#also I added a post “office” as a place where I can return to after delivery

[veunho]

Playing Nor Gloom Of Night when absolutely nobody ever has uploaded their own experience with the game so every step I take I'm like am I doing this shit right;;;

[i-jus-wanna-writehappy]

Abundance

incubus!Gojo Satoru x black!fem!reader

Warnings/Content: 18+ only cursing, praise kink, some spit (not spit play), blowjob, toy usage, joint (that isn’t relevant until part 2), deep throat, cum eating (both), dirty talk, pet names (baby, pretty girl), porn with plot

Author’s Note: well fuck. I got sick as hell and it pushed back all of my kinktober work. I’ll still publish them all, they’ll just be coming out in through November. Anyways, I hope you enjoy and let me know if you’d like to be tagged in Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2

•••

You gnaw on the skin at the edge of your thumb nail nervously as you look at the shoddy, yet well intentioned miniature hut you’ve built with the help of YouTube, 20 minutes of sleep, and the 4 shots of tequila you guzzled to quell your anxieties after said 20 minutes. If we’re being honest, it doesn’t seem like the kind of offering a deity of abundance would really like, but it’s the best you could do, and you cross your fingers and snap a picture, hoping it’ll be enough.

Not even 5 minutes after sending your photo does your phone ping with Shoko’s personalized ringtone.

It’s kinda plain. Put some flowers or something. Or a money tree… duh

You grumble at the message, but still jump up and throw your feet into two mismatched shoes before sneaking out to your apartment courtyard and ripping some of the flowers from the display out front. Crouched down, you check to see if anyone is around again, the jumbo beads on the ends of your braids clatter and nearly erase any semblance of stealth that you have as you rush back into your apartment, not even breathing until your back is flat against your door.

Looking at your cozy one bedroom with fresh eyes, you notice that not only is your hut plain, but it’s also sitting on your coffee table where no sun can reach it. Taking your thumb back into your mouth, you kick off your fuzzy slide and wedge sandal and get to arranging in a way that will hopefully make Shoko proud.

She’s an expert by zero means at all. She really just sent you the first abundance ritual post that popped up on Pinterest after listening to you freak out about how long you and your colleagues have been striking at the office and what are you going to do with only a side hustle and a half? You’re both as knowledgeable as each other when it comes to summoning anything but a free drink at a club, but only one of you thought to check Pinterest and now maybe the other one is looking for some validation because even if it’s shoddy, she worked really hard and would like to hear that she did good.

So though you send the photo of your hut, now preciously decorated with maybe too many flowers and sitting in the sun with only a “Fuck you, she’s pretty 🥹”, Shoko is quick with her reply, knowing exactly what you’re looking for.

Much better, very pretty. You did a pretty good job honestly.

The praise has a smile growing wide on your face, you did do a pretty good job for your first go at it. You stayed up all night and even added a few symbols (sigils? Fuck if you know) to the bottom for good measure. That kind of dedication deserves a reward, so you decide to take yourself out on a date. These have been a hard few weeks and until the deity, fairy, or whoever does it, you will give yourself an abundance. Of love and care that is.

As you return home an hour or two after the sun has set with two handfuls of bags and leftovers from your lunch with Shoko, you feel satisfied, maybe this was the work of your sweet little hut. “Give back to the universe what it gave to you.” You whisper before places a small wet kiss to the smooth, misshapen roof of what you have now decided to call a cottage, potentially thanks to a few dinner mimosas that were not your idea, but we’re happily consumed.

With your day having been lived and the universe having received your thanks, early or otherwise, you drop your clothing and beauty supply bags beside your couch and set your leftovers on the counter to wait for you until after your shower. You let out a long groan of anticipation as you try to undress without the hands currently pushing your braids into your bonnet.

You’re absolutely right to anticipate your shower. The steaming water is loosening knots in your shoulders you didn’t even notice were there. Just as you go to reach for your body wash and wash rag, a shiver runs down your spine and ends as a warm buzz between your legs. The intensity catches you by surprise, almost making you slip out of your bathtub and wiping away your soft intoxication.

Catching yourself quickly, you push your urges down, you have plans for her already; leftovers, specialty ice cream, a rose-petal wrapped joint, and the cute little rose toy you picked up today. It’s nothing fancy, but you figure that your date should end the right way, and you deserve to be wined and dined before putting yourself to sleep as you throughly plan to. It’s hard, let’s not downplay the severity of this arousal, you’re stalled for nearly two entire minutes, fearing any movement right now ruining your plans, but your brain wins and you’re able to finish your shower with major discomfort, but no worries.

Out of your shower and donned in your favorite panties and flirty nightgown, you begin to set up your bedroom for your eventful night, lighting candles and putting your comfort show on the television all of your friends hate that you keep in your room (until they’re all staying over) while your leftovers spin in your microwave. All the while, you can’t get rid of the infuriating itch in your lower belly, demanding attention. “Guess abundance can mean anything.” You mutter as you cut your eyes over to your cottage while removing your food from the microwave.

There’s no one to blame but yourself, you figure as you shut off the rest of the lights in your apartment, and while the abundance isn’t fully working out how you want right now… that doesn’t mean you won’t wake up to a 30 million dollar check in the mail from a secret admirer.

Though you don’t have time to be amused by your thoughts, instead, you’re frozen in your doorway, petrified by the two icy blue eyes glowing in the darkest corner of your room. As your eyes meet, another wave of arousal rushes over you, threatening to knock you off of your feet, but you’ll be damned if you drop your leftovers, opting instead to squeeze your thighs together softly as his mouth cracks open into a wide smile, teeth just as bright as his eyes.

The man begins to approach you, each step feeling like a vibration in your core, and as your mind reels, you figure that he has to be the deity. Granted, now that he’s out of the darkness, he does look good enough to eat - tall and lean, black dress pants running along the incredible length of his legs to gleaming shoes and a white button-up shirt that looks soft enough to wrap your pillow in, just enough buttons open to show the peek of a silver necklace glinting beneath - but you’d be lying if you said you thought a real person could turn you on to this extent. He stops once the cool tips of his shoes rest against your toes, his burning gaze lazily dropping to the soft pink polish on your toes before dragging its way up past the hem of your nightgown to your chest, lingering there as his Cheshire smile grows even wider and his eyes make one final jump to meet yours. “Hey.”

Having him so close to you is an adjustment you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to make as you feel your pussy flutter around nothing. You have no idea what to say in response, and before you can think about it, or simply whimper instead, your mouth moves without your permission, “Are you a fairy?”

The man throws his head back in a boisterous laugh, his lower lip poking out in a mocking pout when he meets your eyes again, “Awe, pretty girl,” A cool thumb caresses your cheek, your body still adjusting to his pressure, “Were you supposed to be summoning a fairy?” Nodding, your shoulder lifts in a halfhearted shrug, “Or a deity. Of um, of abundance.”

He removes his hand from your face and clicks his tongue, not relinquishing his pout as he pulls one of your cottage flowers from his pocket. “And here I thought you were trying to set the mood.” As he maneuvers the flower behind your ear, you realize that you hadn’t even noticed that his pockets were stuffed with all of the flowers you’d set up to welcome… whatever he was. Luckily, he answers your question after plucking the long stem from the flower behind your ear, “My name is Gojo Satoru, and I am the finest incubus you can summon.”

You’re not given much time to process, your confused (and betrayed) gaze still out of your bedroom door and set on the naked cottage as Gojo takes your hand and pulls you towards your bed. He takes a seat on the edge, releasing a hum of delighted satisfaction at the soft bounce, and rests you so you’re standing between his open legs, the tv flickering colors across his face, all paling in comparison to his eyes. “I summoned a demon?” Gojo nods, smile ever present and hand not yet leaving yours, “Can incubi also bring money?”

Gojo chuckles, “You ask a lot of questions don’t you?” He pulls another flower from his pocket and rips the stem off with his teeth before placing behind his own ear, “I’ll answer that one and any others you’re allowed to ask until we’re done, okay?” His okay is punctuated by his hand releasing yours and instead mirroring his other to slowly trail up your legs and beneath your nightgown.

“For starters, you’re gonna call me Satoru tonight, or however much of it you’re able to get out later.” A cheeky smirk as he looks up at you through his frosty lashes makes you want to feel his mouth on you and see if it’s as chilled as the rest of him is, but he’s also a demon, so using your newly mastered skill of beating your desires back until you just barely have control, you nod and clench your thighs again, “Okay, Satoru.” His hands have reached the hem of your panties now, fingers bunching the material until he clasps the entire sides in both hands, “Good! Now, as far as money goes, usually, no, but, if you’re a good girl for me, I just might reconsider.”

If you weren’t already struggling to keep your breath softer than a pant, you’d probably be embarrassed at how your legs quiver at the label, especially when Satoru acknowledges the shake with a groan deep in his chest and the tortuously slow descent of your panties, which he follows with the burial of his nose in the crevice between your thighs over your nightgown. After he finishes a deep breath, he releases your panties to land on the floor and catches his bottom lip between his teeth as he chuckles again. “I’m a demon, not a monster, you’re not in any danger.” The end of the statement is very pointed, Satoru’s eyes serious as he says it, though they soften again when you nod, some of the returned tension in your shoulders dropping with the motion of your head.

Satoru’s icy hands have made their way back up your legs, his fingers digging into your ass as he kneads the fat of it, the crotch of his pants tightening in response, “Last answer, no more questions til we’re done; I don’t care about your neighbors, don’t muffle any of the sounds you make. I know I won’t be, so it’ll be a waste if you try.” While you heard Satoru, your entire body’s attention has been focused on his cock trying to break through the zipper of his pants, and with one more nod, this one much less invested than your prior, you drop to your knees in front of Satoru. He goes to protest, but you offer a silent trade, offering him your leftovers, though he doesn’t take the plate until you pull your lust blown eyes from the growing tent in his pants to meet his own. Once your eyes meet, Satoru laughs, almost giddy, and takes your plate, “Are you repaying me for earlier?”

Your fingers fumble with his pants, your anticipation so high, you can barely function. You have to taste him, and you most definitely have to do it now, besides, Satoru is counting on you to be a good girl for him, “I’m gonna try.” You mutter as you finally get his pants undone. Satoru takes a forkful of leftovers into his mouth, those paralyzing eyes of his focused on you.

Taking a note from Satoru’s book, you slowly, tortuously pull his pants down, your lips leaving wet kisses along his snowy happy trail. Satoru is about to say something else, but you finally get his pants down low enough to see he isn’t wearing any underwear beneath his perfectly tailored pants and lick a path from one side of his pelvis to the other, forcing him to cut off whatever he was going to say with a breathy groan.

The noise makes you impatient, yanking Satoru’s pants just low enough for his cock to come springing up onto his stomach, long veiny, and begging to be touched. Flicking your eyes up to his flushed face, you guide his tip into your mouth, hollowing out your cheeks and pushing your tongue against the sensitive skin just beneath the head of his cock, a smile constricting your mouth even more when the repeated motion causes Satoru to flop back onto your bed with a long whine.

Taking a deep breath in through your nose while you can, you glide his twitching length over your tongue until the cool, yet angry red tip pushes at the back of your throat. The entirety of Satoru can’t fit into your mouth, the very base of him eluding the warm wet embrace, so to make up for it, you sit up on your knees and extend your tongue to lick what your lips can’t reach, spit pooling into the short shorn hairs you can’t quite bury your nose into. Now Satoru moans, low and lulling, setting your plate beside himself on your bed and tossing his head back. As you lift your mouth from his cock slowly, tongue lazily dragging behind, Satoru’s breaths turn into shallow pants. You can’t remember the last time you wanted to savor something so badly, or the last time you wanted to devour something so grossly it’d be hard to look your mother in the eye. Satoru is using one hand to push his fluffy hair off of his forehead and the other is lying limp over the edge of your bed. His moans and whines have your pussy clenching and dripping, aching for the relief that comes when you slip two of your fingers into your heat.

As the stimulation on your g-spot and the dizzying heat of Satoru’s slack jawed stare make you moan around the head of his cock, you suddenly drop your mouth back down on him until his spongy head makes harsh contact with the back of your throat. The feeling pulls a deep growl from Satoru, the edges of his licked lips curling as you repeat the motion, building a steady pace of slow ascension and burning descent until the sounds of your clattering beads, moans, and squelches of your fingers fidgeting in your pussy are joined by the wet, choked cry forced from your lips every time you make that bruising collision.

“So good, baby. You’re doing so good for me.” Satoru praises you, reaching for something on the small end table beside your bed, sharp blue eyes still trained on you and summoning another wave of arousal over your curling fingers. You moan at the feeling, air in the room growing thick and Satoru sits up now, resting his weight on his left arm as he extends the other to you, revealing your new toy. You still your movements, your aching throat enjoying the reprieve as you gaze up at Satoru, eyebrows scrunched in confusion and your tongue lazily sliding along his twitching length. “I wanna taste you while I fuck your mouth, pretty girl, you can use this.”

You don’t go to move for the toy, not because you don’t want to, of course, but once again, as your eyes flicker from his open hand to his face, his eyes, your body’s actions seem to be incredibly limited, only allowing for your pussy to clench tighter around your fingers and your mouth to release a needy whine around Satoru’s cock. Hissing at the vibration, his expression gets serious, “Take it and use it. Give me your hand.” His demand turns your brain back on and you pull your fingers out of yourself with a loud pop, your wetness dripping onto the floor as you present your sticky fingers to Satoru, your other hand dropping into his own to drunkenly grasp the pink toy.

Satoru is smiling again, pulling another cock muffled whimper from you, “Awe, baby, is that all for me?” He coos, cheeks flushed as he licks at some of the sticky arousal that has dripped down to your wrist. You nod, needy moans and whimpers leaving your mouth more often than breath at the moment, and your heat missing something to grip as Satoru’s eyes roll back into his head as he groans hungrily at the taste of you. When his eyes meet yours again, they’re dark and hazy, almost making his cheeky grin look ravenous, devilish. “You should have told me you tasted so good.” He doesn’t leave any room for response - not that you really could in your state anyway - before his head gestures to your hand, still lying in his, “Use your rose, pretty girl. I want you to cum with me.”

Now that your new toy is turned on and pressed against your clit, Satoru gently grips the back of your neck, his thumb gently stroking the skin behind your ear as he savors the taste of your arousal on your fingers, “Relax your mouth, baby, okay?” This time, Satoru let’s you nod in response before his grip on your neck tightens and he thrusts his hips so he hits the back of your throat again, the sensation making you both moan loudly. He barely pulls back before plunging his cold cock head right back into the increasingly more sensitive spot. Relentless, Satoru keeps his pace, whimpering broken fragments of praises and your name as he sucks and licks at your hand, cleaning you up with a greedy attention to detail that almost makes you wish he was licking into you in tandem with the you making your thighs shake.

Almost. But as Satoru’s thrusts begin to speed up and his licks begin to turn into dragging bites to your palm, you relish in the feeling of having his heavy cock twitch in your warm mouth and his balls gathering and spreading the drool seeping out of your mouth with loud slaps. He’s loud, he’s rough, he’s greedy, and as Gojo Satoru clenches his jaw and interlocks your fingers, begging you to cum with him and telling you how good you feel, you’re sure he’s also absolutely divine. His lidded eyes and slack jaw are enough to have you clenching your thighs and moaning loud and long as your orgasm crashes over you, so strong your vision goes white for a moment.

Satoru lets out a low broken moan as he watches your orgasm rush through you, contorting your face and constricting your mouth around him. His short fingernails are digging temporary crescents into the back of your neck as he holds you down on his cock as far as he can manage, “Eyes up here. Watch what you do to me.” Satoru waits patiently, grinding into your mouth slow and hard until you’re able to lull your eyes back to his.

As soon as you make eye contact, Satoru reaffirms his grip on your neck and begins to piston his hips, making his earlier pace seem geriatric. “Fuck, been so good for me, haven’t you?” Satoru pants out, voice soft and raspy. You hum an acknowledgement around him, a nod barely able to be formed due to Satoru’s rapid thrusting, but your whiny confirmation, the beg for his approval buzzing around his aching cock is all Satoru needs. With his jaw slack to release a loud throaty moan and his snowy eyelashes fluttering, Satoru cums down your throat, warm and so, so filling. As he twitches against your tongue, holding you so far down his length tears slip between your lips and add to the salty flavor of him filling your mouth, Satoru chuckles breathlessly, “That’s right… take it all.”

Satoru doesn’t let his hefty cock slip out of your mouth until you’ve swallowed all of the cum he gave you. Untangling your hands, Satoru pulls you up so you’re straddling his lap and he sets to wiping the tears from your cheeks and sweeping the cum that seeped out of the corners of your mouth up with his thumb. “Open up, pretty girl, you’ve got leftovers.” Satoru coos, the cheeky tone he never abandons for long makes you huff in soft indignation, but the compliment has you moving forward to suck the digit into your mouth, being sure to clean it of Satoru’s salty cum, eyes closing at the flavor and pussy fluttering again.

Opening your mouth to release Satoru’s thumb, you rub yourself against his still stiff member, subconsciously scratching the itch he seems capable of continually causing, “I wanna do that again.” You’re insatiable as you hump your way through your sentence, wanting him so badly you can’t stop yourself from gripping his shirt so tightly your knuckles hurt as you run your clit over his bulbous head, high pitched whimpers falling from your lips at every pass.

You lean in to kiss Satoru and lick the smug grin off of his face, but he moves away, reveling in how your pout after chasing his lips doesn’t result in him meeting you excitedly, tongue startlingly warm and licking a path through your mouth. “No baby,” Satoru flips you effortlessly, standing to slowly discard his clothes as he watches you rub your thighs together, “Now I do my job.” Fully naked, adorned only in the thin, glistening chain and the securely placed flower he set behind his ear earlier, Satoru creeps himself up the bed towards you.

One sloppy kiss after another, Satoru hums his way up your body. As he’s passing by your pussy, Satoru pushes your thighs open and with his tongue flat, he licks one mean stripe up your slit before abandoning your lips entirely and setting to nibbling at your neck. Before you can protest though, Satoru slips one of his long fingers into you, immediately curling to where you’re most sensitive, “You gonna be loud for me while I fuck you full, pretty girl?”

[bookwormscififan]

Toys Need Healing, Too

Buy me a coffee?

Read on AO3!

A/N: Based on this post thread that @tracobuttons and @flower-zombie-rob made like 2 years ago, I finally wrote the toy hospital AU they were talking about. I also added a little background into Shawn's being in the modern world.

Word count: 1482 words

 “Henrik, what is a toy hospital?” Shawn asked the doctor one day during a routine check-up. Henrik looked up from his results with a frown, tilting his head at the toymaker.

“Why do you ask?”

“Jameson mentioned a place to mend toys, and I was curious,” he replied, picking at some loose threads on his shirt. Henrik sat beside him; hands folded in his lap as he smiled.

“Well, a toy hospital is really a place where people can bring their damaged toys to be fixed. It helps to prolong the life of toys for their owners.” He turned back to his results, standing to log them in the computer.

“You can go now; the check-up is finished.”

“Henrik, can you help me set up a toy hospital?” The following day, Shawn ventured into Henrik’s clinic to ask his help. The doctor looked up from his work, brow raised.

“Why do you want me to help you? Couldn’t Jameson help?”

“You are a doctor.” Shawn’s response was matter of fact, and so genuine that Henrik couldn’t say no. He sighed, and with a smile, set aside his work.

“I can spare some time today to set one up with you. Would one of the spare rooms work?” Shawn’s beam in response was far too bright for the time of day. Henrik laughed at the enthusiastic nod that Shawn gave him, placing a hand on his shoulder and reaching for his lab coat. 

“Go choose a room, and I will come and join you when I have a break,” he stated, smiling as Shawn all but bounced out of the clinic.

After lunch, as Shawn was sweeping the floor of the spare room a few doors down from Henrik’s clinic, the good doctor stepped into the room with some cardboard boxes and folding screens.

“A toy hospital requires a surgery, no?” he asked in response to Shawn’s confused look. The toymaker smiled, putting the broom down.

“Of course, but where are you going to…?” his question trailed off as Henrik moved to a corner by the window and set up the folding screens to divide the room. Beside the screens and beneath the window he placed the boxes, setting surgical papers on top of them.

“A surgery and recovery room,” he explained as he straightened up, smoothing down his doctor’s coat and looking at the toymaker. Shawn’s eyes were soft and happy, grateful that Henrik was so on board with this seemingly nonsense idea that Jameson had put into his head.

“All we need now are some patients and a reception desk,” Henrik stated, smiling at Shawn as he left the room. The toymaker looked around at the empty room, then over at the ward and surgery. Walking over, he looked at the small table behind the folding screens, lined with the tools he used to make toys, realising he’d never actually offered to fix toys before. It was all new to him, much like this world he and Jameson now lived in.

Shawn looked out the window, seeing his best friend running around with Robbie the zombie, a smile on his face as he blew bubbles for the undead man to pop. Life is so different now, Jameson, he thought, turning back to the tools on the table as he lost himself in memory.

---

Shawn had been sitting in the breakroom of the studio, thinking about the crazed nature of his boss and the strange, smiling faces he’d had to paint onto eighty-seven dolls that morning. He was exhausted and his hands were stained with black paint, but still he had to make more toys after this break.

As he thought about heading back to his small office behind the toy shop, the world around him seemed to dim, walls splotching with black ink. Shawn blinked and rubbed his eyes, wondering if maybe the fumes from the paint had finally gotten to him, when suddenly his world went black.

When the lights returned, he found himself in a sort of tunnel, with a light at the end. Walking down it cautiously, Shawn stepped into a bright room. Where was he? He suddenly became aware of voices around him, and when his eyes adjusted to the light, he realised he wasn’t in a room, but out in a park. People were surrounding him, poking at his clothes and staring curiously.

“Step back, everybody!” A loud voice called from behind the crowd, who parted to allow a man in a red hoodie and blue mask to walk up to Shawn.

“What’s your name, friend?” he asked, and Shawn tilted his head at the Irish lilt in his voice. Clearing his throat, Shawn opened his mouth.

“Shawn. Shawn Flynn.” The masked man smiled, patting him on the back with unnatural strength.

“Nice to meet you, Shawn. My name’s Jackie. I think I know someone you may know.

---

The toy hospital had been running for a week now, with Shawn mostly repairing toys that the egos brought in for “surgery”. He happily stitched back eyes, sewed closed a tear, and replaced arms. Schneep had been very helpful in sticking plasters on the toys after Shawn had finished with them, and that made everyone happy.

Once Jackie started bringing over toys from the neighbourhood children, the other egos began to take part in the “recovery” process. Marvin would cast a little spell on Shawn’s thread or on the stuffing on the toy, making it almost indestructible so that the toy could be played with again and again, revelling in the stories Jackie would tell him of the children’s reactions to the repaired toys.

“And here we have Bobby Bobcat. He was brought in by Clara with a terrible injury: his ear had been chewed off by the family dog, and his eye was falling out! Gross stuff! But now, he’s in recovery with a new ear. Shawn even managed to fix his eye and he’s in a stable condition. Clara, it won’t be long before Bobby is back with you!” Chase turned off his recording, tapping on his phone to send the video to Clara’s parents. He glanced up at Shawn, elbow-deep in stuffing as he repaired a large stuffed giraffe plush toy.

“The kids love getting little videos about their toys,” he explained, grinning as Shawn smiled and rolled his eyes. Both men turned as the door opened. Jackie came in with a new toy, something black and ratty, with a white bowtie.

Shawn stopped what he was doing, straightening up with a light in his eyes.

“Is that a Bendy doll?” he asked, barely keeping the excitement out of his voice. Jackie placed the doll on the table near the giraffe, and Shawn immediately began to look it over, noting it was one of the dolls Joey had rejected from commercial sale due to the crooked smile on its face.

“It is! I made these all the time back in the day! Look, this is the one Joey rejected; I drew it with a crooked smile and he told me to incinerate it because it was wrong. I kept it and sent it overseas to be sold here,” Shawn said excitedly, looking across the room at JJ, who was sitting at a table writing a letter, a small penguin doll in front of him.

“Jameson, look! It’s an original Bendy doll!”

---

The toy hospital was a fantastic way for the egos to connect with the neighbourhood, eventually moving onward to the city, where children would send in their toys with a small note describing the problem as well as a small tip for Shawn’s tip jar.

Shawn loved repairing the toys, humming an off-key tune as he sewed or stuffed, and just walking around with a brighter smile than he’d had since he ended up in the present day. Even seeing Jameson again hadn’t made him this happy.

Jameson smiled, leaning against the doorframe as he watched Shawn work on the tiny embroidery of a toy’s jacket by the lamplight on his table. The toymaker was focused on his work, sewing with expert precision as he hummed to himself softly.

Jameson knocked gently on the doorframe, walking inside to sit beside Shawn.

You seem to be enjoying yourself, he signed, and Shawn nodded his head with a smile.

“I haven’t had this much fun in years, Jameson. It is so nice to be able to work on toys again,” he replied, eyes shining with more than lamplight reflection. Jameson returned the smile, reaching forward to put a hand on Shawn’s shoulder.

It took me some time to rediscover my purpose here, but it is amazing to feel that way again. I am happy for you, Shawn.

As the moon shone into the toy hospital, Shawn and Jameson shared a friendly embrace, holding each other close before Jameson left to go to bed.

[if-tomorrow-never-comes]

The Libertines return with ‘Run Run Run’ and announce new album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’

“We're over the moon, and the ball is in the back of the net," declares Pete Doherty, as the band also announce intimate Margate shows

ByAndrew Trendell

The Libertines have returned with new single ‘Run Run Run’, as well as announcing details of their long-awaited fourth album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ and some intimate Margate shows.

READ MORE: The Albion Rooms: Watch Carl Barat show us around The Libertines’ hotel and studio

Arriving on March 8, ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ is the long-mooted follow-up to 2015’s ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’, with the first taster arriving in the form of launch single ‘Run Run Run’ – a classic yet subtly raucous Libs indie dancefloor anthem that sees them reflect on their standing after more than two decades, as Carl Barat begins: “It’s the lifelong project of a life on the lash”.

“It’s about being trapped, and trying to escape your dismal life, a bit like the man in Bukowski’s Post Office,” said Barat of the track. “The worst thing for The Libertines would be to get stuck in a ‘Run-run-run’ rut – constantly trying to relive our past.”

As well as sharing a name with Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel, the album’s title is in honour of the band’s Margate hotel, studio, restaurant and bar, The Albion Rooms – which is also depicted on the sleeve with a dramatic cast of characters from the world of faded seaside glamour.

Consisting of 11 new tracks with songwriting credits shared among all four of the band, ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ was produced by Dimitri Tikovoï (The Horrors/Charli XCX/Becky Hill) and recorded at The Albion Rooms in just four weeks back in February and March of 2023, before being finished over a wee at La Ferme de Gestein Studios in Normandy. Additional production and mixing comes from Dan Grech-Marguerat (Lana Del Rey/Liam Gallagher/Paul McCartney).

Despite having been attempting work on writing the album for some years, the indie veterans have said that their previously reported sessions at Geejam in Port Antonio, Jamaica

saw Barat and Pete Doherty’s chemistry reform, before returning to Margate to reconvene with bassist John Hassall and drummer Gary Powell where, as Doherty explained, “we really came together as a band for “a moment of rare peace and unity, with all the members contributing.”

Doherty continued: “We’re over the moon, the ball is in the back of the net, and I’m chuffed for the lads!”

“I feel like we’ve completed a cycle of some kind as a band, and finally now we can add these songs to the setlist, because we’ve got some bangers in there. Now we’ve opened the hotel and used the studio ourselves and it’s all worked out – more Libertines records? I should hope so!”

Barat, meanwhile, added: “Our first record was born out of panic, and disbelief that we were actually allowed to be in a studio; the second was born of total strife and misery; the third was born of complexity; this one feels like we were all actually in the same place, at the same speed, and we really connected.”

The Libertines’ new album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ is available on CD, deluxe CD, 12” vinyl in limited edition coloured variants, deluxe double vinyl cassette and digital download on March 8.

Fans who pre-order the album will be offered the chance to purchase tickets for ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade – described as “two days of special acoustic and electric live shows by The Libertines” at the 500-capacity Lido in Margate on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 December. VIP after party tickets at the Albion Rooms and Justine’s nightclub, including full band DJ sets, will also be available.

The tracklist to ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ is: 

‘Run, Run, Run’ ‘Mustang’ ‘Have A Friend’ ‘Merry Old England’ ‘Man With The Melody’ ‘Oh Shit’ ‘Night Of The Hunter’ ‘Baron’s Claw’ ‘Shiver’ ‘Be Young’ ‘Songs They Never Play On The Radio’

Speaking to NME back in 2019, Doherty said that the band had been exploring a number of ambitious directions on new material, likening it to the diversity of The Clash‘s divisive ‘Sandinista’.

Drummer Gary Powell then told NME in August last year that the band were “not going to try and reinvent the wheel… but I think we can push the boat out a little more while still bringing something that has the same emotional integrity and dynamism that the audience craves when they come to a Libertines show.”

[loosingmoreletters]

would you happen to have any recs for gender fuckery fic featuring lwj rather than wwx?

Not as much because I tend to prefer to toss the genderqueer experience at WWX, but I do have some lovely queer LWJ fic recs, be that as a trans, gender swap or just something undefinable.

you can always find me here by ScarlettStorm

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how they got here sometimes.

Okay, like, yes, she knows how they got here (this village, this town, this forest, this city), and she knows how they got here (riding on a horrible donkey she’s decided she can’t bear to part with, Lan Zhan walking beside her leading said donkey by the reins, because of course Wei Wuxian’s donkey likes Lan Zhan more than her. She can’t blame Lil’ Apple! She also likes Lan Zhan more than she likes herself!), but it’s how she got here in the larger metaphysical sense that she doesn’t understand. There were thirteen years where she wasn’t here, after all, and very many places in the past year where she could have ended up not here again, but somehow she’s here, and—miracle of miracles—so is Lan Zhan.

Really, it’s the Lan Zhan part that she still struggles to understand.

Or: The inevitable post-canon get together... But make it extra queer lesbians.

brittle bones by lithali

Wei Wuxian dies in Xuanwu's Cave.

That changes things.

mirror, mirror by hauntedotamatone

Some people take him at his word, believing that they must have heard wrong about the child Jiang Fengmian had taken in all those years ago. They haven’t exactly heard wrong, but he isn’t lying either.

The first time Jiang-shushu had introduced him as the son of Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren, he had thought his face would split from the force of his smile. No one had argued with the sect leader, but Wei Wuxian is not a sect leader, and those of Gusu Lan do not seem to take kindly to any sort of correction. At least, if their esteemed teacher and acting sect leader is anything to go by.

or; Wei Wuxian attempts to sneak into the Cloud Recesses for a very different reason.

The Naming of Small Things by BromeliadDreams

Lan Wangji has known all his life that he is destined for some book-lined office, for publication credits and funding awards, the grown-up versions of school prizes for academic achievement. The prospect has, for the most part, been comforting. But as the academic year wears on, he finds his work increasingly taking a backseat to Wen Qing's plans to unseat, or at least unsettle, their Head of Faculty, and Lan Wangji begins to look beyond the library walls. (Any influence from local chaos gremlin Wei Wuxian will not be acknowledged at this time, thank you very much.)

Or: maybe the real academic networking was all the groupchats we were added to along the way.

A Promise Lives Within You Now by ElvenQueens

When Lan Wangji left the cave of the Xuanwu of slaughter and returned to her sect, she knew that the world as she knew it had come to a breaking point, she just didn't know the changes it would entail. When she left the Xuanwu cave, she and Wei Ying were still girls, but in the face of war and the devastation and destruction it wrought, they had been forced to grow up faster than they should and take on roles earlier than they had planned. If there is one thing these lessons have taught her, it is that sometimes one needs to stop and offer a helping hand.

conspecific sisters we by wildwestwind

Lan Wangji grows up trans in a society which has no words for her experiences.

a heroine that is called devil by SpeedingCheetah

The Yiling Patriarch was a woman, and she bared her teeth to every man to come and beg for her help in the midst of a campaign deigned to fail. Coming to the war with skin exposed and her neck open for any blade to cut, the matriarch asked for one thing for her payment of the war: the blood of an heir written across her chest as a promise.

(or: two cultivators come to face one another under a blood red moon, in the middle of the war of their lifetimes.)

The Amber Hairpin by may10baby

Lan Zhan took a moment to unwrap the delicate paper patterned with clouds. Inside was a silver hairpin, an amber stone nestled in the end, limbs of silver delicately wrapped around it, etched in a floral design. It was beautiful and very expensive for a servant’s son. She looked up at Wei Ying in question, who blushed.

“When I wrote to my parents about jiejie, I mentioned how pretty jiejie’s eyes were, so my parents sent back the amber? Apparently, they were offered it as a gift for helping with a night hunt years ago and the uncle and auntie in the night market offered to make it into a hairpin if I spent the past few weeks helping out at the store and-”

Lan Zhan calmly slipped the hairpin into her hair, before grabbing Wei Ying by the arm and yanking him inside the Jingshi.

fateful shipwreck, suspended time by dottie_dramas (dottie_wan_kenobi)

Once, when Lan Wangji is thirteen years old, he finds himself in his brother’s office.

It’s not a particularly comfortable place for Lan Wangji, but it’s better than most. On this day, it provides what Lan Wangji needs—privacy. Structure. And most importantly, his brother.

“Wangji, you don’t have to ask for a formal meeting just to see me,” Xiongzhang says, both amused and curious as Lan Wangji kneels down in front of him. Holding his brush steady, Lan Xichen smiles kindly. “I am at my didi’s disposal whenever he should have need of me.”

---

3 moments in Lan Wangji's queer journey; coming out, falling in love, and accepting a part of himself

This is for my mother, and this is for me by LuxRoyalty (luxroyalty)

Rules are important, and you should listen to them, but somethings are more important still,” Madam Lan easily said, like it wasn’t blasphemy against the Wall of Discipline that her uncle had been careful to teach her. “I want you to be safe, A-Zhan, above everything else. Do you understand?”

She thought about it, forehead creasing, and eventually shook her head. “No.” she told her, and her mother didn’t scold her like some of her teachers did.

“That’s alright,” her mother softly said, “you can learn. Just you, A-Huan won’t need to understand this, and you can’t tell him, or anyone else.”

“Or I won’t be safe?” she asked, trying to figure out the path of logic.

Madam Lan smiled gently, “close. Sometimes, last measures need to be secret to work the best.”

Lan Zhan is born female. This changes things, but more things stay the same.

flowers from ash by hauntedotamatone

There is the matter of a certain individual.” “That Wei Ying from YunmengJiang.”

A protracted Sunshot campaign spanning six years ends in a victory hardly worth the cost. With the former Five Great Sects whittled down to three, two of which have been devastated, the Jin Sect seeks to hang itself up in the place of the sun.

The first step in their climb to power is to get the woman who killed Wen Ruohan from within his own palace well out of the way. Lan Zhan is not someone who schemes, but she cannot allow Wei Ying to meet such a fate.

That she has loved her since they were fifteen is secondary.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the comics: An evening with Bill.

Moon Knight afterward from issue #25. 

Truth, I agonized on if I was going to acknowledge this. My business is with the Moon Knight comics, after all… History, development, and personal insight into the comics. You know, me screaming into a dark room about how much I love this comic. 

But where would we be if we didn’t have a little insight into the legend himself: Bill Sienkiewicz. 

Issue #25 was a special double long comic. These bad boys come out once in a blue moon to celebrate the success and growing popularity of a comic! Once a comic becomes top ranking, you’ll start to get Annuals and yearly (sometimes bi-yearly) double longs! 

So here we sit in 1982, just a few years after the creation of Moon Knight and we get our first double! 

But what really makes you pick up a comic in the store in the first place? Especially if you know nothing about the characters. Sure, Marvel (and DC) will splash a crossover event with a popular character across the cover to lure in those that are fans of the one character. They’ll also do variant covers to get the collectors wild (gotta catch ‘em all!). Limited runs? You know someone’s trolling Ebay for that blank cover that gives nothing away. You’ll also get guest artists who do ONLY covers. Fans of the art will collect them just for the covers. 

But all those special things aside, you know that a well done cover piece is what makes you pick it up and go “Neat. I wonder what’s inside.” 

So what makes a cover? To all the aspiring artists out there, this one’s for you. 

Don’t worry people. I’m not going to make you squint. I’ll just type up everything verbatim that Mr. Sienkiewicz has to say. And I admit, I was so pleasantly surprised to find his sense of humor on point. 

I've also added the final cover product so you can really see how the cover ended up laid out in publishing.

A TALE OF THREE COVERS by Bill Sienkiewicz

When Denny and Ralph asked me to come up with a possible topic for the editorial pages in the double-sized issue of MOON KNIGHT, my first reaction was "Editorial? Isn't that your job? I've just finished the art for this issue and the last thing I feel like doing is an editorial page." Then I made some crack about them earning their money and proceeded to walk out. 

"Hold it!" Denny snapped, bringing his riding crop down smartly on the New York Post. I turned, my nostrils filling with the stench of wounded printer's ink, and did some serious reconsideration. 

"Look," Denny began, "I don't want you to get the idea that this is something you have to do," his gloved hand waving the riding crop in what could be construed as a menacing fashion, "But we'd like to give you the opportunity to do something that you'd like to do to get you involved in EVERY aspect of the book, not just the artwork, to tell the readers some of your viewpoints and..." Denny leaned back, crossed his jackbooted feet on the desk. He smiled a wicked smile "...to let the readers know that we're just one big family here at Marvel. My mind raced. 

"Covers." I said. 

"What?" asked Denny, cocking a thumb under the visor of his cap. Light glinted off some odd metallic insignia there. 

"Covers." I repeated. "Unused covers." 

"Go on..." He crossed his arms awkwardly, creasing his holster.

"Well... The covers -the unused one-- we could run them along with the ones that were used, and I could write about the dumb...the uh, reasons that they weren't used, you know, why I did them the way I did and why you turned them down." 

There was a long pause. Very long. Then he smiled again. Only worse than before, and said -- "We'll do it..."

I relaxed. I turned to leave but Denny wasn't finished. "Sienkiewicz," he hissed. 

I cringed. "Yeah?" 

"Don't make me look like the bad guy in this." 

"No. Of course not." I said, then turned I left. 

I returned one week later, armed with the covers and my feelings about each. I walked into Denny's office and snapped to attention. The Post was still on the desk. It had decayed horribly "At ease." Denny cooed. He shot a sly grin at Ralph. 

"What did our little artist friend bring us perchance?" Said Ralph as he woke up, "Our meal ticket?" 

Denny's smile faded. "You can be replaced, Macchio." 

I looked at Ralph. Innocent of face. Stubbly of beard. Ralph. Ralph Macchio. Ralph went back to sleep. There was a smile on his face. 

Denny turned back to me. "What have you got?" 

This--" I replied, and proceeded to show him what a week of coffee, cigarettes and images of a mutilated newspaper had inspired.

"First: Issue #9's cover for The Return of the Midnight Man. I wanted to do a total image, an essence of the relationship between him and Moon Knight. The paintings --the Jekyll and Hyde shots of Midnight Man's face. The target around Moon Knight. Moon Knight's expression of worry and insanity --He was going through a lot back then." 

"That's all well and good--" Denny smirked. "But it's too tall--the paintings would be obscured by the logo. All that we could see would be the two big faces and MK going crazy. And he's been crazy or in a losing position on the past five covers. I wanted to show him fighting, maybe winning. I thought about it. I really did. But you were moving to a studio and couldn't be reached in time to do another. Frank Miller was in the office and drew the cover that was used." 

"Oh," I said. My hand shook as I reached for another cover. Number 12. Morpheus and Moon KNight. Boffo action. "I wanted a closeup," Denny said. "Simple as that. Miller was in again and did it up. Milgrom inked it." 

"That Miller guy again." I thought. 

I turned to issue 13, which guest-starred Daredevil. Frank was drawing Daredevil. Denny thought it would be fun to have Frank draw the cover and me ink it. I agreed. I spoke to Frank on the phone. He said we could do "crossover" covers; I'd do one later for Daredevil. Fine idea. "What are you waiting for, Sienkiewicz, "Denny screamed, interrupting my reverie. Veins showed in his forehead. Big ones. 

"Right," I said. "The cover for issue 13--Frank pencilled, I inked. I really had a good time with this one. It was the first time I inked anyone else's work." 

Denny Scowled. "Except it was too tall. The logo would have obscured the pinball machine's scoreboard. That's why I nixed it. Ron Wilson happened to drop by the same time as Dave Simons did. The deadline was tight. I had no alternative. They did the cover." 

Deja vu. Denny was beating a dead Post. "That will be all for now. And Sienkiewicz--About the article. Flattery will get you nowhere." 

I managed a weak smile, and again turned to leave. As I did so, I glanced at Ralph Macchio, his eyes closed in contented slumber.

—

Ralph Macchio is a comic book editor and writer. He's done a lot of the big ones (The Avengers, Captain America, Ultimate Marvel, Doctor Strange, Thor, Spider-Man...). He retired in 2011. 

Dennis O'Neil (Denny) is the editor for Moon Knight at the time. He also worked for DC back in the day. He tended to write the more mature themes in early comics that were often controversial. Also the creator of notable characters like Ra's Al Ghul, Talia Al Ghul, Iron Monger, Lady Deathstrike, and many others that I have no idea who they are off the top of my head. 

If anything, I am more endered towards Bill after this. The idea of him turning in cover after cover only to have them nixed and replaced by the LEGENDARY Frank Miller, and then being playfully bitter about it is the funniest thing. The notion that these other cover artists just happened to be hanging around only to ruin Bill’s day… 

Also, some of those nixed covers are amazing! The Dare Devil one in particular is amazing! And relevant to the comic! I wish I could see it in color! What happens to these rejected covers? Do they get sold? Trashed? Look at that Midnight one!

Anyway, there are a lot of little afterwards in the backs of the early comics. A lot of letters from fans with author/editor responses mostly. But now and then they include a behind the scenes with narrative from various levels of Moon Knight creators. My favorites are these ones that show the character of the creators themselves. It also gives us a peak at the process of how a comic is made and the art and skill it takes. 

Current comics don’t really include these anymore. You’ll see some fan letters in the backs of some (I’ve been in one! For a Moon Knight of course.), and a few spotlight articles on writers or artists… But you don’t really get the big behind the scenes things anymore. The characters are all established, the readers/fanbase know what they’re in, and there just doesn’t seem to be interest anymore into the creation of the comics. 

Which is a pity. 

I’d love to see more excerpts like this. Imagine getting an aside from Lemier!Jed Mackay! Smallwood! 

What do you think? What afterwards would you like to see in modern day comics? 

[randomfoggytiger]

X-Files Collector’s Edition:  Mulder’s Early or Late Birthdays (Angst)

What are birthdays without angst, especially in the X-Files universe? These birthday fics seem to be a magnet for mixed emotions-- like the rest of Mulder’s life-- and it’s fun to explore the lows he weathers with his supportive loved ones. 

I’m grouping these by author in a verrry loose chronological order (but it’s there.)

(**Edit: Added in scully-loves-ruthie’s Fictober Day 13 entry.**) 

*cracks knuckles* Here we go! 

greycoupon’s Happy Birthday 

““Fox Mulder hadn’t wanted a party for his 13th birthday. Sam was gone and his family was a mess. There didn’t seem to be much to celebrate. But his mother had actually come out of her room, where she spent all her time now “resting”, to suggest it. She seemed the most alive he’d seen her since it had happened when she was making plans. She was smiling and even though she was still doped up with tranquilizers, as she was constantly these days, for a minute Mulder could see his old mom. So he said okay. That was a mistake.””

Mulder had a truly horrific 13th birthday and has avoided celebrating since. Scully and TLG are able to throw him a good one at last. 

@syntax6​’s (Gossamer, FFN, Omniscribe) Collection of Mulder’s birthdays 

Post Shadows Mulder is surprised by Scully’s birthday card and friendship. And also disappointed by how tiny the Liberty Bell is. 

Pre-One Breath Mulder is surprised from his mourning by Tena’s call. She answers questions about his birth; but carelessly leaves him with a final sting. 

Redux ii Scully is desperately trying not to die on Mulder’s birthday while setting up her death and burial preparations. 

Post Unruhe Mulder invites Scully to his birthday bash at TLG’s. She is still skittish, but the group are inclusive and kindly overlook any strange behavior. 

These are all amazingly excellent. I pulled this quote because it touches on an aspect that all these stories explore-- 

““She stretched until she could reach her watch from the nightstand.  It read eleven-twenty on October thirteenth.   Satisfied, Scully returned the watch to its resting place and drew her hands back under the blankets.   

She had one mission left: don't die today. 

"Mom?  Can you do me a favor?" Her mother came to stroke her hair.  

"Anything, baby." 

"Could you please go to the gift shop and pick out a birthday card?  It's Mulder's birthday today.”"

@lokisgame​’s (Ao3) 33

““We've got time," she replied calmly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.””

Pre- One Breath Mulder’s happy birthday dream is dashed when he wakes to a world without Scully.  

Jennifer Maurer’s There’s Still Nobody Home 

““Once he snuck upstairs to her office and put a post-it note on the picture of her sister on her desk, then waited for hours in the parking garage. 

You never know, that might be the magic charm to bring her back.”” 

Pre- One Breath Mulder is slowly deteriorating: he fails to keep his plants alive, fails to keep himself from sobbing on Frohike’s shoulder, fails to connect to Maggie-- all while blindly failing himself. 

Juliett’s 

All I Want for Christmas

““He had done everything he knew to do and now he pled. 

And October 13th had come and gone with nothing, nothing for him.  At least, nothing that he wanted.””

Pre- One Breath Mulder is having a ROUGH birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Pleas and hands of mercy cannot give him what he wants or allow others to pull him from gloom.  

 Mulder’s Birthday 

““Fox Mulder glanced at his watch and sighed.  Almost time.   Any minute now his partner would be giving him the look that said it was time to go home. 

But he didn't want to go home. 

After all, who wanted to spend a birthday alone?””

Post Paper Clip Scully surprises Mulder with a birthday dinner and mini sculpture. Maggie gifts him Melissa’s pendant. 

Erin M. Blair’s 

You Can’t Change History 

““I would have been doing exactly what Bill's trying to do to me. He's sizing me up before getting the chance to know me. I know it's not fair, but I can understand him.”"

Season 2 Bill tries to intercept Scully from celebrating Mulder’s birthday with him. Mulder resignedly understands; but is happy Scully won’t leave. 

Anonymous/RebeccaRusnak’s (Mulders Creek) Lament 

(**note: I THINK Anonymous is Rebecca Rusnak, but who knows? I just have to trust my past-self’s judgment.**) 

““Fox." 

Mulder stirred as the honey-smooth voice washed over him.  He started as the velvety-soft hand touched his shoulder.  He opened his eyes and stared, astonished, at his mother. 

"Mom," he croaked...”” 

Post Herrenvolk Mulder is alone for his birthday. He trudges back to Quonacatog to seep in his dark memories... until Tena (called Margaret here) shows up, and the two actually have a heartfelt bonding session, marshmallows included. 

@aloysiavirgata​’s (Ao3, Gossamer, WayBackMachine, LiveJournal, Alt.) 

Unnamed Post Unruhe 

““It’s been two days since she was with Schnauz. 

Two days since the howlers in him tried to claim her.

Two days since Mulder had killed a man. 

Post Unruhe Scully had called his cell, his apartment, and the Gunmen before chancing a visit to the basketball court near his apartment. He was there, trash-talking and dribbling in the crisp October air.”” 

Mulder leaves his birthday bball game to offer comfort to a rattled Scully. 

By Falling In and In 5/5

““He used to wear horrible ties," Scully tells her son. "Really awful ones. So if he ever gets a job where he has to wear them, you and I are going to pick them out." "My ties were not that bad," Mulder says. "They were refreshing. And besides, this is coming from the Queen of Shoulder Pads?" Scully hits him with a pillow and William shakes his head. "You guys are so weird.””

Mulder’s birthday-- a clock from Will and elated dancing with Scully-- is halted by CSM and his rescue mission to save them from Colonization.

@crescentmoon223​′s The Realm of Extreme Possibility 

““He never should have brought her out here today. He’d truly thought—for once—it would be a nice trip to the forest, a fun hike as they tracked the Goatman.

A piercing shriek split the night, and Scully went rigid in his arms. It sounded like a woman screaming in terror. That grave looked like it had been here for years, but what if…””

Post Redux ii Mulder’s birthday trip to the forest-- to hunt the Goatman-- is derailed when Scully gets “deja vu” (her denial-word for visions) about visiting these woods before... and they find a corpse with an identical necklace to hers. 

Summer’s Conspiracy Not Included 

““We've been swarmed by pre-historic bugs, attacked by genetic mutants, and tied up by Satanic schoolteachers, Mulder. It was only a matter of time before we got a flat tire." Scully slammed the trunk shut, draping the sweatshirt from her overnight bag over her head. 

"Yeah, but you'd think with all those big catastrophes, the odds would be on our side for little things like flats." 

"You call a five-mile walk in this rain a little thing?" Scully fumed. 

Her partner regarded her with a mixture of affection and fear.””

S2 Scully’s secret plans for Mulder’s birthday are almost derailed by his many misshaps while trying to drive them back to airport. Not so much angst as shooting himself in the foot. 

Pattie’s Enhanced

““Mulder, what happened to your scalp?  There's... there's a shaved spot with what look to be sutures.  Mulder?"

"What?"  He passed his fingers over his head. He felt his cool fingertips on the back of his head, left side, about three inches from the crown.””

S6 Mulder, TLG, and a Harvard doctor do something incredibly stupid. And, of course, he forgot what. 

Folieadeux’s Love Obsessional 

““Throwing herself into the shadow of the building, she realizes she doesn't know how long she's been attacking Fox's car.  She looks at her watch and is stunned to see that it has only been 15 minutes.  It feels like a lifetime.”” 

S6 or S7 Mulder has a stalker in time for his birthday. Her worsening behavior almost stops when served with a restraining order... until her jealousy of Scully overcomes her remaining bits of reason. 

Avalon’s Celebration

“"Well, what's the big deal?"  I ask, starting to get a little exasperated.  I just don't see why she should be so concerned.  "Maybe it's somebody's birthday, and someone in the bullpen brought it down here for you.  You weren't here, so they left it.  End of story." 

She looks at me, the brow above her right eye arching in that definitive Scully look that she gets right before she pins you, squirming, to the wall.  "Did they pull out Mulder's case file for me and leave it there, too?"“

Doggett is frustrated that Scully is fixated on a mysterious cupcake and an opened file. When he understands, he formulates an out-there explanation that honors Scully’s skepticism and Mulder’s memory. 

**The below fics take place after Existence, which is where I usually end in my own headcanon. HOWEVER, these fics can’t help their lineage, so I’ve decided not to hold that over their innocent heads.**  

XSketch’s Birthday Arrival 

““...but days like this seemed to emulate his low resolve so closely that it made everything that much more painful; days like this brought back so many memories of standing beside her under an umbrella on some case or another that the ache to be home where he belonged only deepened that much more.

...Those things, and the fact that today was October 13th...””

S9 Mulder gets a birthday email from Scully while in New Mexico. However, it takes a surprise gift to finally banish his depressed mood. 

@greekowl87​’s Friday the 13th

““It worked. They made it work.

But still, there was always a nagging feeling in the back of his mind.””

IWTB-era Mulder and Scully have settled into life at the Unremarkable House; but Mulder sinks into despair when she leaves early without a word.

Lolabeegood’s (Mulder’s Creek) Laundry Day 

““Banana Republic" he muttered to himself and shook his head. 

Scully was at it again.  Ordering clothes online for a man who never went anywhere.”” 

Pre-IWTB Mulder’s leisurely day is halted by the arrival of a FedEx truck. Hints of his developing depression seep through when Scully has to remind him of his own birthday. 

@scully-loves-ruthie‘s Unnamed Fictober Day 13

““I could make a cake,” She offered wrapping her arms around his waist from behind.          

“I don’t want you to do that Scully.  It’s just another day.”  He shimmies out of her embrace headed toward the office, his pajama pants dragging on the hardwood offering a stark contrast to her work heels.””  

Mulder considers his birthday just another day-- which isn’t a bad thing. 

Ahhhh, a job well done. Well, well-- that’s all for now!

Enjoy! 

[browneyesandhair]

Hey! It's ya girl! April Edition

I got no chill and a large obsession with a lot of things. So this year, I'm tracking it! Okay, so this year, is the year of recs! (you may have seen some of my posts, but I also have an extensive queue, so maybe not (check out the #recs on my page)). Running a little behind (it's already June, oops!)

Anyways, I've created a collection for this year overall and then also for each month! Let's check out April's stats -

Works read (&finished): 112

Fandoms (top 8):

1 - Bridgerton: 33

2 - Harry Potter: 28

3 - The Vampire Diaries: 16

4 - Young Justice: 15

5 - Les Miserables: 13

6 - Criminal Minds: 2

7 - Percy Jackson and the Olympians: 1

8- Merlin: 1

The rest didn't make the first drop down section of AO3, so oh well! Let's check in on relationships (top 8):

1 - Polin: 33

2 - Klaroline: 16

3 - Spitfire: 14

4- Enjolras/Eponine: 13

5 - Harmony: 9

6 - Hinny: 5

7 - Roy Harper/Jade Nguyen: 4

8 - Dick Grayson/Zatanna Zatara: 2

Quite a few recs that were reread/added to the list this month:

Harry Potter:

The Changeling by Annerb

Summary:

Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

Sequels also read: pick it up, pick it all up and start again, we can still be, who we said we were, and in my head we do everything right

Six Pomegranate Seeds by Seselt

Summary:

At the end, something happened. Hermione clutches at one fraying thread, uncertain whether she is Arachne or Persephone. What she does know is that she will keep fighting to protect her friends even if she must walk a dark path.

Sequels also read: Bouquet of Asphodels

Forever Means Forever by cocoartist

Summary:

If she ever saw Unspeakable Number 37 again she would kill him with her bare hands: Hermione's research into the Veil has an unexpected side-effect. COMPLETE.

Les Mis:

It Is Not a Word Spoken by CrazyAce_n_PokerFace

Summary:

*…I don't understand. You can't possibly be suggesting you were seriously trying to sext me.* She stares at his words and exhales slowly before typing, *And if I was…?* É/E Modern AU. The long-awaited sexting fic. Very NSFW. Dedicated to the wonderful samthenardier as a birthday gift. Title taken from the lovely poem "It Is Not a Word" by Sara Teasdale.

Merlin:

Radioman by Footloose

Summary:

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can't keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn't good enough, either. Except he is.

Atla:

Returned for a Better Try (to Make a Better Time) by atypicalhypocrite

Summary:

The Fire Lord’s blast is sharp and thorough. Still on his knees before his father, a thirteen year old dies instantly. Another Zuko, once teacher to the avatar and a Fire Lord himself, jolts into being in his place, and deals with the consequences. Timeline preservation nothing, he’s going to be a better Fire Lord this time, and start sooner.

Star Trek:

Ten Degrees Below Zero by kianspo

Summary:

After a serious incident aboard a starship, Commander Spock is demoted and transferred to a remote base where he must now serve with other "undesirables." He adjusts to his new rank and duties, and, while the future does look bleak, he is not ready to give up on himself or Starfleet yet. There is work to be done and hope to be found, especially as he begins to get to know his new colleagues, particularly one intriguing engineering officer James Kirk...

The Vampire Diaries:

At Horizon's Edge by Cupcakemolotov

Summary:

Sometimes when a girl goes on a shopping trip to pick up a new pair of boots at the local, and somewhat hostile, human space station, she accidentally aids and abets a prison break instead. What happens in the black really doesn't stay in the black.

The Umbrella Academy:

broken still you breathe (breathe, breathe, just breathe) by Eternal_Peace_is_Overrated

Summary:

“He’s not coming,” Luther says impatiently. “Let's just get this over with.” “Who’s not coming?” The voice sounds behind them suddenly, and all of them startle and whip around in synchronization. “Klaus,” Luther hears himself say distantly. “You’re…here.” Four tilts his head, bringing his hand to his lips and inhaling deeply around the cigarette dangling between his fingers. When he exhales, the smoke curls around his head like a halo before drifting into the air. “Yeah, well, I would’ve gotten here sooner,” Four says around the cigarette. “But I just really didn’t want to.” *** Number Four shows up to the funeral three hours late with an iced latte in one hand and a cigarette dangling from the other. Or; Klaus fled the Academy the day they turned eighteen. He never looked back. Ten years later, their father dies. Number Four returns. And none of them quite know what to do with this new version of their black sheep brother. AKA: Klaus single-handedly stops the apocalypse. It really wasn't that hard, so if everyone could stop looking at him like that, that would be great, thanks.

Bridgerton:

Plenty Far To Fall by useyourtelescope

Summary:

When financial troubles mean third-son Colin Bridgerton must cease his yearly travels and find employment instead, he has difficulty finding something suitable. Until he learns of a unique position being offered by the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown.

Alright, that's all folks (mostly), for fun, here are the top 8 additional tags from the stories that I read in April:

AU - Modern Setting: 24

AU: 16

Smut: 14

Fluff: 10

Friends to Lovers: 10

AU - Canon Divergence: 9

Angst: 8

Explicit Sexual Content: 7

And, that's all folks (for real this time)!

[leutjaneausten]

Mich. police say boy who was handcuffed was in ‘wrong place, wrong time’

The 12-year-old had been outside taking out the trash when he was approached by police

Praveena Somasundaram

The family of a 12-year-old boy who was handcuffed by a police officer in Michigan speak during a virtual news conference Friday with their attorneys, Ayanna and Rico Neal, left. (Joey Cappelletti/AP)

The police chief in Lansing, Mich., has apologized after his department was widely criticized over a viral video showing an officer handcuffing a 12-year-old boy during a search for a suspected vehicle thief.

The 12-year-old had just put trash into a dumpster outside his home on Thursday afternoon when a police officer approached and handcuffed him, according to his family.

The boy, who is Black, was wearing a T-shirt and neon shorts — clothing that police said matched the description of a suspect. Video posted online shows the handcuffed boy being taken to a police vehicle while his father asks an officer why his son had been placed in handcuffs.

The bystander’s video was viewed more than 5 million times and led community members to condemn the Lansing Police Department for its handling of the situation.

The boy was traumatized by the incident and no longer wants to go outside, attorneys for his family said, according to the Associated Press.

The police department issued a statement on Friday, describing the boy’s handcuffing as an “unfortunate case of ‘wrong place, wrong time.’ ” The department also shared blurred images of the boy and the suspect, describing their outfits as “very similar.”

Lansing Police Chief Ellery Sosebee issued an apology to the boy and his family later that same day.

“It’s unfortunate that incidents like this occur, but through communication and sharing of information, we can help people understand the whole story,” Sosebee said. “We understand that something like this has an impact on all parties involved.”

On Thursday afternoon, officers were investigating multiple car thefts outside an apartment complex, and a witness to one of the incidents said they saw someone wearing neon shorts and a white shirt, police said.

An officer saw a person who matched that description, but the person fled, according to police. Then, another officer who was in the area saw the preteen, who police said was wearing a similar outfit, in the same apartment complex, the statement adds. The officer approached the boy with his gun unholstered and held in front of him, attorneys for the boy’s family said, according to the Associated Press.

Michael Bernard, the boy’s father, told CBS News that he went outside to check on his son after he did not return from taking out the trash. That’s when he saw that his son had been handcuffed by police, he said.

“I rushed out and asked the cop, ‘What’s the problem, why do you have my son in cuffs?’” Bernard told CBS.

Police said the boy was released once the officer realized he was not the suspect who had fled earlier. Video shows the boy was with police for about four minutes before an officer walked him to where his father stood on a sidewalk outside the apartment complex.

Bernard told CBS that his son was “stunned” by the incident: “He’s like, ‘What have I done?’”

Once the boy was released, an officer at the scene explained the situation to Bernard and “apologized for the misunderstanding,” Sosebee said in his statement.

“I have reviewed the incident and can confirm the officer who contacted and detained the young man was respectful and professional during his investigation,” the police chief added.

The department has not announced any arrests in the string of stolen vehicles.

The Bernard family is considering taking legal action against the Lansing Police Department, according to their attorneys.

[wingedchildtiger]

Trump is target classified

Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges The Independent has learned that prosecutors are prepared to ask grand jurors to vote on charges as early as Thursday

The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Mr Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.

The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Mr Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”.

The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.

That section of US criminal law is written in a way that could encompass Mr Trump’s conduct even if he was authorised to possess the information as president because it states that anyone who “lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document …relating to the national defence,” and “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” can be punished by as many as 10 years in prison.

It is understood that prosecutors intend to ask grand jurors to vote on the indictment on Thursday, but that vote could be delayed as much as a week until the next meeting of the grand jury to allow for a complete presentation of evidence, or to allow investigators to gather more evidence for presentation if necessary.

A separate grand jury that is meeting in Florida has also been hearing evidence in the documents investigation. That grand jury was empaneled in part to overcome legal issues posed by the fact that some of the crimes allegedly committed by Mr Trump took place in that jurisdiction, not in Washington. Under federal law, prosecutors must bring charges against federal defendants in the jurisdiction where the crimes took place.

Even if grand jurors vote to return an indictment against the ex-president this week, it is likely that those charges would remain sealed until both the Washington and Florida grand juries complete their work.

Another source familiar with the matter has said Mr Trump’s team was recently informed that he is a “target” of the Justice Department probe, which began in early 2022 after National Archives and Records Administration officials discovered more than 100 documents bearing classification markings in a set of 15 boxes of Trump administration records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, the century-old mansion turned private beach club where Mr Trump maintains his primary residence and post-presidential office.

Over the course of the last year, grand jurors have heard testimony from numerous associates of the ex-president, including nearly every employee of Mar-a-Lago, former administration officials who worked in Mr Trump’s post-presidential office and for his political operation, and former high-ranking administration officials such as his final White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

Mr Meadows has already given evidence before the grand jury and is said to be cooperating with the investigations into his former boss. It is understood that the former North Carolina congressman testified as part of a deal for which he has already received limited immunity in exchange for his testimony.

A source who was briefed on the agreement claimed that the alleged agreement will involve the ex-chief of staff entering pleas of guilty to unspecified federal crimes but an attorney for Mr Meadows, George Terwilliger, denied that to The Independent. Mr Terwilliger said that the idea that his client would enter any guilty pleas was “complete bulls***” but did not address the matter of immunity in a brief telephone conversation with this reporter.

It is not yet known whether the testimony or the charges in question relate to the documents probe, or a separate investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Both investigations are being overseen by a Department of Justice special prosecutor, Jack Smith. According to ABC News, Mr Meadows has given evidence in both the documents matter and the January 6 investigation.

In the documents matter, prosecutors are also prepared to ask grand jurors to indict Mr Trump on charges that he obstructed justice during the year-long investigation and caused false statements to be made to investigators by persons working for him.

It is possible that such charges could stem from a declaration submitted to federal investigators roughly a year ago, when FBI agents and prosecutors visited his home to retrieve a sealed folder filled with 38 classified documents which Mr Trump’s attorneys turned over in response to a grand jury subpoena. If so, those charges could come in federal court in Florida, rather than in Washington.

According to court documents, the government subsequently developed evidence indicating that documents had been removed from a storage room where his attorneys had stated that all such documents were being stored in the days following the receipt of the grand jury subpoena.

[olko71]

New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2023/05/elon-musk-names-linda-yaccarino-new-twitter-ceo

Elon Musk names Linda Yaccarino new Twitter CEO

Getty Images

Elon Musk has named a new chief executive of Twitter, just over six months after his controversial takeover of the social media company.

The billionaire said Linda Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, would oversee business operations at the site, which has been struggling to make money.

He said she would start in six weeks.

Mr Musk will remain involved as executive chairman and chief technology officer.

“Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” he wrote on Twitter, confirming the decision a day after he had stoked speculation by writing that he had found a new boss without revealing their identity.

Mr Musk – who bought the social media platform last year for $44bn – had been under pressure to find someone else to lead the company and refocus his attention on his other businesses, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX.

At NBCUniversal, Ms Yaccarino oversaw roughly 2,000 people, and was involved with the launch of its streaming service.

She joined the company in 2011, after 15 years at Turner Entertainment and has been credited with bringing the network’s ad sales operation into the digital future.

Her departure had appeared to take NBCUniversal by surprise. On Thursday, amid media reports that she would be headed to Twitter, the firm had told news outlets that she was busy preparing for an upcoming conference.

“Linda has made countless contributions to the company during her 12-year tenure, and we wish her the best,” the company said on Friday.

Ms Yaccarino will bring to Twitter a rich background in advertising, which the social media company relies on to make money and which has dropped sharply since Mr Musk’s takeover.

“If Twitter are looking to monetise better than they have been, then that would be the place to start and Linda would be the ideal person to make that happen,” said Claire Atkinson, chief media correspondent at Business Insider, who has followed Ms Yaccarino’s career for two decades.

“She’s the kind of person that I can imagine Elon Musk needs,” Ms Atkinson added. “She won’t be rolled over.”

Many big companies halted their spending on Twitter in the weeks after Mr Musk took charge, concerned about how their brands might be affected by changes he was making.

Mr Musk immediately fired thousands of staff, including people who had been tasked with dealing with abusive posts.

He has also overhauled the way the service authenticates accounts, charging for blue ticks in a move critics said would facilitate the spread of misinformation.

Mr Musk has acknowledged “massive” declines in revenue, though he told the BBC last month that companies were returning.

At an advertising conference last month, where Ms Yaccarino interviewed Mr Musk, she reminded him of the challenges he faced winning the industry’s trust.

“The people in this room are your accelerated path to profitability,” she said. “But there’s a decent bit of sceptics in the room.

“There’s people who cannot separate, they’re challenged by separating, the man, his opinions and the microphone he now owns.”

Related Topics

Companies

Elon Musk

Twitter

More on this story

Elon Musk says he has appointed new Twitter boss

3 hours ago

[vietnamesim]

Latest Postal Code Vietnam

Vietnam Latest Postal Code (Zipcode) Update in 2023

Vietnam Postal code, Zip Code, or Zip Postal Code, Zip code, Postal Code, … are code systems specified by postal associations around the globe. Postal codes help confirm the location when transferring mail, postal items or used to fill in information when users register online with a request to enter a postal code or postal code. The 6-digit Zip Postal Code is the latest update of 2023 for 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam.

Frequently asked questions related to Vietnam Postal Code 2023

1. How many ways to determine the postal code where I live?

There are two ways to determine the postal code where you live.

Method 1: If you are using the internet, you can look up the postal code of your place very quickly. Please go to the following link: http://mabuuchinh.vn/. Then enter the address where you want the postal code search to Postals.

Method 2: Checkthe postal seal of the post office in charge of your area of ​​residence. On all letters or documents sent by post, there are postage stamps of the place of sending and the place of receipt. On this black stamp, there are 3 pieces of information: the name of the post office (above), the postal code of the post office (below) and the date of sending/receiving (in the middle).

2. How to write the postal code on the envelope correctly

When writing postal codes on envelopes, note:

The postal code must be followed by the province/city name and separated from the province/city name by at least one blank character.

Printed or handwritten accurately, clearly, legibly.

For postal items with a dedicated box for Postal Codes in the sender’s and recipient’s addresses, each box must have only one digit and the digits must be written accurately, clearly, and legibly without crossing out.

3. Do you need a postal code when buying province/city?

Postal codes are essential when making international purchases.

The society is increasingly developing, especially after the covid pandemic, the online shopping trend is growing, technology companies grasp the shopping needs of customers, so more and more online shopping platforms are born. Many convenient international payment methods, when paying for international payment cards such as Visa Master, JCB Amex Card, G Pay, Paypal or Payoneer will be asked to enter the postal code in the payment information. Postal code will help the parcels from abroad to Vietnam convenient and fast

The postal code is also so that you can buy goods online from abroad to Vietnam like amazon, ebay, aliexpress...so on and pay Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, pinterest ads or register google my business...etc.

4. Is the postcode different from the postal code?

Vpostcode is a combination of national postal codes and location codes on Vmap digital maps, applying the latest technologies in creating, assigning codes, managing, searching and locating addresses.

Vpostcode helps the community find the exact location and route, improving efficiency for e-commerce, logistics, delivery, real estate, tourism businesses…etc.

5. Some notes when sending by post

Provide complete and accurate information

It is very important to fill in complete and accurate information of the recipient and sender. In many cases, the recipient cannot be contacted because the address or information is not detailed and incorrect.

Determine the type of goods to be sent by post

Each item will have a different shipping fee. Therefore, it is necessary to determine whether the items sent are parcels, documents, invitations, high value items or fragile goods such as glass, ceramics, liquid goods, …

Determine the correct size, weight, and packaging status of the goods

You need to check the product weight, pack and preserve the goods carefully when sending the goods by post.

Respond promptly when there is an incident

When the recipient does not receive, the goods are returned or lost or broken in transit, you need to quickly contact the post office to have it resolved.

Learn more: https://vietnamesim.vn/pages/latest-postal-code-vietnam

#vietnam_esim, #esim_vietnam, #best_esim_vietnam, #Vietnam_travel_esim, #Vietnam_esim_tourist, #vietnam_esim_travel

[trustcaddy]

Titanic slipways venue

Titanic slipways venue code#

Titanic slipways venue mac#

They’ll join previously announced headliners Bicep at the event this summer. Mura Masa, LSDXOXO and Jon Hopkins have been added to the bill. For further information on the wide range of events packages at Titanic Belfast, go to /venuehire, email or call 028 9076 6454. The main entrance is on Queens Road, on the left after Titanic Hotel and before. The slipways where the Titanic was built are now a top outdoor performance venue in Belfast, which has just been awarded UNESCO City of Music status in recognition of its dynamic live music scene. AVA Festival has announced the line-up for its upcoming edition, set to take place at iconic open-air venue Titanic Slipways, in Belfast, on 3-4 June. Cristal Palace will take place in The Paddocks, adjacent to Titanic Slipways. Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for the content of external websites. Belfast’s AVA Festival reveals 2022 line-up. Users are reminded that they are fully responsible for their own created content and their own posts, comments and submissions and fully and effectively warrant and indemnify Journal Media in relation to such content and their ability to make such content, posts, comments and submissions available. Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for user created content, posts, comments, submissions or preferences. AVA returns to the city on 3rd and 4th June 2022 with another weekend in the company of the dance scenes most innovative artists at Belfasts Titanic Slipways. Wire service provided by Associated Press. the slipway at the docks,just as the Titanic would have done in 1912. Everyone attending, including children, must have an individual ticket. Titanic Belfast 1 Olympic Way, Queens Rd, T028 9076 6399. Children under 18 yrs are not permitted unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. There will be NO RE-ADMISSION once you have left the venue. Irish sport images provided by Inpho Photography unless otherwise stated. The Titanic Exhibition Centre is the ideal city centre location for large-scale events in Belfast. Titanic Slipways, Belfast 8 September, 2018 We look forward to welcoming all Ticketholders for Proms in the Park 2018. News images provided by Press Association and Photocall Ireland unless otherwise stated. For more information on cookies please refer to our cookies policy. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at PH: (01) 6489130, Lo-Call 1890 208 080 or email: note that TheJournal.ie uses cookies to improve your experience and to provide services and advertising.

Titanic slipways venue code#

To warm up, AVA will host an Opening Event at the Banana Block at Portview Trade Centre from 5pm-10pm on Thursday 2nd June featuring talks from industry experts including Resident Advisor’s RA Exchange Live, a PRS For Musicians hosted chat, followed by an instore at Sound Advice - the city's new record store.Īnd to wind down on Sunday 5th June, there's a closing party at supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice.

Titanic slipways venue mac#

Tickets are on sale, currently priced at £90. Venues near Titanic Slipways The Slipways Odyssey (SSE Belfast) Custom House Square Belfast Mc Hughs Basement Bar Metropolitan Arts Centre The MAC Oh. There are also Afterparties taking place across three venues: Banana Black at Portview Trade Centre, Thompson’s Garage & Ulster Sports Club on both Friday and Saturday night Line-upĬonfirmed acts include BICEP, Mura Masa, Jon Hopkins, Biig Piig, Floorplan, I Hate Models, VTSS, TSHA, Special Request, Sherelle, Ross From Friends, Sally C, Kessler, Baklava and more.įor the details as available please see the line-up page. AVA is an Audio-Visual Arts Festival taking place in in Belfast on Friday 3rd - 4th June at a new venue, Titanic Slipways.ĪVA Festival aims to promote the growing cultural movement in Belfast and beyond, with live acts, DJs, and visual artists, a large percentage from Ireland, in a celebration of Belfast’s creative movement, giving Irish artists a global stage.ĪVA Belfast encompasses an outdoor multi-stage festival, installations, arts exhibition,and a conference showcasing the electronic and Irish visual arts.

[elizabeethan]

Witness

After the worst night of his life, Killian goes into the Witness Protection program and moves to Maine until he can testify against the man who took everything from him. He had resigned himself to living a life of misery, pain, and heartbreak, but that all changed when he met Lily Quinn.

A/N: I finally finished this one!! It's not perfect by any means, but I'm honestly just patting myself on the back for completing it, at this point. It's not beta'ed and I probably haven't proofread it enough, so if you see any typos or notice any continuity errors, no you didn't. 

Also, this is the 50th, yes FIFTIETH, Captain Swan fic that I've posted on Ao3. There isn't much I can say about that other than thank you to everyone in this incredible fandom who has encouraged me to explore writing and discover how much I love it. Thank you especially to @the-darkdragonfly and @donteattheappleshook for always being there for me in every capacity and for supporting me through thick and thin.

Rated E

15,630 words (oops)

Read on Ao3

Read my Other Stuff

Get added to my Captain Swan taglist

~~~~

The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt before and is likely to ever feel again, lest he lose another appendage. It burns and stings and throbs and stabs all at once, and it drives him mad as he looks down and remembers that there’s nothing there. There’s no hand to be hurting him as he bites into his bottom lip and doubles over, holding his empty wrist in his one remaining hand. There's no reason for him to be feeling this way, and yet he feels as though he’s lost the hand all over again. 

 He doesn’t remember what it felt like to lose it in the first place, but it must have been something like this. Leaning over his ledgers upon his pathetically small desk, he tries to remind himself that there’s nothing there anymore. He shouldn’t be hurting like this, not now that it’s gone. He tells himself to get over it, snap out of it, he’s being foolish. He lets out a pained gasp as he puts his stubbed arm on the surface of the desk and picks up a pen, staring down at the empty space where his hand should be before taking a breath and sending the pen forcefully through the air, into the grainy wood, missing the hand that he lost months ago. 

 The burning subsides when he does this, as if him telling his mind that it isn’t there, that it doesn’t matter anymore, isn’t enough; as if he has to see it for himself to believe his own thoughts. It happens frequently– frequently enough for him to consider himself crazy on a several-times-weekly basis. He’s just lucky that he doesn’t share this cramped office with anyone, that he’s usually left alone to do his work in peace, just the way he likes it. He’s lucky that he lives alone, that he has no one to watch him go through the lunacy of feeling pain in a hand that doesn’t exist. He’s lucky that he’s always alone. He’s lucky to have lost everything and everyone, because at least he doesn’t have to force someone he loves to live through this with him. 

 At least, that’s what he tells himself as he pulls the pen from the shallow hole he punched into the wood and returns it to the cup where it belongs. 

~~~~

 He’s making an effort not to become the town drunk. 

 His father was the town drunk, and he’s always hated his father. 

 So when he goes to the Rabbit Hole, he likes to keep it to once a week, maybe less. He likes to keep it to two drinks, maybe three. He likes to keep control over himself so that no one in this tiny place starts to see him as the town drunk. They already see him as the strange, handless recluse, and he doesn’t feel the need to move into town drunk-territory. 

 But when he walks into the Rabbit Hole that night, just a few months after his arrival, he considers changing his ways if only in response to seeing the stunning, glowing blonde behind the bar for the first time. 

 She truly is glowing. She emanates beauty and exudes perfection as she stands behind the bar, somehow catching the perfect lighting, her bare arms toned as she pours a beer flawlessly, her hair gleaming under the dim light fixture, her smile shimmering despite the darkness in the bar. She laughs at her patron, Leroy telling her a joke that Killian can almost certainly bet was not funny. She throws her head back and he nearly salivates at the sight of her bare neck. She turns from the grumpy old man and adds the pour to his tab and then she turns again, locking eyes directly with Killian before giving him the most beautiful, sexy, friendly smile he’s ever received. 

 “Welcome in,” she says, her voice like bells as it rings through the bar, cutting against the loud music and the even louder laughter from the party at the pool table. “What can I get you?” 

 He’s almost stunned silent, stupidly standing there with his mouth hung open like a trout until he gets his bearings, tugging on the sleeves of his gray knit sweater and shuffling towards the bar. Get it together, you old fool, he tells himself, cursing as he trips over his own feet but praising himself as the sight draws a soft giggle from the angel of a woman. 

 “Rum,” he says idiotically, and she raises a brow. 

 “Just rum, neat? On the rocks? Or a shot?”

 He clears his throat. What will she think of him ordering just rum, neat? Or a shot? “Might as well throw in some Coke and ice, I suppose,” he chokes out, fighting through the awkwardness that he hasn’t felt since high school. 

 She laughs. It seems genuine, but she must treat all of her customers like this, right? “A rum and Coke then, coming right up. Do you like lime?”

 “Yes,” he says, although he can’t really remember if he does or not. He pulls on his left sleeve as he sits down, far from Leroy. His elbow rests on the bartop, and if he had a hand, it would drop between himself and the surface he leans against. “Sure. Please.”

 She works quickly, and he tries and tries not to look at the way her black tank top hugs her waist. He tries not to notice the way that there aren’t any lines along her back and he tries not to wonder whether she’s wearing a bra beneath it. He tries not to notice the way her jeans hug her hips and flare out just slightly, elongating her legs impossibly. Really, he really tries not to stare. Seriously. 

 “There you go,” she says with a bright smile. “Want to open a tab?”

 He says nothing, dropping his bum arm and using the other to fish his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling out the credit card David gave him and handing it to her without a second thought. Normally, he wouldn’t open a tab. Opening a tab is something the town drunk would do– or at least running up the tab is. But how can he say no to the siren standing before him? 

 “Thanks,” she says, looking at the front of the card and smiling. Something about this smile is different; it’s softer, more genuine. “Peter. I like that name.” 

 “What, um–” he clears his throat, not before kicking himself beneath the bar. “Would you tell me your name?”

 “It’s Lily,” she says pleasantly. “And it’s very nice to meet you.” 

 “Likewise.” 

 The exchange is taking a turn, he notices, the awkwardness growing between them because he should probably say something more. He should try to carry on the conversation, get to know her, let her get to know him. But he’s a fool, not used to interacting with anyone, never mind a beautiful woman, and she has other customers, so she smiles at him once more and walks towards Leroy, taking what’s left of his heart along with her. 

 ~~~~

 He returns to the bar the next night. 

 No one here knew his father, so he reasons that no one would assume his identity as a second generation alcoholic. He isn’t an alcoholic, not really. He would know if he was. He’s seen the signs, watched the way it murdered his father and his uncle and his brother. And he reasons, as he leaves his office the next night, that going to a bar two nights in a row does not an alcohol addiction make. 

 She’s here again; Lily. The fallen angel gracing this earth for reasons unclear to him. Her occupation at the Rabbit Hole is enigmatic because he’s certain that she could do anything she sets her mind to. He watches in awe as she mixes drinks and flawlessly pours beer and somehow operates the whole establishment, Ruby lilting through the restaurant and fancifully taking orders when the mood strikes. 

 He watches with as much normalcy as he can muster, not entirely used to the interactions that he’s been avoiding for the past seven months or so. 

 (Well, he says or so, but in reality, he knows exactly how long it’s been since he shut himself out from the rest of the world.) 

 (Seven months, two weeks, and three days since he fled Boston.)

 Lily floats through the bar, smiling at her customers and, he thinks, smirking at him. She walks to her colleague, tucking her head against the other woman’s ear and whispering something he could never make out until the two of them erupt into a symphony of giggles. She glances over at him, her bottom lip caught between her pearly teeth, and Ruby whispers something back. He watches as her cheeks flush, the intoxicating pink spreading down her neck and across her chest. He watches for as long as he can before he recognizes how unsettling it is for him to be staring like this, wondering how much further down the warmth trails along her porcelain skin. She watches him staring, how could she not, and his heart begins to race as she slowly makes her way towards him. Honestly, she probably isn’t even moving that slowly, but the way that his blood is racing through his veins more quickly than ever makes the rest of the world feel like it’s moving in slow motion. 

 “Peter,” she greets with a wry smile, one perfect brow lifted towards her hairline as the other rests beautifully above her glowing emerald eyes. “Did I make your rum and Coke wrong?” 

 “Of course not,” he answers too quickly, then he clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.” 

 “I don’t mind being stared at,” she flirts, at least, he hopes she’s flirting. He thinks she must be if the way she leans against the bar closer to him than he’s seen her get to her other customers is any indication. He tugs on his left sleeve, the knit material stretching easily over his empty wrist. “At least, not by someone who looks like you.”

 Flirting, he tells himself. Honestly, as a grown man of somewhere close to 40, he should probably know when a woman is flirting with him, and yet this woman in particular has his mind in knots. He can’t even help the smile that creeps slowly along his lips, and he can’t help but to notice the way that it makes her own grow. 

 “The drink you made is delicious,” he tells her, as if that matters. “You’re quite talented.”

 She hums lightly, shrugging her toned shoulders and hopping onto the barstool beside him. He turns ever so slightly, hiding his blunted arm behind himself but refusing to pull any further from her than he has to. “Yeah, well… Have you been in town long?” 

 The change in subject, the sudden interest in his life, throws him for a loop, making it difficult for him to focus as if he wasn’t having trouble already. “Longer than you, I'd assume,” he answers ambiguously. It’s something David taught him. Unless someone knows exactly when he arrived, it’s a bad idea to give concrete answers, like I got here six months, one week, and two days ago. 

 “Well, I only got here about two weeks ago.”

 “Much longer than that,” he says confidently, because in the grand scheme of things it hasn’t been long, but in comparison of weeks, it’s been plenty. Clearing his throat, he lies. “About a year.” 

 Her eyes narrow slightly, her smile still playful, and she nods. “Well, you seem to at least know more than me, right?” She presses closer to him, leans in and rests her elbow against the bar, and if she gets any closer, she might be able to see that he’s missing about a pound’s worth of his left arm. But he doesn’t pull away. With her voice low and sultry, with her fingers dancing almost imperceptibly along the collar of his shirt, she murmurs, “Maybe you can show me around.”

 “Don't you, uh– don’t you have a bar to keep?”

 “Eh,” she shrugs nonchalantly, seeming to make herself more comfortable at his side as she shifts. “Ruby agreed to close so that I can shoot my shot with the hot customer who keeps staring.” 

 He blushes. He hasn’t blushed in… he doesn’t know how long it’s been. His eyes widen and she smiles like she expected him to think he was being secretive as he watched her. She takes his hand, his right hand, the only one he has, and it’s like she knows that that’s the right side to choose. She tells him not to worry about his tab, the one rum and Coke on the house. She keeps his hand in hers and guides him behind her until they reach the door, and he realizes that this woman could be leading him to his death and he frankly wouldn’t care. 

 ~~~~

 He doesn’t go back to her place. She doesn’t come back to his. 

 They just… talk. 

 He hasn’t talked to someone– really talked to someone, someone who isn’t his bloody assigned Marshal– in six months. Six months, three weeks, and six days. He hasn’t had the pleasure of getting to know someone in far too long, longer than he can count, because he never really knew Milah. He hasn’t felt such a connection to another person in all the time he can recall being alive. Perhaps he felt connected to his friend Rob in third grade, but this is different. Perhaps he felt connected to his brother before he died, but this is far different. Lily, Lily Quinn, is unlike anyone he’s ever met. She’s bold and brazen and she isn’t afraid to tell him exactly what’s on her mind at any given second. 

 I think you’re hot.

 The sweater look is seriously a turn on.

 I’m not really looking for a relationship right now, but I guess you can never say never.

 She’s right. One can never say never, although he was pretty clear with himself after losing Milah that he’d never let himself fall for a woman like that again. 

 And yet, here he is, standing beside a woman several years younger than he is, buying her ice cream, hoping she doesn’t notice the way his left hand simply no longer exists, certain that he would fall for her if he let himself. It’s almost inevitable, and he realizes it as he watches her skip along the rock wall that lies sturdily between the sidewalk and the ocean waves, ice cream cone in hand, toes pointed out before her as she takes on the stance and confidence of a gymnast or a ballerina and then admits, I’ve never been very coordinated. 

 He feels it in his heart as she hops down with a grin, her steps light and her smile lighter, as if nothing has ever bothered her in her life. It’s intoxicating. He feels envious of her and yet he doesn’t have the painful feeling in his gut that usually accompanies jealousy. He isn’t jealous of her lightness, of her carefree nature; he’s happy for her. 

 He’s known this woman merely a day and he’s falling for her. 

 So when she lets him walk her to the entrance of her apartment building, tells him goodnight and that she doesn’t normally kiss on the first date, he grins. Was this a date? he wonders to himself, and all he can do is hope endlessly that it was. 

 She doesnt give him her phone number, but she tells him that she’ll see him soon. She says it with confidence, with a certainty that she’ll see him at the bar soon enough, and he can’t help but match her smile. Well, match is a stretch, because her’s is glowing and perfect and his is pained and broken, but it isn’t forced tonight like it usually is, and for that, he’s grateful. 

 ~~~~

 He still struggles to find the perfect word to describe her. Sometimes he thinks it’s effortless, sometimes he thinks it’s perfect, sometimes he thinks it’s formidable, but nothing seems exactly right. He knows there must be one word, one phrase he can use to describe the essence of this woman, but as he stares dreamily at her as she works, he can’t think of it. 

 She smiles at him like she always does, pours him another drink, tells him he looks handsome in his slate colored sweater, and he blushes again. He couldn’t think of the last time he blushed before he met her, and now, he’s been blushing nonstop for the past three weeks of knowing her. 

 “You know,” she says one evening when the room is quiet, almost empty, pressing up onto her toes so that she can get closer to him although there’s a bar between them, “I don’t know if I got everything I should have out of our tour.” 

 “That was weeks ago,” he points out. “I think the period for complaints has expired.” 

 She laughs, throwing her head back and letting him see the cords of her neck as they stretch. “You’re funny,” she says easily. “I mean, shouldn’t you have brought me to all the local spots? I heard there’s a diner I’m seriously missing out on and you just took me to the ice cream shop.”

 “Well, ice cream shops are open much later than most diners.” 

 “Ruby says it moonlights as a restaurant at night.” 

 “She would know,” he agrees. “Her granny is Granny.” 

 She gasps, and he thinks it's sarcastic. “The Granny?” 

 He smiles. It’s genuine, real, honest. He can’t think of anything else to say. 

 “Maybe we can try it some time,” she offers after a beat, picking up her rag and wiping at the bar’s surface in front of him. He moves his elbow carefully, desperate to hide his shame from her like he always is, wondering if she’s noticed the strange way he shields his left arm. 

 “Are you… I mean, are you staying in town long, then?”

 She’s quiet for a moment, for the first time since he’s known her appearing unsure of what to say. She looks down at the wooden surface between them and drops her hand towards his, her long fingers playing at the knit fabric that nearly covers his fingers until she tickles the hair on his knuckles. “My plan was to stay as long as I needed to.”

 “How long will you need to?” 

 She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ll stay until I find what I’m looking for.” 

 “And what’s that?” 

 She smiles, still looking down at his hand and becoming more bold as she lifts one of his fingers and tucks her own beneath it. “You couldn't handle it,” she dares, looking at him with a playful smirk, and he can’t help but to return it. 

 “Perhaps not.”

 “What are you looking for?” 

 He can’t answer, because he doesn’t quite know. He racks his brain, wondering what will happen to him once he gives his testimony and can go on with his real life without the fear of being hunted or the unease of a US Marshal breathing down his back. He wonders what he’ll want when this is all over, wonders if he’ll want something out of his life other than for it to finally end. 

 “Home,” he tells her after the silence between them has grown cold, and he watches as the look on her face shifts from one of playful indifference and almost discomfort into something that he struggles to read. It’s something like disbelief, her mouth falling open slightly and her hold on his one remaining hand falling weak as she stares into his eyes and into his blackened soul. 

 She lets go of his hand completely, letting it fall against the countertop and moving towards the entrance of the bar, exiting her post as she often tells him she’ll never, ever do. She sidles up beside him, one hand landing softly on his cheek and the other resting against his thigh just above his knee. “Home?” she asks in a whisper, her’s softer than his, voice almost imperceptible over the sounds of the nearly empty bar. 

 “Aye,” he chokes out. “I’m not really sure… what that means. But… aye.” 

 “I want that, too,” she tells him as if it’s a secret, and a part of him realizes that something between them has shifted. This is an admittance, a secret she’s hardly told anyone, and as she moves in close to him and finally, finally captures his lips between her own, he feels nothing but gratitude and a realization that she’s truly letting him in. 

 The gratitude mixes quickly with a tightness in the pit of his stomach, her tongue lightly tracing the seam of his lips until he opens them slightly, allowing her entrance and a pass to explore as she wishes, and the gratitude grows. He breathes her in, inhaling the scent of her as it mixes with the scent of him and feeling the gratefulness growing along with that tightening in his stomach. He hears a soft whimper escaping the back of her throat, barely breaking past her lips before crashing against his own. The hand on his knee slides upwards to his thigh, squeezing his flesh beneath his jeans as her other hand slides into the hair at the back of his neck. 

 He struggles to think of a time where he wished for his hand back more than he wishes for it now, wanting nothing but to feel her beneath both of his palms, but one will have to do as he finds her hip and pulls her close, lets her find her spot between his knees and push her hips against his own. He leaves his empty arm by his side, content to ignore the desires in hopes of avoiding her finding out the truth. Well, this truth. 

 But she’s insatiable, wanton, needy as she tries to get closer, as she climbs up onto the stool precariously to straddle his thighs, as she sends a bolt of fear through him when she almost falls off, and he can’t help but to grab her, or try to and fail. He grabs one hip, has a good hold on her, but it’s not enough to distract her from the way that her other hip is secured by an empty wrist, and he knows by the way she freezes in his arms that she knows. 

 She whispers the name he gave her against his lips; he notes the way the word feels against his skin. He likes the way it feels when she says it, but he wonders if he’ll ever feel the truth falling from her lips. To his surprise, he feels her smile against his mouth and he pulls away, although he can’t seem to open his eyes. 

 “It’s okay,” she whispers. She holds his face in both of her hands and he feels envy. “Are you embarrassed?” 

 He nods without thinking, his forehead fused to hers and the tip of his nose running along the bridge of her own. 

 “You don’t have to be,” she whispers. “I already knew.” 

 “What?” he asks, looking up from her and meeting her deep emerald eyes. 

 Her smile is soft and kind and gentle. “I mean… yeah. It’s been weeks, and I'm good at noticing stuff.”

 “You’ve known for weeks?”

 “Since the first night.”

 “And you didn’t… It wasn’t…?”

 “No,” she whispers, her smile bright and understanding and somehow unchanged. “You're still hot as hell.” 

 He laughs, because what else is he supposed to do? He hasn’t thought of himself as attractive, not even remotely, since that day eight months and two days ago. But here she is, telling him he’s hot as hell even though she’s known since the first time they met that he only has one hand. 

 “How’d it happen?” she asks, lightly touching his forearm but not getting any closer to the scarred, angry skin just below, either because of his fear or her own. 

 He startles slightly. David told him he can’t tell anyone anything about that night, the night he lost his hand, so he shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. “Boating accident,” he tells her. They were at a marina, afterall; perhaps it’s not entirely a lie. 

 “Well, I’m sorry that happened. But it doesn't change anything.” 

 His nose is still pressed to hers and he doesn’t even think before nuzzling it against her own and making her grin, her giggle playful. “Thank you,” he whispers genuinely. “It’s taken a long time to get used to it– I'm still not used to it.” 

 He thinks of the pain. The way that it always hurts, always. He thinks of earlier when he put another small, shallow hole in his desk with the first pen he could find. He thinks of the way it isn’t there, and yet he’s somehow always reminded. He’ll never be used to it. 

 ~~~~

 It’s been two weeks, and he hasn’t gotten used to the way that it feels to kiss her. He can never get used to the way her lips slide against his, the way her fingers slip through his hair, nails scratching against his scalp. He’ll never get used to the way her thighs squeeze around his hips once they finally find privacy, the way her hand grabs his and pulls him until they find sanctuary in the women’s restroom. He won’t ever grow tired of the way she moans his name– the fake one– and grinds her hips against his and clings against him as if she can’t get enough. And he won't ever, ever get used to the way she holds tightly against his blunted forearm as she tells him how attractive she finds him. 

 She giggles when he boldly thrusts, just a bit, letting her get a taste of what she does to him when they’re like this. Ensuring that she knows the effect she has on him when she moans out a name that isn’t his and bites into the soft flesh of his collarbone just below his shirt. 

 “You know,” she starts, panting as she digs her fingers into his shoulder blades. It isn’t exactly easy to be in this position– to hold her up against the sink but also ensure that she’s pressed firmly to him– but it’s worth it. “One of these days I might let you beneath my jeans.” 

 He smirks against her, kissing her again and squeezing his palm against the plump flesh of her ass beneath the denim. “Is that so?”

 “Maybe.” 

 “And what will I have to do to earn such a privilege?”

 She hums and giggles all at once, shrugging and capturing him in another kiss, effectively silencing him. “I’ll know when I know.”

 He laughs. It’s a real laugh. But his arm gets tired, what with him being unable to hold her with one of them, so he rests her weight on the porcelain sink for a moment. It was only a moment, honest, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Apparently, two weeks of making out against a free-standing sink puts a great burden on its structural integrity, and almost immediately as he puts her down, the porcelain shatters beneath her, splintering under her weight and sending her towards the floor. 

 “Fuck!” he shouts, trying to catch her and hoping that her frightened shouts don’t draw any attention from the other customers. The destruction of the sink stems from the basin and into the pipes, the breakage sending water at each of them and they’re soaked through faster than they can even comprehend. 

 At first he’s worried, trying to pull her out of the way and block the spraying pipes, but then her laughter rings louder than the forceful sound of the water and he can’t help but to look up at her with a smile. 

 “Look at you,” she laughs, her hair curling with moisture and the skin beneath her eyes blackening with her running makeup. 

 “Look at you!” he laughs back, shaking out his hand and standing by her side. “You look frazzled. Beautiful, but frazzled.”

 “I’m gonna have to call someone about this,” she says lightly, as if it’s the furthest thing from her mind. “But thanks.”

 “For breaking your sink?”

 “For giving me an excuse to leave early,” she says, pulling him close to her once again, pressing onto her toes so she can press a soft kiss to his lips. “I’m gonna have to go home and change. Apparently I’m frazzled.”

 “Aye,” he says softly. “As am I, I'm sure.”

 “You could always come back to my place. I have an energy efficient dryer.” 

 “And what will I wear in the meantime?”

 With a shrug, she tells him, “I’m not sure I’m overly concerned with what you’re wearing. Or what you’re not wearing.” 

 “Bloody hell,” he murmurs, not thinking before he wraps his right arm around her waist and pulls her close. “You’re…” He still can’t find the right word. Enigmatic? 

 “Horny.”

 “Aye?” he whispers. 

 “Yes. I want you.”

 She never hesitates to tell him exactly what she’s feeling and exactly what she’s thinking and exactly what she wants. It’s why he finds it so easy to believe her. Why wouldn’t he believe her?

 ~~~~

 Her apartment is small, and he doesn’t even feel strange when he chooses the word cute to describe it in his mind. It’s nicely decorated, although somewhat bleak, as if she hasn’t had the time to move in since she’s moved in. The space itself is quaint, aged in the best way, and the boxes stacked in the corner of her living room give it character. 

 He isn’t able to see much else, though, the rest of the apartment turning to a blur as she pushes him against the wall by the front door and ravages him with her mouth and hands, lifting a leg to hitch over his hip and grinding against him with as much coordination as she can muster. 

 She must be something of an athlete, he thinks as she maneuvers around him, contorts herself so that she’s as close to him as possible. How else would she be able to maintain a position like this if she wasn’t used to working on gaining strength and stamina? 

 He backs her up suddenly, her back against the wall now, his hips planted firmly against hers, and she hisses. “Fuck,” she chokes out, her head falling back against the wall when he mouth latches to her neck. “Fuck, yes.”

 “This is what you want?” he asks with more bold enthusiasm than he was expecting from himself. 

 “Yes, don’t stop doing that.”

 She’s panting, her breath warm as it washes over his head, and it makes him more wanton. He shifts downward slightly, his mouth finding the top of her breast and sliding along her skin until he reaches the fabric of her tank top. With further exploration, he discovers that he must have been right that second night when he assumed she wasn’t wearing a bra, because she isn’t wearing one now. 

 “Minx,” he bites out, pulling on the ribbed black fabric to expose more of her breast. “Do you always go braless to work?” 

 “You’ve gotta flaunt what you’ve got in my line of work,” she explains breathlessly, and he bites the soft flesh just above her hardened nipple. 

 “Suppose someone should see this one day,” he proposes, licking against the pebbled flesh and drawing a surprised gasp from her, “poking through your top. Is that merely a ploy for more tips?”

 “Maybe,” she breathes. “Maybe it’s a cry for attention.”

 “From Leroy?”

 “From you, you idiot.”

 He silences her when he pulls her hardened nipple between his lips, sucking just hard enough to drag a moan from her throat. It’s then that he realizes that he’s on her left side, and normally, were sex truly like riding a bicycle, he would reach for her other breast. Only he doesn’t have a left hand anymore, so how is he supposed to squeeze her right breast? This thought gives him pause, just long enough for her to notice and to take his face in her hands. 

 “Do you want me?” she asks him, the question surprising. 

 “Can you not tell how badly I want you, love?” he asks, his hips firm against hers, his cock hard in response to her. He thrusts against her gently, watches her eyes fall shut and a soft moan escape her lips. “Shall I show you?”

 She nods with enthusiasm, her chin bumping lightly against the top of his head, and he works hard to hold her tightly with his blunted arm so that he can squeeze her left thigh in his remaining hand. He slides it up, able to feel the soft fabric of her tight leggings and the contours of the muscles she has hidden underneath, and he’s jealous of his right hand for the loss of his left as he feels the roundness of her ass against his skin. 

 “Fuck,” she whispers again. “You’re so fucking hot.” 

 It’s not something he’s used to hearing. In fact, he isn’t sure anyone has ever called him that before– hot. Before Lily was Milah, and before Milah was a slew of unimportant women who warmed his bed. He lived his life that way for years, since losing his whole family one after another started to become too much. But then with Milah– after Milah– it became… not enough. 

 Maybe that was backwards. Maybe the loss of his family should have been more traumatic than the loss of a woman he almost loved along with his hand. Maybe it just goes to show how broken he truly is. 

 But here, and now, with Lily in his arms and her back against the wall and her hips grinding into his, he realizes that he isn’t as broken as he thought he was. Well, maybe that isn’t true– he’s certainly still broken. But maybe he can heal. 

 His hand, or what’s left on the end of his wrist, is healing. The doctor says it’s healing nicely. But he’s gone through the last eight months, two weeks, and three days assuming that his brain and his mind and his thoughts would never be more than the fragments of his shattered life. 

 How Lily calling him hot can change his mind, he isn’t sure, but it drives him forward, convinces him to allow her access to his belt, and then to his button and then to his zipper. It drives him to the waist of her damp leggings, soaked through with water from that blasted sink. It drives him to suck a small mark into her collarbone, eliciting a desperate gasp from her as he tugs at the stubborn fabric until it’s resting at her knees. 

 His fingers find her hot and wet and waiting for him, and he looks her in the eyes and is met with her quick nod, her bottom lip captured tightly between her teeth. Her head falls back against the door when he touches her, her jaw falling slack and making it impossible for him to stop himself from attaching his lips to her soft, pinkening skin on her neck. 

 It’s difficult to hold her up and continue to trace intricate patterns over her clit. It’s harder, still, to keep her pressed against him and suspended from the floor while he slips a finger, then a second, into her core. But as she grows closer and closer to that precipice, as he drags her to the cliff and holds her close as he encourages her towards the edge, he can ignore the cramp in his arm and the tightness in his back. 

 She calls him Peter when she comes. He wouldn’t expect anything else, but it makes him long for the truth. It makes him want to be his true self with her, and he hasn't wanted to be that in a very, very long time.

 He carries her through her half-empty apartment as she catches her breath, her arms around his back tight, her fingers clinging sharply to the sweater he longs to take off. When he drops her onto her mattress, her eyes are hooded as she stares up at him. She reaches for him, seeming unhappy with being apart, and the thought makes him fight off a smile. Once she has her hands on him she finds the hem of his sweater, the one he doesn’t particularly like, the one that reminds him that he’s Peter and not Killian, and pulls it over his head. 

 They’re breathless when they come together. Finally tucking himself inside her is a feeling unlike anything he’s ever experienced or is likely to again. He thought he was beyond any sort of happiness, and having her beneath him is perfection. It’s overwhelming to realize that he’s here with her and it makes his breathing stutter as he drives into her with more force. The change of pace makes her cry out, her knees tight around his hips, and he can feel her squeezing him as she reaches that precipice again. The warm tightness makes him squeeze his eyes shut until her hand finds its way to his cheek, encouraging him to open them, and when he does, it’s like something shifts. 

 He’s loved Lily since the first time he saw her. But now, as their eyes meet and they climax together, he knows he’ll never be the same. And he knows he can’t lose her. 

 ~~~~

 Her head is heavy on his chest, the weight of it comforting against his heart as her even breath washes over the coarse dark hair that she can't seem to keep her fingers out of, even in sleep. He hears her hum softly, her fingers moving just slightly as she seems to drift into consciousness. She nuzzles her cheek against his chest and he feels a soft pressure as if she’s smiling against him. It makes him smile, too. 

 As she starts to stir, she tightens her grip on him, her arm sliding along his chest and hugging him close to herself, and everything is almost perfect until she stiffens. Following a low, deep rumble, she gasps, tensing above him and looking up at him with the widest eyes he’s ever seen. “Excuse me,” she says in embarrassment. 

 “Did you just belch?” 

 Her cheeks are set aflame, her teeth digging into her bottom lip as she fights back a laugh and nods. “Sorry.” 

 “You’re insane.” 

 “Well you just slept with me, so what does that make you?”

 “Also insane,” he agrees with a laugh. Without hardly thinking about it, he finds himself grinning, rolling her until she’s on her back and he can cage her between his arms, the marred one hidden beneath the pillow under her head. She laughs brightly as she stares up into his eyes and he feels his heart racing. “Sleep well?” 

 “Mhmm,” she hums. She lifts a hand and lets it cup his cheek, her thumb tracing the small scar that he thought was unsightly until he lost his hand. “You?”

 “Mhmm. It’s, um… it’s been a bit.” 

 “Since the last time you were with someone?” 

 “Aye,” he whispers. 

 “Me too,” she whispers back, giving him a soft comforting smile. “My last boyfriend turned out to be a major creep.” 

 “I’m sorry,” he tells her. He rolls onto his side and she follows, staring at him in a way that he isn’t used to. “You deserve better than that.” 

 “So do you.”

 He finds it hard to answer. He isn’t sure that’s true, considering everything, so he says, “Well, my last girlfriend turned out to be married.” And then murdered.

 “Yikes,” she cringes, shaking her head. He catches the way her eyes drift off beyond him, her thoughts consuming her for a moment, before she asks, “Was it before… before your hand?” 

 Of course it was. The last time he was with Milah was just before she told him the truth, about her husband, about his treatment of her, about the way that she was prepared to go back to the monster of a man. It was just hours before the last time he saw her alive. Just hours before he saw the life drain from her eyes and felt the blood draining from his wrist. 

 “Yes,” he chokes out, plagued by the memories of a woman who never really loved him but died for him anyway. 

 She touches his forearm again, the one that he thinks he’s done a pretty good job of hiding from her, and squeezes in a way that’s more comforting than he was expecting. His scars are healing, no longer raw or burning or swollen, the stitches long gone, but it’s still the ugliest part of him and having her hand just above the unsightly wound makes him shiver. Her eyes meet his, gleaming in the morning sunlight and reminding him of a shard of sea glass as she stares so deeply at him that he thinks she must be seeing his soul. He wonders what she finds there– wonders if it’s actually his soul, or if it belongs to Peter Harrison, the man she believes him to be. 

 Without saying a word, without her eyes leaving his, she takes his wrist towards herself, her lips still just slightly swollen as she presses them against his tender, broken skin. She gives him a smile, her thumb gently running along one of his longer scars, and kisses him once more, causing a chill to run down his spine. 

 “Are you okay?” she asks in a whisper, and the question, he thinks, goes deeper than just to inquire about his hand. 

 “I think so,” he answers honestly, just as softly as she had asked her question, and his response makes her smile. 

 “I just… obviously I haven’t been in your shoes. But I know this is probably a lot for you to process.” David had said that once, that it’ll be a lot to process. It is; the loss of his hand is only one piece of the puzzle that, when put together, will tell the story of his suffering. His hand being obliterated to the point it could not be saved is only one of the things that haunts him. The horror of watching a woman he could have loved being strangled, watching her take her last breath, will never leave him. 

 He thinks of that night too often, recalling the way that horrible man destroyed every part of him as he took his shots, missing the one he shouldn’t have. Had he not struck Killian two inches too far to the left, perhaps he would have reached his goal of killing him. Perhaps, in that case, Killian would have been put out of his misery and he never would have had to become Peter Harrison. 

 But he doesn’t want to die anymore, at least, he doesn’t think so. With Lily’s fingers sliding along his chest, he thinks he’ll allow himself to live for a bit longer. 

 “What’s this?” she asks after a consuming silence forces its way between them. When he comes back to himself, forcing away the thoughts of pain and suffering, he notes the way her fingers slide along his skin until they find the scar on his back, the one from the bullet that almost missed him and almost killed him, too far to the left to have done any damage. Her fingers circle the small wound that’s all but healed and he shivers again. 

 “A scar,” he answers simply, his voice rough and deep and forced. 

 “From what?” 

 He’s silent. He can’t answer, because for whatever reason, he gets the impression that she already knows. Even if he was allowed to tell her the truth, to tell her that his name isn’t Peter and that his life is in danger but that he doesn't truly care, he knows he wouldn’t, because he couldn’t stand to see the look on her face if he were to tell her what truly happened. 

 So he rolls her over and he kisses her again, and he keeps kissing her until she’s consumed by him as he always is by her, and she seems to forget that she asked in the first place. 

 ~~~~

 He’s unsure of what to do. 

 There’s nothing he really can do, truthfully. For a moment he wondered if physical therapy would help, but then he recalled that there’s nothing there for a physical therapist to work on. 

 All he can do is suffer. 

 The pain is as agonizing as it is disorienting. How can he look at a hand that isn’t there and feel such pain within it? All he can think about as he sits at his too-small desk in his too-small office is recall the feeling of Gold’s bullet penetrating his skin and muscle and bone, shattering it until it was of no use to him. 

 And now there’s nothing there to treat, so all he can do is dig his remaining fingers into the wood of his desk and start digging through his drawer for a pen that he hasn’t broken yet. 

 “Good morning!” he hears as he grips the pen in his fist, the door swinging open and revealing his panting, sweating, cursing form to the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. “Peter?” 

 He grunts as he forces the pen out of his fist, dropping it to the floor and trying and failing to drag in some oxygen. He can’t speak to her, his jaw is clenched too tightly. He hears her hurrying into his office, something dropping onto the desk and something else dropping onto the floor as she kneels before him and takes his fist in her hand. 

 “What’s wrong?” she asks in worry, her thumb running along his knuckles, and it would be comforting if this was the hand paining him. “Peter,” she says more soothingly, voice soft and angelic, and she stands between his knees and takes his face between her hands, pressing his forehead to hers. “Peter, just breathe. It’s okay,” she whispers onto his mouth. 

 He tries, he really does. The breath he takes in is short and forceful, the sound escaping him embarrassing. “Deep breaths,” she instructs gently, her fingers scratching against his scalp. She shushes him and the sound penetrates his thoughts and his agony until he’s able to breathe deeply enough to smell her intoxicating perfume. “That’s it,” she encourages. “It’s okay.” 

 The pain is still there, but it’s lessened somehow, and he didn’t need to thrust a pen into his desk to achieve the same results. “I’m sorry,” he finally forces out when he feels himself able to speak again. 

 “Don’t apologize,” she whispers, and then before he can think or even open his eyes, her soft, pliant lips are pressed to his and his thoughts are erased at last. She stays there for only a moment, not long enough before she pulls away and runs the perfect tip of her nose along the bridge of his. “What happened?” 

 He shakes his head. He can’t possibly burden her with this foolishness, so he keeps quiet and lets his hand hold onto her wrist as her own fingers continue their ministrations along his scalp. “Nothing,” he murmurs, and she feels her breath escaping her lips in a soft laugh that lands against his mouth. 

 “That wasn’t nothing, Peter,” she accuses. The more she hears that names fall from her lips, the more he longs to correct her, and it’s becoming almost as agonizing as his hand that no longer exists. “Is it… I mean, I’ve heard before that sometimes amputations can–” 

 “Aye,” he interrupts. She’s right, of course, but he’d rather not put it to words. He much prefers to ignore it. “You’re right, love. I’m sorry that I ruined your visit– I wasn’t expecting you.” 

 She seems to read him easily, pulling away and smiling as she stands up straight. “I was surprising you,” she tells him with a smile. “The point is that you didn’t expect me. I brought you coffee.” 

 “Well, thank you,” he says, forcing a smile. “I’m sure I needed this.” 

 “Peter,” she says, more serious suddenly, and his face falls at the sound of her voice wrapping around a name that isn’t his. 

 “I’m alright, Lily,” he says, trying to reassure her, although her face falls the same way he’s sure he did. “What is it?” he asks, placing the paper mug on his desk and taking her hand in his. 

 “Nothing,” she smiles, and it makes him think of himself, telling her the exact same thing. “Just… I found out I’m not actually on the schedule for today when I thought I was so I figured I'd pay you a visit. I, um– I missed you,” she admits more shyly, and it makes him smile. 

 “Well, I missed you, too, love,” he smiles back. How is it possible for him to be smiling when he was halfway to wishing for death just moments ago? “I’m glad you paid me a visit; I'm just sorry you had to… to see that.” 

 “I told you not to apologize,” she reminds him, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his in a tender kiss that makes his heart stutter behind his ribs. She leans away and hoists herself onto his tattered desk, able to ignore the tiny holes that little the surface and crossing her ankles as she smiles at him and reaches for the bag from Granny’s. “I also got you a bearclaw.” 

 “Oh dear,” he says, shaking his head at her playfully. “I’m afraid I'm much more of a donut person.” 

 Lily takes in a deep breath and lets it out with a sigh, shaking her own head and then rolling her eyes. “Okay,” she says with a nod. “Well, Peter, it was nice while it lasted, but we’re going to have to break up now,” she teases as she hops to the floor and starts to step away. He catches her, though, his hand reaching into the back pocket of her tight jeans and tugging her towards him until she falls into his lap with a ringing laugh. 

 His lips find her neck, and he finds himself much more playful than he’s ever been after having one of his episodes of pain and self-hatred. “How can we be broken up,” he murmurs against the shell of her ear, smirking when he feels her shudder, “when we never established a relationship in the first place?” 

 He isn’t sure what makes him ask– he’s never been so bold or straightforward, not even with Milah. But her answer makes his boldness worth it. “I thought you knew that you’re stuck with me,” she says, her tone joking and yet somehow completely serious. 

 “My, my. Lily Quinn, are you asking me out?” 

 She stills for a second before turning to face him and nodding. “I suppose so.”

 Their lips meet, and everything else in the room disappears. Every hardship he’s ever experienced melts into the background as she kisses him, her mouth soft and perfect and her tongue tracing along his own in a way that makes his spine tingle. He can do nothing but pull her closer once she’s maneuvered herself into his lap, her legs straddling his and her fingers finding their way into his hair again. 

 “Are you busy?” she asks against his mouth breathlessly. 

 “Yes,” he breathes back, suddenly consumed with need as he picks her up with some difficulty and deposits her on the desk. “With you.”

 She lets out a breathless laugh, the sound cut off by her gasp when he kisses her. Their actions are quick and hasty, their need for each other only mildly outweighed by their need not to be caught. Neither of them bother with their shirts, Lily reaching for his belt and loosening it just enough so that she can undo his trousers and watch them fall to the floor. He steps out of them, though perhaps he shouldn’t. He lets her pull his boxers down, though, and he steps out of those, too. 

 He finds the jeans she wears intoxicating. He loves when she wears them to work almost as much as he loves when she goes to the bar without a bra, but there’s no time to explore the soft skin of her breasts today. Instead, he pushes her jeans off of her ass and squeezes the flesh there with his one remaining hand, the other arm resting at his side and desperate to feel her with his lost fingers. Her tongue finds its way into his mouth as he slides her underwear down, too, the garments landing on the floor beside his own trousers. 

 She gasps when he enters her after just a moment of foreplay, his fingers quickly ensuring that she’s ready for him before his cock slides home inside her. She bites his lip, her fingers clinging to the material of the gray knit on his shoulders. “Fuck,” she breathes into his mouth, a moan escaping her throat. 

 “Okay?” he asks. 

 She nods rapidly, desperately, her hips starting to move and bounce above him, seeking the pressure and the friction that’ll get her to ecstasy. “Harder,” she begs almost silently, and he grips her hips to thrust forcefully up into her, making her cry out too loudly. 

 They both come quickly, their mouths latching together to ensure that they’re silent enough not to get caught by his coworkers. And he holds her, feels her breath panting out against his hot skin, and even though the life he’s presented to her is technically a lie, he’s never felt more like the person he wants to be. 

 ~~~~

 “There’s someone new in town,” she says after a while, her breathing having evened out although her fingers continue to draw small patterns into the skin of his collarbone along the neckline of his shirt. 

 “Is there?” 

 “Yeah. I think he’s from Boston, too; do you know him?” 

 He kisses her temple over the hair clinging to her skin and chuckles. “I’m afraid I don’t know everyone from Boston, love.” 

 “I think his name is Ian, or something.” 

 His hand slips along her back beneath her top, although he slows his movements slightly at her continued inquiry. “You’re rather distracted by this newcomer,” he points out, and she shrugs. With a joking tone, he asks, “Should I be jealous?” 

 “No,” she giggles without a second thought before she presses a kiss to his neck and then drops her head back down to his chest. “No,” she says again with more relaxation. “I’m just curious.” 

 “I know,” he murmurs against her head. “You are quite a curious lass.” 

 “Are you calling me a lass because of how much younger I am than you?” she asks in jest, and he moves his hand so that he can pinch her hip, making her giggle again. 

 He would answer with as much a joking tone as she had given him, but they’re interrupted, the ringing of his phone distracting him from the softness of her skin against his and reminding him that she lies half naked atop him, her jeans lying beside his on the floor of his office, which anyone can enter at any time. He kisses her once more, moving carefully so that he doesn’t disturb her too much as he reaches for his phone in his pants pocket.

 “Is it your other girlfriend?” she asks, and he swats her ass playfully, making her yelp and laugh. 

 It’s not, of course. It’s David– the last person he wants to talk to with Lily resting pantsless on his lap. “A friend,” he explains with unease. 

 She removes herself from him, reaching for the box of tissues on his desk and giving him a look that invites him to swipe the screen to answer. “David,” he says tightly, hoping that his tone gives away the fact that it’s a horrible time for him to be calling. 

 “Killian,” he answers too loudly, but Lily doesn’t seem to notice. “How are things?”

 “Fine.”

 He watches as she struts back towards him, her underwear back on but her jeans still sitting on the floor, and she stops to pick up his boxers and toss them at him. “Good,” David says as he struggles to keep the phone tucked against his shoulder while tugging his boxers back over his legs. She giggles and bites into her bottom lip as she watches, walking around to the back of his desk chair and placing her hands on his shoulders, holding his phone against his ear for him. “I’m probably going to pay you a visit.”

 “That’s no problem,” he answers, although he clears his throat loudly when she bends towards him, her lips dancing along the shell of his ear that isn’t being burned by his Marshal’s interruptions. “When?” 

 “Tomorrow, if not Wednesday.” 

 “Fine,” he says with a cough and a sigh. 

 “Killian, Are you alright?” he asks, and how is he supposed to correct the man on the other line when her mouth trails down his neck and her hands start to scratch through the hair on his chest? “You sound… strange.”

 He clears his throat once more, leaning his head against hers and sighing. “I’ve got to go,” he says with more urgency. “I suppose I'll see you tomorrow or Wednesday.” 

 “Alright, just tell me to bring a pepperoni pizza if you’re in danger right now.” 

 Bloody hell. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ve plenty of food at home. See you soon, Dave.” 

 He hears her giggle in his ear before he even drops the phone to his lap, and he spins in his chair so that he faces her, pulling her back down into his lap and pinching her hip once more. “You’re a scoundrel.” 

 “Mhmm,” she agrees happily, leaning in to kiss him earnestly. “Are you expecting a visit?” 

 He shrugs. “I suppose I am.” 

 “From a friend?” 

 “An old friend, uh, from school. Certainly not a girlfriend.” 

 She hums and kisses him once more. “Good. And do I get to meet this friend?” 

 He gulps. He doesn’t really know the answer to that, isn’t familiar with the ins and outs of a witness’s new girlfriend meeting their court appointed Marshal. So he shrugs and says, “I’m not really sure. Dave is, well, he’s quite shy.” 

 “But I'm such a catch,” she jokes, pressing a kiss to his nose before standing. 

 “Yes, you are,” he answers with a solid pinch to her bum as she makes her way to her jeans. 

 Once they’re pulled onto her long legs she stands straight before him, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’m off,” she says. “I need to go grocery shopping.”

 “Just a visit for a quickie, then?” he jokes, and she rolls her eyes. 

 “I guess so. But maybe I’ll stop by your place tonight.” She shoots him a smirk as she walks towards the door and he realizes that he’s still not wearing pants. She winks and walks out the door without so much as another word. 

 ~~~~

 It’s raining when he walks home that night. The roads are slick and although it’s not too cold out, he longs for a leather jacket to keep the moisture from soaking into his back. 

 He hasn’t felt like himself since he’s gotten here, forced to change everything about himself from his name to the way he used to like to dress. He’s not himself anymore, in fact; the Killian Jones he used to know had two hands and less to worry about. 

 But if there’s one thing that makes him feel like himself, or at least a version of himself who he can stand, it’s Lily. 

 She’s bright, and contagiously happy, and hilarious. She’s youthful and energetic, beautiful and intelligent. He can’t get enough of her. He can’t get her out of his head. He had thoughts of hatred for himself when he moved here, and she’s begun to chop away at them all, because if she can stand to be around him, hell, if she can enjoy her time with him, maybe he’s not that bad after all. 

 He loves her. He’s only known her a few months, but it’s been more than enough time for him to fall madly in love with Lily Quinn. 

 He’s confused when he sees her on his way home, though. She had already texted him and told him that she wouldn’t make it over tonight because she found out last minute that she has to work. But here she is, well past the time her shift should have started, sitting in her Bug and staring contemplatively out the window at the building across the street. 

 “Lily,” he says through the open passenger window, and she jumps a mile in her seat and looks at him in complete shock, as if seeing him is the last thing she would have expected. “What… Are you okay?” 

 “Peter,” she says back, placing her hand on her heart that he assumes must be beating erratically. “You startled me.” 

 “Sorry,” he tells her, and he watches her unlock the door and takes it as an invitation to join her in the passenger’s seat. “I thought you were working?” 

 She clears her throat, her eyes darting, looking at everything in her line of sight except for him. They both hear a sound, the front door of the building she’s watching opening, and she jumps again. He looks ahead at the man leaving the building and feels a cold sweat settling over him as a pit forms in his stomach, realizing quickly that something isn’t right. Because even from this distance and even in the dim street lamps, he can tell clear as day that the man they’re both staring at is his old roommate from Boston. “Fuck,” she breathes, looking around again nervously this time and turning to her back seat. 

 That’s when he turns, too, taking in the contents of the box sitting on the floor behind her seat and noticing a jacket. A black leather jacket, useless now with a hole in the torso and a blood stain on the left sleeve. 

 That’s his jacket. The one he was wearing on the worst night of his life. 

 “Where did you get that?” he asks her slowly, and she looks like a rabid dog caught on a leash as she watches August jump into a truck and drive away, obviously wanting nothing more than to follow him. “Lily.”

 “Fuck!” she says again, louder this time, her hand colliding with the steering wheel before she rests her head on it. “God dammit.” 

 “What the hell is going on?” he demands. As he watches her painfully grappling with what to do, with whether she should start her engine and follow the man she’s clearly been watching, the man who could have followed him from Boston and could be about to ruin everything, he feels something shattering. Suddenly everything starts to fall apart, the trust he had for her slipping through his fingers and the happiness he thought he felt seeming to melt away. 

 “I’m… I don’t know how to tell you,” she says, and when he looks at her with anger in his heart, he can see the way that she’s breaking, too. He has no idea what’s going on with her, with the two of them, but he finds it hard to believe that whatever is between them isn’t splitting at the seams. She sniffles and says, “I’m sorry.” 

 “Why are you sorry?” he asks with a bit more tenderness in his voice, finding it impossible to handle seeing tears starting to well in her eyes. “What’s going on? Why do you have my old jacket in your backseat? Why are you following August?” 

 “August?” she asks in confusion, shaking her head. “That’s not August, that’s the new guy from Boston; the guy I was asking you about earlier.”

 “No, that’s–”

 “Wait.”

 “Lily–”

 “Did you say–” Her face falls. Her mouth slacks open. Her eyes grow wide with fear and something else. She whispers into the dark, “Your jacket?” 

 “Aye, mine. I thought I’d lost it; it wasn’t with my personal effects when I left the hospital.” 

 Her hands cover her mouth, her eyes growing more tearful as she shakes her head. “No,” she chokes out before letting out a sob. “No. Fuck, no.”

 “Lily–” he starts, trying to put his hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away.

“Don’t call me that,” she insists through tears before she turns to start her engine. 

 He lets out a sarcastic laugh and asks, “And what will you have me call you, then?” he asks in exasperation, watching on in concern as she peels away from the curb without barely checking her surroundings and rushes towards his apartment, not hers. “Lily, what are you–” 

 “Emma,” she says forcefully, turning to him for just a second before wiping her eyes and looking back to the road. “My name is Emma.” 

 The only word he can use to describe himself is stunned. He’s silent, his mouth hanging slack just as hers was just a moment ago. His brows pinch together in thought as he looks at her, really looks at her, and for the first time, something seems to click. 

 Emma. 

 He can’t even be angry with her. He isn’t sure what reason she could possibly have to make up a fake name, but it dawns on him once more that she’s known him as Peter Harrison since they met almost six months ago. How can he be upset with her for lying about her true identity when he’s done nothing but lie to her from the moment they met? 

 All he can say is, “Why?” 

 She pulls sharply into a parking spot just outside of his building, looking around suspiciously before hurrying out of the car and towards his building’s front door, leaving him to follow. 

 He hurries out of the car behind her, throwing the door shut and taking out his key to open the door for her. “Li– Emma?” he tries, not used to feeling the name on his lips, but she rushes ahead of him, bypassing the elevator as she shoves the door to the stairs open and pushes through, barely waiting for him before sprinting up to his floor. 

 Once they’re inside his apartment, he stands behind her as she locks the door, and then, overcome with frustration and confusion and a need for answers, he places his hand and wrist on the door around her head and forces her eyes to meet his. “What the hell is going on?” 

 “Peter,” she starts, and he almost corrects her, but he can’t get a word in. Tearfully, she says, “Tell me you didn’t live with that man. Please, please just tell me that isn’t your jacket and this is all just a cruel joke.” 

 He stares at her for a moment, consumed with sadness and confusion. “Why would it be? Why would you know that?” 

 She shakes her head, looking down from his eyes. “Then you know… You know Robert Gold, then?” 

 His jaw tightens immediately, his teeth clenching together painfully, and he almost presses his hand to her neck at the threat but chooses instead to dig his fingers into the wood of the door and deny her freedom when she tries to pull away from him. “Why do you know that name?” he asks through his teeth. 

 She glances up for a moment and then back down. “I work for him,” she whispers. 

 He almost hits his hand against the door and pulls away, anger all consuming, boiling his blood and sending it singing through his veins as he tries to catch his breath. 

 But he can’t catch his breath, not as she continues to speak a harsh truth. “I’m a bounty hunter. I was hired by Robert Gold to find the witness to his wife’s murder; a man in his early-to-mid-forties who wears a lot of leather and–” 

 “And what?” he seethes when she doesn’t go on. 

 Her eyes meet his and sadness rim them as she weakly admits, “And had his hand… shot off… a year ago.”

 “Bloody hell,” he curses and while he’s angry, furious, he can’t help but to feel something quite the opposite as he looks at her and realizes he finally knows the real her. Emma. 

 “I’m sorry,” she whispers in anguish, wiping away the tears in her eyes. “I don't– This can’t be happening.”

 “Aye, well, it is,” he says with just a touch of snark staining his voice, and she lets out a sob, dropping her face to her hands. 

 “I thought you were Peter Harrison,” she cries. “You lost your hand in a boating accident. You never wear leather! If I had known that you were the one I was supposed to be looking for…” 

 “What? You would’ve gotten it over with sooner?” he asks with viper shooting through his words. 

 “I would’ve left!” she shouts honestly, desperately. “I would’ve fled.” 

 And that’s just it, isn’t it? She would’ve left. Just like every other good thing in his life, she would have brought this to an end. “If your plan is to turn me in, you may as well just–”

 “No. I’m not going to do that; I would never hurt you,” she says lowly, painfully, her eyes filled with wet tears he’s never seen before. “I swear to you, Killian.”

 He stands before her, eyes widening despite his attempts at staying stoic and angry, and he realizes… she knows his name. She knows the real him. Practically speechless, all he can utter is, “I…”

 “That’s right, isn’t it? You’re Killian Jones. You had an affair with Milah Gold and were present when her husband shot her in cold blood, right? He thought he killed you, too; shot you in the back and in the hand. But he found out the hard way that you had escaped when his clean up crew couldn’t find you.” 

 He shakes off the shock of hearing his story told back to him after hiding it for so many months and becomes defensive again even though the words hurt as they leave his mouth. “The fact that you know this just… I have to call someone. I have to have this taken care of.”

 “Pe- Killian, I’m not going to turn you in, you have my word!”

 “I don’t want your word,” he tells her without thinking, turning back to face her and meeting the tragedy in her eyes. “I– Emma. All this time, we've been lying to one another! All I want now is the truth.” 

 “The truth?” she asks softly, stepping close to him and meeting his desperate eyes with her matching ones. “The truth is that it doesn’t matter to me who you are. I don’t care if you’re Peter or Killian; it doesn’t matter.” She lifts her hand timidly, as if nervous of his reaction, but chooses to place it upon his heart anyway. “I fell in love with you. The second I met you I wouldn’t have hurt you. If I had known it was you, I would’ve run then and there.”

 “Run?” he asks, the word stinging as it leaves his lips and his hand lifting against his will. If he had them both, they would be cupping her cheeks. But all he has is the left side of her face against his palm. 

 “I have to run,” she whispers up to him. “When Gold finds out… he’ll kill me when I don’t–”

 It’s amazing how quickly and easily he makes up his mind, knowing without a single doubt that he’ll do anything to ensure that he doesn’t have to be without her. 

 He cuts her off, mostly because the thought of her leaving, even after all of the revelations and truths, makes him nauseous. But also because, in all the hazy frenzy, he’s just now realizing what she said. And he’s realizing that he fell in love with her, too. 

 And he’s always been the first one to say it. 

 She returns his kiss as if she isn’t even thinking, her hands sliding into his hair easily and quickly and a soft whimper breaking between their lips. Neither of them seem to even breathe before he’s backing her up to press her against the door, gripping her ass as best he can so that she jumps into his arms and locks her legs around his waist. 

 His lips slide down to her neck, latching to the tender skin above her collarbone, and she lets out a soft, intoxicating moan before whispering again, “I’m sorry.”

 “Don’t,” he begs against her skin, sucking a mark into it as he feels her fingers scratching against his scalp. “Don’t say that again. Please.”

 “Peter, I– fuck.” She drops her head back against the door and when he looks up at her and finds her bottom lip stuck between her teeth, tears filling her eyes again, he smiles at her sadly. 

 “It’s okay,” he whispers. His forehead falls to hers and he kisses her softly. “It’ll probably take some getting used to, not calling you Lily.”

 She looks at him for just a moment and smiles sadly before her face shifts, tears returning and her smile flipping into a frown before she looks away. 

 “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he says again. “You love me?”

 “Yes,” she answers immediately, firmly. She’s crying again when she says, “And I’m so sorry that I lied to you all this time, Killian.” 

 “It’s not like I was being entirely truthful with you either, love.”

 “But you have a good reason to lie,” she argues. “Witness protection, right?”

 He nods. “You did, too, though. I’m sure you can’t roll into town and announce your true intentions.” She nods, too, still saddened and struggling to meet his eyes, so he kisses her once more, soft and tender and with as much love as he can pour into her. “What would you have done?” he asks. “If I had been someone else? Just a random bloke from the bar?”

 She’s pensive for a moment, pursing her lips in thought. “I would’ve come back,” she whispers. “I would’ve brought the target in and quit, and then I would've come back. But then… that would’ve been a lie, too.”

 “Then perhaps this is for the best?”

 “What is?”

 With a small smile, he tells her, “I love you, too. It’s probably best that we get this all out in the open now, aye?”

 Her hands find his cheeks, her thumbs running along the skin beneath his eyes, along the scar he’s had for longer than he can recall, and he’s never seen someone look so saddened. “How can you love me, after everything?” she asks in defeat. 

 “The same way you can love me even though a big part of me hates myself.”

 She sighs heavily, shaking her head and frowning deeply. “I hate hearing you say that,” she whispers, tightening her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as if trying to bring him impossibly closer to herself. 

 “It’s true,” he says simply. “I never thought I would feel this way again, after everything with Milah. But… Emma, with you, it’s so much more.” 

 Her forehead is pressed to his as she nods. “For me, too.” 

 “Then don’t run,” he practically begs. “Don’t leave me.”

 She whispers his name, his real name, against his lips and it sends a shiver down his spine. “I need you,” she tells him, the desperation in her voice sending a jolt of desire straight down to his cock. “Not just… I mean, not just now; not just physically. I need you. I don't want to think about what my life would be like without you in it.” 

 “Then don’t,” he begs, finding himself repetitive but not caring. Maybe if he says it enough…

 Her lips are on his in an instant, hot and desperate, the feeling rushing between them like a current as they attempt to sooth the pain they're both in. He can’t help himself now, pressing her firmly against the door with his hips and groaning in response to the needy sound she makes. She angles her own hips just right so that he can feel the heat of her skin through his jeans and it makes him shudder. And she never once breaks her lips away from his as she fumbles with his belt and then his button and his zipper, letting his jeans fall loudly to the floor and tangling around his ankles. 

 “Please,” she breathes into his mouth, the heat of her voice making him thrust his hips towards her. The feeling of her leggings against him is strange but not unwelcome, although he wastes no further time as he starts to precariously tug at the waistband and pull the fabric from her heated skin. “Please, Killian, I need you.” 

 She’s never begged like this before, and something about it drives him even more wild. It’s something possessive and carnal within him that sparks in the base of his spine and in his belly and radiates out to every part of him, his fingers tingling and his cock twitching as she desperately pulls his boxers over his hips and sends them down with his jeans. He tugs at her underwear, the small cotton thong no match for the desperation in his fingertips, and he feels her whimpering against his mouth as he touches her, intent on ensuring that she’s ready for him. 

 Her tongue is dancing against his in a graceful frenzy and then she breaks away, her eyes deep and watery as they look into his and she nods quickly. He watches her teeth sink into her bottom lip as he drags the tip of his cock along her folds, her center hot and wet, and she lets out a breathless whimper and locks her eyes on his when he finally eases himself inside. Their foreheads collide, but it doesn’t hurt. Their noses brush against one another before she captures him in a bruising kiss. 

 She moves with him, eager and intense as she uses the door at her back to ground herself and circles her hips to meet each of his thrusts. Her fingers are tight in his hair, tugging relentlessly before she drops her right hand between them and finds that perfect spot just above where they’re joined. She moans out his name, throwing her head back against the door in what he knows must be a painful collision, but she doesn’t even seem to notice. 

 It’s good like this, quick and dirty and just what they need, but after a moment something tells him that it isn’t quite enough. He braces himself, pulling her body close to his and using his good hand to grip her ass tightly so that she bucks towards him, then he kicks his jeans off of his ankles clumsily as he stumbles his way through the apartment. She protests softly when he breaks his mouth from hers, regretting it too but needing to see where he’s going, and instead of waiting, she busies her mouth with his neck, her tongue dragging from beneath his earlobe down to his collarbone. Her mouth breaks away from his skin with a pop of suction when he pulls out and drops her to the mattress, and she lets out another irresistible moan. 

 Her name falls from his lips as he crawls onto the bed with her, hovering over her and unable to catch his breath before her legs are cradling his hips and her heels are pressing into his ass in a desperate attempt to get him back inside her. With how insistent she is, how needy and hot she is, he finds it impossible to resist giving her exactly what she wants. 

 They stay like that for a bit, with him heavy on top of her as he thrusts in, trying to find that perfect angle that makes her shout. But she’s restless, the emotions flowing between them making her jittery, so she presses against him until they’re rolling over, Killian landing on his back and Emma straddling her thighs over his hips and throwing her head back at the new depth. 

 “Fuck,” she breathes out towards the ceiling, her fingers sharp as they dig into his shoulders. “Just like that.”

 “That’s good?” he asks, finding himself more verbal than usual as he seeks out her approval. She’s moving against him but he finds that he can’t stop himself from thrusting up, too, meeting each of her thrusts with his own and unable to hold in the groan that escapes his throat when she tightens her muscles around him. 

 “So fucking good, Killian. Don’t stop–” she chokes out. She lets her fingers find her clit again, rubbing furious circles as he digs his fingers into her hips.

 “Come on, love,” he begs, feeling unlike himself but not caring. “Come for me; I know you’re close.”

 The sound of his voice seems to have the effect he was hoping for. He feels her core go impossibly tighter, her fingers moving over her even more quickly as her mouth hangs open and her eyes squeeze shut. Then, with a cry of his name, he feels her reaching that precipice, and as she collapses onto his chest and her muscles continue to contract, he lets himself go, too, holding onto her more tightly than he thinks he ever has.

 ~~~~

 She’s heavy on his chest like she usually is when they find themselves in this position, her head resting against the hair that she enjoys running her fingers through. Every now and again, the small ring she wears on her middle finger catches slightly on a strand of hair and makes him jump just a bit, and he feels her lips pressing against his skin in soft apology, her arm tightening around his waist in a soothing hug. It’s what makes him realize that he feels just as she does: he can't even begin to consider how his life would be without her in it. 

 But then, as much as the weight of her over his heart soothes him and calms his rapid pulse, he can’t help the sense of dread that floods through him each time he considers the fact that this can’t last. It simply can't. She’s meant to bring him to his death and he’s meant to die. The two of them can’t be together despite how badly they both want to be. 

 “You’re making me dizzy,” she whispers after far too much silence has passed between them.

 “What?” he asks with a soft laugh despite how much pain he’s in at the thought of losing her. Part of him thinks that this might be the last time he’ll ever hold her. 

 “You’re thinking too hard. Those gears in your head are turning so fast that they’re making me dizzy.” 

 He sighs, unable to fight the small smile that she always seems to bring to his lips. “I just don’t know…” he trails off helplessly. “Is it a coincidence that August should happen to be here, as well?”

 She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers drawing soft circles in his skin, before she softly admits, “I kind of… after you left Boston, I searched your place. One of Gold’s goons broke me in. I found out, I mean, I guess August’s dad is from here, I couldn’t get a ton of information after the Marshalls cleared out your apartment. But I figured it was only a matter of time before you– or he– came here. I didn’t know you had a roommate, and you both wore leather. When I heard he was here, I thought… I thought it’d finally be over, you know?”

 “Aye,” he whispers. “I know it's odd to say about someone who should be trying to kill me, but I don’t want to lose you. I’m… I’m scared.”

 “Me too,” she whispers back immediately, her body stiffening a bit in his arms and making his hand run along her spine. “But I think I have–” 

 The sound of the door to his apartment swinging open makes him jump more than he thinks he ever has, and Emma, too, startles and tightens her arms around him. They each stiffen, fumbling with the blankets and pulling his sheets over their shoulders, but he’s fairly certain that his neglecting to shut the door to his bedroom means that his friend has just caught a good look at Emma’s ass. 

 “We need to get you out of here; there’s a– what the fuck!?” 

 “Dave–!” 

 “Is this your–”

 “Stop, stop! Put some clothes on!”

 “Since when do you have a key?!”

 Chaos. The only word he can find to describe the scene he feels like he’s watching from outside of himself is chaos. He fumbles some more for the blanket, desperate to cover Emma but finding himself so preoccupied with covering her breasts that he exposes himself. And David’s eyes are squeezed so tightly shut that when he turns away from them, he trips over Killian’s forgotten jeans and collides into the wall, shouting in pain. It’s pure, unadulterated chaos.

 Emma’s eyes are wide with shock as Killian clumsily stands up, covering himself with his pillow as he rummages through the room and then tosses a shirt at her, its condition and cleanliness questionable at best, but it’s the best he can do at the moment. Then he finds a pair of boxers to pull over himself, and as the world starts to slow down and his adrenaline calms with a reminder to himself that he isn’t in danger, he sighs heavily, a curse escaping his lips. 

 “Yeah, I'll say,” David mumbles under his breath. “Do you have any idea what you just got yourself into?”

 “I’m sure you’re going to tell me, rather than standing there and saying meaningless things knowing I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

 Maybe he’s being rude, but really, what can anyone expect? 

 “I need to speak with you. Privately.”

 “You can say whatever it is you want to say right here.”

David’s face is stiff as he glares behind Killian, staring daggers at Emma as he says, “I don’t think you fully understand what’s going on here.”

 “I understand perfectly.”

 “She isn’t who she’s told you she is.”

 Boldly, he steps to the side and forces David to meet his eyes, cutting off his line of vision that he casts on Emma. “She told me she’s Emma Swan, and that she’s the bounty hunter Gold hired to bring me in. Does that about cover it?” 

 He scoffs, shaking his head and widening his eyes as he stares at Killian like he’s the stupidest man he’s ever come across. “Do you have any sort of protective capacity at all? Ki– Peter, what you’re doing is grounds for–”

 “I’m going to testify.”

 Both of them turn to the source of the sound that catches them so off guard, Emma’s soft voice cutting through their argument easily if only because of the absolute dissonance that it provides. She’s looking quickly between both of them at first, but once Kilian turns, her eyes meet his and lock in place, her gaze long and deep and completely serious. 

 “Against Gold. I’m not turning you in, and I'm gonna testify against him if that’s what’s going to keep you safe.” 

 There are arguments, mostly from David who doesn’t believe a word out of her mouth, but he’s been predisposed to the idea that she’s this evil huntress with her heart set on destroying Killian. He can see in her eyes how serious she is, though, how truthful she’s being, how dedicated she is to ensuring that her wrongs are made right and that Gold pays for what he’s done. He can see how intensely she’s resolving herself to really doing this, how dedicated she is to making this work, and if there’s one thing that he knows about her, it’s that she won’t let anything get in her way. 

 So even when David tells her that if she testifies, her entire character will be in question because of her profession, even though he tells her that she could face consequences for her involvement, she doesn’t back down. And eventually, after what feels like hours of negotiations, the three of them come to a conclusion. 

 ~~~~

 Being in witness protection had always been something that felt surreal. It had always been one of those things that he had seen in movies, but never felt like it was actually his life. The whole time he lived in Storybrooke, it felt like he was simply going through the motions; go to work, grab a drink, go home, repeat. Now, though, his life is his again, and it finally feels worth it once more. 

 It feels odd to appreciate the events that have led him here. It’s odd to recall the things that took Milah from him, that took his hand from him, and smile. It feels odd to consider the way he spent months and months in hiding, using a false name and living a life that wasn’t his, with fondness in his heart. But at the end of the day, each time he thinks about the things that have brought him to this moment, he has to smile, because despite what he’s lost, he’s gained just as much. More, probably. 

 Because he gets to spend the rest of his life with Emma Swan. And they don’t have to hide anymore, her clever plan granting her protection with him and then her own freedom once she had provided the testimony that put Robert Gold and his entire team in prison for life without parole. And he’s always felt whole whenever she’s with him, even though he really isn’t. She’s always made him feel like a full person, even without a hand. She’s always made it so that he could forget the hardships that he’s been through and just live a life of joy and contentment and love. 

 He loves Emma Swan. She gave him a new lease on life, and he’ll always be grateful for that, especially because a very large part of him had allowed himself to believe that, before he met her, his life was over. After Milah died, after he lost his hand, he didn’t think anything good could come from a life that had treated him so cruelly. 

 But she’s always been different from everyone else he’s ever known, better to him than he’s ever deserved. So once it came time to testify, they returned to Boston hand in hand and they spoke their truths, even with the knowledge that Emma was admitting to some illegal activities. But the immunity she was promised by David in exchange for her testimony made it so that she could leave the courthouse with him that day. And even though they were both wracked with guilt, even though Emma felt like a monster whenever she thought about what they’ve been through, watching the judge call out Gold’s sentence and knowing that it was all over was as therapeutic as meeting with their therapist has been. 

 It’s behind them now, and they never have to worry about it ever again. 

 He still gets those phantom pains, randomly throughout the day or startlingly at night as he’s dragged from sleep, but he hasn’t needed to find a pen to stab into his prosthetic or the surface his arm rests on in quite some time. Whenever it happens now, Emma holds him and she presses soft tender kisses to the tattered skin on his wrist and he heals without the destruction that he had grown so accustomed to needing. As with everything else in his life, she’s taken what he’s destroyed and she’s given it a sense of strange, abstract beauty. 

 So, once they put the final box down on the floor of their new entryway, he pulls her into his arms for a solid, warm hug and he breathes in the calming, grounding scent of her tropical shampoo, and they allow themselves to feel at peace as they process the fact that they can finally move on with a life together. So he slips the modest ring onto her finger quietly; he’s a bit shy as he presents his mother’s diamond to the love of his life, but he finds that he doesn’t really feel all that nervous doing it. Because she pulls away from him and she looks up at him with tears in her eyes and a smile that’s so bright and beaming that he feels that same familiar warmth that starts blooming in his chest and radiates out to every single inch of him. 

 And she nods, her grin contagious but easy enough to wipe off her face with a press of his lips to hers. And his heart grows and the warmth he feels when he’s with her chases away the burning in his hand and in his memories each and every time. 

 He’s come to realize, as his life has fallen back into a place of contentment and safety, after spending months and months (18 months, two weeks, and four days since he met her) trying to figure it out, that the only word he can use to well and truly describe Emma Swan is home. 

~~~~

~~~~

@courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @timeless-love-story @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @tiganasummertree @gingerchangeling @jrob64 @onceratheart18 @xhookswenchx @winterbaby89 @swampmedusa @ultraluckycatnd @dancingnancyy @love-with-you-i-have-everything @shireness-says @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @ouatpost @daxx04 @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @eeteeaytay @xsajx @itsfridaysomewhere @alexa-fangirl-forever @jonesfandomfanatic @wefoundloveunderthelight @qualitycoffeethings @rapunzelsghosts @spaceconveyor @badcats-andmice @batana54 @sailtoafarawayland @deckerstarblanche @zaharadessert @xarandomdreamx @pirateprincessofpizza @captainswan21​ @hookedmom @lostintheskyfaraway @undercaffinatednightmare @strangestarlighttree​ @emmythedaydreamer​ @killianslefthook​ @sarcasticandromantic @last-tsarina​ @anmylica​ @gloriousfemaleworrier​ 

[smutember]

Smutember prompts 2022 are here!

Once again, we are aiming to make the Internets a bit smuttier with the return of Smutember! Thank you to all, who submitted prompt ideas!

Rules

All posts have to be tagged with either smutember or smutember2022 hashtag (preferably both). Be aware that ns fw tag is shadowed, and posts with it are not visible in the tags. I personally suggest the revived old lemon tag. it wouldn’t hurt to @ this blog, so that your post won’t be missed, especially if your blog is new and still not shown in the tag.

No minor/underage content.

All submissions have to be at least somewhat smutty/naughty. We don’t require hard Explicit rating, a Mature one is fine too.

If you are planning on posting suggestive pics/drawings, remember that tumblr still has the ridiculous p0rn filter, so I suggest cropping the pic and adding links to external sites.

If your work contain kinks that may offend some, please tag them either in the tags, or in the body of the work.

Prompts are merely suggestions - at the end of the day, you are the one who chooses how to interpret the prompt. You can also completely ignore the prompts and have your own 30-day challenge, we’re not gonna call the internet police on you.

As usual, the only limitation is your imagination, so open your hearts (and zippers) and create some smutty content :)

And here are the prompt explained:

Library - a favourite places for nerds and bookwroms, with lots of dark corridors between bookcases for naughtiness. Also look for sexy librarians!

Partner swap - self-explanatory: sharing is caring, and one way to meet new people :D

In the rain - or after the rain, when clothes are wet and in need of being taken off...

Cruise - there is a reason they called it a "Love boat". Anything to do with travelling and romances that can take place on any ships

Don't get caught - another obvious one. Anything to do with doing in in a place where one shouldn't be doing it.

Only one bed - the oldest of tropes in romance fics. What if fate literally wants to put two people in bed?

Special occasion - birthdays, anniversaries and others are perfect moments for special love making!

Be quiet! - trying to stay quiet can be a challenge on its own when other people are around.

Surprise sex - spontaneity is the name of the game, just make sure the surprised person is okay with being surprised :D

Double penetration - not just the name of the kink, it can refer to any way of filling the holes... in your heart by more than two people. Or objects. They work too.

Just the tip - the tip of what, you may ask? That depends on you. Anything to do with gent;le tries and smalls steps forward the bigger goal

Give it all - the opposite of previous prompt - full steam ahead! Passionate love making all the way.

Put it in... writing. Anything to do with written word. Sexting, love letters, writing fics together, etc.

Show - stip-tease and role-play galore!

Hot tub - another famous cliché - sex in the bathroom. Showers, tubs, jacuzzi, hot springs.

Something new - time for experiments and broadening your horizons.New positions, kinks, etc.

Take charge - time for dominant side to appear. Anything to do with one side being slightly more possessive of the other one.

Movies - both at home or at the cinema. Whether regular, or R-rated, lots of fun can happen when watching them. Or maybe recreate a scene if it's so good...?

Orgy - another obvious one. The more, the merrier, especially when love is shared and experienced together.

Few clothes - sometimes being hidden is the sexiest. Sex in clothes, or with incomplete outfits, special costumes, etc.

Balcony scene - the ultimate romantic scene.... so let's make it smuttier. Romantic get-togethers, confessions, especially at night, etc.

Office sex - for some, the most boring of places. For others - opportunity to break some rules. AUs, or just situations with lots of strict rules.

Creative procreation - It's time to get pro-creative when comes to making babies. Breeding, impregnations, pregnant sex, etc.

Lust at first sight - anything to do with hormones taking over common sense and dictating one's steps towards lust

Picnic - another idyllic scene, perfect to smuttify. sex outside, in the nature, under open sky. etc.

Up high - the mile high club prompt. Sex on a plane, or on top of mountain, anything where one has to peak to achieve a peak.

7 minutes in heaven - famous party game can always be better. Quickies, confined spaces, heavy making out, etc.

Afterglow - what happens after the big o? Pillow talks, gentle kisses, or maybe an invitation to round two?

Swallow it! - Anything to do with messier aspect of sex. Facials, blowjobs, oral.

Free day - anything goes!

[angryschnauzer]

Ripe

Summary: Having spent the better part of a week in a car in the hottest place on earth, when Henry returns to you he is dirty to say the least. In fact he’s so ripe it turns your brain feral. Henry shows you just how much he missed you in the garages of the ‘Driven To Extremes’ garage away from prying eyes.

Based on this filthy headcanon i added to a post a few days ago.

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Female Reader (no race or size specified)

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Dirty Sex, Unprotected Sex, Breeding Kink, Raw/Primal Sex, Rough sex, choking/airplay, Cum Play, Hyperspermia.

Wordcount 1532

I do not operate a tag list or masterlist. All my previous stories can be found at @angryschnauzerwrites​, to get an alert whenever i post a new story, follow that blog and put it onto notifications. You can also find all my work on AO3.

Ripe

You knew Henry would be arriving back from the documentary trip within the hour, eager to see him after spending five days in a hotel on your own, just a novel and room service for company in an unfamiliar city. Dressing in a pale sundress that just brushed against your thighs you made your way to the meeting point at the garages where the 2nd camera crew would be setting up for the arrival back after the expedition across the desert. 

Waiting on the sidelines in the shade your heart skipped a beat when the dusty red trucks came into view, covered in a sheen of sand and sounding like they would barely make it along the road. Carefully jumping the kerb they pulled into the paved area as the crew filmed them, Henry and the rest of the team stepping out and grinning but your heart skipped a beat when you saw your man. 

Dirty didn’t cover it, the man was covered in five days of sweat and grime, his curls an unruly mess beneath his hat, five days worth of stubble adorning his chiseled features. As you stood your body clenched so hard you let out a whine, and it was enough to get Henry’s attention. Excusing himself from the endless rounds of photos, he slowly approached, and as he got closer you could see just how grubby he was. His face and neck had a sheen of sweat and dirt covering his skin, his shirt and cargo pants stained with salt perspiration tide marks and all manner of filth. As he got closer you could also smell him, the ripe pungency of his virility almost overwhelming as he stood before you;

“I so want to kiss you but i stink”

You were having a hard time controlling yourself. It was almost as if some primal part of your brain wanted him to take you right there and then. You were so aroused your stomach almost hurt from the way your womb was begging for Henry to fill it with his seed. When you did speak it was almost a growl and through gritted teeth;

“I don’t care… i need you Henry. Right. Fucking. Now”

It was almost as if a switch flipped in his brain, a dark smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, enough to expose the sharp points of his canine teeth. His eyes were hooded, pupils wide with lust as he could sense your arousal. Taking hold of your elbow he quickly steered you into the darkness of the garages, the crew having not bothered to venture back into the secluded workshops thanks to the cold beers that were being handed around outside. Pulling you into a grimy side office he quickly pushed the door shut before pushing you against it, his entire body pressing firmly to your soft curves. You were surrounded by his scent and your nostrils flared as you ran your hands down his chest, before your fingers found the button of his cargo pants. Without another word you fell to your knees, pressing your face against the stained cotton as his hardness pushed back at you.

“Honey? You sure you want to be that close… i haven’t seen a shower for five days…” he warned, concern fighting against desire in his deep voice.

Quickly unzipping him you pulled his pants and underwear down his legs, his dick hard and virile in front of you, standing proud from his thick patch of dark curls. Pulling as much spit into the centre of your mouth as you could, you spat on his length, working the liquid over his skin before grasping him firmly and pulling his shaft down before burying your face in his curls and inhaling deeply. You were now so aroused that your cunt was beyond soaking your panties, and had overflowed to your inner thighs leaving them slick and slippery. 

Pulling back you pumped him to full tumescence, working the foreskin back and forth over the wide mushroom head, before spitting again and coating the purple crown with your saliva, rubbing your thumb over the sensitive skin that earned you a keening whine from above. Large hands grasped your upper arms and pulled you to your feet, before Henry forcibly turned you and pushed you until your body was flat on the desk. He yanked your dress up to reveal your ass and your legs fell apart, exposing your soaked core, pressing his thumb against the now useless fabric as he ran it the length of your slit;

“So fucking wet for me. You like this, down and dirty? Ready for me to fuck you raw and leave you dripping?”

“Yes Henry, please…” you whined, your reply cut short by the sound of your underwear ripping, the fabric cutting into your hips where he pulled it tight only for the lace and stitching to relinquish to his power. A brief moment of clarity tugged at your mind; 

“Henry… condoms, in my purse” but your reply was silenced as with a grunt he thrust into you bare.

The shriek that erupted from your windpipe was muted by his palm wrapping around your throat, pushing his gnarled girth into your velvet walls, making them part for him even if you weren’t ready. 

He was so big, it was taking your breath away and bringing tears to your eyes, but your legs parted further and your back arched, your body presenting itself for him to push in even deeper. The sweat and grime on every inch of his skin make each push rough and abrasive, friction pulling against your inner flesh to the point where it felt like he was going to turn you inside out.

Any thoughts of protection were lost from your mind, the feral grunts and yelps filling the room were almost as overpowering as the ripe scent of your primal fucking. Henry’s hands gripped your hips so tight you were sure there would be bruises in your flesh, but as he drove into your sopping cunt repeatedly and with the virile power of a beast unleashed, he muttered your name like a mantra on his lips. Each thrust lifted your toes from the floor, until the only thing tethering you to reality was Henry as his coarse flesh split you in two.

Sweat ran down your back and into the crease of your ass, the salty essence mixing with Henry’s as your bodies chased release in the rhythmic slapping of skin on skin. Henry slipped his hand around your torso, harshly squeezing your breasts before pulling you flush with his chest, adding a smooth rocking motion to his hips as he continued to powerfully thrust up into your defiled body. His sharp teeth nipped at your ear;

“I’m gonna spend the next three days fucking this cunt raw… gonna fill you with my cum and make you an utter mess, then fill you again. Gonna bend you over every surface possible in that hotel room, fill your cunt over and over, your mouth too. Maybe even your ass....” 

Each sentence was interspersed with a thrust and a breathy pant; 

“No more condoms, i’m gonna feel you bare, feel your slick on my skin. I’ve spent four days in the hottest place on earth and all i wanted to do was come back and fill you with my dick. Gonna put a baby in you and show everyone that you’re mine”

Now both hands moved to your titties;

“Can’t wait to see these full of milk, round and leaking…” his hand splayed over your stomach; “Seeing you round with my kid, everyone knowing i’ve bred you and filled you with my seed”

“Oh fuck, Henry…” you were so close, Henry’s dirty dictation bringing you closer and closer to your peak.

As if sensing you were close he concentrated all his efforts on adding even more power behind each thrust, increasing his speed just the tiniest amount before your body finally relinquished control and you came with a stuttered cry, your voice hoarse from exertion. With one final groan Henry thrust into you and you felt his shaft swell before releasing potent his cum directly into your womb. 

For the longest moment he held you to his chest, his face buried in the crook of your neck as you both tried to catch your breath and bring your heart rate down to normal. In a quiet moment of clarity he spoke quiet;

“I missed you so damn much”

Turning your head you pressed a kiss to his sweaty brow;

“I missed you too. I love you Henry”

“I love you too”

He slowly pulled out of you, both of you wincing at the pull against raw skin. Henry stepped back and watched as a thick glob of his cum pooled at your battered hole before starting to descend down your leg;

“Ah-ah” he quickly scooped it up, before gently pushing it back into your battered cunt; “Close your legs Babe”

As you did he carefully pulled his fingers out, satisfied that you were filled with his seed; “C’mon, let's get back to the hotel, we both need a shower now”