25: B Accept sleeping together | 26 ❤️ + CG Try to escape

SHE Bonus Stories: 27 ❤️

Cost of just unlocking SHE right away: 65 Hearts SHE Heart Cost Total: 255

And finally the CGs. Enjoy!

I didn't expect that all this would happen in his Main Story 1 given that PLUST is more of a slowburn title and Wataru is already much closer to MC than the other guys. I'm very curious what they will deliver to us in Kotohas route in a few weeks! As basically Suzumus twin he was the guy I was most curious in next to Wataru :D

[anjumstar]

Sand Lines ch7, Monday

Read on AO3

rating: teen

pairing: bakudeku

word count: 40.6k/40.6k

summary: It wasn’t a vacation. It was only convenient that Katsuki’d managed to trick Miruko into thinking it was.

Katsuki doesn’t need a break. Post-war life has been peaceful. Too peaceful. So under the guise of a vacation, Katsuki heads to the American southwest, the only place where he can do the thing he wants to do the most: blow stuff up. Big time. And it’s all going to according to plan for about five minutes, until Deku comes along. They’ve barely seen each other since graduation last year and Katsuki could, should blow him up for getting in his business yet again. Instead, they learn about post-war life in the way they’ve done everything: together.

first chapter - previous chapter

master list

They didn’t share beds again. It was too much, too soon.

A relationship should start with a strong foundation—that’s what idiots with unsolicited advice always said. The foundation came first and provided support for everything else, and nothing else could be built until the foundation was poured and hardened.

That wasn’t what Katsuki and Izuku were.

Their relationship was like sand.

There were fragments of it. Some strewn to the wind, some in the same place for a long time. But they were messy and shifting and by no means built with a solid foundation. But they say that with enough sand, eventually the weight from the top compresses the bottom most layer into something solid again. What once was sand would become stone. And the more stacked on top of it, the harder it would get. 

And right now, the new granules were pouring like desert rain. 

Their alarm went off while the sky was still as dark as it had been when they went to sleep. Their flight wasn’t a red-eye—little blessings—but they were still looking a good twenty-four hours of travel dead in the face. And that was if they experienced no delays. They’d lose a whole day traveling this way—it’d nearly be Wednesday by the time they arrived home.

They hadn’t packed the night before. The drive back to the motel after leaving White Sands was slow—Izuku had wanted to enjoy the starlight and Katsuki couldn’t blame him. And while it hadn’t been too late, the unholy hour that they’d have to wake up at had sent them both to bed, suitcases exposed and belongings spread throughout the room.

The only thing accomplished the night before had been dropping his cooler and umbrella outside a closed thrift shop. The rental car was empty of everything but sand.

Katsuki smacked around the nightstand to find his phone and shut it off before finally rolling out of bed. They had to pack, they had to eat breakfast, they had to check out of the room, and then they had to drive all the way back to Texas. Then sit in a couple tin cans in the sky for seventeen hours.

“Deku,” Katsuki grumbled, hurling a pillow in his general direction. “Get up and put your shitty super speed to decent use.”

A spark of teal lit up the room as Izuku caught the pillow with nary a drop of moonlight to see by.

“That do it for you?” he asked, cheeky before the lights were even on.

“I meant packing, shithead,” Katsuki said, flipping on the light. It revealed Izuku’s body to him, his bare chest and one thigh just beginning to poke out of the blanket, covered only by a thin set of boxer shorts. Attraction was a devil and Katsuki wasn’t ready for hell. Yet.

He looked away, walking to the sinks so he could brush his teeth and get his toiletries ready to pack. Maybe splash some cool water on his face and keep the blush at bay.

“It’s hard to use super speed in just a small room,” Izuku said, rustling behind Katsuki as he got out of bed.

“Sounds like a wimp who’s not up for a challenge.”

Izuku was beside Katsuki in a blue-green flash, hip-checking him as he reached for his own toothbrush. “How’s that?”

Katsuki gurgled around his toothpaste, some attempt at a growl, but the frothiness of his mouth stripped away the edge.

“Kacchan…” Izuku started, slowly putting a bead of toothpaste on his brush. “This wasn’t…just a vacation thing, right?”

“Wha?” Katsuki asked, taking his toothbrush out and talking around a mouthful of minty spit.

“Like…a vacation romance? That doesn’t follow us home?”

That was enough for Katsuki to spit out the toothpaste.

“Let me get this straight,” Katsuki said. “You think I’m gonna do this shit with you here, and commit to working with you full time, only to turn this shit into some G-rated fling?” Katsuki grabbed the hand in which Izuku held his toothbrush and shoved the brush into Izuku’s mouth. “Shut the fuck up.”

Izuku pulled the toothbrush out, a line of spit following it. “Well, you can’t blame me for wanting to make sure—you’re not really the easiest person to read.”

“We got ice cream together at a pink retro diner frozen custard palace,” Katsuki deadpanned. “If that ain’t clear, I’ll have to find whatever pride flag is appropriate, smack you with it, and then fly the blood-

soaked thing from my apartment.”

Izuku frowned. “You see how that might not be especially clear?”

The thing was, clear wasn’t what Katsuki had to offer right at this red-hot moment. Confused, sure. A little gay, fine. But clear just wasn’t in the cards, and judging by Izuku’s lack of words on the matter, the water he was wading through was just as murky as Katsuki’s.

Izuku had always looked to Katsuki for answers, but when they were young, every question had been simple. What’s this kanji? How’d you skip that rock? How’d you dribble that ball? Now they were both equally out of their depth and they’d both have to help each other figure things out in a way they’d only just begun to do.

Katsuki rinsed his toothbrush and put it down. Then he pressed a minty kiss to Izuku’s cheek. It was rough with little hints of morning stubble but plush and round with youth.

“Happy?”

Izuku’s face turned pink, almost orange in the yellowed artificial light. As Katsuki turned around to continue packing, he heard a squeaked little, “Yep!” and then the sound of a toothbrush vigorously going.

Without a hamper or a washing machine, the dirty clothes had ended up somewhat strewn around the room. They all had made it close to their respective suitcases, but not quite in and definitely not folded.

They’d all be going in the washer the moment Katsuki made it home, but everything would fit nicer folded, and he wouldn’t bring shame on his family if customs decided to open his suitcase and investigate.

Everything smelled of sweat and lingering deodorant. Wafts of the past week hit Katsuki as he folded every item until he got to a black shirt that was different.

It was the shirt Izuku had worn on Saturday. The shirt he’d been wearing when Katsuki lost his mind and kissed him. The shirt that had looked so funny on him but also staked Katsuki’s claim on him before he’d even known what he was doing.

It smelled like Izuku. His slightly more woodsy deodorant and multiple layers of sunscreen and sweat from a day in the sun. And it smelled like Katsuki too, his detergent, and his laundry all entangled. It was what they smelled like when they were intertwined, or if they did domestic things like laundry together. If they lived together.

Katsuki shoved the shirt in his bag. Too much too soon. No sleeping together and no imagining living together. 

“I’ll wash that!” Izuku offered suddenly, obviously done with brushing his teeth. Katsuki tempered his surprise, hoping it didn’t show on his body.

Katsuki imagined the shirt coming back to him smelling like Izuku’s detergent. It was a nice thought. It’d be an easy excuse to see each other again soon.

But Katsuki didn’t need an excuse now. And if he wanted a shirt that smelled like Izuku, he could steal one any time he wanted.

“Nah, I got it,” he said. And then he came across a bag that he’d shoved in his case, underneath the layers of clothes and other bullshit. “Here, this belongs with your stuff.”

Katsuki lifted the bag behind him, over his shoulder, face blazing. Izuku muttered things about not knowing what the bag was, not remembering buying it, and there was the telltale rustling of the bag being opened. Then there was a gasp. Then, the next thing Katsuki knew, he was being glomped from behind by a minty-fresh nerd. 

“All Might!” Izuku exclaimed.

“It’s Katsuki, actually,” Katsuki grumbled sarcastically.

“Kacchan!” Izuku cried. His hold was tight, unaware of his strength as he held the integrity of Katsuki’s ribs between his arms. “I love it, thank you!”

“Yeah, well,” Katsuki said. “Was a pretty good vacation. Should have some souvenirs.”

“Oh my gosh!” Izuku exclaimed, pulling back. Katsuki’s ribs were grateful, but a part of him missed the warmth of Izuku’s breath on his neck. “We need omiyage!”

Omiyage was a hassle when your friend group was twenty people strong. Between the two of them, there was no way they were bringing forty souvenirs total for their friends, not counting their parents and maybe some of their teachers and coworkers. Miruko, perhaps, if she deserved it after the shit she’d pulled. Then, suddenly, Katsuki had an idea.

“Finish packing and I know exactly what we can bring.”

*

Hours later, they’d made it through customs, both suitcases stuffed with the entirety of the motel’s continental breakfast, all wrapped in individual servings to give to their friends and give them the full experience of America. Honeybuns and breakfast cereals and, well, the fruit they’d actually eaten themselves. It made up for the week of breakfasts they’d skipped, or at least that was the logic Katsuki had given as he’d looked the checkout clerk dead in the eye and swept all the danishes into his bag. Fair was fair.

Since Izuku and Katsuki hadn’t bought their tickets together, their seats weren’t together either on the flight from Texas to Los Angeles or from Los Angeles to Japan. It’d be seventeen hours of horrible, mouth-breathing strangers, all making it even harder to sleep than it already was for Katsuki in a flying room full of people. Despite the jetlag and the early morning, Katsuki wasn’t convinced he’d sleep a wink.

“Boarding group D.”

Katsuki stepped forward to begin boarding the plane. Izuku had bought his ticket more last minute, maybe pulled strings to get on the same flight at all, so he probably had some shitty seat over the wing or right by the bathroom where the seats didn’t recline. Boarding group Z or something. 

The domestic airlines were shit. Tiny seats, no televisions, and the only food offered were tiny cookies and tins of juice. But the flight was less than two hours, and that was all that was on Katsuki’s mind as he stomped to his seat in the middle of the plane. It all went wrong before he even sat down.

“Wow, you’re Dynamight!”

A whole week of blissful anonymity, gone in a moment. The plane broke out in quiet murmurs, and Katsuki caught a quiet, “Who’s that?” “Is that a hero?” He wanted to roll his eyes until they got lost in the hat that should have at least partially shrouded him from this nonsense.

And of course, the guy who he was seated next to was the one who’d started the whole thing.

He was some kind of bro. A deep tan on his arms, a faded baseball cap on his head. Maybe the same age as Katsuki himself. It was always so hard to tell—his class had aged so fast. Scars and lines of concern running all over their skin.

Katsuki sat down heavily, a grunt his only word of acknowledgement towards his row partner.

“So cool!” the guy continued, as though they were in conversation. “Were you on vacation?”

Training, Katsuki wanted to snap back, but that wasn’t quite how things had ended up, was it? “Yep,” he said shortly.

“Ah, that’s awesome,” the guy said, a bit of a drawl spilling out. He was probably from this dusty place. Maybe trying to do something bigger in Los Angeles. “You earned it.”

Katsuki wondered if that was the kind of platitude that all Americans said. If this guy just recognized Katsuki from an internet video he saw sometime or if he had a real idea of Katsuki’s stats, of what it had taken for him to get his license and go on to sit on this slow-boarding plane today. If he had any idea whether Katsuki had deserved it or if he was blowing off work because he was an asshole.

Maybe Katsuki was only wondering that because even after all of this, vacation still didn’t feel like a word meant to be spoken alongside Bakugou Katsuki.

“I love it when heroes chill,” the guy said, testing out the seat’s recline even though they hadn’t taken off yet. “Makes me feel like I’m not an idiot for, you know, not looking over my shoulder every minute and having pepper spray on hand at all times.”

Katsuki turned to the guy. His eyes were bright blue, like All Might’s. “What’re you talking about?”

The guy shrugged. “If you feel safe, I feel safe. If you can take a break, that’s a good sign, right? Even if you live on the other side of the planet. You been keeping up with what’s been happening in Japan?”

Shockingly, Katsuki hadn’t. He and Izuku hadn’t spent much time on their phones. Minimal texting, news updates, or social media. If something big had happened, he’d like to think he would have heard, but what else had he missed?

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” The guy shook his head with a small smile. “Seems like you haven’t missed much.”

At that point, Izuku finally made his slow way down the aisle, keeping his broad shoulders hunched in on himself so he didn’t bump into the seats on either side. He saw Katsuki immediately, because of course he did, and a big smile rose to his face, as though they hadn’t been in each other’s company every second of every minute of the last six days.

But somehow, Katsuki smiled back. Even as the guy next to him gasped, “Hero Deku!” Katsuki couldn’t push down the warm, sappy feeling that came with Izuku smiling at him.

“Kacchan!” Izuku exclaimed as he passed by. “See you soon!”

Katsuki could feel the flickering of the guy’s eyes between the back of his head and Izuku as he found his seat in the back of the plane.

“You traveling together?”

Katsuki grunted. A week ago, the answer was a hard no. Together implies some level of collaboration. Partnership.

“Yeah,” Katsuki said. “He’s…yeah.”

It took ages for the damn aircraft to take off. When it finally did, the tanned patchwork of the American southwest gave way to the rugged mountains which gave way to the smog and sprawl of Los Angeles. Less than two hours in the air.

As the plane taxied, Katsuki heard a voice hissing behind him. “Kacchan! Kacchan, I think we’re gonna have to run!”

Impossible. Their layover was supposed to be an hour and a half, which Katsuki had picked on purpose because he didn’t want to be stuck sitting in America for any longer than he had to be. But it was plenty of time to get from one gate to another, even in an airport as large as LAX.

Or it would be. If they ever found a place to dock the damn plane.

The time that it had taken them to take off in the first place had landed them behind schedule and now every moment spent driving around the airport ate into that hour-and-a-half time slot. Less than an hour now, actually.

When the plane finally docked, Katsuki was perfectly willing to elbow his way off the thing if it meant getting out faster. But it wouldn’t be worth his time if Izuku lollygagged in the back of the plane like Katsuki knew he would. Not because he wasn’t in a hurry, but because he’d let everyone go before him. No elbow throwing to be seen.

So that was how Katsuki came to stand just outside the plane, toe tapping impatiently, memorizing the map of the airport terminals on his phone, refreshing to make sure their location hadn’t changed at the last minute. 

“Kacchan!” Izuku breathed when he finally escaped from the plane. “Let’s go!”

They took off. Izuku had the momentum, so he was a step ahead, but he was grabbing Katsuki’s wrist and dragging him right behind until the wheels of his carry-on sorted themselves out and Katsuki caught up.

A laugh escaped out of Katsuki’s mouth, and it almost made him miss Izuku’s twin sound. Both of their laughter echoing together through the jetway. It was such a special sound, one that didn’t come out when things were always so serious. When they were always saving the day or training themselves up to do so.

They laughed when they were safe. They laughed when their job was done. They laughed when they were together.

“To the shuttle!” Izuku instructed as they burst forth into the boarding area.

They ran through the airport as one oversized force. Two huge, hulking heroes, hands intertwined, with luggage flailing on either side. When they finally made it to their gate, it had only just started boarding.

“Where’d they stick you for this one?” Katsuki panted, reaching for his phone to pull out his boarding pass, brightening the screen to the point of blinding for the scanner to be able to read.

“Oh, um…”

Izuku flashed his boarding pass at Katsuki, and Katsuki only had to read the seat number to know that the boarding group was A. Somehow, this loser had decided to pay out the nose for a first class ticket. Well, if there was ever a time to do it, an overnight flight was that time.

“Fuck you,” Katsuki said simply, keeping his own pass to himself.

“It was the last seat available,” Izuku offered weakly.

“Whatever,” Katsuki snarked. “Hope you’re passed out the whole time.”

Izuku grinned. “Me too, honestly.”

Katsuki didn’t even realize that their hands were still locked together, warm and sweating from the run, until Izuku let go in order to move ahead in line. Meanwhile, Katsuki’s group hadn’t been called yet, so he had nothing to do but wait.

The plane boarded. This time he passed Izuku on his way in, the nerd already stacked high with blankets and pillows. Katsuki’s seat didn’t have either of those, but there was a small TV and the seats were more plush and spacious than on the previous plane. If he could sleep, none of it would matter anyway.

He went unrecognized this time. Or if any of the Japanese passengers recognized him, they were subtle enough not to say anything.

Then Izuku showed up again.

“Excuse me?” he said, and for a second, Katsuki thought he was talking to him. He was about to give him lip about being so formal when he realized that Izuku was looking over his shoulder to the woman sitting beside him. “Excuse me, miss?”

“Yes?” she said, taking out an earbud and looking at Izuku with confusion.

“Well, uh, I was wondering if I could trade seats with you?” Izuku asked. “See, this is my friend here, and, um, I’d like to share the flight with him, if that would be possible?”

The woman looked befuddled. Eyebrows cinched, nose turned up.

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience but, you understand, well, he’s…a very important person to me,” he blathered on. “And so I hope it’s not too much to ask.”

It was great that there were no eyes on Katsuki, as his cheek color burgeoned to a warm, bright pink. What did very important person mean anyway? What would Izuku call him if they weren’t in public?

Katsuki glanced back at his seatmate, still looking like she’d swallowed a piece of unripe bitter melon. He could sense her mouth about to open into a rejection when he butted in. “His seat is in first class.”

The woman’s face brightened. She was out of the window seat in five seconds, not even waiting for Katsuki to move his legs out of the way. Then Izuku was next to him and it was like they were back in the oversized SUV again, sitting side by side in surprisingly easy company.

“Hi,” Izuku said once he was settled. “I hope that was okay. I just figured…give it a shot, right?”

“Can’t stand a moment without me?” Katsuki asked, grinning. “What are we, brats again?”

“I could stand it,” Izuku disagreed. “I did for the last year. I just…don’t have to. And maybe I wanna make up for lost time.”

Time was something that the two of them kept losing. Through the bulbs of an hourglass were years of their adolescence, months lost in the war through comas and self isolation, and the last year of not knowing what they were doing. Sands lost to stupidity and circumstance.

“Good,” Katsuki said, and as the captain began speaking over the intercom, Katsuki leaned his head on Izuku’s shoulder. He was tired, and his body was still sore from all the training. Izuku was warm and his shoulder was broad and padded with muscle.

Katsuki didn’t even remember taking off.

Tuesday

The flight was long but getting through customs was short. The wait for their luggage was long but the ride to their apartments was short. Too short as they split their separate ways to separate parts of the city, the farthest apart they’d ever lived. Then, in the early evening in Japan and early morning in America, Katsuki went to sleep alone. 

Wednesday

The sound of the buzzer ringing pierced Katsuki from consciousness, and he was up and out of bed before he even knew what he was doing. Some Pavlovian impulse to open the door for whoever was downstairs, he supposed, but as he marched to the door and the morning fog lifted from his mind, it seemed more than likely that he would let them in only to blast their face when they made it to his door. The sun wasn’t even up yet.

It was too early for breakfast, but someone was getting cooked.

Of course, when he saw the grainy black-and-white security camera footage of an idiot lifting a plastic bag up and waving, he rolled his eyes and buzzed said idiot in. He’d decide whether to cook him or not when he got to Katsuki’s door.

Idly, Katsuki thought maybe he should just give the guy a key.

He hadn’t moved from the door by the time the knock came, and Katsuki whipped it open to reveal Izuku’s  face shift from surprise to happiness. “Kacchan!” he exclaimed. “I brought breakfast!”

Breakfast had no smell and the rustle of convenience store plastic, but Katsuki couldn’t complain since he hadn’t eaten anything since about the time they’d been flying over the International Date Line. When Katsuki peeked in the bag, he saw rice balls, drinkable yogurt, miso soup, porridge, and fruit. And that was just what was visible on top.

Izuku shrugged. “I didn’t know what you wanted? Kacchan needs his protein!”

Katsuki snatched the bag and brought it to the kitchen. He may have emptied out the fridge before leaving for his trip, but he still had hot water and could heat and reconstitute everything in minutes.

“I know I’m going into the office this morning,” Katsuki said as he started opening packages and Izuku leaned against the counter. “Last I checked, you don’t work till tonight. Why’re you awake?”

“Actually, I changed my schedule,” Izuku said, munching on a rice ball. “Not from now on or anything, just for today. Early shift.”

“Following me again?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been able to help it.”

It was shockingly domestic. The meals shared and carpooling and partnering up had been one thing—it had been bonding—but this was different. This was in Katsuki’s home when his teeth were not yet brushed, about to go to work and do what he did every day. It was integration. It was what they should have been doing the whole time.

“Soup,” Katsuki said, putting down a small, steaming bowl of miso soup and a set of chopsticks on the counter. Then, almost as an afterthought, he pressed a kiss to the side of Izuku’s cheek. It was rougher than yesterday with stubble from the day of travel, rushing over to Katsuki’s apartment without even looking at himself in the mirror.

They were both efficient eaters, always scarfing down food quickly before getting back to school or work, so it wasn’t long before they were heading out and taking the train together to headquarters. Their bodies were pressed together on the train, everyone stuffed tight with morning rush hour. 

It would be so easy to pull Izuku close, wrap his arms around his waist, rest his chin on his shoulder. But they weren’t there yet. They weren’t public—even if they were public, they didn’t have a label—and as it was, Katsuki didn’t know what to do with his hands. So he kept them at his side and focused on staying balanced on the train so that he didn’t go crashing into Izuku the next time the train stopped.

Although, maybe that didn’t sound so bad. It’d probably be easier.

*

“Thought you were slick, huh?”

Miruko kicked her legs on top of her desk, making a loud thump thump that sent paperwork and the packaged honeybun they’d just given her to the floor. Thump.

“Hope you’ve learned not to pull one over on me, blasty.”

Katsuki scowled. “Learned not to trust you farther than I can throw you.”

“So you must trust me quite a bit,” Miruko retorted. “I expect you’re stronger than ever after what you tried to pull.”

Miruko grinned and Katsuki bit his tongue. He couldn’t go against a compliment.

Izuku laughed and that drew Miruko’s attention back to him. “And you, changing your schedule at the last second so you could come in this morning?”

It felt like they were back in high school, sitting on a couch together with All Might sitting across from them. Once again, they were a fledgling team with hardly a clue about how to move forward together. They’d figured it out on the fly back then, and they could do it again now.

“Kacchan and I have some proposals that we wanted to talk about as soon as possible.”

Miruko put her arms out towards them. “Please.”

“Japan has been fine this last week,” Izuku started. “I looked up the incident reports and arrests, and I could show them to you but I already know that you know that Japan didn’t fall apart without us. So it would also be fine if we worked together, instead of spreading out our power. Other heroes will rise to the task, and we’d be happy to mentor sidekicks for just that reason.”

Izuku sounded a little stilted and stiff, like he might have typed the speech and memorized it before bringing it into the room, but it was all sound enough. Basically what they had talked about just a couple days ago.

Miruko looked to Katsuki. “Do you want to be hero partners with Deku?”

Katsuki nodded. “We should at least be given the chance to try it out.”

“I agree.”

Katsuki blinked. He’d expected at least some kind of a fight. Maybe a kick to the solar plexus.

“Look, we’re still settling after the war,” Miruko explained. “Our numbers are still down, and I think most of us are paranoid. We’ve been painting with broad strokes, trying to figure out how we can do things differently from last time, how we can set ourselves up for success. We tried separating power, but hey, if you boys want to try something different, let’s see if that works. Saving the world shoulda earned you both some kind of cache.”

“So…that’s it?”

“That’s it,” Miruko confirmed. “Well, I mean, you will have to fill out new paperwork, and the two of you definitely have to figure out how to make a new schedule work with this lineup, ‘cause I’m sure as hell not doing it, and so I guess that’s what you’ll spend the rest of the day doing instead of boom boom smash smash on the streets. Oh well!”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, scooching his chair back and letting it screech against the floor. Whatever, it’d probably be best to rest up more before hitting the streets anyway. He was about to reach for the door when Miruko’s voice, sickly sweet, came from the desk.

“Oh, and Deku? How was your vacation?”

Katsuki and Izuku exchanged a glance. “You mean mission?”

“I mean vacation,” Miruko said smugly. “You think I really sent you to America to look after Katsuki? I thought you were smarter than that, sucker.”

“Wha—” Izuku looked back and forth between Miruko and Katsuki, bewildered, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that yeah, you were supposed to make Katsuki take a chill pill for once in his life, but to do that, you’d have to take a chill pill too. If you made him vacation, that’d mean that you’d have to do it too.”

It was so obvious Katsuki wanted to smack his head against the wall. Maybe through the wall. They’d both been severely played. And the proof of it spread across Miruko’s face from ear to longass ear.

Miruko grinned. “Bye now!”

The two of them left, and Katsuki made no effort not to slam the door on his way out. Ears that big, let them ring from the noise.

As they walked down the hallway to the elevator, their knuckles brushed against each other, and Katsuki’s fingers twitched in Izuku’s direction. But he kept them to himself, whispering to Izuku instead, “We can’t let her find out we’re together, or she’ll be even more smug.”

“Insufferable,” Izuku agreed.

“Are we…telling anyone?”

Anyone in their lives had a chance of being equally as insufferable, honestly, it was just a matter of duration. Most of their friends were annoying enough to cling onto it for a long, long time.

“I don’t think we have to?” Izuku said. “We’re still figuring it out. Here. We’re still figuring everything out.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki agreed. “We can’t let them see us be amateurs at this.”

“Number one only,” Izuku agreed.

They’d have to work for a few hours, fill out that paperwork and figure out the scheduling nonsense and whatever else Miruko tried to kick their way. But there was no reason why they had to stay at the office to do that. And after that, the rest of their day was free.

“Y’know, the weather looked clear today,” Katsuki said as they stepped into the elevator. “I bet we could go on a hike.”

“I dunno, Kacchan, there’s no food in my fridge,” Izuku said. “I need to go grocery shopping.”

“Actually, I do too,” Katsuki remembered, thinking about the sad condiments languishing in his fridge with no meat or vegetables. “You know what, we’ve gotta find out what that jam tastes like on pork.”

Izuku groaned hungrily. “Yes, Kacchan, please. If you do, I’ll make the rice.”

“Ugh, it feels like forever since I’ve eaten regular rice.”

“I know, I miss it.”

“Okay, rice, pork, we need a vegetable.”

“Chiles? They tasted so good.”

“The spice will come from the pork, so let’s do shishitos. I have the shit for a glaze in my fridge.”

The elevator popped open and in a few steps they were out on the streets, back in the humidity and rainy season of Japan, time zone still recalibrating, mentally unpacking. Their hands continued to brush together, swish swish with every step they took.

Another grain of sand through the hourglass. And the glass became one speck clearer.

[ryuichirou]

Replies

More replies! We have a couple of asks about Jack today~ Talked a lot about the good boy of the cast lol

Oh, and spoiler warning for Kuroshitsuji and twst ch7 for the second reply (the first one under the “read more”) thing. Kind of sort of?? Just to be safe.

Anonymous asked:

"I try not to spend more than one hour per day on writing replies." Omg, ryuichi, you spend almost 1 hour replying to asks?! Are you ok?! Don't push yourself.

Also, femChenya, being able to change her breast size, is so cursed that i love it. Thanks, i won't stop thinking about that for the rest of the day lmao.

(related to our hc post)

Aww thank you for your concern, Anon!! I’m just very slow at writing things, and I tend to talk a lot, so it takes longer than it should. But I really want people to get their replies + I really enjoy writing them, so it’s fun! If I get tired, I’ll just skip a day or two… As long as people don’t mind me replying after like a month, it’s all good lol

I’m glad you enjoyed that Che’nya headcanon! She is one cursed cat, I’m 100% sure she has startled Riddle with this trick multiple times…

Anonymous asked:

Silver 🤝Snake

Being cute silver haired boys mentally broken  by Yana Toboso by finding out the truth about two conflicting sides related to their family/found family

TRUEEEEE!!

Every time we talk about Snake we keep calling him Silver :( This is a curse that cannot be lifted, and of course both of these calm and quiet silver haired babes are going to suffer emotionally in the worst way possible. Poor boys (they look so cute when they suffer though)

Anonymous asked:

Hehe...Vil and Azul being in-laws will be hilarious. Like if it is Christmas and that all those two did just bicker and argue. Idia too scared to confront them while Ortho cheers for Vil. Also a way to get Azul to exploit Vil...

(related to our previous repliy)

God how much I want to see them celebrate Christmas together lol it really would be a disaster. Poor Idia just wants everyone to disappear, he has games to play and anime to watch.

I wonder how long it’d take for Azul to stop trying to act like the slimiest smiling nice guy in the world and start getting openly irritated by Vil who doesn’t buy his bullshit. I guess spending Christmas holidays together would be enough lol

furubatsu asked:

I just read Jack's dorm vignette and idk if you ship them or not but I need your take on whatever the fuck he and Ruggie have going on. He's insane in that story.

*addendum of my prev ask: I meant I now you don't ship them, I just wanted your take on Jack and Ruggie because what the fuck is that vignette? (Also even with some of your ships I don't like, I am very into your takes o  the chara ters and their dynamics)

Sorry for the late reply, but we FINALLY watched that vignette, and it was so funny and weird. Just like you said…  Jack is insane TwT

Just like you said, we don’t ship these two, but that interaction gave us quite some food to chew on. And ironically, the only thought I have in my head after watching this is “wow, Jack really is just a puppy”. Maybe it’s because with Jack I always get this weird desire to treat him like a pup, he is surprisingly cuddable for a guy his size. In a “gosh how pwecious you are, with your floofy tail and ears awwww who’s a good boi yes you are mister doggie sir”. And Jack’s behavior in this vignette certainly didn’t help with that at all lol

But overall it’s just cute that he has this dog (wolf) mentality of trying to find order or hierarchy in a group that he is a part on. He needs the structure of a pack, I guess it’s just more natural to him. What’s also interesting is that while he admires Ruggie and I guess has chosen him as a leader (congrats on being an alpha, Ruggie…?), he doesn’t want a boss. I think the guys nailed it when they realised that Jack is acting like a little brother who has a lot to learn from Ruggie.

Which is suuuuper ironic because while being a good older brother for his own younglings, Ruggie really doesn’t want to get all familial with the guys from NRC. He wants connections and useful friendships, but when it comes to the type of dynamic Jack asks for, Ruggie is like the one person who wouldn’t want this type of closeness. And it’s very interesting to see how he just doesn’t get Jack’s desire to help him out and protect him selflessly and gratuitously.

So yeah, they’re interesting! We also liked their interactions in the Portfest event. Jack is super stubborn with his morals and his urge to do good things to people he respects, and it’s hilarious how Ruggie can’t really fight it and is visibly uncomfortable with it because of how unusual it is to him.

(Also, thank you so much for your kind words, I am very happy that you like the way I talk about the characters even if you don’t like some of our ships <3 I appreciate it a lot!)

Anonymous asked:

how do you feel about jack/epel? is a vanilla but sweet ship imo, and i think epel definitely would have a thing for buff men

i also may or may not hc rook has an interest in everyone’s “mating habits”, especially the non human students. he’d find it interesting watching his junior take on a big beastman

They are kind of too vanilla for us because Jack is general is kind of vanilla despite his animalistic side, so it’s not a huge ship for us, but it’s still a very good one! Epel absolutely has a thing for buff men, it’s funny how pretty much all of his ships are just him + huge animalistic guy… Epel would try to act like he’s “one of the dudes”, just another buff bro in his soul, but we all know how giggly he would get if, you know. Things happened.

And the Rook hc is pretty much canon, at least in my head lol There is absolutely no way he wouldn’t get interested. What a blessing it is that Epel’s potential mates are wolves, eels and all kinds of animals~ It makes the whole experience even more beauté

[echantedtoon]

(John) Doe Eyed Ch7 The Conflict And The Resolution

(Hey everyone. I just wanted to thank everyone who read this far and liked my story enough to read it to it's end. I had a lot of fun writing it and it makes me happy knowing some people loved it enough to read it fully. If you liked this consider checking out my other works. Thanks to everyone for reading this, faving it, or leaving a nice comment. And thank you to Mortisfox for creating such wonderful characters and giving me the opportunity to make this wonderful story.)

"Fae!! Fae, wake up!! You've been out for long enough."

"Is she dead?"

"Don't worry. She only fainted. I think the situation was a lot for her to take in at once."

"Oh...Is that my fault?"

"Of course not. This happens a lot more often than you think."

It was dark when Fae came to. What were those voices? Who was that? What happened? What was going on? Pink eyes slowly blinked open again and blinked again at the introduction of bright light. Slowly the eyes adjusted to the brightness and her vision cleared up. She could make out two figures looking down at her. One was the concerned face of her cousin and the other was a wide smile of John.

"You're awake! I'm so happy! ," he gushed as Fae blinked.

"Fae, are you alright?," Rose asked pressing a hand to her forehead. "You fainted after you saw him. Does your head hurt?"

Fae slowly blinked again as the realization of what happened with the memories of it. The Fuzzball monster, what Rose told her, John suddenly showing up- Both jumped as Fae shot up sitting up wide eyed and shaking her head before reaching a hand up to just grab her head.

"What happened...That really wasn't a dream was it?"

"Afraid not."

"Then that means you were telling the truth." Fae pointed at Rose. "And then that means that he's-" She slowly pointed at John whom gulped and smiled wider as she frowned deeply. "You're that little furball. Aren't you?"

John visibly gulped wringing his hands nervously and smiling widely. "Um..Y-Yes?"

There was then silence for a long LONG moment as the three just stood there before Fae inhaled deeply and slowly sighed.

"Rose. Can you give us a moment? I need to talk with Doe alone."

Rose and Doe exchanged a look before she looked back to Fae and nodded. "Um. Sure. I'll just go and get started on cleaning the bathroom then. If you need me I'll just be upstairs. Ok?"

Fae nodded. Rose gave one last look at the both of them before turning and leaving. It wasn't until Rose was fully upstairs and out of sight that Fae moved, reaching up both hands to rub her face tiredly as Doe just shyly stood there in the awkward silence. Eventually she broke the silence and spoke.

"Doe." He jumped looking at her. "Be honest with me. Was everything Rose said true or are you both pulling a bad prank on me?"

"I-.." He winced. "It's all truth."

"So that hairball really was you?!"

"Yes."

She finally looked up from her hands and gave him a frown. "So you're not even human?! And you didn't think to tell me such an important detail while we were dating?!"

He shrank a bit in on himself with a kicked puppy. "You were happy without knowing. I never lied about anything."

"Keeping the truth from someone is just as bad as lying, Doe! What was your end game here?! You couldn't just hide this from me forever!," Fae looked at him with a hurt frown. "What else did you keep from me? Do you even work as a collector?"

"I am a collector. I just ...collect things I like that people throw away."

"So you don't do that professionally?" He shook his head no. "This is too much." Her hands grabbed her head again. "I-I need some time alone."

He jumped looking horrified. "Y-Youre breaking up with me?!''

"I don't know, Doe! But I know I can't do anything without thinking about it first! And to do that I just need some time to think about things away from you! When Rose leaves go with her... I need some time to myself."

That was the last time she saw him for the past week. She made sure he left when Rose did even if he did look really hurt at her but she needed time alone to think and clear her head and just...process what happened. It was hard for a while and just left her not knowing what to think about this situation. Which lead to today when she was at her job lazily leaning against the counter top behind the register, when the bell over the door rang out and she immediately looked up.

"Hey. How can I-" She paused. Blinking widely and staring as a man with long black hair and wearing all black. "...DOE?!"

The man whom stood there looked EXACTLY LIKE DOE!! Only...he looked a lot less scraggly and more .. straightened out. His hair was still curly but a lot less messy, his clothes were straightened out especially his jacket, and his face was more... human. His eyes didn't look yellowed anymore and his features looked more... regular looking. He smiled a normal amount as he approached and waved.

"Hello my darling!," he said sounding as normal as the next person. "I've been thinking hard about what you said and I fully realized I was in the wrong, so I've come to apologize for everything."

Fae only gaped in shock still before shaking her head. "Doe? What happened to you?! You look so..."

"Normal?"

"Different! What happened?!," he seemed to pause at the concern in her voice and face. 

"Nothing happened. Don't worry." He held up a hand. "I figured it all out. You didn't like it when I wasn't human, so while I can't change what I am I can be as human as you possibly want!" He smiled a bit wider but nothing that could be considered unnormal. "Don't like this? That's ok. I can be anything you want! Just say the word and I'll be whatever you want."

"What?! NO!!" Fae yelled out making him blink. "Don't do that! Doe, I just said I needed time to think about everything. I never wanted you to just literally change yourself to try and impress me!"

He suddenly looked so lost. "But...I-I CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY!!" Fae blinked as he suddenly grabbed her hands on the counter leaning closer a weary smile on his face. "just tell me what I did wrong and I'll fix it! I...I just don't understand. I did everything right didn't I?" He became more distraught the longer she didn't respond. "Don't you love me?"

"I-..." Fae sighed looking down. "I think I do love you, Doe."

"YOU DO?!" He looked up hopeful.

"But not when you're pretending to be something you're not." Her hands tightened a bit on his. "I liked how you were before. I like how you treat me and listen and how cute you look when you get confused about something..But It hurts knowing you're keeping so much from me when I told you so much about my life. So if we're going to be together then you gotta promise me you won't keep anymore secrets. Promise?"

"YES!!" He broke whatever disguise was in take by grinning a LOT more widely than normal again happily. "I PROMISE YOU SO MUCH!!"

"Then I think we've got a lot of talking to do."

[llondonfog]

Have you read this one yet? I enjoyed this so much!! It was like a bandaid to my emotions after reading the other fic you posted. https://archiveofourown.org/works/48986743#bookmark-form

@admiraltdevanto i just need you to know that after every devastating ch7 update, @kage-kitsune-no-yami would send me one of your fics to cheer me up and i'm so glad i get to tell you that now :')

NOW I HAVE AND AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

god i am forever ruined by the knowledge of lilia's past and how he's come to nurture and encourage these small, precious sanctuaries in both malleus' and silver's lives. the act of dancing, to free malleus from his palatial chains and try to share with him a glimmer of the indulgences he might have known had his mother and father survived.............

(don't get me started on the part about the village, I WAS DISTRAUGHT GOD. HIS FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE FLEETING NATURE OF LIFE.)

and all to pass along lilia's lessons and the joy and belonging he's found within them to the new precious little one in their lives ; u; IT WAS VERY MUCH NEEDED AFTER THE ANGST OF THIS WEEK

[deludedfantasy]

Trimax Vol 4 Ch 5-7

My thoughts for the last half of this volume! I read part of this at like 1 am because I just couldn’t stop so if some of this is incoherent...that’s why.

Ch5

Wolfwood announcing the remaining Gung Ho Guns as if this is common information and something anyone should know if they weren’t part of the group…where’s that post about him being a bad liar. 

The problem with having a character that fights using music or a musical instrument is there’s no cool way to do it. I’m sorry, Midvalley is just over here playing careless whisper and the windows explode. It’s a look, but is it cool? Questionable.

Wait, I take it back? What the hell did he just do to Wolfwood??? Did he just make his brain bleed? Knock him out? Liquify his organs? What???

Oh no, Milly :(

Is she just scared or is someone using their powers to hold her back?

Vash said, “Fuck off with your coins. I’m not playing your games.”

Hoppred, I think you’re projecting a bit, because that is not the face of a man who is enjoying this fight, at all. 

The problem with having watched Tristamp first is I can’t remember who knows what at this point in the manga, and I forgot Meryl doesn’t know about Knives or that he’s Vash’s brother. Also, goddamn, Vash, you really need to tell your friends things because it is not fair for them to follow you blindly into your quest without even knowing who you’re going after. And then have the villains reveal your backstory to them! It’s a bad look, dude.

Ch6

Oooh, more Vash backstory, maybe? Always up for more Vash backstory. 

The fights with the Gung Ho Guns are getting more and more personal. First Leonof, and now Hoppred, who’s talking about revenge and July. This is going to be deliciously painful, I can tell.

Hoppred is crying from all of his eye holes??? Oh my god.

Oh, it takes much longer for Meryl (and the reader, to a certain extent) to learn Vash is an independent Plant here than in Tristamp. And it’s worse here in a way because Meryl finds out from an enemy, not from Vash directly. Not only is she in an already upsetting situation, but now someone is giving her information that explains so much about Vash and she can’t even say they’re lying to hurt her because it makes too much sense. 

It’s also interesting that, unlike in Tristamp, after the Big Fall, Vash stayed with Knives for years before striking out on his own and deciding to help humans. He must feel so complicit in humanity’s suffering because of that. 

Ah yeah, Meryl looks really scared and fucked up by this revelation.

Milly hears “black-suited moron” and immediately comes running. She’s like, “There’s only one person who that could be!”

Really not liking what Wolfwood’s saying here. It sounds like he’s about to go on a rampage. 

Uh-oh, is that Knives coming to join the party?

Ch7

Vash starting to remember July is so, so painful.

These panels where everything looks like eyes: the moon in the sky, the explosion of power in July, with Vash’s eye focused in the middle. It works really well as a transition for him remembering.

Seeing Vash calling himself a murderer, feeling like there’s no atonement or way for him to move forward, it feels so wrong. It hurts so badly whenever he starts to doubt his own beliefs and ideals. They make up so much of his life that it really underscores how much he hates himself and what he did. 

Flippant comments about knowing the angel of death and how they’re coming for him—this man has a death wish unlike any other I’ve seen in fiction. 

But I do love when Vash lets the rage take over. Because despite his pacifism, he’s actually full of it! I’d actually argue his anger is what’s behind those ideals. His anger at Knives, at what he’s done, at the world, at himself, it feeds his want to do better. It makes it all the more poignant that he refuses to kill when he very much so wants to. 

He’s willing to tear Hoppred apart if he gets in his way. Anything that keeps him from getting his revenge on Knives, not only for the Big Fall and Rem, but for July and every terrible deed he’s done, there is enough anger in him that he would kill for that. 

Whether Wolfwood was trying to provoke Milly so he could knock her out or he’s actually serious about leaving Meryl behind, that’s a dick move. And I know he knows it, which makes it worse. The chorus of random bystanders is right, “Booooooo.”

They’re purposefully being drawn into some kind of trap and a new, not-before-seen Gung Ho Gun is on the scene. I’m scared. 

Oh, cliffhanger ending, wonderful. Even though I’ve already read this, I might start the next volume this weekend and read ahead a little because I cannot be left in suspense after all of this.