#also so obsessed with these hands I’ve never drawn hands so well in my life fr

[this-cult-of-dionysus]

please your honor they are very important to me

[throneofsapphics]

Can we please have a part two to some questions are better left alone? I’m obsessed!!!

some questions are better left alone, part 2

Rowaelin x f!Reader

(part one) (part three)

Summary: They want you here, I repeated to myself. If I said it enough, I might start believing it. Or the words would lose their meaning. 

Word Count: ~2.8k 

Warnings: drinking, angst, y/n is a bit impulsive  

A/N: I’m glad you liked it, here it is! This is a bit shorter than the first one! I’m thinking about doing a part three 

I thought about it for days. Whether I should stay - or go back home for some time to sort my thoughts out. I promised we would speak about it, but I never gave an exact time or date. 

Here, their presence was intoxicating and everywhere. I was drawn to them, and everything in me wanted to please them, to do what I had to to stay close to my mates. Maybe that was part of the problem, I couldn’t have a clear head here. And speaking to my family and friends back home about it … 

The journey wasn’t incredibly long - maybe one week, but with how busy everything had been I’ve only seen them a few times in the last couple of years. Every time the conversation about visiting home popped up, there seemed to be another event going on. I have been brushing it off as a coincidence. 

-

She looked right at us, her body stiff and her throat swallowing. “I need to visit home for a bit.” 

It felt like all of the air left her lungs. She said they would talk about it, would have a conversation, why would she need to leave? 

“Why?” Rowan asked bluntly. 

“I can’t …” She covered her face with her hands, dragging them down before exhaling slowly. “I can’t think here. I need space.” 

“We can give you space here,” Aelin said hesitantly. “You have your own space.” 

“That’s not the same.” She could see the pain in her eyes - the indecision, the doubt. 

Do you think she’ll come back? If we let her go. Rowan asked her, glancing her way. 

-

“As long as you swear you’ll come back.” Aelin’s eyes bore into me, like a brand. It sounded vaguely like a threat. Promises are some of the only things immortals deal in anymore - promises and bargains. 

There was a momentary, too-obvious, pause. “I swear it.” I promised. Not a date, or a time. 

-

She’s keeping everything vague. Rowan’s voice sounded in her mind, before he asked her, “When will you come back?” 

A fair, reasonable question but the hesitation in y/n’s eyes worried Aelin.

“I don’t know yet,” her fingers tapped against the wooden table. “I won’t be long, but I haven’t seen my family in a while.” A tang of guilt ripped through Aelin. Y/n had barely been away from them since she first moved here. Her family didn’t live that far away, y/n could reach them rather quickly. She got the keen sense that if they offered to go with her, it would be shot down - shot down quick enough it might sting, so she didn’t bother asking. 

“A month.” Y/n finally said, before her or Rowan could speak. “I’ll be back in a month.” 

About one week of travel each way, two weeks with her family. It was all reasonable. So reasonable Aelin couldn’t find a way to shoot it down, not without seeming unhinged herself. 

-

“You know why mates are put together, right?” My cousin glanced at me. I’d told her about my doubts and fears - about everything. She’s the only one I trusted to keep her mouth shut. As far as the rest of my family was concerned, it was a surprise visit home. I played it off well, but my cousin knew me better than the rest. As two only children, we were raised like siblings. 

“Because they’re equals.” I answered automatically, “or to make the most powerful babies.” 

She snorted. “I hope you don’t get pregnant anytime soon.” 

“I’m not planning on it,” I laughed. The thought of a pregnancy made me shiver. Something I was certainly not ready for. 

“But,” My cousin turned to look at me, grabbing my hand gently, “we were also taught that doesn’t mean mates are always a perfect fit.” 

I dropped her hand. I can’t imagine life without them. Not now, not now that I’d been with them so long. But … they had lived a life without me, and could probably picture it perfectly well. “Do you think they would be better off on their own?” 

“I don’t know them,” she raised a brow, “and that’s not a question you should be asking me.” 

The rest of the visit went well, and I did feel a freshness - but also an emptiness at the same time, like a key part of me was missing. I found myself both dreading and anticipating leaving. Dreading the conversation we’d be having on my return, but eager to be back with them, to have that part of my soul fulfilled. 

-

Aelin and Rowan were on edge the entire time she was gone. 

Rowan managed to sit in one place, even feign concentrating on a report, but Aelin wore a path back and forth across the room. 

“She’ll be back tomorrow.” He finally said, putting down the papers he’d been staring at, not really reading or comprehending any of the contents. 

“What if she doesn’t come back?” 

“Has she ever broken a promise?” 

“No.” His fireheart sighed, walking towards him instead, before perching on his lap, her head against his shoulder. 

“She should already be on her way,” he murmured, running his hand up and down her spine. “And before you ask, I won’t go check.” 

Aelin let out something between a grumble and a growl - enough to tell him he was right. They needed to show her they trusted her, trusted that she would keep her word. 

-

I was surprised I didn’t see any white-tailed hawks following me back to the castle, or scouting out my path. I was keeping my eye out for any birds that might be in the area. None followed me home, or checked I was on my way back. The show of trust surprised me. At least they know I’ll keep my promises. 

-

We were all toying around the conversation, the one we all knew needed to happen. It was unlike us, really, to be so hesitant about things like this. It was me, of all people, who brought it. 

“One of the thoughts I had.” I swallowed, “I’ve been taught mates aren’t always a perfect fit. That they’re paired together for either whoever can make the most powerful children, or who are equals, and I know something doesn’t have to be perfect to make it work, but sometimes I wonder why you’d want me when you’re already a perfect fit and if you were happier without me.” I thought of Fenrys’s warning - of pretending those words never came out of my mouth. Gods, what if I’d made a big mistake … what if this would make them think, make them realize they really would be better off without me, if they were happier. 

I found the courage to look at both of them. They looked crestfallen. Aelin reached out and covered my hand with hers. “We want you. We’re happy with you. Now that you’re here, we never want to let you go.” An unusual softness was present in Rowan’s eyes as well and he reached out, covering my other hand. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. 

-

They talked, and talked, and talked. Thank the gods they didn’t have any meetings or plans today, otherwise they would have been very very late, and not in the best mood to deal with anyone else. 

“Do you,” Aelin swallowed harshly. “Do you want to go home, permanently?”

“I don’t want to leave you.” Not a direct answer, but good enough that her shoulders visibly relaxed. 

Rowan and Aelin were more before we realized we were mates. Enemies. Friends. Carranam. My Blood-Sworn. Lovers. Husband and wife. Mates. A progression, a timeline. Comparatively, y/n jumped right in at that last step, without the other experiences to form a solid rock or foundation. But, they could build those experiences over time. 

-

Rowan thought he’d be prepared for things like this, having been mated for a decade already, but it was so damn different. Aelin and y/n aren’t the same, and he can't treat them exactly the same. Where Aelin will tell him off, y/n doesn’t - she holds all of that in. He needs to work on being … nicer, and she needs to work on saying what she’s feeling, or thinking. 

“We won’t be mad at you for the things you’re thinking, or feeling. We can’t fix a problem if we don’t know it exists.” 

“Right.” She hesitated for a few moments, but kept speaking, “part of this is my fault, for putting words in your mouth.” 

“We haven’t been very considerate of you, and your feelings.” 

Awkward, but good. 

-

I dragged Fenrys back to my rooms again, the day after we talked. 

“I assume I’m summoned here because of a certain talk you had.” His eyes glinted with amusement. I groaned, but motioned to the chair in front of me. He sat, looking half amused and half worried. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense.” 

“It was fine,” I hesitated. 

His face grew taut. “Fine?” 

“They asked if I wanted to go home permanently.” 

“And what did you say?” 

“That I don’t want to leave.” 

A heavy silence filled the room. I gave them a half-answer. I don’t want to leave here.

“You’re thinking about it.” Fenrys didn’t pose it as a question. 

“I’m always thinking about …” I didn’t want to finish the sentence, didn’t want to put the words out into the open - into the air. 

“Don’t tell me.” He said quickly, before I could gather my thoughts enough to continue speaking. He might get the urge to tell Aelin, if I said anything that could cause her any kind of hurt - emotional included. He stood, rolling his shoulders back. “You need a night out,” his eyes danced in amusement. “Invite your friends. Especially the pretty one.” 

“That sounds perfect,” I managed to say in between laughs. 

“Write a better note this time,” he winked. “I’ll meet you at the gates in half an hour.” 

I scrambled for a pen and paper. 

Going out with Fenrys, I’ll try not to walk into any pillars this time. Don’t be too nosy. 

They’d likely find that funny. Gods I hope they will. 

-

Rowan picked up the note, ‘I'll try not to walk into any pillars,’ he sighed. Fenrys definitely pulled her into this, well aware he and Aelin would be in an important trade meeting the next morning. He handed it to Aelin, who snorted in amusement. 

“They’ll have a good time.” She turned to him with narrowed eyes. “And you won’t make a big fuss this time.” 

“I didn’t make a fuss.” He countered, arms crossed. His mate only raised an elegant eyebrow. Really? I think you started a fight. Rowan ignored the barb, stalking from the room to find something to do. There were always reports to read. Aelin snickered, right on his heels. 

-

The night out was exactly what I needed. Laughter, friends, alcohol. Fenrys and I made our way back, drunk off our asses. Failing to hide our laughter as we made our way down the halls. I didn’t walk into any pillars this time, didn’t beat anyone in a drinking contest, and avoided Effie’s homemade liquor. 

Fenrys was too drunk - or too lazy to make his way back to his rooms, and shifted right in the sitting room, curling up on a rug. I sniffed the air. Drunk dog. That’s a new scent. 

I bit back another laugh, changing before stumbling into my bed. 

-

Rowan woke a bit earlier than necessary, intending to check on y/n before the meeting. Aelin grumbled at him, but didn’t follow him out of bed this time. 

It took a lot of self control not to laugh at the wolf curled up in her sitting room, sleeping like the dead. Alcohol and dog - he rolled his eyes, headed for the door. 

He opened it quietly, just enough to peer into the room. Y/n was sound asleep, one arm hanging over the end of the bed, mouth open and drooling slightly onto her pillow. At least she doesn’t reek of alcohol this time. The dawn rays were beginning to stream in through the curtains, casting a gentle glow on her face. Without thinking too much of it, he fetched a tonic for headache, and a glass of water, setting it on the side table. He let himself brush a few strands of hair away from her face. She didn’t move, didn’t stir, the entire time. 

Rowan frowned. Anyone could sneak into her room and … he cut off that line of thinking, but made sure to double check the locks on the windows before leaving. 

-

Aelin rubbed her eyes, yawning as Rowan trailed back into the room. 

“All okay?” She drawled. It was cute that he woke up early to check on her. Fussy buzzard. 

“Yes,” he grunted. “There’s a drunk wolf sleeping on the floor of her sitting room.” 

She snorted at the idea. A wolf-sized pony in her sitting room. Fenrys was either too intoxicated or too lazy to make his way back to his own rooms. Maybe next time she’d get y/n to glamor her, just so she could go out with them. 

“Two of them is enough.” Rowan must’ve seen the look on her face. “I don’t need to worry about three of you stumbling through the streets. You’d empty all of the alcohol out of that tavern.” 

Aelin gave an innocent shrug, ignoring his sigh before rising to get ready for the day. She wasn’t excited for this meeting. 

-

I woke up to the faint scent of pine and snow, and some blessings on my bedside table. Rowan can be sweet from time to time, in his own way. I downed the tonic in one gulp. The night out may have been a temporary relief, but the seed of doubt started to drift back into me. 

They want you here, I repeated to myself. If I said it enough, I might start believing it. Or the words would lose their meaning. 

Pushing the door open, a great white lump of fur dozed on the floor, a few feet in front of me. 

I poked him in the ribs, before jumping back out of the way. His lips curled in a snarl, the canine body poised to strike, before he realized who I am, and huffed. Fenrys shifted back into Fae form. 

“Good morning,” I chirped, unnecessarily loud. He winced, sending me a vulgar gesture. I rummaged my cabinets, tossing a tonic over my shoulder. 

I heard a curse, then a swallow. “Thank you,” he muttered. I turned and grinned at him. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing courtly things?” 

“Nope,” he snorted. “Their Majesties get to handle this one.”

I hummed. He hung around for tea, before leaving to do … whatever else Fenrys does. 

-

“Are you still having doubts?” Aelin brought up randomly, over dinner a few weeks later. It was just the two of us, Rowan out late training some new guards. Poor souls. 

I blinked in surprise. “Are you?”

“No.” She said a bit too quickly. My heart dropped into my stomach. 

“I’m not.” I said slowly, the words feeling like a half-lie on my tongue. Nothing had been unusual the last few weeks. If anything, things had been better. I forced a smile onto my face, and changed the topic - asking about their upcoming meeting with some delegates from Melisande. I listened to her complaints about the various ‘assholes,’ she’d have to deal with, but my mind swirled on how quickly she answered. 

I had Effie post a discreet letter for me the next day.

-

Aelin wondered if she sent the wrong message with her answer. She didn't have doubts, not about their relationship. No, doubts if y/n was feeling more secure here. The female did seem a bit distant the rest of the night. She decided not to think about it too much, to push it to the back of her mind and bring it up with Rowan later. 

-

The next week, an urgent letter came for me. I opened it with Rowan and Aelin, taking careful notice of the seal - my family’s seal. My eyes widened as I read it. A summons. The letter I posted arrived quickly. 

I handed it to Rowan and Aelin silently, settling my face into a lost and confused mask. I'm completely aware they're watching my every move, my every reaction.

“Do you want company?” Aelin asked gently. 

I swallowed harshly, “I should probably handle this alone.” 

[komotionlessqueenmm]

Hi there

I know you said you don’t do requests and I suppose this isn’t technically a request but I’ve been wondering if you’d ever write something with Ivan Drago and a female reader who’s insecure about her body (this is kind of a self insert ngl). Like, how would he act? Would he constantly assure her that she’s pretty and would he pay special attention to certain parts of her body she doesn’t like during lovemaking? I’d personally love to read something like that but it’s totally up to you if you wanna write it.

Keep up the good work, love your stories btw ❤️

Omg hell yes! (Why didn't I think of this?) I'm insecure af so this is also self insert af on my part. Enjoy!

Headcanon/Preference # 32

Picture & Gif NOT mine.

Year posted - 2023

*So I've got this coworker that I get along with well. And he's a muscly guy that's into plus size women, and we've talked about that sorta stuff a lot. So I'm using his insight about why a guy like that, would be attracted to a bigger girl. He'll never see this but hey shout out to him. Also a real story might just come out of this in time, but for now enjoy these headcanons.

✨Ivan loves his plus size sweetheart~

🌹 When Ivan first met you he was immediately drawn to you like a magnet. He'd never seen a woman like you in Soviet Russia, and you looked like a pure goddess in his eyes.

🌹 When he finally got the chance to touch you for the first time. He was instantly smitten, your so soft and squeezable. He's not used to that, and he's finding that he's obsessed with the contrast.

🌹 Once you're together Ivan will spend hours worshipping you from head to toe. Every single inch of you is paradise to him. But his favorite part? Your soft tummy.

🌹 There's just something beautiful about your soft plump belly. It's his favorite thing to caress and kiss, and often times his favorite place to lay his head. And one day he hopes he'll get to see it swell more with his child.

🌹 On a bad day when you were feeling particularly down about your pudgy body, Ivan took the time to explain to you why he loves your supple body so much.

🌹 Everything in his life until now has been hard and rough, from his work, to his home life, his environment, and so forth. Finding you was like an oasis to him.

🌹 When you try comparing yourself to his ex-wife, he immediately stops you. Making you chuckle by telling you she was like a skeleton, and nowhere near as cozy and lovable as you are.

🌹 During intimacy Ivan shows you what love making really means, his words of praise, his adoring touch that leaves fire in its wake, and his hunger to show you just how much he wants you makes you dizzy.

🌹 If anyone says anything bad about you while Ivan is around, odds are he'll kick there ass, or at the very least he'll berate them. Ultimately making them apologize no matter what tactic he uses.

🌹 If he's not around, and only learns about it when you break down and tell him about it. He's pulling you into his arms and assuring you that they don't know a single thing about what their missing with someone as amazing as you. (Making a mental note to scare the shit out of them next time he sees them.)

🌹 You got stretch marks? Ivan will trace them idly, and commit them all to memory, mapping out the span of them as if it were vital.

🌹 Got cellulite? He'll caress every inch, nuzzle into it, and all around worship it. Explaining that it makes you more you, and that much more beautiful.

🌹 Not a big fan of how pudgy your face is? Ivan is cupping your cheeks. Looking into your eyes with so much love, as he tells you how cute your chubby cheeks are. And to him you are still small, as his hands can easily cup your cheeks.

🌹 Got big boobs? He fucking adores them, he adores you! There big and round and soft, the perfect place to lay his head at night when you cuddle. Plus there fun to play with not gonna lie. (and not just sexually, but that's a plus too.)

🌹 Not a fan of the size or shape of your butt? Are you kidding? Ivan is obsessed with smacking your ass every single chance he gets, doesn't matter who's around or where you are!

🌹 Worried you'll never fit in his shirts? Haha that's funny! Ivan is huge, you'll fit in his shirts just fine. Maybe not swimming in it, but it'll fit comfortably.

🌹 Ivan grows obsessed with making sure you're well fed, and simply watching you eat. It makes him feel like he is providing for you well, and that makes him very happy. (Plus you look adorable when you do a happy little food dance.)

🌹 Once he convinced you to sit on his face, though you had agreed anxiously, you still refused to actually sit down, and instead hovered over him. That wasn't gonna fly, so Ivan pulled you flush against his face, and gave you the best head you've ever experienced in your life.

🌹 Anytime you act as if you'll crush him, maybe saying he'll strain or hurt himself picking you up. He'll prove you wrong again and again, when he just hoists you up as if you weighed nothing. If anything he takes those worries as a challenge, and he'll never fail in proving you wrong.

🌹 The first time you wore a sexy lace piece for him, he was practically drooling. Needless to say the lace was ruined in his nearly feral haste to have you. But he happily bought you more, a lot more.

🌹 Within a year of being with Ivan, and him chipping away at your insecurities. You become the confident goddess you were meant to be! And he's so fucking proud of you, he's always showing you off, and praising you.

🌹 Ivan doesn't want you to change for anyone, not even him. He loves you just the way you are, it's what drew him to you in the first place. And he's beyond honored for not only getting to love you, but to show you just how sexy you truly are.

Buy me a coffee sometime? ☕️

(Click the coffee for my Kofi link, IT'S NOT NECESSARY BTW.)

*Hope this was satisfactory!

[lyon-amore]

What if...? Duskwood Chapter 33

Chapter 32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Macie POV*

As I already said once, I love horror movies. Because everything is false and nothing can hurt you. You are safely looking at a screen watching how the protagonists try to survive. In some movies they succeed and defeat the monster. In others, the monster wins. Well today I never thought I would star in a real horror movie.

   "What's all this?" Jessy asks, shocking.     On the wall was a corkboard with several photos of us, with the word 'Revenge' on a large banner. It was all illuminated by candlelight. Candles that made me think that the madman who had done this must not be very far away. On the table were several black feathers. Probably raven feathers.    "I don't know…" Thomas whispers, scared.     I go ahead of them without taking my eyes off everything that was hanging. I even saw a crow drawn.    "Don't touch anything." i warned, so they wouldn't leave any traces.    "Guys, there are pictures of us." I don't pay attention to Jessy's words, I'm too busy looking through everything in case there's an important clue.    "No…" Thomas replies fearfully.    "Of all of us... Macie." Hearing Jessy, I turned to see her. She has a paper in her hands.     I walk over to her and look at him. Like Dan's image, which I had noticed was a social media screenshot, so was mine. i would come out smiling with Henry in my hands. He was wearing his little blue tie that he wore on important days. That day gave me the opportunity to celebrate our two months together. It was stupid, but before long, Henry had become something of a big thing in my life. He was like my son. And seeing him on this wall made me afraid. It was like it wasn't just threatening me, like they could hurt Henry to hurt me too.    “Shit.” Thomas blurts out.  “Richy.” Jessy walks away from me and looks at Richy's photos.     I approach her also looking at her photos. Near it were the names of 'Hannah Donfort' and 'Amy Bell Lewis', marking a particular place on the map with a red thread. Below them, three papers with the word 'Guilty'. But it was strange... There are only two names, not three... Has the kidnapper put it out of obsession or because he wants to indicate a third person? I look at the picture of Richy next to the girls' names. Has he done it because he feels guilty but he's hiding it out of fear?    "Shit…" Thomas says again, "Shit, shit, shit." He kept focusing with his phone. Was he transmitting this to the group?    "And now what do we do?" Jessy asks, looking at the two of us.    "I don't know." Thomas replies.     I just looked and looked, looking to see if Jake was in the cork. I was worried that there might be something of him here. But not. I have to think about why Dan and mine's photos are snapshots and everyone else's are street photos.    “Macie.” Jessy moves me a little. I think I've been too mesmerized by this mural. I had never been in a scene like this before, they just passed me the photos to analyze. I was too excited, I couldn't deny it "What do we do?"     I can tell them that we have to get out of here as soon as possible, but leaving this unchecked would be a waste. But I know we can't stay here because of the candles.    "Jessy, take pictures of all this," I say, as she quickly pulls out her phone "Thomas? Is there another site to look at?"    "There's a basement." He tells me quickly.    “Photos taken.” Jessy announces.    "Okay…" I tried to think a bit, "The candles are lit, which means our suspect can come back at any time, he wouldn't risk leaving this alone."    "Fuck…" Thomas puts his hands to his head "And what will you do?"    "I'll stay here watching a little longer."    "Hurry up then!" Jessy runs off, as does Thomas.     I read the chat and I read Lilly's messages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lilly In the legend of the man without a face... It was the father too, wasn’t it? But if Michael Hanson is the culprit And if he used his house as a hideout Then it seems likely that Hannah and Richy might actually be there, right? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Was it really Michael? I look at the mural again, analyzing every detail. Would it be that easy? Is he already? Is the victim's father? And why take ten years to put all this together?

 I froze when I heard the door. I lean against the wall and cover my mouth. I could see the light coming through the door. I hold my breath and go very still. The kidnapper passes by my side. I have it so close that I even think my heart stops beating. Turning around to want to leave, he manages to see me. I tried to run but he managed to grab me, trying to suffocate me to kill me? To knock me unconscious? What I know is that I having trouble breathing and that he hurts me a lot.    "LET ME GO!" I scream as best I can, trying to get out of his grip "HELP!"    "I don't want to hurt you." he murmurs under the mask. It helps him cover the tone of his voice.     << You’re hurting me!>>     My stomach turns when I hear him say that, where is Thomas?! We hear a noise, like something falling and I can hear through my teeth how the kidnapper complains. I start to cough and Jessy moves closer to me, careful not to make a sound, trying to help me up.    “I'm sorry Macie, I didn't hear the door from upstairs” she whispers, helping me up, “. It wasn't until you yelled that I came down."     I shake my head, as if to say it's okay.    "Jessy! Macie!" we heard Thomas yell at us.    "Come on!" Jessy grabs my hand, starting to run.     Thomas hands Jessy the phone and we head out to the barn. Thomas takes the lead to get closer to the door.    "Open the gate!" Jessie yells at him.     I put a hand to my throat, hurt. I can't talk and I can't stop shaking. I have fear and pain in the body. We look back and see the man without a face walking towards us... Walking... It was almost as if he was taunting us to intimidate us 'Look, I'm here. Fear me.' Thomas makes an effort to open the door and we both go out first.

 We get in the car and I sit in the back. My legs are shaking.    "Are you two alright?!" Thomas asks us, starting to drive.     I look in the rearview mirror. The kidnapper stays watching us as we walks away.    "I do, but he suffocated Macie! He Almost Killed Her, Thomas!” Jessy yells, as she examines me “Can you talk?!     I shake my head. It is not only because of the pain, but also because of the fear. She still has the phone in her hand on the video call. Shit… This is not good… I get a text from Jake. No. I have a lot of messages. From when the guy entered the house, but I had my phone silent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jake Macie! Get out of there! Find something to defend yourself with at least! MACIE! What do she mean he has suffocated you?! Let them take you to the motel! NOW! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I receive a call from such a stranger. I answer avoiding putting the speaker to avoid scaring them. I can hear his heavy breathing. Angry.    "It wasn't enough for you that I kill the mechanic…." I squeeze my hand furiously upon hearing those words "No... You should have gotten into this, Macie... You should have come... It's over now. I'm going to kill them all. Cleo. Thomas. Lilly. Jessy. And Dan… Every single one of them. And you will watch.” He pauses and I can hear a kind of chuckle "And in the end... I'll coming for you."     He hangs up and I'm frozen.    "Macie?" Jessy calls me, looking at me scared "What happened?"    "He said…" I swallow and that makes my throat hurt, I try to speak as best I can, but I'm unable to.     I decide to write it then in the chat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Macie Someone just called me It was the attacker

 Cleo What did he say?

 Macie He said t he wants to kill you All of you And he wants me to watch And in the end, he would come for me ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "By the way, girls" Thomas calls out to us and pulls out a phone from his pocket. "I have it I have Hannah's cell phone."     I throw my head back, lips moving with a 'Thank God'. We had achieved something at least of all this. *Jake POV*

 I walk around the room, waiting for Macie to return. I have told Thomas and Jessy to stay together and Lilly has been given permission to call the police. But Macie...    "Fuck!" I bang on the table, angry with myself for not being there with her.     I'm too angry I saw the video call Thomas was slow to react! I get it, humans tend to be cowards and not risk it for our own safety, but not me! And what he's done makes me furious! He could have left his cell phone and gone help her! I have also heard the kidnapper! I can't… I can't now let her go through this!

 I hear the car and I stay at the door, waiting like a dog for her to come in.    "Are you sure you don't want us to take you to my house?" I hear Jessy tell her, concerned.    "No… I'm fine here…" I hear Macie say, slowly and almost inaudibly.     I'm getting nervous.

  She opens the door and I stride toward her, holding onto her shoulders. The surprised look on her face is nothing compared to mine, surely from being scared and worried about her.    "Are you alright?!" I ask quickly, not even giving her time to remove her jacket. I then place my hands on her face, examining if she has any injuries "What has he done?!"    “I'm fine…Jake.” she says, though I can see that she's shaking.    "No! You are not okay!" I head for the door and Macie stops me. "Let me go! I am going to tell Thomas a thing or two!"    "NO JAKE!" She makes the effort to scream and begins to cough.   I stop and again approach her. Looking at her as if at some point she was going to break. "I'm fine." She caresses my face, trying to calm me down "I'm here…" I sucked in a breath, clenching my hands tightly. In the end, I end up hugging her afraid that maybe she wasn't even here and she was… Macie buries her face into my body, trembling all the time.    "You are safe now" I say, kissing her hair ", you are with me now..."

 After calming down, I let her go to the bathroom to get comfortable. I see that it takes long and I worry.    "Macie?" I knock on the door, worried "Can I come in?"    "Yeah." It seems like at least she has the better voice.     I open the door and see her looking at her neck in the mirror. A wave of anger runs through my body seeing him red.    "How are you?" I ask, holding out on hacking into Thomas's stupid phone for this.    "Well…" She begins to say without taking her eyes off the mirror "At least he hasn't broken it for me."     I sigh, shaking my head. I know she wants me to be calm by making jokes, but it doesn't help me.    “Let me see.” I walk over to her and she turns around, raising her head "I think I have something to ease the pain."    "From your doctor?"    "Yes, wait here."     I leave the bathroom and look in one of the pockets for the anti-inflammatory. I return to her and she pulls her hair back into a ponytail to avoid getting it on her. I helped her sit on the sink.    "Hold on tight." I warned, as I tilted her chin up.     I place the cream in my hands and begin to massage her neck with it. Macie closes her eyes, groaning a little.    "Sorry" I apologize, stopping to apply, “Do I hurt you?"    "No, not you" she says and tries to nod ". Go ahead, I can handle it."    "Alright..."     I try to do the massage much more carefully. She lets out a strange sigh, is it pain or…    "Dan was quite angry with you" she speaks slowly and she looks at me ", he think it's your fault that he did this to me…"    "Don't talk" I ordered, controlling my anger. Dan was upset that he hadn't named me. He was worried about his friends "Waits at least for me to finish."    "I'm sorry."     I suck in a breath, thinking about the pain she must be in right now. I just hope this eases her up a bit. I see that then she breaks out into a smile. How can she smile at this moment?    "What are you thinking?" Curious question "Aren't you even a bit worried? You have been threatened."    “I'm thinking how well you massage.” She replies, letting out a chuckle.     I do the same, shaking my head.    "Really? Is that what you're thinking about?"    "It's better than thinking about what happened..."     Right… Now she should relax a bit before our next clue. I also try to calm down a bit now that I can, not to think for a moment that she is in danger and that she is safe here. With me. I don't remember having this kind of skin contact with her like this and her smile makes me partly relieved to know that she's okay.    "Jake?"    "Hmm? What?"    "My neck is a little higher..."     I realize that by looking at her face and in contact with her, I had slowly lowered my hand.    "Sorry." I move my hand away nervously.     Macie laughs and looks at me, stroking my face lovingly.    “Sorry for worrying you so much” she says with a sigh ". I didn't know this was going to happen."    "Nobody knew..."    “But we did get Hannah's phone at least."     I lean against the sink, resting my head on her shoulder. Macie strokes my hair as she eases me up a bit. Look for the positive side after all the bad. The problem is that I didn't want bad things to happen to her.    "This shouldn't have happened to you." I nuzzle her neck gently and hear her make a noise of agreement "Sorry Macie."    "At least I’m relieved a little thanks to you" she whispers, playing with my hair ", you're pretty good with your hands, what else can you do?"     Ah… I see… Try to make me nervous so that I forget. I smile sitting up, to look into her eyes. If this helps her to forget about the bad thing she's been through, then I'll help her.    "Can I…" I began to say, whispering close to her lips.    "You can..?"     I see how she starts to get nervous, she breathes very fast.    "Type very fast." I whisper in her ear.     Macie laughs and pushes me away a bit. I see that she is blushing.    "Can we talk about what happened now?" Question "I'm much better and Jessy was also going to pass me the photos that she has taken."    "If you're sure of it" I clap my hands and look at her decisively ". To work."

Macie sits on the bed and I sit on the chair. As usual. I see that she seems to be focused and ready to talk.    "We are appear to be close to reaching our goal" I commented, also focused on our investigation ". And yet, I have been plagued by an odd feeling of late, which I cannot seem to let go of."    "Because we still haven't found them her." she answers, hugging herself.    "Perhaps you are correct." I can't deny it, I thought I was hopeful when they went to Michael's house. A modicum of hope to believe that Hannah and Richy were there.    "I feel the same way. We won’t be able to rest until we’ve finally found her."    "Yes. I suppose you are right.” I leaned back in the chair, thinking about the new find "Michael Hanson… What do you think Macie?" She looks up at me "Is he the culprit we have been looking for?"    "No" she answers quickly ", Michael Hanson isn’t who we’re looking for” She stares at the ground, thinking ". He just doesn't fit in the picture."     I start thinking about her words and everything we've seen. I trust her, although it's strange that she says that, because it could fit perfectly with him being our author.    "Perhaps this is merely a delusion" I begin to give my point of view "as we never considered him as potential suspect until now” she nods slowly, putting a hand to her neck ". However, I can understand your doubts come from. For our continued investigations, I would like to assume that Michael Hanson is indeed our culprit" her look of doubt on him makes me think I'm wrong, but he's the closest we have to a big clue to everything we've investigated "We will check every piece of evidence under this assumption. That way, sooner or later, this theory will either prove to be fact or will turn out to be an error."    "Alright." she answers without further ado.     I can understand that she might not like the idea of a broken parent wanting to hurt someone, but that's how it is a lot of the time. They are blinded by the fear that they will harm or have already harmed their children.    "Did you say that Jessica has send you the photos?" She nods "I would like for us both to look at them together."    "Okay, then I'll take my phone and-"    "No… You need to pick up your cell phone…" my face warms up a bit as I gesture for her to sit on my lap. "You can sit with me."     I have to stop getting nervous when I invite her to do it, I think she shows quite a bit.

 Macie gets up and sits on top of me. I turn on the screen and lets her see what I have. I know it's nothing special to impress her like anyone else. It is very simple and with hack programs. I'm sure she doesn't care too much.    “So this is what you were keeping from me” she says, as she leans across the table, resting her hand under her chin “, a hacker's computer wanted by the government, and I'm looking at it."    "I had more stuff on the other computers" I sighed almost sadly "At least here I have what we need. And that I trust you." She turns a little and smiles at me "Good. I will open the pictures now. Afterwards, we can analyze them together."     I access her shared gallery with Jessica. Luckily she doesn't get upset, she understands that this is important. The first photo shows Michael's large house, along with the barn. It's... It's strange... This sounds familiar.    "This house is  increadibly run-down." I commented, stroking Macie's hair.    "It looks like nobody’s taken care of it for a long time." I'm sure she could have observed it better than me.    "The house on the edge of Duskwood." I look at the location on the map, where I looked for it to find out where it was located "There are no neighbors or other buildings close by."    "A perfect place to hide."     I nod. I can't get it out of my head. It's like I know this place.    "This area…" I begin to comment "It seems familiar."    "Have you been there before?" Macie looks at me, seriously. It almost seems like she's interrogating me.    "No, it's not that…" I scratch my chin, trying to figure out where it's from, "I simply cannot remember."     I move on to the next photo. The barn.    “You three were able to enter the house’s interior this barn."    "And we got out that way, too."     I feel a tremor through her body and take her hand, caressing it carefully. She entwines our fingers, making me unable to let go. Good thing I have another hand. 

We move on to the next photo. The house outside. Nothing to see there. Then the bunker. I really had hopes.    “Too bad this bunker was empty.” Macie says "I really thought Hannah would be inside…"    "I also believed that. If Hannah and Richy are not inside the kidnapper’s house, then where are they?"     She squeezes my hand harder and I move on to the next photo.

The barn inside gave a cold and lonely feeling. Seeing this I remember when they ran to get out of the barn, how scared she was. The damage. Then came that threat on the cell phone.    "You did not tell Jessica that he told you that he killed Richy." I remember from the group chat how Macie had avoided talking about it, so I guess she didn't tell her to her face either.    "I couldn't…" she replies, squeezing my hand again.    "I understand." I let my mind navigate my memories "For some, bad news is easier to take in if it is conveyed by a person they trust."    "You’re talking from experience, aren’t you?" I think Macie means when I told the group about Hannah's kidnapping, but it's not just about that.    “Yes” I nod, avoiding saying much more ". Of course, in the end it is entirely your decision."    "Then I prefer not to tell her..."     I hear her sigh and move on to the next photo, trying not to continue forcing the conversation. It must have hurt to hear that Richy really is dead.

 In the following photo, two barrels are shown with a warning symbol.    “The symbols on the barrels indicate a dangerous substance.” I comment.    "Poisonous, I'd say."    “As far I can tell, these barrels appear to be made of steel."    "And they also look pretty new."     I continued to watch them closely. True, they are new, so it means that the kidnapper has bought them for some reason.    “I would estimate that they have a capacity of at least two hundred liters.” Macie looks at me surprised.    "Do you know that just by looking at them?" She asks me.    "You know with the size." I smiled at her.    "You talk to someone who likes more letters than numbers."     I let out a laugh and go back to the photo.    "The writing is indistinguishable" I tried to look carefully, almost straining my eyes "It could tell us where they were bought or who manufacture."    "Can't you make it readable?"    "I could do it, but it would take a lot of time" I let go of the mouse for a moment, to ruffle my hair, a lot of work and I already had a hard time getting the memorial stone to show right "If we reach dead end in our investigations, I will start working on it."     I move on to the next photo. The barn from another point of view.    "Jake...?" She turns when to see me, with a curious look "Have you ever shown your computer to someone?"    "I'm usually quite discreet with my work area, really" I replied, trying to remember that all the computers I used to work were not allowed to be looked at by anyone ". It was like a no-go zone for everyone."    "So all this time you've let me look at the screens…. Have I been the first person?"    "Yes," he answered, caressing her face, "you're the first person to see it. Even right now, I haven't shown anyone the programs I use to hack. "     She smiles and I watch as she fixes a lock that had come loose from her ponytail.    "I like that… I feel special."    "You have always been..."     She bites her lips and returns to the screen. I clear my throat and move on to the next photo. The mural.

 Instinctively, Macie jerks back, away from the screen. I run my arm through her body and stroke her arm slowly.    “Like in a horror movie…” she murmurs, a little more to herself "It must have taken a long time to get all of this stuff."     I hear anger in her voice. I can understand her, because in the next photo, there are photos of Lilly. My little sister. Thinking that the kidnapper has photographed her makes me worry.    "Lilly." I pronounce her name, terrified of the situation.    "Notice how she’s looking around?" Macie raises her hand to indicate the photo "As if she knew she was being followed."    “Survival instinct” I say, trying to be calm “, maybe she must have felt something like you say."    "That’s the map of Duskwood." now she points to a part of a map,    "Yes, well spotted."    "But it’s cut off in the picture."     We look at the next photo that is in Jessica's photograph. Macie tenses up seeing him.    "Richy..."    "How do you know that this person is Richy?"    "His… His whole appearance I guess."     I kissed her forehead and sighed.

 We continue with the next photo. Seeing him makes me angry.    "Thomas." I can't hide my anger, it shows too much in my voice.    "I just realized, I didn’t know his last name until now. Somehow it is strange to know this detail by means of our author."     So not only does the kidnapper know their names and have taken photos of them, but very possibly he knows who they are personally for some strange reason.    “Jessica.” I say, seeing the photo of her.    "She’d kill you if you keep calling her that." Macie giggles.    "If she can catch me." I smile proudly.    She laughs again and she leaves me a kiss on the neck. Shit... Shit... Now I have to concentrate. I'll focus on Jessica's picture, that'll calm me down. I analyze the photo, it seems that she is looking directly at the camera.    “It’s as if she could see her follower."    "That is what I initially thought, too" I replied, trying to better position myself in the chair without disturbing her ". But then I notice the details to the right and the left of the picture.” I point my hand to it "I am sure that he was well hidden when he took this picture."     She makes a nodding sound. Behind Jessica's photo, there is a piece of paper with numbers on it.    "A bill. All relevant information has been blacked out and made illegible."    “The strange thing here is that he hung up on It.” she comments, her voice doubtful.     I move on to the next photo.    “A picture of Dan."    “I know that picture” I look at Macie, who is now pointing at it “It’s from social media."    "That means the culprit did not take it."

 I look at the next person in the photo.    "Cleo." I notice something strange "This photo enclosed with the threatening letter the culprit had sent to Cleo’s mother” I look at Macie who seems to be studying the mural. She's been there, she probably noticed something ". Have you notice anything, Macie?"    "He has a picture of everyone in the group but compare Dan's with the rest, it's taken from the internet." she points to the top and bottom sides.    "Yes," I pay attention to her words and I dare to ask "Do you think Dan has planned it?"    "No, maybe the kidnapper didn't have time" Macie looks at me and starts to think "What if he couldn't take the photo because by the time he was doing the group, he was already in the hospital?"     It's a very good deduction, no doubt. It is most likely that he did not have time to get a photo of Dan, so we could say that he did the mural in a short time.    "He was watching all of them." I say, accepting her deduction.    “I suppose he."    "Why did he do that?"     Macie shrugs and I look at the next clue.    "A calendar sheet." I try to take a better look at it, a lot of things are missing "However, both month and year are missing."    "Month and year of Jennifer's death?" Comments Macie "Everything revolves around her."    “That only makes the father theory grow."    "We don't know that yet..."     I nod and look at the word on the banner.    "'Reven'?"    “Revenge.” Macie corrects me, tense.    "I see... I'd like to see it from another better angle."

We move on to the next photo, in it is a photo of Amy Bell Lewis and the news.    “This is from the news clip in which Amy Bell Lewis’ identity was revealed."    "Christian wanted to include me in her report about her death." I hear her make an annoyed sound and I kiss her on the shoulder to relax her. She puts her arm behind me and starts stroking the ends of my hair "So he actively watches the news."    "Yes, he does. Either he wants to see what police is sharing with the public.” She looks at me and I look at her, continuing my theory "Or it makes him happy to see that he is being talked about in the media."    "He wants more insight" Macie looks back at the photo "If this gives him happiness… he is sick."     I nod and move on to the next photo.

 Revenge. In large and below it, all the clues of the kidnapper.    "If we assume that this was really Michael Hanson, then he probably wanted to find his daughter’s killer." I try to explain to Macie so she'll understand. She can't keep denying it.    “And that way everyone got targeted."    "Yes" I continue caressing her arm slowly, I can see that she is nervous because of how she trembles again "Jennifer Hanson's killer has never been found. And that's why he only started ten years later" I try to fit all the pieces, I think this is what makes the most sense so far. "He had to find out first who was responsible for Jennifer’s death."    "That’s what Cleo suspected too…"     It was like we all just assumed is Michael Hanson except her. She denied it. Perhaps with this I could help her see that not all parents mourn her children. Some prefer the thirst for revenge.

 I move on to the next photo and I'm furious. Like Dan, it was a social media post of Macie with Henry. I clench my fist and she makes me look at her.    "Jake, calm down." Her soft her voice tries to calm me down "Don’t worry."     I swallow, caressing her hand. Powerless to see it.    "I am sorry."    “Eh, it's not as bad as all those threatening phone calls” she jokes, trying not to care. But I know that she cares too because she isn’t alone but with Henry and I know how much he means to her.     I keep looking at the photo. Her joke doesn't calm me down, on the contrary. I know she's hiding it that she doesn't mind and it's what makes me want to do something for her.    "What’s up?" she asks me, pulling me out of my thoughts.    "Seeing this photo on this wall getting to me." I look directly into her eyes, controlling my anger. But it wasn't directed against her "It makes me angry and I feel helpless” Macie sighs, looking at me sympathetically "I should have gone there with you and protected you."    "And risk someone seeing you?"    "It would have been better than doing nothing."    "No" she shakes her head, bringing her forehead to mine "I wouldn't have left you, do you hear me? Besides… It helps me knowing you care about me."     She smiles at me and I try to return her smile, even though I had a hard time. I won't let her go through something like this again.    "I've realized something" I say, looking at the photo, not responding to her words. I couldn't accept it “You only joined the group after Hannah had disappeared, so as you say, he hasn't been able to find out anything about you."    "In social networks I don't have a position where I live or my personal information, most of them are Henry's and the ones I have are more private, I share them with my friends" she answers, looking at the photo now ", he hasn't been able to find out anything specifically and until now, he didn't know I was here."    “And this new clip was only aired recently, too… So his investigation are not finished yet."    "It’s not over for him…" I watch as she nuzzles her neck, remember when he suffocated her.     I make her look at me and I see that her eyes are shining, affected by what happened. As she had done before, I dare to place a small kiss on her neck, but as relief for the pain she felt. I can't stand it being like this. She smiles at me when I look back at her.    “We’ve almost solved the case, Jake” she says with a sigh, wrapping her arms around my neck “I can feel it."    “Yes, we have, Macie” I admit, placing my hands on her hips "However, we should not feel too sure of ourselves to avoid making any mistakes" I remember the finding, with doubt ". It is a very happy coincidence that Thomas managed to come into possession of Hannah's phone."    "I completely agree."     I start thinking about our next step. We have something quite valuable on our hands.    “I should take precautionary steps so that we can access Hannah’s phone later on."    “Well then.” Macie stands up and I feel empty without her. It is not like it bother me much, either "hurry up and good luck with."     We hear the door and look at each other. We don't wait for anyone. Well. She doesn't wait for anyone.

 Who could it be?

Chapter 34

[myfavouritelunatic]

Tag Game - Fandom Edition

I was tagged by the wonderful @heronamedhawks thank you!! ❤️

Your Name: Kendall

Your First Fandom: I would say, if we go back to the days of forums in the 00’s, I would count the Michael Jackson fandom as my first.

Your Current Fandom: The Rings of Power! 😍 And it’s honestly the best fandom I’ve ever been a part of.

How did you first get into fandom?: It all comes down to a way to connect with other like minded souls, and share your love for the thing you’re all obsessed with. And as a teenager in the early/mid 00’s I didn’t really have any friends that loved Michael Jackson as much as me.

How long have you been engaging in fandom spaces?: Well as two of my previous answers have stated, approximately 20 years haha.

How often do you read fanfic?: I wish I had more time to read! My free time is kind of split between reading and writing. But I’m reading a lot more often now than I used to thank goodness!

Top three characters from your current fandom?: Halbrand/Sauron, Galadriel, and Elrond. 😍

Have you ever written a fic for a fandom and if so, shout it out!: Why yes I have written a few pieces over the years for different fandoms, but for some reason being a part of The Rings of Power fandom has me writing like never before! Like I have the most WIP’s going that I’ve EVER had. It’s nuts. And the story I’m most proud of, of course, is The Blacksmith. Writing that has changed my life in so many beautiful ways and I am eternally grateful. ❤️

Have you ever drawn fan art for a fandom?: Years ago yes, but drawing isn’t my strong suit haha.

Share a personal headcanon that you feel strongly about: Hmmm the only one that comes to mind is that I’m fully on Team Repentant Sauron. (Yes I know I’m biased and also likely wrong but I DON’T CARE. 😜) There’s just something about the way he acted with Galadriel in certain scenes (in the woods, in the smithy) that speak to him truly seeking redemption. Not to mention the fact he didn’t want to leave Númenor. Am I choosing to ignore the fact he’s one of the most deceptive, cunning, and charming beings ever conceived? Yes, yes I am.

You’re trying to convince a friend to get into your current fandom(s) with you. what episode, clip, or scene are you showing them?: Oof this is a tough one. For The Rings of Power, I personally feel that episode one is a super strong pilot, so I would for sure start there. But of course, since the spoilers are everywhere, if the person I was showing knew Halbrand was Sauron, I would absolutely show them the reveal/raft vision scene. Hands down my favourite of the entire show.

And finally, what does fandom mean to you?: It’s about a safe space to express your feelings for what you love with people who love it just as much as you! It’s about supporting each other and honestly just having a good time!

Tagging, no pressure: @denzit @pursuitseternal @vellichormybeloved @coraleethroughthelookingglass @somebirdortheother @gil-galadhwen @starlady66 @helenvader @iamstartraveller776 @myrsinemezzo @klynnvakarian and anyone else who wants to share! ❤️

[cosmic-whorror]

Hey, there! I really, really love your art… It’s got such an oniric vibe to it that makes it unique. As a beginner artist, I was wondering, if you don’t mind answering, if you could share some tips about how to find your own style? By now, I can only “copy” other artists’ works, in their own art styles, but when I try to get into my own style, it’s just… Blank, empty. I hope you can answer me on this, I’ve been walking in circles on this subject, with no progress whatsoever. I also hope you’re doing okay, and that you are having a good time there where you are ^^

Hello!! Thank you so much!! I’ve been inspired by Ukiyo-E and manga styles forever so this hits me in the soft squishy center of my heart. I’ll try not to ramble too much in my answer because this kind of journey is so personal and yet totally universal to all kinds of artists lol

First, a personal story:

When I was a kid, I was always drawing. When I saw something I loved, I drew it! I copied Pokémon cards, drawing dewgong over and over and over again just to get that majestic tail swoosh. When I was about 9, I got one of those cheesy howling wolf shirts from Orlando Studios and became obsessed with copying the image on it (but with pencil on notebook paper) probably a hundred times just to try and get a little closer to drawing badass wolves. I tore pages out of magazines and copied the clothes and faces I liked, making my little OC characters. I had this incredible Dralion Cirque du Solieil poster that was just fucking INSANELY COOL and I would draw it and stare at it for hours just trying to pick apart what about it was so fucking cool.

Everything I’ve drawn up until this very moment has pieces of all those things. Every dragon I draw has that poster, every wolf face has that tshirt. Even in years of formal art classes, students are tasked with copying the masters! Its a well-traveled path for every lifelong artist. You try on different styles, maybe some fit and others don’t. Regardless - YOUR hand is the one making the drawing; you can’t hide it and that is your personal “style”. Just like an author’s voice, humor, and values in things they write.

So, my point…

There is no true originality, cliche but TRUE! If your drawing feels soulless, what art to you looks full of life? Really observe the details about it - what about it makes it alive? Be as specific and granular as you possibly can. Take that thing, and copy it. Copy it and spend time with it, apply it to all kinds of things until it feels like it’s doing its job. Eventually it becomes an automatic part of your process and becomes your own. All art and style is like a big ol scrapbook of what gives you those feelings!

TLDR: style is a culmination of allllll the tiny moments in other things that you’re drawn to. Art development has no endpoint, KEEP GOING!!! Find what you love and USE IT!!!

I believe in you, and everyone else out there struggling with this! Everyone does at some point!! Just keep drawing and never stop! Even if you feel like you aren’t making progress - you are. Constantly.

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Original short story- Knees

(Content warning- This story includes references to substance and domestic abuse, as well as detailed descriptions of decomposition and gore.)

The hazy air suffocated with the scent of cotton candy and the colour yellow. Chattering weaved its way in and out of bubbling blasts of brass, a soni-jazz band playing on a stage not far from the excitement.

“D’you think the winners from last year are here?” a whisper landed in an ear.

“Who, Terrence and Paolino?”

“Yeah, them.”

“I hear Terrence is taking the year off. As he should, in my opinion. Was hell for him, but my, was he swell to watch! Never seen legs like that in my life. Maybe he’ll be back next year, though-- but for now, let’s hope this year’s competitors will beat our expectations.”

Behind a velvet curtain, Margot scrutinised her appearance in a mirror. Knobby knees- certainly not an attractive feature. After all, the crowd’s eyes would constantly be on her knees. There was a scab on the left one- a minor flaw, but nevertheless one that would be sure to be magnified a thousand times on the overhead screen. Her hair, at least, was immaculate- done in those old-timey waves that had been making a comeback ever since the economy crashed. 2052, and everyone was obsessed with everything 1930s, no doubt as a way to cope with the Depression that had made its cycle around American history and was now once again knocking at the present’s door. Likewise, her vintage dress was likely impractical compared to the more athletic wear other competitors sported, but was sure to score points with the audience, particularly young, impressionable fashionistas. She flexed an arm in the mirror- thankfully, she was strong enough to qualify this year. Her arms would no doubt be her greatest asset for the next few days, maybe even weeks if it came to it.

A tap lightly jabbed at her shoulder. “Looks like we’re partners,” a voice said.

“What?” She turned to see a man- hair neatly combed, one red suspender hanging off his shoulder.

“You’re Margot McLee, right? I drew a fifty-two in the bowl up front, and you drew one too, which means we’re partners. Is that okay with you?”

Margot looked him up and down. “Yes,” she said slowly, her heart lurching as she took note of his untied shoes. “Your shoes are untied.”

“Oh! Right. That’s- that’s not good, is it?” He bent down, fumbling with his shoelaces before managing to work each one into a knot. “There we go. Can’t believe I forgot- you see, I was out on the farm all morning, trying to bring in the grain. You remember how in the thirties there was a dust bowl, right? A couple, I think. Well, I was thinking, with all this thirties craze, what if it happens again? So I thought it would be smart to stock up our grain. I’m Frederick. Walters.”

He stuck out a hand to her, and she shook it, hoping he would soon prove to be far more coordinated. People around them were beginning to partner up, and Margot could tell instantly that she’d have better chances with a good amount of them than with him. Still, she and Frederick had both drawn a 52, so they were stuck together until one of them disqualified- or they won.

“This was also a big thirties thing, you know,” Frederick said, checking his hair in the mirror. “These ridiculous dance competitions. Probably just as dangerous then as it is now, although at least we’ve got better medicine and all. Guess we’re still just as stupid, though, signing up for this sort of thing. Say, why are you in?”

Margot folded her arms. “Why are you?”

“Oh, I just thought, say, the barn’s got a leak on the roof, and I’ve got my family at home, and while we do what we can, chances are with the way things are going, we’ll have to sell the farm. So why not enter a little shindig like this and try for that prize money? Course, I’m not expecting to win, but if we get out, at least we’ll get to watch everyone else- that’ll be exciting, won’t it?”

Margot didn’t answer.

“You’re one of the more serious ones, aren’t you? Really focused on that money. Well, looks like I’m in luck- in these sorts of things, it’s good to have a determined partner. And I’m in top form, so you don’t have anything to worry about. And if we lose, well, we’ll get by. Maybe. I think.”

“If we lose, we don’t get the prize money,” Margot answered pointedly. “Both of us have a shot at it, and I know why I need it. So I suggest you save your breath.”

Frederick sighed. “You’re probably right,” he answered.

A loud noise sounded from outside- a blasting chord from the band, followed by a voice over a speaker.

“Dancers, will you take your places?” the voice blared. Margot downed a glass of water, then reapplied her lipstick before making her way into a long procession that filed in two lines past the curtain. Frederick smiled at her from the other line. She didn’t return it, only glanced at the knees of the dancers in front of her. Hers look formidable; I might be in for some competition. And his aren’t too bad, either. And theirs? Weak, definitely.

Could be stronger.

Weak.

Weak.

Strong.

Weak.

Sunlight and soni-jazz blasted in a wave over her eyes and ears as she stepped past the curtain, glancing about at the crowd. She lined up with Frederick and took his hands as the others took their partners’. Last year, she had been eliminated on the second day. But this time, she’d been training, and the prize would certainly be hers.

“Welcome to the third annual Everswing!” the voice over the speaker blared. “Just like the last two years, one hundred and fifty couples will be dancing for as long as they can, with the chance to win fifty million- and we said million- dollars. We would like to remind our competitors that food and restroom breaks will be given for ten minutes every two hours, physical violence will result in an immediate disqualification, and-”

“Once your knees touch the ground, why then, you’re out!” the crowd chorused. Margot found herself mouthing along with them.

“That’s right! If a competitor’s knees touch the ground, they and their partner will be considered disqualified. The prize will be awarded to both members of the last couple standing- fifty million- and we said million- for each. Now, when the band starts up again, the third annual Everswing will officially start!”

Margot steeled her nerves as the band struck up an antiquated waltz- something pleasant and slow to begin with. Couples whirled about the vast arena, some in billowing skirts and others in exercise wear. Still, the most popular choice of clothing seemed to be gingham dresses or burlap-bag suit jackets, cleverly tailored to resemble tweed. They stepped carefully around a series of ambling notes from a muted trumpet, supplemented by computer-generated record static. Frederick’s hands were rough, and Margot noted in horror that he often stepped a little too close to her toes.

“You don’t know how to waltz?” she hissed above the music.

“Well, not exactly,” he said. “Look, I know it’s one of the required dances for the Everswing, but I spent a little more time on the Balboa. That was the one they started with last year, remember? Lots of people got disqualified with that one.”

“Watch your feet.” Margot swayed expertly back and forth, her chest pressed to Frederick’s. The crowd loved a little chemistry, even if it was completely feigned, and being a crowd favourite sometimes meant extra food or medicinal care during breaks- maybe even a change of shoes or a tube of ointment. However, Frederick didn’t seem to get the hint, instead watching the other dancers as Margot attempted to make eye contact with him.

“My eyes,” she whispered. “Look at them.”

“Uh, they’re nice?”

“Just trust me on this one if you want to stay in.”

He nodded, looking into her eyes. She noticed his were an odd shade between grey and green- like dishwater left to mould. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, but waltzing gradually grew easier, even mechanical. Clockwork automatons may as well have been whirling around them, with hearts that beat in copper time. The waltz looped over and over, fading into background noise. Lazy conversation from the crowd set in- it seemed as if they were growing bored.

“You never told me,” Frederick said, sweat on his brow. “Why are you here again?”

“Same reason you are,” Margot answered dismissively. “Money.”

“Money for what?”

“Same reason everyone else is here. Because we all want money.”

“There’s got to be a bigger reason than that.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“So there is.”

Margot stepped back, then forwards. Her knees were holding up surprisingly well. Someone in the band was strumming a guitar. She could have sworn she heard two people in the audience talking about their plans for dinner.

She couldn’t feel her legs by the time a bell rang- the break, finally. Hands dropped from waists, hanging like lead. A collective sigh swept through the arena. Women in white uniforms marched out of the curtain, handing each competitor a bottle of water and a plate of plain potatoes and chicken. Noisy chomping and slurping was quickly drowned out by the band, and a number of competitors rushed back behind the curtain to the restrooms.

“This is good,” Frederick said through a mouthful of chicken. “Not as good as what we have at home, but then again, you can’t get better than fresh.”

Margot couldn’t help but agree -- the food was good. That was another benefit of competing -- food and drink were ensured to dancers, while scraping to get by was the norm for most. Even disqualified competitors, of which there were now a few, sat in the bleachers and received their own portions. By the time their plates were collected and those who had left to relieve themselves had returned, the remaining competitors were ready to proceed to the next dance.

A bolt of sound exploded from the band, now playing an upbeat standard. The arena began to shimmy with bodies, stomping and whirling with a newfound vigour. Frederick, more energetic than ever, easily found his way into this number, while Margot couldn’t help but laugh. Sure, his dancing wasn’t perfect, but he was able to keep up, and more importantly, keep on his feet. Sharp whistles surrounded them as dancers fell to their knees and the loudspeaker announced their disqualification, making Margot and Frederick dance even faster, this shrill dissonance the sweetest music to them.

“My husband’s drug addiction!” Margot announced as she whirled around Frederick, giddy with bright lights and drunk on soni-jazz.

“What?”

“You wanted to know why I’m here,” Margot said, allowing Frederick to dip her in his arms.

“Your what?” He spun her around.

“He’s violent and hasn’t been able to find employment since last year,” she said, a shimmy in her step. “So I’m going to take the next plane out to Sweden and live with my aunt! We’re going to win this, you know! We’re going to win!” High on expectations, she continued dancing- dancing away from shattered glass bottles and blood-red screams and stolen caches of the smallest amounts of money. She could do this- she knew she could, and she would keep dancing, sun-up and sun-down, until her bone-cracked feet touched green grass all the way across the ocean.

“We’re going to win!” Frederick echoed, facing the cameras. “You hear that, Margot’s shitty husband? We’re going to win!” Whistles sounded left and right as the dejected trudged out of the arena, but the couple whirled about confidently. Soon enough, fatigue set in, and the band slowed. Water bottles, bathroom breaks, and food arrived now and again, and day gave way to night. Still, they continued to dance, Frederick’s head on Margot’s shoulder as they swayed. Every once in a while, they would be startled by a whistle- someone had collapsed in exhaustion, only to be woken to disqualification. The number of couples had dwindled to one hundred and twenty, then ninety. Those who stayed determined danced until sunrise, when fifty remained. By the next break, when eggs and plant-based bacon were served along with coffee and the most popular couples were awarded with shoes and balms, forty-three couples were left to dance another day.

Margot and Frederick barely talked to each other, their leaden limbs carrying on the motions through dance after dance. They had stumbled a few times each, but had always managed to catch themselves. Dancing became a duty, an obligation. Margot was so enveloped in fulfilling it that she hardly noticed another girl with her partner, dancing up alongside her.

“You’ve made it pretty far,” the other girl panted.

“Yep,” Margot managed.

“Georgia.”

“I’m Margot.”

“No. From Georgia. Hannah.”

“Hannah,” Margot replied. “I’m from Kansas-Nebraska.”

Hannah-from-Georgia twirled in her skirt, her finger waves now undone and wild around her head. “Haven’t… done a lot of talking. To other women.”

“Busy dancing,” Margot replied, doing her best to step away.

“Busy dancing,” Frederick echoed after her, his face red and drenched in sweat. He breathed laboriously, his lungs wheezing for air. “Busy dancing.” He and Margot slowed, but did not stop moving.

“Why… here?” Hannah breathed.

“Husband,” Margot answered.

“Farm,” Frederick said, his head lolling on his shoulders.

“No jobs,” Hannah said. “Better to dance.”

A whistle sounded. Hannah and her partner, a man far older than her, kept dancing. He tightened his grip on her waist, and Hannah pushed him back with as much strength as she could handle. The man swayed once, twice, and stumbled back- but Hannah pulled him up.

“Knew you would,” he grinned.

“Not for you.” Hannah glared at him.

Three dances later had Margot and Frederick alongside another couple.

“Todd.”

“Bethany.”

“Margot.”

“Fred…erick.”

Todd was dancing to pay for a surgery for a fatal illness; Bethany to go to college. The day wore on. Nicholas was dancing because he wanted to accomplish something in life; Shanelle because she lost her home in a flood. George, Aspen, Mary, Walter, Henry, Jacob because none of them knew what else to live for. Richard, Oliver, Keisha, Pablo, Laila, Timothy because they had danced with someone they loved long ago and had forgotten how it felt to dance with someone again, and if 2052 was going to get any harder, goddammit, they wanted to spend as much of it as they could dancing.

And then, at three in the afternoon, when the New Oklahoma sun was beaming as hard as it dared to, right after a break, the yellow in the air thickened to gold and the scent of cotton candy turned to that of burned sugar. Frederick coughed once, then twice, blood spurted from his mouth in a thin red river, and he never got himself to dance again.

Margot felt him slacken in her arms, just managing to catch him before both of them hit the ground. His one loose suspender slid from his shoulder.

He’s dead, Margot thought as soni-jazz distorted and undulated around them, trumpets and chiptunes moaning in time with the electric double bass. She looked at the ground, then at Frederick’s knees- once strong knees, grown weak with two straight days and nights of fatigue. Knees that bent and straightened to help carry bushels of honeyed wheat into a creaking barn, knees that knelt to comfort sick and ailing brothers and sisters, knees that once belonged to a laughing child, collecting scabs and dirt as they climbed trees and kicked through cold rivers.

Knees that were not touching the ground.

Margot didn’t know if the spectators watching the dance could even tell that Frederick was no longer alive. The band played on, vibrant as ever. Remaining couples stomped and swayed around them, loping in dizzying circles like buzzing flies. Once-carefully styled hair clung to drooping faces and stuck out at odd angles, quaint clothing that once emulated the perceived simplicity of a bygone age now torn, soiled, and faded as the past. Breaks were treated with the reverence of a pilgrimage, water and ointment and potatoes and shoes and socks and soap and coffee sometimes stolen or bartered for. The no physical violence rule would have been broken time and again if the competitors weren’t so exhausted, every step, twirl, and shake torture on bodies that could barely breathe. Those who fell on their knees may have been doing so in prayer, in surrender, before they were taken away on stretchers.

Knees. Weak knees, strong knees, broken knees, scarred and scabbed knees, old and young knees of many shapes, sizes, and colours.

But still dancing, still swaying to the serenade of harsh strings and wheezing brass, were a pair of dead knees.

Margot remembered the day she married him. Dean. A nice man, well-off. Something ran in his family, he always said, but he never said what it was. Once, when she asked while they were in bed, he said it was luck, but she didn’t know if that was true. When the second Depression struck, she could tell he was lying. He gambled, but lost most times, and the times he did win, he downed bottles, sometimes of beer and sometimes of pills. Margot often found needles in the washing machine, and received a fist to the stomach when she asked why they were there. She learned early on not to ask, only to dispose of them.

She loved to dance. As a child, she begged her parents to allow her to take lessons, and she did, ribbons adorning her legs and satin slippers on her feet. As a teenager, she followed every dance craze that surfaced on social media. In college, she went to clubs, dancing with boys and girls she didn’t know, but wanted to know forever, at least for the night. Dean, at least, tolerated her dancing when the Depression hit, because the competitions meant that if he did not receive the luck he said he did, perhaps she would instead. When she heard the whistle the previous year, it sounded instead like the earth cracking down the centre.

Now, she was dancing with a dead man. Frederick was heavy, and as she swayed with him, his head lolled back and forth in a most unsettling manner. Sometimes, fluids leaked out. She dared not hold his waist too tight, and hoped his family wasn’t watching the televised competition.

The next day, three other couples remained. Frederick was beginning to bloat. Some of the buttons on his shirt had snapped off, revealing greying flesh underneath. His face, reddened at the time of death, was now ash-pale. His boots dragged along the ground, his feet scraping where the soles had worn off. Flies had gathered in his eyes and Margot’s, and she did her best to swat them away while keeping Frederick’s body from falling. They soon became the most popular couple.

Word spread about the woman who had fled her abusive husband and had met a man in the Everswing, and had fallen in love with him so hard that she wanted to dance with him forever, even past death. The other couples- down to two- had gotten used to this by now, dancing at far ends of the arena to avoid the putrid smell. But the crowd loved it. Margot received shoes and dresses, comfortable stockings, delicious and energising foods, and even Frederick received a silicone mask to hide his face, which had now been picked to unrecognizeability by crows and insects. The mask, however, slid down to his nose, making him an even more awful sight. He was gifted perfumes and garlands of flowers, which Margot was all too eager to apply to his ballooning body. When his stomach erupted with maggots, the audience too erupted into hungry applause.

By evening, her reddened fingers touched bone- perhaps he would have decayed much slower, had he not been danced with and dragged about all day. Margot would have cried for him, but she hadn’t the strength left in her to cry- only to dance, and to dance until the end of time. Meanwhile, t-shirts printed with images of what had once been Frederick’s face were handed out to the crowd.

One other couple remained- Frieda Lopez and Belle Laroche. Frieda had been a figure skater at the very last Olympics -- Nairobi 2048 -- and Belle a ballet professor at Juilliard. Both, once champions of their respective arts, commanded attention and respect. Bets were placed on them, and they had nearly made it to a tenth night last year- only having stopped because Frieda had a family emergency to attend to. They wondered whether to pity Margot or be disgusted with her, but all they could do, like her, was keep dancing. They had their devoted fans, as did the grotesque couple who continued their ritual opposite the arena.

Late at night, the band struck up again- something hot that got even the audience tapping their toes. Drums throbbed in Margot’s head, and Frieda and Belle mustered the strength to perform a rousing tango. Frederick’s mask slipped some more, taking his nose with it.

Margot laughed- who would have known she would have made it this far, and in these circumstances? Was Dean watching? The world was watching; how could he not be? By now, she was sure the image of her and Fredrick (now nicknamed “Maggot” and “Dead-drick” respectively in certain online circles) was making its rounds across the horrified and fascinated globe. Soni-jazz threatened to swallow her whole, and she wanted to be devoured, dissolving into fuzzy black-and-white half-digested memories of a quasi-recollected past, spinning into a mess of phonograph crackle and beating hearts now stilled for a million eternities. The first time she’d danced with a man in such a long time, she’d been doing so for anywhere from less than a week to forever, and he was covered in cockroaches and larvae and his nose had fallen off and one of his eyes was gone and perhaps- although she could be mistaken- his brain was leaking out a bit. But she kept dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, because if she danced fast enough, she’d be taken into a past past her past, somewhere that no longer existed, never existed, and never would again. The soni-jazz screamed, wailed, even begged for her to stop, but her feet kept pounding at the ground, whirling in circles with what was left of Frederick, desperate for something to be over and something to begin, although she had no idea what ending and beginning meant anymore.

She didn’t stop until Frederick’s leg, with a terrible crack, swung high into the air and landed straight in front of Frieda and Belle, who both fainted. Margot, her hands covered in browning blood, froze, staring at the knees on the ground -- knees, everywhere, knees -- and with a chilling realisation, was nearly crushed by the fact that she was the last person standing in the arena.

[wildhosh]

for the ask game id love to know about svt, enha & p1h!! you can pick and choose too i don't mind lmao 💗💗💗

YAY these were so fun to answer and i ramble so much i’m sorry for all the extra info i just love to talk about myself and my love for these groups <33

for svt:

★ my first bias: joshua!! when i was in middle school i loved him so bad. still do but he’s not high up on my list anymore.

★ my current bias(es): HOSHI !! <3 (=^ェ^=), dokyeom is a notable second place though, i am very much in love with him as well.

★ my album and/or era ranking (or favorite of each): my favorite albums are definitely the more recent ones which surprises me since i’m usually more attached to the earlier works of any artists. face the sun and attacca are definitely my favorites. i love those albums so bad. THAT BEING SAID… i think my favorite era is either pretty u or thanks era. both have such sentimental value for me and got me through incredibly hard times so i’m forever indebted to them. additional info: my absolute fav svt songs are shadow, to you, rock with you, heaven’s cloud, lie again, and ash!!

★ how i got into them: i got into them during mansae era but it was so long ago i don’t even remember specifics. it was definitely a youtube discovery, i probably just found their stuff in a recommended section LOL. it’s been off and on since then though!

★ which member would be my best friend: i would pick hoshi or dokyeom but i tend to see them more romantically as well as platonically but if we’re talking entirely platonic best friendship, i think dino would be my best friend!! although i would catch feelings for him for sure

★ something i associate with them (or with a bias/any member): early mornings when it’s dark outside and i can barely get out of bed because the air is so cold (reminds me of when i woke up at 4am to watch the thanks mv the moment it came out), tigers (i have a small tiger collection forming in my room and wardrobe because of my hoshi <3), and my 9th grade drawing class (i used to open up a separate tab on my laptop and listen to mvs while i worked, most notably lilili yabbay and the other unit songs from teen age)

for enha:

★ my first bias: jay!! i’ve always loved him. there was something about him at the beginning that just stuck with me!

★ my current bias(es): honestly, i’m still figuring it out. i love jay so much i really really do but i also find myself really drawn to jungwon, i think i hold back because i’m older than him so it feels a bit weird (idk if it’s actually weird but i just sometimes feel like i should be really careful with boundaries). and i also love heeseung!! i’m incredibly attracted to him. but yes for now, my bias is still jay. coming back to this question from the other questions because Yes my bias is jay i cannot stop thinking about him

★ my album and/or era ranking: i’m honestly being really slow working my way through their discography. there is still a good handful of songs and music videos i haven’t seen yet. however, i loveeee given-taken. that song got me through this fall semester; it seriously never gets old. recently though, i’m obsessed with fever. heeseung’s adlibs? don’t get me started.

★ how i got into them: i had only been back into kpop for a month or two when i got into enhypen. i had pretty much been on a year long break from kpop unintentionally and my life was literally terrible but that’s a story for another time but i got back into kpop through ateez in the summer of 2022. i think that’s how enhypen ended up on my youtube recommended. i literally had not heard any of their music but i had heard of them and that people loved them, so when “so so fun” came up, i watched it! and i fell in love with them. i started watching i-land that night. it was instalove fr.

★ which member would be my best friend: i feel like sunoo is such a classic answer bc i think a lot of ppl friendzone him LOL but i do think we would be really good friends BUT i think niki would be my best friend <3 i just think he’s perfect and our humor and values seem to match up so well

★ something i associate with them: walking to campus for my painting class in the heat and humidity (i used to listen to given-taken on repeat for the 15 min walk hehe), my apartment bedroom (watching i-land on my tv, the pictures of jungwon on my walls, …. self explanatory), books (i think about jungwon and sunoo reading on the bench in so so fun almost every time i read outside)

for piwon:

★ my first bias: theo!! he caught my eye almost instantly. he’s so pretty and kinda tsundere so i was drawn to him

★ my current bias(es): INTAK!! i love him so bad. i want him to be my boyfriend so incredibly bad. he’s just a boy idk something about him feels so authentic. he feels like someone i would meet in class and i love that. the whole group are bias wreckers tbh but i think jiung and theo are the main challengers for the bias position, but i’m so head over heels for intak i don’t think he’ll budge.

★ my album and/or era ranking: i am still new to p1h so i haven’t done a full deep dive into their discography yet, but i am obsesseddd with back down. i’ve watched the dance practice at least 15 times in the past two days because the song and choreo are just so fun. i also love doom du doom and scared eras though!! so far from everything i’ve heard it’s allll no skip i love it

★ how i got into them: i have honestly only been into them for like two weeks now!! my first bit of p1h content was the clip of keeho picking the outfit for that girl on youtube and i thought it was cute and funny LOL so yeah keeho reels and little clips are what got me into them. but i think the thing that really did it for me was the fo squad interviews with them! they are the first piece of content i saw other than the keeho vids and they are so fun. comfort videos for me.

★ which member would be my best friend: LOL i don’t want to friendzone any of them but if i had to pick one to be simply platonic i think it would be keeho or jongseob!! i think i would get along so well with either of them and we could have some funnnnn for sure.

★ something i associate with them: um um um honestly nothing comes to mind yet but i love the harmony forest videos and watch the dodgeball and soccer ones often so i think i would say sports in general remind me of them. and american hip hop like kendrick lamar LOL and cup stacking.

[go-go-devil]

3,21 and 24 for the animation asks!

3) Name one cartoon series you never grew up with but felt that you would’ve LOVED as a kid!

Although I still don’t know a whole lot about it, I feel like I would’ve adored The Owl House had I caught it on tv as a youngster. I loved shows that revolved around monsters/demons so I could easily imagine myself drawing fanart of the creatures of the show obsessively in my sketchbooks, and I also vibe with whatever Eda Clawthorn’s got going on. The fact that show was openly queer is excellent! I really would’ve benefited from seeing that stuff in my cartoons...

21) How much has the medium of animation changed as you’ve grown older? Is there any era of it that you are most nostalgic for?

I’d say the biggest change I’ve seen in animation from my day is the rise in independent animation thanks to the Internet. Back when I was a kid Newgrounds was the only major hub of indie cartoons besides those who made their own websites for their shorts (this was before YouTube took off mind you). On tv you had to be very lucky for a station to show off your work, and if a viewer missed it than you had to hope it would get replayed somehow. Music videos were the luckiest in that regard; I can recall seeing some indie animation showcases on Nicktoons Network as a kid but those only aired once!

When it comes to mainstream animation, the one thing I miss the most was the variety of animation we had in the late-90′s and early-to-mid-2000′s. Back when Disney and Dreamworks were creating hand-drawn AND computer generated films one after the other, and when several shows experimented with multiple styles of animation (ex: Courage the Cowardly Dog, Code Lyoko, The Misadventures of Flapjack, etc.). It was also what I consider “the golden age” of animated documentaries, giving us great prehistoric docs left and right as well as excellent specbio classics such as The Future is Wild, Alien Planet, and Dragons: A Fantasy Made real

I don’t want to pretend everything was perfect in that decade (I do remember the writer’s strike after all...), but at the very least when taking mainstream animation into account it just felt more varied and creative compared to Disney’s regressive monopoly and all the generic crap Illumination keeps churning out

24) Gush over an animated film (feature length or short) that you find highly underrated!

L'Illusionniste (The Illusionist) is one of my favorite animated films AND NO ONE FREAKING TALKS ABOUT IT!!!!

It came out back in 2010 and was directed by Sylvain Chomet, the same guy who made Les Triplettes de Belleville which I also find to be underrated to some extent, though not nearly as much as this film. It’s a story told almost entirely without dialogue about a failing illusionist who meets a teenage girl while entertaining some locals on a remote Scottish island, who then stows away on his boat back to Paris because she thinks he actually has magic powers (and desperately wants to escape from that island). In fact, I learned recently that it was based off of an unfinished script from film legend Jacques Tati!

The animation is intricate and life-like, but also full of flair and intricate movement that live action simply cannot capture. While not as based in caricatures as Belleville it still has such a unique look to it; like an highly detailed sketchbook come to life. Such a sad, yet comfortable film. Highly recommend it!

[clarahue]

AO3 Q&A

Just realized that I’m almost at 100 fics on AO3. Then I realized I’ve actually already crossed that with my anonymous works, abandoned fics and ones that have be deleted. So I decided to celebrate by doing a little fic Q&A for fun.

Under the cut

What is your first fic:

My first fic was a Rumbelle fic titled “A Not So Beauty and Beast”. It has now since been deleted and I only remember that is was a work office AU. I vaguely remember a chapter where Belle had to get a needle, but nothing else.

2. How did you start writing fics:

I have always had stories going on in my head ever since I was a kid. I did write some stories for school projects and enjoyed doing so but never wrote for fun. When I got into TV my best friends introduced me to the world of fanfics and I started reading some. I remember having a sleepover at my friends’ house in high school. They were talking about how they wrote fanfictions and suddenly I had the courage to start writing my own. That same night I stared writing “A not so Beauty and Beast”. From there the rest has been history.

3. Do you respond to comments:

I’m trying to get better and respond to more. But sometimes I don’t now how to respond to comments. I always appreciate comments though as I often get very few on my fics.

4. Do you write crossovers:

No, though I did write an Avalance fic story with the Emma & Lily storyline for OUAT (When You're Around, Things are Brighter)

5. Have you ever received hate comments on a fic:

Yes. On one of my smutty fics a person left a comment that I was deranged for writing a specific kink. I shrugged the comment off because the fic was clearly labeled and the person didn’t have to click on the fic.

The only time a comment really bothered me was really early on in my writing. This was on another of my deleted fics. It was titled “How Seagulls Fly” and it was a CaptainSwan fanfiction. Someone left a comment critiquing why I was including flashbacks that had nothing to do with the story. I was really sensitive to critiques as I was still new to posting fics and took the comment a bit too personally.

6. Do you write smut:

Yes. I have written some pretty kinky stuff too. Most are posted anonymously because one of my best friends stalks my AO3 account and I’d die if she saw them.

7. First fandom you wrote for:

Once Upon A Time. Unfortunately I deleted most of my OG fics because I was embarrassed with how bad they were written. I wish I hadn’t now. I think it’d be amusing to look back on them.  

8. Favourite fic you’ve written:

Oh, so many. So many of my stories have such meaning to me and I love going back to read them. I usually go back to read more recent fics as they consume my mind the most.

For my favourites of my fics I’ll pick: “The Things We Don’t Talk About” (X-Men, Cherik), “The Tutor” (OUAT, Rumbelle), “By the Water’s Edge” (OFMD, BlackBonnet). “Drawn On My Skin” (Supergirl, Sanvers) is pretty good as well. I’m kind of obsessed with how well I wrote “Soulmates, Load of Bullshit” (OFMD, Steddy Hands).

For personal stories I’d have to say: “My Loki Verse” (series), “The Path That Leads Us Home” (Marvel/X-men, Maximoff feels). “Fallen Star” (Marvel, TaserTrickster) is also really meaningful to me. When I do go back to read it, I do find it a bit lacking. But it's clear to me that while I was writing it I was dealing with my own grief over a loss in my life.

9. Most poplar fic:

“An Exitance Unlike Our Own.” (18,837 Hits, 911 Kudos, 86 Comments)

I think this fic just hit a very niche ship (Agent Reign) with popular tropes (fake dating, undercover, living together) and blew up. It’s by far my most popular fic, no other pales in comparison. Even the fics I think are better.

I think “Soulmates, Load of Bullshit” (OFMD, Steddy Hands) has the most comments on one chapter though (36). That one blew up a bit and I was so proud because I liked that one so much. I thought I did a really good job with it.

10. What category do most of your fics fall under?

Alternate universe.

I love putting my characters into different scenarios and spinning them around in my mind. I like making them kiss like they’re toys I’m playing with. It’s fun.

11. Do you read your own fics:

Yes, and yes. I actually love rereading my own fics. It makes me so happy to go back and read them and to reread comments.

12. What is your writing process:

Usually an idea hits me and I’ll jot down in a Google doc or Word document. Funny enough the best time in which I’m writing the most, or the most inspired is when I’m in my bed before I go to sleep. So I’m usually typing the fic in my phone while lying sideways. I type so fast I end up with a lot of typos so I have to go back and edit everything. But I really like the whole process of editing. This very flawed system is what works best for me.

13. Is there a fic or idea for a fic that you've abandoned?

Most definitely. I’ve actually had quite a few. Recently I actually wrote a whole fic out only to never post it and throw it away because I ended up not liking it. I’ve been tying to just have fun with my writing and not care so much about posting or having people comment. I want my writing to be something I enjoy.

14. Is there a fic you wish had gotten more attention?

Yes, so many. Like all of them. For now I’ll go with “By The Water’s Edge” (OFMD, BlackBonnet)

15. What ships have you written the most for:

I’m almost embarrassed to see that Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) have topped my list (9) as they only started consuming my thoughts within this past month. Most of their stories are one-shots. (see Amber Eyes and a Wicked Smile). I have more stories in the works for them as well.

My next top ships are what I expected. I have Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold (7), Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer (7), Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe (7), Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood (6)

If I added my anonymous fics to this, Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet would probably be up there as well.

16. What fandoms do you write for:

I’m kind of actually proud to see that OUAT still remains the top fandom I’ve written for (19). This is followed by Supergirl (12),  Marvel (11), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (10), and Good Omens (9)

17. What's your longest story:

“The Princess and the Warrior” (OUAT, RedWarrior) was up there for the longest time at 33,567 words. But I passed it with two Rumbelle fics, “The Union” (40,348 words) and “Finding You” in first place at 59,158 words. “Dance With Me” (Good Omens, Crowley/Aziraphale) is shaping up to be a competitor as I’m still currently updating it. Right now it’s in second at 41,182 words.

18. What do you hope to achieve with your fics:

I hope to maintain F/F as the main dynamic I write about as F/F fics are severely lacking (currently I'm at 36) . However I strive to continue writing whatever makes me happy, and to continue writing things for my own fun.

[shoarchives]

Lo Life

In the world of fashion and consumerism, we often find ourselves unwittingly entranced by the power of branding. The appeal of a well-crafted logo or a well-told brand story can be irresistible, leading us to seek out and covet certain products with a fervor that borders on obsession.

This journey began in my high school days in Virginia Beach, where I first fell in love with the streetwear and hip-hop style that dominated the scene. Growing up idolizing Pharrell Williams, I was naturally drawn to the vibrant and colorful designs of brands like Stussy and BAPE, which were all the rage at the time. As a struggling college student, I had to make every penny count, but when Commonwealth, the first streetwear boutique, opened its doors near my campus, I knew I had to splurge. I spent my entire lunch money on Stussy! And those free BAPE sandals from a Japanese fashion magazine? Don't even get me started. The packaging alone was worth the hype. It was the early 2000s, the golden age of streetwear, and I was all in - a fan, a consumer, a fiend for that fresh gear.

But as I grew older and began to navigate the world of video production in the 2010s, I found myself drawn to more practical and functional clothing that could withstand the rigors of travel and long days on set. That's when I discovered Patagonia, whose ethos and commitment to sustainability and environmentalism spoke to me on a deeper level. While laboring for Karmaloop, the digital retail behemoth, I was introduced to the preeminent outdoor clothier, Patagonia, by my co-producer, Will Kaner, who even authored an article for their publication. Naturally, I seized the opportunity to exploit the good 40% staff discount, accruing a surplus of gorp gear. I was adrift in the bewildering world, clad in Patagonia attire juxtaposed with Supreme, a peculiar amalgamation of normcore and Hypebeast. But alas, I was a mere neophyte in my early 30s, needing to be more knowledgeable about the customs and conventions of the scene.

Everything altered at the age of 38, an age I never envisioned, as I achieved the long-elusive milestone of accumulating a million dollars. It pains me to utter such crass numerical values, but truth be told, being a millennial millionaire is the equivalent of attaining a six-figure salary in the 90s. But with all that cash came a weird mid-life crisis that had me second-guessing my fashion choices. It's funny, because my old man, who had lived through some serious immigrant struggles, couldn't even afford to have a mid-life crisis if he wanted to. Crazy how life works, right? I didn't just want to amass a collection of clothes; I wanted to invest in pieces that would stand the test of time, and that I could pass down to future generations as heirlooms.

So there I was, 38 years old in the year of the pandemic, 2020. All my TV gigs and film projects were kaput, but what? I needed a damn break, man. The whole industry was in panic mode, and I felt burned out. Thus, the pandemic imposed an impromptu sabbatical, which led to me spending much more time on social media. And you know what I noticed? My peers were starting to dress a little more grown-up and sophisticated. I started checking out brands like Noah and Rowing Blazers, and damn, those Ivy vibes were calling my name. Not content with merely adding to my collection, I also took to the online marketplace, selling off my streetwear pieces on popular sites like Grailed and eBay. Indeed, it may have been the apex of the resell era, and I certainly reaped the benefits. In fact, I amassed nearly $20k in sales - not bad for a time of boredom and isolation. And yet, with all that surplus cash in hand, I couldn't help but feel that any future clothing purchases must be made with a deep investment in a brand that stood the test of time.

And that's where Ralph Lauren comes in. I've always been a fan of the brand's classic, preppy, all-American design aesthetic, but it wasn't until 2020 that I became truly devoted to it. That year, as the world was plunged into chaos and uncertainty by the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself seeking solace in the familiar and the timeless

In the past, I always had a thing for Polo, but I was never one of those hardcore "Lo Life" types. And let's be honest, I could never afford those Polo Bear sweaters back in the day. We had a few hand-me-down Polo joints and some CHAPS gear, which all the kids used to clown on. They'd say, "Yo, CHAPS stands for 'Can't Have A Polo Shirt'" haha. But back in 2020, with the extra time, I began to re-explore the world of Ralph Lauren more deeply, immersing myself in the brand's rich history and heritage. I learned about Ralph Lauren's influence on the fashion industry as a whole and how so many other designers and brands have borrowed from and been inspired by his designs. It's pretty charming to observe the extent to which Ralph Lauren's style has permeated the world of streetwear. Every other brand borrows elements from Ralph, with some even flipping the iconic Polo Bear to depict him engaging in questionable activities. The Polo Sport logo, too, has been emulated by countless streetwear brands, so much so that it's impossible to keep track of them all. One can see inspiration in the designs of brands like Aime Leon Dore, Palace, and Supreme, using vibrant colors, bold graphics, and classic silhouettes that pay homage to Ralph Lauren's legendary aesthetic.

In many ways, my journey into the world of Ralph Lauren has reflected my personal growth and evolution. From my early days in Virginia Beach to my struggles and successes as a video director to my current status as a devoted collector and enthusiast, I've come a long way. As I built my own collection of Ralph Lauren pieces, I carefully organized them into categories on a Google Slides document (yes, I know it sounds crazy). And even on film sets for projects I directed, I allowed the costume department to tap into my wardrobe to elevate the characters' looks. But you know what? It's all been worth it. And hey, if that means sharing my closet with the costume department on set, so be it. 

Through social media and online forums, I connected with people worldwide who shared my passion for the brand and its timeless style. I discovered community and connection among other Ralph Lauren fans and collectors. And as I built my own collection of Ralph Lauren pieces, I found myself thinking more and more about the idea of legacy and passing things down to future generations. There's something deeply satisfying about knowing that the clothes I'm investing in now will still be relevant and desirable years, even decades, from now.

But why Ralph Lauren, you may ask? Well, for me, it's more than just a brand. It's a symbol of the American Dream. My father, a hardworking immigrant who struggled so that I could have a better life, serves as my blueprint for the American Dream. And Ralph Lauren, with its connection to the all-American design aesthetic and the aspirational qualities it fosters, embodies that dream in a way that speaks to me personally.

Of course, my journey with Ralph Lauren has not been without its bumps in the road. The psychology of brand loyalty and cult-like following, particularly in fashion, becomes evident when examining the emotional connection and aspirational qualities fostered by brands like Ralph Lauren. But for me, the camaraderie and investment in the brand have been a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, culminating in a deep appreciation for Ralph Lauren's timeless appeal and global influence.

In a world that seems to be constantly shifting and changing, the enduring allure of Ralph Lauren has remained a constant for me. And while some may see my devotion to the brand as a sign of being lost in the hypnotic world of branding, I see it as a reflection of my own personal evolution and growth.

[bakubros-boo-thang]

Disrespected Devil

Wordcount: -4K

Lucifer x F!Reader

Summary: When you disrespect the demon king, Lucifer is forced to say goodbye to you.

Genre: Angst, smutt, slight fluff, but tbh just angst

A/N: So another first. Not only my first time writing for the Obey me fandom (I have a major Obey me brain rot), but also my first time writing angst and I felt depressed after finishing this (which I did a second ago). I love Diavolo, but I needed a reason for the goodbye to happen so even if his dad is the villain, he is the one to execute it... Hope you enjoy this story.

Warning: NSFW, mentioning of being paralyzed I guess.

‘’What’s with Luci today?’’ ‘’He looks more pissed of than usual…’’ ‘’He probably listened to classical music too long and forgot his homework.’’ ‘’Lucifer forgetting his homework will never happen, but if it did he would look like this.’’ Hearing all those whispers during dinner time is nothing new for you. Tonight is different though. You know why he’s mad and you know who’s the blame. But it’s not as if you don’t have a reason to be just as upset. As dinner slowly ends you know there is only a small gap to avoid a situation. ‘’Beel, how about we go bake something for later this evening?’’ You say, as you cling onto the huge redhead. You know that food is a trigger and you know that this is the way to hide from HIM. ‘’Alright, sounds delicious!’’ He doesn’t seem to notice the way you hold onto him for dear life and the same goes for the others. Clearly, they’ve gotten so used to you that it’s not even necessary to be by your side 24/7. It’s not as if they know tonight will be the last time they see you. It’s a small moment of weakness and you feel your heart clench by the thought of leaving those boys. It’s enough to make you lose your grip on Beel's arm. Enough to bend over, because it physically hurts to leave them behind and enough for Lucifer to finally notice you and come to your aid. ‘’Beel, I think she ate something wrong. No cake tonight, I will see her to her room.’’

And with that, he scoops you up and takes you upstairs. Of course, your room is not an option. It’s way too close to the other rooms. No place to yell. No, Lucifer’s room is soundproof. Made for his nights spent with loud classical music and also made for the occasional screaming match with one of his brothers. As he enters the room, he carefully puts you down on his bed. ‘’Are you feeling alright, Y/n?’’ He says as he lays his palm against your forehead. The feeling of sadness is gone, already replaced by nerves. You know what’s coming. You know you won’t hold back. Will this be your last fight with Lucifer? The question never makes it to the surface, because the moment you nod your head in ensurement, Lucifer opens his mouth. ‘’Good, because you have no idea how foolish you acted today.’’  As mentioned before this room reminds you of the occasional screaming matches he must’ve had with his brothers, but never with you. Pissing Lucifer off is easy. You’ve done that plenty of times. Even made him show his true form, but making him scream, that is something you never achieved. Still, it is worth the try. Tonight is your last chance. As you get up you take a look at his face. What faces you is the cold expression he usually shows when he’s done with someone’s bullshit. The expression you have already mirrored back to him. ‘’So you are going to ignore me?’’ I’m not going to answer him. ‘’Are you serious?’’ I am not going to say a word. ‘’Should I spell out what you did?’’ Don’t say a thing. ‘’You just signed your death certificate.’’ His voice cracks and even though it’s far from the scream you aimed for. It’s still the first sign of emotion from the man you care about so much. ‘’Diavolo didn’t seem upset by what I said?!’’ You can’t help but talk louder. especially after being silent for the past few minutes. ‘’ As if he is going to kill me? ME?! And ruin the bonds that are being formed with the humans?’’

You can feel the tears in your eyes, this fight might’ve been about you being disrespectful in some way, but for you it was different. All this time getting closer with all the brothers. All this time loving them. All this time being there for them. It made you realize that the only one who made it difficult was him. With every step getting closer to each other; there were always a few steps back. An obsession with keeping up appearance, an obsession over a promise he would keep no matter what, an obsession with being a stuck-up asshole; That was Lucifer in a nutshell for you. And still, you couldn’t help being drawn to him. As a moth drawn to a flame. Even when the flame could easily kill the moth. Just as easily Lucifer could kill you. And it’s not as if he hadn’t tried that before. ‘’Y/n, You disrespected his father. I had to bargain for you to even leave the castle. The first time I trusted you enough to take you with me alone. And this is how you behave? You know what he wanted to do to Belphegor…’’ You know this story is his weakness. The reason he ended up becoming the lapdog of his so-called best friend. Still, it only makes you more upset to hear him say it. Even when you can hear the slightest hint of emotion in his voice; his eyes stay just as cold as usual. ‘’He is your best friend, isn’t he? He is my friend too, right? You always do this Lucifer! You always get mad over things and it never solves anything. You get mad at me for having fun. You get mad at me for trying to help. You get mad at me for trying to get closer to you. You don’t share things with me! Maybe Diavolo should’ve locked me up. Might as well get myself killed; it’s not as if you never tried to kill me…’’ Your voice is loud as you speak, but his silence is louder. He just stares at you and then it happens.

It’s not that you’re scared you’ve seen his true form before. It’s just as beautiful as him, but it’s also something that happens when he’s full of rage, just as that one time he tried to kill you. You can feel yourself freeze under his gaze. You can feel yourself moving away from him until you reach the headboard of his bed. Still, he moves closer. Until his lips are inches away from your ears. No screams, only whispers; what a way to say goodbye. ‘’DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?!’’ You are so shocked by the volume of his voice, the bass it carries, that it takes some time to realize he has more to say. Your ear is beeping as he moves his lips away and locks his gaze onto you. ‘’DIAVOLO IS NOT THE FUCKING PROBLEM, Y/N, HIS DAD IS. YOU INSULTED THE KING OF DEVILDOM IN FRONT OF HIS SON AND MULTIPLE WITNESSES. DIAVOLO CAN’T DO SHIT ABOUT THAT.’’ Only now do you notice the way his hands are gripping your arms; The way his expression has changed from cold to almost desperate. ‘’That guy has only been able to do what his dad wanted. Our friendship is real, but if his father told him to kill me, he would do it without hesitation. Do you really think he would think twice about killing you? IF HE WOULD KILL ME -HIS BEST FRIEND- IN AN INSTANT?” You notice the tears in his eyes. Lucifer is screaming and crying, but this isn’t a win. Before your heart breaks again, his arms are around you and his face is hidden in your neck, but that doesn’t stop the words. ‘’I had to send you away. I had to be cold. They know I care about you, but not to this extent. I had to pretend it was for the sake of the bonds. After you left I had to beg on my knees for your survival. I had to beg. The avatar of pride begged someone on his knees. It was all Lillith over again…’’

There is nothing you can say to fix this. It might’ve slipped your mind while you were there. But you were surrounded by royalty. What might’ve seemed innocent for you, was clearly a lot for them and now you had to leave everyone you loved behind. You can feel the tears fall from your eyes. “I’m sorry Luci, I truly am.” It won’t help, but it’s the least you can say as you look up into his eyes. He is still in his true form, but even with his wings all spread out, he has never looked more vulnerable. There is a sad smile on his lips as he caresses your cheek. “I know you are, you fool.” He says with no trace of the rage he had before. “ I don't want to leave you all…I don't want to leave you!” You know that you sound like a small child that already knows he lost and that’s exactly what you feel like. “It’s too late for that now, Y/n. Diavolo gave me tonight to say my goodbyes.”  You try to distract yourself by focusing on his raven colored wings. “So that means I can’t say goodbye to the rest…”  The pain is back. Never being a fool with Mammon, never dressing up with Levi, doing make-up with Asmo, reading books with Satan, eating with Beel or sleeping with Belphie.  You can’t help but grab your chest again. “Are you okay?” Lucifer is supporting you within seconds as he asks the question. “No I’m not, but atleast I get to say goodbye to you.”  And as you look up he leans in and gives you a tiny peck on the lips. “I’ve wanted to do that for quite some time.” He lets out. You can’t help but smile as you pull him back towards you. “Let's make it a proper goodbye then.” You whisper as you pull him back to your lips.

It’s not like it’s your first kiss with Lucifer, but it’s the last and that’s what makes it so much more special. It’s the combination of mutual sadness and desperation, the hint of rage still brewing somewhere deep inside the both of you. He knows your body, the way it will arch when he pushes you all the way down onto the bed. The tiny gasps when he starts kissing your neck. The way you look away when he starts kissing all the way down your body. ‘’Please keep looking at me, dear. I want you to see how much I am going to miss you.’’ It’s enough to make your heart flutter, the way he starts to attack your core with his tongue right away. It’s obvious he is in a hurry, but even with all the sadness, it’s the best way there is. You can’t help your moans; You’re lucky his room is soundproof. He’s fast, maybe too fast, but with everything that’s going on, it’s the best you can get. And that’s what it is. The best, because within a few minutes you can feel yourself starting to reach that point. The knot in your stomach tightens. your hands end up in his hair and with one loud moan, you erupt around him.

‘’I know that Mammon claims he was your first… in multiple ways… and not to discredit my brother, but I intend to be your last in all of them.’’  He says as he looks at you while he licks his lips. Him saying those words, the way he just made you lose your mind. It feels good, after all the fighting, teasing, kisses and losses , you’re with the man you love. You don’t want to ruin the mood. You’re really trying, but the moment you hear yourself thinking about loving him, about leaving him, about leaving his brothers, you just break. The tears start to form in your eyes and as you try to wipe them away you feel something on your arms. Lucifer. His eyes are cold again as he moves up to face you. ‘’Don’t hide your tears. I am just as sad.’’ He takes a long look at you, lets out a sign, and lays next to you as he caresses your back. ‘’I don’t want to play the ‘’Who has it worse’’ game, truly, I don’t want to, but in all the years I’ve been in heaven and hell, you’re the first human to have ever make my blood boil. Both from nerves and anger nonetheless, but losing you. Losing the one that made my family whole, the one that makes me feel all these emotions, the one that I love, hurts.’’ You can’t help but raise your brow. when he notices your expression he lets out a laugh.

You feel his hand grab your chin and suddenly your lips are only inches apart. ‘’I know you love me, Y/n. I’ve always known. Falling for you, was what surprised me.’’ You can’t help, but roll your eyes at him. Trying to ignore the way his hand feels on your back. The way it slowly moves it’s way to your hips. ‘’You know I do love all your brothers quite a lot too…’’ You say with all the confidence you have left. ‘’I know you do, but still I am the one that has you laying here. Practically begging for more.’’ He let’s out a chuckle as he pulls you closer. ‘’Let’s end this conversation, there’s not enough time.’’ And with that he’s on top of you. You know there isn’t much time, but when he starts to unbotton his shirt it’s as if time slows down. Of course he notices your looks and can’t help to give you a sly smirk. ‘’Don’t worry your next.’’ Is all he says as he takes his shirt off and starts tugging on yours. After your shirt is taken off he takes a look at your body and all you see is adoration on his face. ‘’I want to see all of you.’’ It makes your body flutter. ‘’You’re absolutely breathtaking.’’ He whispers. All this praise makes you feel weak. You try to grab his face, but as you put your arms up they fall down. You feel weak. Not because of his words, but something else. You see Lucifers expression change, the adorations is switched to concern, then back to concentration and before you know it he scoops you in his arms and makes you straddle him.

He’s looking at you, but not really. Obviously talking to himself. ‘’He wanted to be sure…’’ And as he says it he’s back. Back to giving you a sad smile. ‘’What’s going on?’’ Is all you let out. Is all you can let out, as you feel your body weighing more and more. He notices you getting weaker, making sure your settled between him and the headboard of the bed, before he speaks again. ‘’I think it’s time… Barbatos must’ve cast a spell… something that gave us a time limit. The probably knew it would be hard saying my goodbyes to you. Now I’m forced to make haste, just to make sure you’re safe.’’ You can’t even respond. You can move, but barely and all you can do is watch as Lucifer grabs his shirt. As he moves away from you, you’re sure of it. No this is not the way we’re going to say our goodbyes. It needs to be on our terms. Of course those words never leave your lips, but with all the power you have you reach out to him and as he looks back you let out a: ‘’No...not like this.’’ And maybe it’s the few words you’ve spoken, or the way your arm is trembling from all the power it takes to hold on to him, but he crawls back to you. His face is right above yours and if it’s not your eyes making it obvious what you want, you’re mouth will do. ‘’Take me…’’ It’s not a lot of words, but with the face you’re making and the fact that you guys were just in the middle of it, it doesn’t take much guessing. You can see that he’s thinking about it, obviously worried for you, but you can see his eyes change the moment it clicks.

His wings ar still there and you wished you could touch them, feel them one last time, but you should be lucky by what you can still get.’’I used to be a rebel, so why not know.’’ He laughs quietly before he lays you flat on your back.  ‘’I’m going to take care of you my love, promise me to let me know when it’s too much or when you want to stop.’’ You nod your head and you know that your eyes tell him all he needs to know. How bad you want him, how even when you were able to just talk normally, you would want this goodbye to be said only in silence. His body is hovering over yours, his hand touching your neck, giving you goosebumps. ‘’Does this feel nice?’’ he whispers as his hands move towards your breasts. You can only let out a tiny gasp and that tells him enough. ‘’I wish we had more time…’’ Is all he says as his finger enters your core. The moan that escapes you is loader then the both of you would’ve expected. As he continues to stretch you out with one hand, his other starts to prep his cock. ‘’Wish I could… do that for you.’’ You manage to say. You can’t keep your eyes from him. The way he’s hovering over you. His finger inside of you and the way you can’t do anything except for your stares, moans and gasps. ‘’All I want is to feel you right now, my love.’’

And with that he places the tip right in front of your entrance. He makes sure your faces are only inches apart and as he slowly slides into you, his arms make there way to your sides. He’s holding you as he bottoms out in you and the only thing you can do is let out a long moan. He starts moving slowly, tender, putting all his love in every trust. He’s the only one speaking from time to time. ‘’I love you’s’’ and ‘’You feel so good’ s’’ are filling the room. All that praise, all the love in his eyes. The fact that he’s not only literally hitting all your spots, but also the spots in your mind, is what does it for you. You feel yourself unravel under him. You’re so close, that you start to tear up. Your eyes are filled with tears, mostly because of how good this feels, the fact that you’re making love on stolen time, but also because the time is probably running out soon. Lucifer never increases his speed. When he notices your tears he quickly wipes them away and as his hand caresses your swollen cheek he whispers:  Don’t cry, my love, let us enjoy these last moments.’’ And just as he is about to give you a kiss on the lips you whisper a soft ‘’Love you Lucifer.’’ You notice his eyes being red as well and it’s devastating, but it feels so good. the way he keeps a steady pace has you reaching your peak and these final ‘’I love you’s’’, the final kisses is all you need to feel yourself tightening around him. He’s close too, because the moment he feels you tighten around his cock he gives you one firmer stroke and that’s all he needs to cum inside of you. He falls next to you and quickly takes you in his arms. ‘’I wish we could stay like this forever. I would sell my soul… but I guess in some way my soul has already been sold.’’ And all you can do is give him a sad smile before your eyes close.

Lucifer knew that it was time. You were starting to feel cold, too cold. After putting on some clothes and making sure you were fully clothed, he grabbed the coin Barbatos had given him. ‘’Use this before the time runs out.’’ So he had warned him for the curse. He knew he couldn’t be mad at his friends. He couldn’t be mad at you, he could only blame himself. He had shown his weakness by loving you. But you loved his brothers, loved him, despite all he stood for, without any shame. And even with the way it felt like he was going to lose you forever, it still meant the world he had the honor of getting to know you. The moment the coin was thrown a portal started to form and as he grabbed your cold body the darkness swallowed the two of you. As he opened his eyes he saw nothing, but darkness. It took a few minutes to notice that he was in a room. It must’ve been yours, because he noticed a picture of you next to a bed. He was going to take the picture, he was a rebel after all. As he tucked you in, he was at a loss for words. So all he could do was give you one last kiss on the forehead. Not being able to stop the tears falling from his eyes. ‘’Goodbye, my love…’’ and as the darkness was about to swallow him, he couldn’t help but leave one more thing behind. A raven feather, just for good measure. Returning to the Devildom was going to be almost as hard as leaving you here. He was once again going to be the villain in yet another story… the story of how he lost you.

You wake up to sunlight. Too much of it. Why aren’t your curtains closed? Wait, you have to get out of bed, it’s your turn to cook for everyone. Everyone? You live by yourself… right? It feels like you had a weird dream, but you can’t remember it. All you feel is sadness. As if you’ve lost something or someone important. The pain hits you so hard that the moment you try to stand your legs give out and you lay on the ground as tears fill your eyes. It hurts, but you don’t know why. As your hands try to find some grip to get up, you feel something soft. A feather. A raven black feather. It’s weird, but it feels comforting. Before you can help yourself, your lips are already on it and even when you should be grossed out by it, you plan to cherish the little trinket...

[asweetprologue]

Nili’s Benchmark Geraskier Fic Rec List

hey yall! I officially hit 750 followers (a few days ago, I blew past the benchmark without even realizing!), which is... insane. I truly can’t believe that so many people over the last year have enjoyed my presence in this fandom enough to continue to follow my work. you guys are so great and I love you all so much, so I decided to put together a gift for you!

this is a list of my favorite geraskier fics from the fandom, which I have been putting together over the last year or so. a few of these are big in the fandom, but a lot of them are smaller pieces that I feel deserve more attention! I have provided ao3 and tumblr links where I could find them, as well as ratings and summaries. Most of these are canon!verse because I’m not personally a big fan of modern au’s, but there will be a few of those scattered throughout as well. I’ve divided the fics into two sections: oneshots and multichapter. See the list below the cut!

Being in this fandom truly has gotten me through the pandemic in a big way and I have made so many good friends while here. thank you all for validating my weird obsession with these characters and enabling me in these trying times <3

Oneshots

all that was good, all that was fair (all that was me is gone) | M | 7517 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions Of Violence | @xdandelionxbloomx

Somewhere, deep in a forest, a man drags himself from his grave by sheer power of will. He lies gasping on the forest floor and does not know who or what he is. The world is wide and wonderful, though, and there is so much to see.

Or, Jaskier is so stubborn that he literally comes back from the dead.

Another fascinating addition to the mythology of the Witcher. Jaskier’s slow rediscovery of himself is so well done here. One I’ve come back to again and again. 

As Fast As Love Can Go | T | 9628 | @bygodstillam

There are Faeries in the Wood.

That's what everyone said, at least, not that there was any solid proof. Jaskier had tried, more than once, to find some. Just a hint somewhere, of a real story, of real magic. But all anyone seemed to have was stories.

Jaskier was determined to find proof. He wasn't expecting to find a witcher in the process.

Fascinating fic with some really interesting worldbuilding, and a fresh new take on True Love’s Kiss. Also with some great art by @hehearse!

beautiful, he stirs up still things | T | 2575 | @alittlebitmaybe

“You’re not asking me to dance,” says Geralt.

Jaskier turns his palm up on his knee, offering it. “I think you’ll find I am.”

Just them dancing. This is a lovely sort of pre-relationship dynamic. So soft.

Dialogue Prompt | NR | 2932 | @reinvent-and-believe

Dialogue Prompt 48: “You make me want things I can’t have.” Wordless I-love-you 50: buying them a special treat when you go out shopping

Geralt gets Jaskier a gift, which prompts some confessions.

Even a small love | E | 22,272 | WARNING: Rape/Non-Con 

“Well,” Jaskier replies distractedly. “Lots of things want to strangle you.”

“You don’t.”

It isn’t a particularly troublesome accusation, or even necessarily an accusation at all.

This is one I read early on in the fandom, and it really stuck with me. The dynamic between Jaskier and Geralt is perfect, and the misunderstandings between them feel so realistic. The non-con is not extreme, but do mind the warnings. 

For the Space of a Heartbeat | T | 2021 | @drowningbydegrees

As it turns out, falling into bed with your very best friend who you are privately very much in love with isn't nearly so nerve wracking as waking up with them the morning after.

Just sweet, morning after discussions. I love to see them talking for once.

Greensleeves | T | 10,414 | @rebrandedbard

When Geralt crosses paths with Jaskier in the spring, the world is dressed in green. Quite literally. Everyone everywhere is wearing green, and it all comes down to a song Jaskier has written that, to his mortification, has become popular throughout the Continent. It's torment, being forced to preform the song over and over again and have his heart broken anew. But who is this Lady Greensleeves the people say Jaskier is so maddeningly, heartbrokenly in love with? At the baron's wedding party, Geralt is determined to find out.

This is one of my personal faves - there’s just something about Jaskier’s feelings being put on blast while Geralt remains totally oblivious that I think is so very them. And the resolution at the end is delightful.

I Don’t Wanna Fall (If It’s Not In Love) | E | 13,902 | @writinglizards

The first time it's out of desperation. Things get rapidly out of hand from there.

OR the building of a relationship through mutual wank sessions.

I love everything Ashley writes, but this one was the first fic I read by her and it still has a warm place in my heart. I also highly recommend It’s Been A While (makes me cry every time) and Tell Me Honestly

Like a Storm, Like a Flood | T | 1065 | @valdomarx

Jaskier is leaving for the winter, and Geralt can't bear the thought of not seeing him for months.

It was soooo hard to pick only one fic by George, but this one is so soft and sweet and yearning I just had to go with it. This is really just about Geralt finally hitting a breaking point and saying enough is enough.

one flesh | E | 10,763 | WARNING: MCD 

“Well, then. I’m a ghost.” Jaskier spread his arms grandly. Geralt held his gaze for a moment, then dropped his head and laughed. Jaskier put his hands on his hips. “Do fill me in on what’s so funny.” It wasn’t funny. It was just so - ridiculous, the things Geralt’s fucked up brain would invent. This had to be the last nail in the sanity coffin, it just had to be.

Or: Jaskier is a ghost, and Geralt is a mess.

Jaskier dies and comes back as a ghost to haunt Geralt into taking care of himself. Geralt does not handle this gracefully. This fic is so sad and heartbreaking, but the ending is so sweet.

to render it transparent | E | 23,901

Geralt wakes up warm, peaceful, and utterly content, which is how he knows that something is severely wrong.

Sigh. This fic. This is a time travel fic - Geralt ends up in the future living with Jaskier on the coast, just after the mountain. It’s slow and beautiful and extremely bittersweet, all about how we choose to love people despite how much it can hurt us.

With All the Continent A Stage | M | 4745 | @greyduckgreygoose

Later, Geralt learned that the play was four hours long. Four hours long. It didn’t feel like it. Most of it passed by in a fever dream of ominous music, dance-fighting and dryads in gossamer leaves, swinging from hoops attached to the ceiling. Yennefer made an appearance, played by Priscilla in a glittering negligee. She sang a song to Geralt about putting him “Under Her Spell”, and they had a sensual dance number which was made a little strange by a sickened Jaskier (played by Jaskier) coughing loudly in the background.

(Jaskier invites Geralt to a musical production inspired by his own life.)

Jaskier basically writes Geralt a love letter in the form of a four hour long play. Geralt is an idiot about it.

Multi-Chapter Fics

A Lover’s Lament | M | 25,364 | @somedrunkpirate

So,” Jaskier begins, as casually as he can, “you are telling me, that in theory, if I were to be in love with someone — anyone — that person could well be in terrible danger?”

Of all terrible and ridiculous things that have threatened Geralt’s safety, Jaskier’d never thought that loving him might be what will get him killed.

I honestly can’t count the number of times I’ve read this fic. The monster is so interesting, and the mythos of it fits seamlessly into the world of the Witcher in my mind. Jaskier being so afraid that his feelings are going to put Geralt at risk, clearly unable to see that Geralt is going through the exact same thing. I think about the scene with them looking at each other almost daily. 

A Pair of Gloves, the Scent of Roses | M | 24,134 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions of Violence

In the bustling days before the Midsummer festival, Geralt is sent into the countryside to deal with a monster - with Jaskier once again by his side. But the bard has not forgiven him, and while he's not hiding his contempt for the Witcher, he is recalcitrant about revealing his true motives for joining him. As the hunt turns into a desperate mission to save an innocent man and the monster is not what is seems to be, Geralt learns a few new things about his old friend and decides to finally attempt to mend the rift between them...

This is one of my favorite’s in the fandom - it feels so believable, the world is so rich and the oc’s are convincing and charming. Geralt and Jaskier feel so honest here, stumbling around each other but still drawn together. Beautiful beautiful beautiful

Bearing the will of the flower | NR | 11,449 

The way Jaskier sees it, his hobby of following a witcher around was always pretty likely to get him killed.

The fact that it's happening now because the witcher in question doesn't love him, he thinks as he coughs up crumpled flowers, hardly makes a difference.

My favorite hanahaki fic in the fandom. I’m such a sucker for these, and these two idiots being so incapable of talking about their feelings really makes them prime candidates. 

Food of Love | T | 22,488 | @wallatile-qvibbler

I brought a dead princess back to life through the power of song is the kind of thing that would have got an eyebrow raise even from the stone-faced Geralt of Rivia, so it's a good thing he and Geralt will probably never see each other again.

(or: the one where Jaskier channels magic through his songs, and it almost never goes as expected.)

This is a Jaskier and Renfri centric fic, which wasn’t something I knew I wanted until I read this. Jaskier is a bard which in this AU comes with magical powers, but it feels so well integrated into the universe that I wish it was just... how the Witcher is. Renfri is so good here, and even though Jaskier and Geralt barely even interact you can feel the tension and love between them. Cannot recommend highly enough.

friends and allies of the witcher | T | 10,312 | @theamazingbard

Yennefer crawls over to her newest cellmate. They’re curled up on their side. Breathing, but only just. She’s not sure what she’s hoping for when she turns them over. Still isn’t when she sees that it is indeed Jaskier.

“Shit."

Yennefer and Jaskier each suffer in more ways than one at the hands of Nilfgaard.

Yennefer and Jaskier get capture by Nilfgaard and tossed into a cell together. Exactly what I want out of season 2 honestly. Their interactions are gold.

I’d Be the Choiceless Hope | E | 45,188 | WARNING: Rape/Non-Con | @lesdemonium

As a baby, Jaskier was visited by a fae, who gifted Jaskier's mother with Jaskier's obedience. As Jaskier grew older, the "gift" became more of a curse.

You know I’m not gonna make a rec list without listing Zoe’s Ella Enchanted au. Need I say more?

Silver and Copper | M | 56,139 | WARNING: Graphic Depictions of Violence | @kaer-cuan

Geralt is just supposed to pass through the quiet Lettenhove area. He's not anticipating being begged by its people to help save their viscount from a curse that keeps him from daylight. Lord Jaskier, they call him, and he's likely dying.

As Geralt struggles to untangle the ugly web of history that has lead to the increasingly complicated curse, he finds himself spending more and more time with the strange young viscount and wondering just what he might have been before the curse, and who he might be after. But things are not always as they seem, and as the curse tightens its grip on Jaskier, Geralt is forced to face the fear of failing yet another person whose choices were stolen from them.

Or-

Jaskier is kept from becoming a bard. Geralt finds him anyway.

This is a fic that haunts me. It’s very scary in parts, and mind the tags - there are some very heavy themes here. But it’s beautiful and touching, and Jaskier feels very true to himself even though his origin is so different.

we could be married (and then we'd be happy) | E | 50,222 | @a-kind-of-merry-war

Jaskier reached into his pocket, fingers grasping around the little box. He pulled it out with what he hoped was a romantic flourish, flipping it open to reveal the simple gold band inside. “Geralt,” he said, confidently, cooly, like this wasn’t terrifying, “Will you marry me?”

Geralt and Jaskier fake marriage proposals to get free deserts and shit but it goes tits up when Vesemir catches them in the act. Not knowing how to fess up, they go along with it for a while, which is hell because they’re both pining like mad. As I said, I don’t love modern au’s, but it’s merry so of course this one had to end up on my list.

~

And that’s it! 20 fics for you, and hopefully you can all find one or two you haven’t read before. There are a lot of people and fics that I didn’t include in this list only because I was trying to not put a million down (which I could). I highly recommend anything by @wherethewordsare, @julek, @contemplativepancakes, @witcher-and-his-bard, and @inber, as well as those linked to fics above, and I’m sure there are others I forgot to mention. Yall have truly made being in this fandom worthwhile <3

[firein-thesky]

COIN TOSS– PART II

(18+ MINORS DNI)

PART I

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader

SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.

(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, heroes’ abuse of power, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!

A/N: again, thank you @randomrosewrites for beta-ing!! and thank you guys for the support and comments on the first part! here is your part two!! it's tomura heavy, but for those who love shouta, there's a lot of him in the final part! i hope you enjoy! let me know what you thought!

i also am obsessed with making playlists for when i write and i spend far too much time organizing it all and making sure the songs blend together so if you'd like to take a look at the playlist i made for this fic, it's here!

Read on Ao3

***

Shouta, like the responsible adult he is, soothes things out with you. Well, it doesn’t feel very soothed to you, but Shouta’s made his position clear and you’ve both returned to some semblance of normalcy.

He keeps his distance.

You try not to overstep, but you’re aching and furious.

(You’re holding a secret, too, letting it tear apart your insides, letting it turn circles in your mind until all you can think about is the chill of rain, the bite of a desperate kiss).

You hate that Shouta has retreated from you now. You hate that he’ll stop his hand before reaching out to touch you, like he always has to make sure, like he has to decide if that will be good for you. If you can handle it.

You feel shockingly alone.

You lash out at him more, bicker and argue over things you never used to. You don’t even know why you do it, can’t stop yourself from trying to dig into him. You regret it every time when all he gives you is impassiveness, levelheaded coolness. An adult speaking with an unruly child. He’s good at that, unfortunately.

Some days you want to beg him for answers. Why can’t you love me the way I love you? Is it me? How would you have me? If I was older? I can be more mature, I can be better and better and better–

His undercover work grows greater, draws him away from both you and Shinsou more. Shouta seems to ghost around your life now, drawn away from you, keeping a very careful space between you both.

But there are nights where he tells you to train with Shinsou alone now. You feel responsible. Mature. You glow with pride that he can trust you with one of his students, that you could be a mentor to Shinsou, too.

You grow closer to Shinsou because of this, too, when it’s just the two of you in the gym.

There is one evening in particular, when you’re both sprawled out on the floor taking a too-long water break because Shouta isn’t around when he admits that he used to be– still is sometimes– feared for his Quirk.

He tells you everyone expected him to be a villain.

“I used to be a thief,” you admit, “I was a petty villain, I guess.”

Shinsou looks at you and if he’s surprised, he doesn’t entirely show it, except for the lifting of his brows. You don’t sense judgement from him, though, when he asks, “Really?”

You take another swig of water, humming in affirmation. You swallow, “I was homeless, had no money, nothing. I was stealing from a supermarket when Shouta caught me.”

“You were just trying to survive,” Shinsou adds, like he’s trying to justify the crime, like it soothes him to know there was a good reason for a misdeed.

“Sure,” you reply, fiddling with your water bottle, “But I stole things I didn’t need, too. Just things I wanted.”

“But you’ve changed,” Shinsou says and you can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure himself or you more. “You’re a hero now.”

“Only because my circumstances changed. I was given a roof over my head, food to fill me. Clothes of my own that fit and weren’t torn. I was accepted.” You explain, “If it hadn’t been for Shouta, I would never have become a hero.”

Shinsou is silent, watching you.

“I’d probably be in jail. Or still a thief, in the least, if any other hero would’ve caught me.”

You don’t know why, but you think of Shigaraki suddenly. You think of how young some of the League of Villains are. You wonder if it had been them who offered you food and a home, if you’d be with them now, and not here, sitting on the floor of a nice, sparkling gym attached to U.A.’s dorms.

Something strange grows inside you, something a little bitter. It simmers with sympathy for them, for their lives. For kids like Shinsou with their villainous quirks. You wonder if he’d been poor, if he’d been alone, would he be here, too? Or somewhere else?

“But you were good before,” he says, and it almost feels naive, “I know you’re good.”

You shrug, “Good is relative, you know? I thought I was good because I didn’t kill people, I didn’t steal from other poor people, but society didn’t think I was good. I was still a thief.”

“But you were only a thief because you needed to survive.” he says again, “When given the chance, you changed and became a hero.”

“Exactly.” you say, “How many villains do you think just needed a chance?”

Shinsou goes silent now. His brows furrow in thought, pinching together in a way that makes him look a little too old for his age. You think all of the kids at U.A. grow up too quickly, all of them with too much on their small shoulders.

They’re only kids.

You’re barely older.

Shigaraki is barely older than you.

You push him out of your mind, toss your water bottle aside, and rise to your feet again. “C’mon,” you offer Shinsou your hand to help him up, too, “Shouta would kill me to know I let you lay around so much.”

This seems to pull him from his thoughts and he snorts, taking your hand.

You pull him up. And you both stare at each other a moment. You think he looks at you in a different light now and it isn’t bad, no, he seems to be pondering you more.

(And you’ll realize later that he’s become more sympathetic, that he sees you in villains now, reminds himself they’re people, too, with lives and needs and wants–)

It gives you a strange hope, as you begin to train with him again, to know that he’s the future of hero society.

***

Tomura spots you while he’s out stealing with Toga. Usually it’s Twice or Magne with her, but Twice was onto something else and Toga had decided to latch herself onto him for the day. He’s grown to tolerate her.

Besides, she’d managed to steal him a jean jacket, dark, rough, and worn with holes but it keeps him warmer while still being able to keep the hood of his sweatshirt up to hide himself. To blend in. She’d stolen herself something, too, as the weather begins to get colder and they still don’t have a base, wandering aimlessly.

(He feels stupidly responsible for them. But he’s learned good leaders are, in some way, responsible for their people. They don’t have to care in any way that is emotional, but they have to care in some way, make the group feel important to them. And begrudgingly, they are important to him–)

You’re with a boy around Toga’s age. Wild violet hair. You’re laughing at something he’s saying and you’re sharing street food, he thinks, something that’s warm, steaming up into the air.

He feels a vicious surge of jealousy for a moment. It’s so sharp and jarring that he reaches up to scratch at his neck, tearing into his skin.

But the boy looks too young and you tousle his hair like he’s a younger brother, not someone romantic. While there’s familiarity between you two, it’s not overly intimate.

Toga, unfortunately, follows his line of sight.

She looks between him and you. She tilts her head and Tomura can practically see the gears turning in her strange little mind.

“Do you know them?” she asks, almost innocently.

He doesn’t know why, but he says, “Just her.”

Toga looks back at you. She watches as you talk with the boy– the sun through the autumn leaves cast you in tangerine light, all golden and warm.

When she looks back at Tomura, a smile creeps onto her face. One that he knows is going to give him a migraine.

“She’s so pretty,” she trills, eyeing him too closely.

Tomura scratches at his neck again, harder, wincing a little when he feels a cut reopen.

“Do you have a crush, Tomura?” Toga sings, dancing in front of him to force herself into his line of sight.

“No,” Tomura snaps, bristling, which only seems to encourage her.

“Let’s say hi!” she says, about to bound off and Tomura catches her by the scruff of her jacket like a kitten. He’s wearing his partial gloves, but he still keeps a finger away from her.

“No,” he hisses, firmer now, pulling her back towards him. “They’re heroes. Don’t get distracted.”

Toga twists in his hold, wide-eyed for a moment, before her face settles into another enormous and excited smile. “You’re in love with a hero, too?!”

Tomura grits his teeth, snarling out, “I’m not in love with anyone.” He shakes her then and she yelps a little, “Now focus. We need food and I don’t want to deal with them.”

Toga finally squirms her way out of his hold, pouting at him, “You’re no fun.” she whines and all he does is shoulder past her. He stalks ahead, trying not to look at you again, if only to not draw your eye.

“Do you want to starve?” he asks waspishly, glancing at Toga over his shoulder.

She huffs, rolling her eyes, before hustling to catch up to him. She hums a strange little tune the rest of the time, knocking into his side, throwing him new looks as if to suggest they share some sort of commonality or secret. He grits his teeth but suffers through her torment.

When they return to the rest of the League with what they’d stolen, Toga announces to the whole group, “Tomura is in love with a hero, too!”

The migraine that had begun earlier in his temples reaches full force now. He doesn’t bother trying to deny it. He decides he doesn’t care.

Dabi’s laugh grates on him, though, “Is that so? Which little hero?” he asks Toga, and just as she’s skipping past him, he snags her, snatching the granola bar she’d had in her hand from their little raid.

She turns to grab it back and he pulls it out of her reach, “I don’t know! Give that back!” she squawks, clawing at him.

She must really dig at him because Dabi hisses, “You little twerp–” Just before Magne snatches the outstretched granola bar from Dabi’s hand. She hands it back to Toga, who quickly rushes off with it now.

And thankfully, for Tomura’s sanity, you’re not brought up again.

But he hadn’t noticed you– hadn’t noticed the way you’d seen him with Toga, too. Just a girl Shinsou’s age, following after him like an eager puppy.

Shinsou had trailed beside you like that, too, when you’d both walked back to U.A. with full bellies and new coffees in hand, warm and content.

***

There is a night where Shouta is out doing work undercover and you’re left to patrol on your own. You can’t take Shinsou yet, since he hasn’t earned his provisional license. You don’t mind these nights, by yourself, when you stick to shadows and rooftops, watching the city from above.

It’s cooler now and you tuck your face into the high collar of your hero uniform to hide from the wind that brushes past.

It’s been a quiet night so far. There are other, flashier heroes patrolling, too, meandering around the sidewalks to deter petty crime.

You check the time on your phone, noting that you have a little less than an hour until your shift is over, until you can go home and take a hot shower in an attempt to warm yourself up– especially your fingers, the tips of your ears.

You stretch, standing on one of the low roofs of a building. You’re stiff from crouching, so you decide to move around, change position. You use a grappling tool to shoot it onto a higher roof of the next building. You scale the bricks easily and once safely up, retract your grappling hook.

You look out over the quiet city, the golden light of lampposts, the meandering of cars through the streets. Some restaurants and bars are still open, their windows look warm and inviting with the flush of people inside.

You waste most of the last hour of your shift trying to remain warm, keeping a careful eye on the world below.

Towards the end, you notice a familiar figure in one of the alleyways down below. You don’t even see his face, just the back of his hoodie, just the angle of his shoulders.

Just the way he walks.

The thought should frighten you– that you know him like this, that you’re familiar with just the movement of his body.

Shigaraki Tomura walks away from the soft light of the main city, slips away into alleyways and darkness. You glance at the time. Your shift is nearly over.

This counts as hero work, doesn’t it? Silently following after him?

You drop down onto a fire escape– leap off to latch onto a lower window sill, until you’re dropping silently on to the ground a distance away from him.

You are careful to keep away from him, to use everything Shouta taught you about stealth to remain hidden. And you know Shigaraki is observant, you know he’s always looking over his shoulder so you have to stick to hidden places– behind dumpsters, ducking into alcoves of buildings.

He heads back to the part of the city you grew up in, where everything is falling apart, where there are plenty of abandoned buildings for hiding, plenty of places for runaway teens and homeless to sleep. The cheapest apartments, the streets that are the least patrolled by heroes and police alike, where parts of the Yakuza groups are bolder.

These streets are familiar to you. It’s a strange trip down memory lane.

You think of the last time you saw Shigaraki and flush darkly– it was around here, too, what happened that night.

Still, you follow him because you think you still have some upper hand. Maybe he’ll lead you to the rest of the League of Villains. For a heartbeat, you wonder if you’ll tell Shouta, if you’ll tell the Hero Commissions– you’d have to, right? That isn’t some little squirmish. That’s important information.

But he doesn’t lead you to the rest of the League.

He leads you to an apartment building, small and falling apart on the outside. A window is boarded up poorly. There are stray cats that linger around the side, where the trash is. You’re sure there are rats and bugs, too. You’re sure the building is one bad day away from falling apart.

Shigaraki pauses by the door that is nearly falling off its hinges.

He glances over his shoulder, “Are you following me in, too?”

Your heart kicks up, hammering against the inside of your chest. You swallow hard, internally cursing.

For all your effort of stealth, he still noticed you?

Well, there’s no use lying about it now.

You step around the corner you’d been hiding behind, moving towards the glow of a street light that flickers in and out of power to reveal yourself fully to him.

“When did you notice me?” you ask, peering at him, at the shape of him in the dark.

You catch the lifting of his scar when he smiles, just a baring of teeth, “I saw you on the roof.”

Damn, you curse again, you’ll have to work on that, “That bad, huh?”

He shrugs gracelessly, lifting of his shoulders only for them to fall unevenly, “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known. You were silent otherwise.”

It feels like a compliment– a generous one, coming from him. You don’t know why you have to hold off a smile.

He turns back to the door, shouldering it open. He walks through the archway without another word. He leaves it open and it seems there is no light on the inside, just a blackness that swallows up your vision. He disappears inside.

You stand there, beneath the light that flickers in and out, eyeing the doorway. You could go now, run back home to Shouta, to the Hero Commission and tell them you think you know where he stays, you have a lead on him. You look behind you, glance at the alleyway you came from with it’s’ dull, fluorescent lights that splash against the concrete, that barely fight against the shadows.

You look back towards where Shigaraki had been, the entrance to the building.

You’d probably even get extra little hero points for it from the Commission.

Shouta would be proud of you.

For bringing them to this dilapidated, shabby little apartment complex that rests on the streets of the place you used to call home.

You swallow hard, flex your freezing fingers.

Then you step towards the doorway, peer inside carefully. You hold your breath and the door creaks quietly when you cross it’s threshold, into the darkness.

Tomura is mildly surprised when he hears the door creak behind him. He can feel you, even in the dark of this hallway, the tentative steps you take after him. They’re almost shy.

But you followed him, didn’t you?

You followed and followed and followed him– and of course you did, he thinks, you had kissed him back, hadn’t you?

He supposes you could be playing a part, trying to get close to him but his intuition tells him differently, not with the genuine reaction you’d had. Your sudden guilt for giving in to him. Still, he’ll be careful around you.

He’ll probably have to move again, which would be a shame, since he has already killed the tenant of this apartment– he’d been sure they wouldn’t be missed by anyone, made sure he’d have time. He did the work to get it, thought he’d have it for just long enough until the League made another move.

He almost wants to test you, see if you’re going to run and tattle on his location. He wonders how far you’re willing to follow him.

Tomura walks steadily down the hallway, to the apartment he has taken claim to. He unlocks the door, hands in his partial gloves, shoving it with his shoulder to then enter. He leaves it open for you.

The apartment is a studio, shabby and the heat isn’t amazing, but it has hot water and a lack of bugs in this particular room. It has furniture– a bed, specifically, was all he had cared about. There’s empty wrappers of food and cans of energy drinks on the counters because he doesn’t really bother to pick up after himself but otherwise, the space isn’t his. There’s nothing else of his, besides some spare clothes on the floor.

And still, you follow him here, too. But you stand at the doorway, peeking inside.

He glances at you and is reminded of a fox, something with clever eyes but wary, a little skittish– would bite if he got too close too soon.

So he gives you space, just like he let you leave.

If there’s one thing Tomura has learned, it’s patience. Any good plan takes patience. The reward is always sweeter. The longer and harder the level, the greater the wins.

He ignores you, puts even more distance between the two of you as he wanders further in. He flicks on lights. He takes off his shoes, shrugs off his jean jacket and throws it over the couch. He gives the appearance of carelessness, of letting his guard down. Non threatening.

And you take your fist shy step inside. The door behind you remains ajar, though, for escape.

Tomura has to fight a terrifying smile, fight the sudden twisting in his heart, the inhale of his breath.

“I don’t know how wise it was of you to bring a hero to your home.” you finally speak, cutting through the silence. You’re trying to be witty, but he can tell you’re nervous.

“This isn’t my home,” he answers.

Home, with it’s round and warm syllabus, is not what he thinks of this place.

You eye him some more, but before you can respond, he says, “I don’t know how wise it was of you to follow a villain into his home.”

“I thought it wasn’t your home,” you quip and he only gives you a dry look.

Your bravado is wavering, especially when the door clicks shut behind you, your hand finally falling to your side.

And the two of you are sealed away from the outside world.

“Why did you bring me here?” you ask him and your voice is deceptively quiet. Small.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks in return.

You inhale like you’re trying to steady yourself, “Because I’m supposed to.”

Tomura smiles now, something lazy, almost amused. He knows it’s a lie, can feel it slide along his skin, can see the floundering, desperate look in your eyes.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks again, forcing himself not to move, not to step towards you in his budding excitement. Patience, he tells himself, be patient.

“Why did you kiss me?” you ask instead and the question is raw, as if it’s plagued you, haunted you like an insistent ghost. Crept around in the back of your mind, growing teeth and fangs and spindly, lampshade bat wings large enough to terrify you.

The idea that he’s taken root in your mind in the same way you have infested his is near dizzying.

Tomura weighs his answers carefully. He’s silent for a long moment and it’s heavy, charged with something that he can’t name– has never felt before.

When he speaks, his voice is just a rasp of breath, a little more honest than he’d like, a touch annoyed with the truth, “Because I wanted to.”

Another long stretch of silence where you watch him carefully, where he can see your chest rising and falling too quickly. He can see that frightened look in the rounding of your eyes, the high flush in your cheeks.

And when you speak again, it’s hardly louder than a whisper, like it’s all you can manage,“Do you want to kiss me again?”

It is far too gentle of a question for what he wants– it almost feels innocent, juvenile. Out of place between the two of you. But he’ll take it, he’ll take whatever you give him and then some.

He takes a step towards you. You don’t flinch away so he takes another, then another, until he is standing in front of you. You’re close now– so close that he has to force air into his lungs. He reminds himself of patience, of waiting–

He could take whatever he wanted from you now, he supposes, but he doesn’t want to have to wrestle you for it. He wants it given freely, he wants you to kiss back, like you had before. He wants you to willingly submit and it’s taken longer but it’ll be sweeter, so much sweeter.

“Are you going to run away again?” he asks and he can feel his heart quicken, the squeezing of it awful and tight.

You look up at him in a way that reminds him of his dreams, the ones he pretends to hate, where you make those small, soft noises. Where you let him touch you and taste you and have you.

And you shake your head no, just fractionally, the barest hint of movement but it’s enough for him.

The force of his kiss slams you back against the door. You make a surprised noise against him as he crushes himself to you. It’s just as violent as the first, but this time you take back what he gives. You get your bearings quicker, like you’ve learned a lesson already. He grins into the kiss, opening it, when he feels your little hands clawing at his shoulders, at his back.

He groans when you part your lips for him, when you lick tentatively into his mouth. He possesses you, bears onto you, pinning you to the door as his hands, still gloved, curl around your sides, your hips.

Your hero costume is tight, fits the curves of you snugly and in a way that’s making him nearly insane. He isn’t careful, doesn’t care if he’s moving too fast now as his hands roam and grab and squeeze. There’s layers between you, he naturally keeps a finger lifted away.

One of your hands tightens in his hair, pulling when he bites your bottom lip.

But you don’t seem to mind, either, with the way your breath is hitching, with the way you’re trying to pull him closer, desperately fuse him to you.

Your lips are so soft, he notices, even with the forcefulness with which you’re kissing him back.

It feels surreal for a moment, like one of his dreams, when he parts from your mouth only to slot his lips against your jaw, your neck. A whine is loosened from you, which breaks when he sets teeth to the vulnerable line of your throat.

Your hands are in his hair still, body arching into him eagerly. Youthful in your earnestness.

You’re better than anything he could’ve ever imagined, so alive and rosy and warm beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, which is making a mess of your neck. A particular hard suck over the sensitive line of your pulse makes you pull at his hair.

“Don’t leave a mark,” you hush and he thinks you meant to sound more threatening, but it’s softened by the desperation in your voice.

He scoffs into your throat, dragging teeth roughly along your skin.

“Shigaraki–”

“Tomura.” he corrects without thinking, finally pulling away to look at you, which is almost a mistake because you–

You’re flushed, lips kiss stung and pink, all swollen. Your head is tipped back, exposing the column of your throat, hair mussed with being pressed to the door so roughly. Your eyes are hazy and fever pink with your Quirk activated, like spring flowers, glowing in the low light.

He thinks of paintings and colors and dreams, something like beauty, if he knew anything about that.

And he’s so hard it hurts, teeth grinding together as he looks at you because he can’t even fucking stomach this feeling.

Then you repeat his name for him, “Tomura.”

He’s never heard his name like that, bedroom soft, more of a lullaby and less of a tragedy. He feels like he’s going to shake apart, his body to become just old ruins– he feels as if it’ll collapse inwards, topple over to crush his heart.

Where he’s usually seething and livid and clawing ruthlessly, the festering feeling in his chest is replaced with a new energy; something bursting and squirming and warm. His Quirk lies dormant and docile inside of him with your hand in his hair, your other now at his neck, fingers pressing lightly at his jaw.

It’s terrifying, he realizes, to not feel his Quirk at the edges of his fingers.

(It’s freeing, too, he’ll come to find, to not feel it’s weight, it’s demand that had been encouraged and shaped in him.)

You’re both trying to catch your breaths, looking at each other now. His fingers, still gloved, flex and squeeze at your waist, like he’s scared you’ll run off again.

You inch forward instead, rock onto the tips of your toes to press your lips to his again– softer this time, but no less heated, no less desperate.

He thinks you must be starving, too, with the way you pull him close. His mouth slants over yours, demanding more, a little rougher.

You squirm against the door, the slightest rocking of your hips– he can feel it against his thigh, against his waist. It makes him hiss out a breath against your lips, makes him grab harder at your waist, force you to do it again, harder this time.

You whine and it’s the snapping of his patience.

He reaches for the zipper at the back of your hero uniform, gives it a rough tug, pulling it down some. And then you’re pushing at him, nudging him away from the door and it’s a flurry of movement as you yank at his hoodie while he pulls at your clothes. You’re both stumbling further into the room, towards the bed pushed back into the corner.

Tomura feels young suddenly– feels his age. He feels like a twenty something year old with a girl in his apartment who wants his hoodie off. Who's kissing him hard in between every article of clothing that manages to come off.

He sits back on the edge of the bed to ease the rest of your cat-suit down. He watches with interest as you wiggle your hips to help him get the fabric down over you– and it’s nothing romantic, he doesn’t kiss the newly revealed skin, he doesn’t gently run his fingertips over you, but you grow shy under his gaze.

You’re still in undergarments, athletic slips of fabric, but his eyes fly over your face. You’re nervous, he can nearly feel it, with the way you shift, with the way you catch your bottom lip between your teeth and worry it.

A thought strikes him.

“Have you done this before?” he rasps, hooking his hand in the crux of your knee to drag your forward so you nearly fall into his lap.

“Yes,” you grit out, arms coming up to his shoulders to steady yourself. “Once.” you then shakily exhale.

He doesn’t particularly care– your answer wouldn’t have changed how he’d treat you. He’s not going to be gentler nor slower because you’re less experienced.

“Have you?” you ask, eyeing him, fingers nervously toying with the ends of his hair.

“Yes,” he says, perhaps too sharply, but he gives no other information and you don’t press him, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t have the patience for useless questions.

Rather, he pulls you down harder, so your bare thighs finally settle into his lap. He slides his gloved hands up the notches of your ribs to hitch beneath your bra. That comes off, too, and then he’s got his hands on you more. You gasp, arching into his touch when his fingers curl around a breast, fingers roughly brushing over the peak.

He doesn’t think anymore, just acts, just moves and does as he pleases. All the things he’s done in dreams or in his mind– he sets lips and teeth to your breast, tongue laving over your nipple. He forces your squirming still with an arm banded around your torso, keeping you flush to his eager mouth.

You yelp in pain when he uses his teeth too roughly, trying to jerk away from him but you can’t with his hold on you. He grins, mouth opening, spit slick and wet against your breast again. He groans against you when you pull on his hair.

But then he twists you, throws you down onto the bed only to crawl over you. He yanks at your panties just as you pull him down for another kiss– maybe to distract yourself, to settle your nerves. When you pull away, you’re on your back and he’s over you, your legs hitching over his narrow waist. His hands are on your thighs and you–

You suddenly grab for his hands.

“Take off your gloves,” you get out, breathless, and before he can respond, your fingers are sliding against his wrist, up to his hand, beneath the glove and against his palm.

It makes him shiver, makes him grit his teeth. You pull off one, then the other.

For a moment, he just looks at you all spread out and bare for him, his hands now open and uncovered, too.

You squirm under his scrutinizing gaze.

“C’mon,” you coax and he thinks you’re trying to find your bravado, “Touch me.”

There’s nothing between his hands and your skin now and he settles his palm on your stomach, beneath your breast.

He naturally keeps a finger lifted away.

“Tomura,” your voice is pitched, almost pleading, “You’re not going to hurt me– c’mon.”

He tenses for a moment, eyes flashing over your face. For a moment, his heart stumbles, he grows wary. He thinks of you slipping away beneath his touch, falling away into nothing and all he’d have is a bed of ashes.

But your eyes are bright with your Quirk.

His final finger comes down. Nothing happens, except you smile a little, except you arch up into his touch– alive and vivid and furiously warm.

He feels like he can’t breathe, can’t even function.

He catches a groan behind his teeth, falls forward as his hands become feverish and possessive, suddenly confident, suddenly brash– touching and squeezing and grabbing at you.

His teeth clank with yours as he tumbles into another kiss. You’re needier now, making those higher pitched noises that used to haunt him.

It drives him insane, makes him feel half feral, overeager and desperate. His fingers wander lower, seeking and searching, just as the kiss grows in intensity again. It’s messier, all open mouth and tongue.

When he pulls away, a string of spit connects the two of you and he lets more of the saliva pooling in his mouth drip down with it, letting it fall between your open lips, some on your bottom lip, too. It’s depraved and dirty and his eyes simmer as he gazes down at you.

Your face scrunches up as you go to wipe at your mouth, and he hates it because all he can think of is how cute that face is.

“Gross,” you mewl, but his fingers finally move between your legs and–

And all he finds is that you’re hot and slick for him.

He has to grit his teeth to keep from moaning.

But you nearly cry at the touch, a pathetic little noise, hips jolting like you’re not sure if you want to go towards his touch or away.

“Gross, huh?” Tomura asks, voice low, the pad of his finger sliding easily, teasing you slowly before he goads, “Why are you so wet then?”

He sinks a finger in suddenly– just because he can. Just because he wants to watch your face screw up again, which it does, your mouth falling open, eyes squeezing shut.

“Hm?” he hums, amused with the way you’re gasping beneath him. He starts a slow but deep rhythm and–

And he’s had sex before, a handful of times, but it’d always been for him. He hadn’t cared how the other person felt, hadn’t cared to try and get them off. But now he suddenly wishes he had learned, if only for you, now. He wants you as obsessed as he is, wants you to feel as maddened as he feels.

Thankfully, you’re so expressive. And he doesn’t have to worry about his fingers. He can find the spot inside you that makes you toss your head back into the sheets and moan for him, he can focus on the way you keen when he finds your clit with his thumb.

You’re a sensitive little thing, clawing at his bare shoulders, whining into his neck. He forces in another finger and you start rocking your hips, growing more desperate until–

“Fuck,” you gasp, “Fuck, I’m going to–”

He curls his fingers harder, watching your face as you fall apart, as you try and twist and squirm beneath him. He forces you through it, isn’t gentle, but selfish, wringing everything he can from you.

And when he’s finished watching you whimper and feeling you flutter and gush around his fingers, he takes them out only to force them between your lips.

Once more your face screws up, but you close your mouth around them and he groans low and raw. You look hazy, drooling all over his fingers, lashes fluttering prettily.

He uses his other hand to fumble with his belt, to work his pants down low enough for his cock, aching so bad that he swears he’s going to go insane–

He pulls his fingers from your mouth, watching the mess that comes with it, so wet and slick and shiny. He can’t help the growl he gives, before covering his mouth with yours again.

As you kiss, sloppy and desperate, Tomura slides the head of his cock against you and you’re so slippery and soft and molten for him that his next moan tapers off into a whine.

You pull away fractionally, “Shouldn’t we–”

He thinks maybe you were about to ask about protection of some kind, but he shoves inside you hard, breaches your body and watches as your eyes roll back, just about to cross as your nails turn sharp against his back.

You moan, low and drawn out.

He can’t help the absurd laugh that is wretched from him, his head dropping onto your neck as he snaps his hips forward. He can’t believe he’s actually gotten you here, in his bed, beneath him– let him inside where you’re so warm and soft.

“Fuck,” you gasp, maybe laced with pain, clawing at him, raking your nails down his back.

“Does it hurt?” he hisses, excited, his teeth coming down to close over your exposed neck.

“Yes,” you get out, almost a whimper, “Feels good, too.”

He snaps his hip forwards roughly, grinding deep as he laughs again when you just about sob into his shoulder.

You latch your teeth onto the vulnerable juncture between his neck and his shoulder, where you’d already laid claim to him once before.

He wrestles for your wrist, the one he broke, and forces it down onto the bed.

“Look at you,” he almost snarls, voice low and gravely, “Little hero letting me fuck her.”

You gasp when he angles his hips, when his other hand reaches beneath you, to fist a hand in your hair and pull so your neck is arched and exposed to him.

“I used to dream of this,” he admits roughly, the confession like a curse being spit out of his mouth, “Wanted to stalk you or possess you or–” he groans because he can feel how you’re throbbing around him, how slick you are for him, “Wanted to fucking ruin you–”

He pulls at your hair more, tries to get you to look at him through your wet lashes. The flash of pink meets red and his smile is more a cruel bearing of teeth.

“And you feel so much better than I dreamt– fuck, so much tighter–” he babbles as he ruts into you hard and quick. You keen, high and broken, just as he feels you flutter around him again and he almost loses his mind because–

“Are you going to fucking come again?” he growls, pulling harder on your hair.

“Yes,” you groan, “Please, fuck, please, c’mon–” your voice is high and wrecked and all he has to do is angle his hips a few more times before you’re shattering, nearly breaking apart, squeezing down on his cock so tightly that he shudders, that he let’s go of your hair just to focus on his own pleasure.

He doesn’t even realize he’s drooling into your neck, not as he loses his rhythm, as he shoves himself as deep into you as he can and comes hard. Pleasure races up his spine, turns him white-hot and sensitive, making his eyes roll back into his head, too.

You’re both breathing hard when he collapses on top of you. Your fingers, which were once scratching down his back to cause sharp shooting pain, are now surprisingly gentle, slipping back into his hair.

You squirm, fussing slightly– no doubt sore, no doubt aching with him still inside you but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t want to.

He mouths at your neck, feels you sigh, before he moves to cover his mouth with yours again. He kisses you languidly now, slow and deep.

You’re making breathy little noises against him, content and surprisingly soft, your other hand tracing over his side.

(He doesn’t like how much he enjoys this part, the afterglow, all that violence slipping away, expelled from you both–)

Tomura feels his cock twitch inside of you again, feels your hips arch up a little, and before he knows it, he’s moving his hips again. It’s a slow rocking, your lips still attached to his, heated and gentle.

“Gross,” you say again, just a breath against him as he fucks his cum further into you, feels himself harden, feels the mess he made of you. But you still hitch your leg over his hip, pull him deeper into you.

He grins lazily against your lips, “You like it,” he says and it’s not a question, rolling his hips until he gets you to shut your eyes and moan against him.

“Yeah,” you reply, nudging your cheek against his, rubbing like a cat until he returns the gesture. Until he’s humming because he’s sensitive and you feel so good, better than anything he’s ever felt in this miserable fucking life–

You whine a little, ‘Touch me again?”

He doesn’t deny you for whatever reason, doesn’t even have something smart to say as he slides his hand down your torso, down to where you’re both slick and connected. He rubs unpracticed, messy circles around that sensitive bundle of nerves until you’re sighing.

He’s no expert but he doesn’t really care and you don’t seem to mind this time, either. It’s unhurried now, lazy.

This time your peak is a fluttery, soft thing, and he watches as you gasp, as you blink away tears. She’s pretty, he thinks, feeling stupidly young again, she’s pretty like this. Like his dreams.

Tomura spills inside you again soon after, groaning against your collarbones, and this time you force him to slip out of you. Force him to lay beside you as you both catch your breath again.

And he’s not expecting it, but he has the vicious need to be close to you, desperately wants to feel your skin against his. It’s a new feeling– usually after sex, he wants to be as far away from someone as possible. Usually he can’t leave or kick them out fast enough.

But there’s something about you now, hazy and pleasure-drunk, fucked out and dazed, that makes him want to stay close. Maybe it’s just that you’ve soothed all the festering that usually squirms in his chest. Maybe it’s just that you’ve made everything in him quiet for once.

He expects you to find some sort of your regret now, he’s sure that you’ll feel guilty, collect your clothes and go. But you don’t. You stay in bed with him. And it’s strange but he knows he wants to touch you, so he does. He doesn’t deny himself, why would he? He’s always taken what he wanted.

He curls around you, shivering a little with the skin to skin contact after the fog of sex has cleared from his mind. His hands slide over you, touch you fully and without restraint because he can, because you won’t disappear beneath his touch.

And for a moment, as he traces along the dips of your waist, he thinks maybe you were made for him– cut from his rib, isn’t that how the story goes?

He doesn’t know, only that there’s no one else in the world he can touch like this.

You’re surprised.

You’d figured after Tomura had his fill of you, he’d kick you out, send you away. You figured you’d feel guilty, that you would rush out of here and try to wish the whole thing away. But your hero suit stays on the floor and you’re still in his bed.

You didn’t think he’d be a cuddler, you assumed that he wouldn’t want nor care for any sort of contact after. But his arms are wrapped around you now, one of his hands sliding curiously over the curves of your body. All five fingers down, pressing into your skin.

But you suppose, for someone who has to be so careful with touch, that he would like this. That he might want this. You wonder if he ever gets to touch anyone like this, if he ever allows himself intimate touch like this– tender and for no other reason than to soothe or comfort.

You get the impression that he doesn’t, that touch is just a means to an end for him; sex is probably just an itch to scratch. You can’t imagine that he’s very relaxed or enjoying himself when he’s worried about decaying the person he’s with.

But all his crackling, restless energy now seems subdued, sated, as he walks his fingers over you. His hair tickles your bare skin as he nudges closer, nose running along your jaw.

Once more, you feel your age. You don’t feel like a hero, but just someone young, maybe on the cusp of being old. He looks young now, too, with his vivid eyes shut and relaxed, nothing to crease his brow. He doesn’t seem like a villain, either.

You brush a finger over his cheek, touch lightly at the scratches beneath his eyes, drag your thumb down to touch the scar at the corner of his lips.

His eyes flutter open to watch you, half lidded, squinted almost like a cat.

But he allows you to run your fingers over his face, doesn’t protest or jerk away from your touch.

No, his eyes fall shut again. He lets out a deep sigh that you think he has held inside him for years.

He doesn’t have a gentle face, but one that shows it’s angles and sharp edges, the scars and cuts that trail down onto his neck. You’d noticed some on his chest, too. Proof of an uneasy life lived, proof of violence and pain.

You imagine he’s seen horrors, kept them trapped inside for fear of letting them spill out, like maybe it’ll be as gruesome as the memories.

His body hasn’t been handled gently, you can tell, with it’s indents and scars and scratches. You don’t know who was the last person who touched him without wanting to hurt him. And you shouldn’t but you think of yourself when you were a child– desperate for love and affection, desperate for any scrap of attention like the scavenger you always were.

Maybe still are.

So desperate that you’d end up in the bed of your enemy– all because you couldn’t end up in the bed of your ally. So hungry that you’d eat out of a hand that has harmed and killed and destroyed.

Hands that haven’t known gentleness, a body that hasn’t known peace. But he’s being gentle with you now, isn’t he?

So you try to give gentleness to him now, too, with your careful touch. You keep your fingers kind and sympathetic.

Even your own eyes drift shut for a moment, still tracing idle patterns into his skin.

You only slip away from him for a moment, to use the bathroom, to clean up. Your reflection in the mirror looks strange; raw and flushed with color. Honest in a way that makes you turn away.

You slip back into bed with Tomura, let him latch onto you again. You drag your fingers gently over his ribs, over his sides.

You let your eyes fall shut, too.

There’s a sudden, loud buzzing from the floor that cuts through the quiet, which makes your eyes startle open. It’s insistent and you realize after a moment that it’s your phone, caught up in your hero suit on the floor.

You never came home after your shift. You curse softly, almost certain you know who's calling.

You squirm out of Tomura’s hold again, which he huffs at in irritation, but eventually allows you up.

“Where are you going now?” he asks, annoyed, when you climb out of bed to find your phone. Once found, you hold it up to him.

It’s still buzzing in your hand, lit up with Shouta’s contact.

You think the guilt should hit you now.

It doesn’t and that’s what you feel worse over. You swallow hard, frown down at your phone.

(Horribly, you even feel somewhat spiteful, as if you’re trying to prove something to Shouta. Maybe to yourself.)

You don’t answer.

And then you see the several texts from him, wondering where you are. They’re all bland, but you can tell he must be worried. It’s unlike you to not tell him where you are.

“Are you going to leave?” Tomura asks and there’s something strange in his voice, something you can’t place.

“Do you want me to?” you ask in return.

He doesn’t answer right away. But he does eventually give an annoyed drawl, “Do what you want.”

You take that as a no, don’t leave, since you’re certain if he wanted you gone, he would’ve told you.

You send a text to Shouta;

Sorry. Staying with an old friend for the night. Be back tomorrow.

It’s not unheard of, for you to spend time with an old friend from the foster care system.

You get a dry “okay” from him in response. You fight the urge to roll your eyes for some reason, tossing your phone away again.

You end up staying the night with Tomura Shigaraki, one of the most wanted villains in all of Japan.

Its not romantic— he isn’t sweet or funny or caring. But he holds you tight, leaves no room for distance. And it is the first time you’ve ever slept with someone like this, tucked away into a bed, bare, and wrapped up in each other.

Is this what it always feels like? You press yourself into the crooks of his body. You wonder if you’re supposed to fit this well together.

And it’s the first time since his Quirk developed that he hasn’t needed to wear his partial gloves to sleep in fear of decaying something.

He won’t admit it but it’s the best he’s slept in a long, long time.

You won’t admit it, either, but you think you could get used to this, too; this closeness, being held as if you’ll slip away, being held like he doesn’t want you to.

The morning brings rosy sunlight that slants through the windows. Neither of you talk much. You try to tell yourself this won’t happen again, can’t happen again.

But you had kissed him goodbye before you’d left, like he was a boyfriend and not a criminal, and you’d been in a surprisingly good mood for the rest of the day.

Like you had a crush, puppy love you never got as a teenager because you were too busy trying not to starve, only to realize you’d been starving in other ways, too.

But you’re sugar soft and excitable, dropping into bed that night alone, and allowing yourself to admit, in the quiet and privacy of your own thoughts, that you wish you were in his again.

***

One time turns into two which turns into three which turns into so many times you’ve lost count. That little, rundown apartment that isn’t really Tomura’s has turned into another world entirely, some harbor away from the rules of society. It’s almost too good to be true, a dream, a place for a secret as bad as this one.

When you’re here, you don’t talk of heroes and villains. You urge him not to; you think you’ll keep some part of your innocence in this affair if you don’t actually know anything about him or the League of Villains. You’ll feel too guilty, if you know any part of their plans and don’t tell Shouta. And telling Shouta anything about Tomura is beginning to feel like a betrayal, too.

You don’t know anything substantial about Tomura Shigaraki and that’s the way it needs to stay.

You know he likes sour candy, though, and drinks too many energy drinks– they’re sickly sweet and you think kissing him might make your teeth ache. You know he likes video games but no longer has a console. He has trouble sleeping at night. You’re familiar with the scars on his skin, the jagged ones across his neck, the one on his lip. The beauty mark on his chin. You know his moods; from the prickly ones to the downright vengeful ones. You even know the calmer ones, the quiet, contemplative ones.

(In this way, he seems like a normal twenty-something-year-old. In the quiet moments, when you’ve convinced him to watch a cheap horror movie on the tiny, staticky TV in the apartment, he could be anybody. When he’s got his bare hand up your shirt as someone onscreen screams and begs for their life, he’s not the heir to an underground empire. He’s just Tomura, with his face buried in the crook of your neck).

He pretends to get annoyed with you, huffs and scoffs against your lips when you’re being cheeky. You wear his worn down hoodies, slip your thumbs in the holes at the sleeves. He eyes you when you wear them, pulls you to him by the collar.

(He likes to fuck you in them– pushes the hoodie up your stomach to watch you ride him. But he likes things bare and raw, too. Skin to skin. So close it’s terrifying, so close you feel like he’s trying to tear you apart from the inside out. He likes it dirty, you think, because it makes it more intimate.)

You soothe him. You know you do because when he’s festering and angry, all it takes is your hand on his wrist, pulling it away from his neck. Sometimes, when he can’t think straight and there is too much on his mind, he forces you to lay on top of him until his breathing slows and his head is clear.

He can’t talk to you aloud about what’s plaguing him, but you must quiet some part of him. He likes to use you to think, runs his long fingers through your hair as you lay atop him. He pets you until his thoughts aren’t as jumbled, but smoothed out and sharp. Or until he doesn’t want to think anymore at all and he drags you into languid makeouts that always end with him surrounding you, inside you, possessing you.

You bicker sometimes, flash your teeth to make his eyes spark ruby and excited. Mostly, you act your age with him.

You don’t know when his birthday is or where he grew up. You don’t know what his childhood was like or what memories shaped him, don’t know where he’s been or where he’s going to be. You only know him now, in this moment, in this little world you’ve created for each other.

He’s what you imagined first boyfriends are supposed to be; excitable and often immature but fun and new. You never had the luxury of first loves, just odd first kisses with strangers and an uncomfortable loss of virginity with a friend of a friend of a friend who jammed his tongue too far down your throat. You hadn’t had anything stable until–

Until Shouta.

Shouta has grown suspicious of this old friend of yours and how much time you now spend with him.

He questions you about him and you wish you felt worse for lying. The rebellious part of this affair is thrilling, though. Feels like you’re sixteen and sneaking out from under your dad’s nose to be picked up by the boyfriend you’d know he’d hate. Feels like swiping liquor too young and getting sick off it, smashing the bottles and laughing with your friends because sometimes things just need to break.

“Will you at least tell me his name?” Shouta had asked one morning, when you’d let yourself into his apartment after another night at Tomura’s. You had your own hood pulled up around your face to hide the rose blossom hickeys against the skin of your neck.

He’d still poured you a cup of coffee. You’d watched his careful, large hands as they made it the way you liked it.

You’d given him a lie, fed it to him the way he feeds you breakfast, “Shinta. Are you happy?”

He’d slid the mug to you, let you catch in the cradle of your palm. He’d shrugged, but you think his eyes had flashed to you, “You know you can bring him around, right? You don’t always have to go to him.”

You’d had to bite back a painful laugh. It wasn’t funny. It had hurt strangely in the pit of your chest.

You had shaken your head, tried to brush him off, “It’s not like that.”

“Alright,” he’d said, but he hadn’t believed you. “You’re training alone with Shinsou again tonight, I’ll be busy with a job.” Then he’d given you a stern look, “And don’t cut it early to go see Shinta.”

“I’ve never done that!” you’d protested, perhaps a little too defensively. But it was true, you’d never do that to Shinsou, wouldn’t dream of it. The only time you’d cut training early was to share takeout with Shinsou, not ditch him for–

This comment had rubbed you wrong, scratched up against something abrasive and surprisingly fragile inside of you. Maybe because he was questioning your dedication which already felt so flimsy, even if he hadn’t been entirely serious, even if maybe he’d just been trying to take a dig at you. At this new boyfriend.

Shouta had grown cold then, shrugged impassively, took his mug of coffee and brushed past you to keep getting ready.

It had angered you enough to bring it up later to Tomura, when you’re falling into his lap and he’s squirming his cold, fluttery hands beneath your shirt to touch skin, to make you hiss through your teeth.

His lips tilt into a small smile as you fidget while he warms his frigid fingers on your body.

“Eraserhead asked about you yesterday,” you tell him, letting your nose brush against his, “Told me I could bring my friend around– don’t always have to go to him.”

Tomura snorts, eyes falling half-lidded when your lips skim over his. The night is plum dark, presses into this little apartment that’s tucked away from the world.

“How’d you get out of that one?” he asks, fingers walking over the dips of your spine. He likes tracing the bone beneath your skin, likes making you shiver.

“Told him it’s not like that.” you respond, your own hands wandering to his neck. You're careful over the ridges of flesh there, skim lightly to get to his jaw.

“No?” Tomura asks, pulling you closer, pressing his chest to yours, “Don’t want to bring me home to meet Eraserhead?” he sneers and there’s something underneath his voice, lurking, with its hackles raised.

You think maybe it’s jealousy, the same flash of his eyes like Shouta’s when he’d said Shinta.

But then he kisses you deep and drags your hips against his, forces a warbly, surprised little moan from you.

Most of your thoughts melt away then, most turn to something base and desperate, all desire and need. You can’t help but think about it, though, how you can’t ever take him home to Shouta. You can’t ever expect anything more than whatever stays in this room. He kisses you hard, your teeth clinking against his like clashing with the truth of it all.

There’s no happy ending here.

It’s like smashing bottles because sometimes things just need to break.

***

Tomura thinks you would be a good edition to the League of Villains.

You’re clever and capable. He comes to find you’re not just a good thief and pickpocket but an excellent one. You swipe everything from his pockets, right from under his nose, just to play with him. You’re stealthy and sharp; he could use someone like you at his side.

Your Quirk could be useful, though he doesn’t like the idea of you getting so close to people while in battles. You have a reckless streak, but he thinks he could temper that. All you need is a little guidance.

You were a thief once. You give him clues of your past; you didn’t grow up like the other heroes, didn’t come from a warm home with dreams of saving the world. Your head wasn’t filled with fantasies of rescuing the downtrodden. You were the downtrodden. And you learned that there was no one who was going to save you, except yourself. So you stole and fought and survived a world that was willing to forget you.

You’re like him, a very quiet part of him thinks, no one saved you. Not until you were too old, all grown up with sharpened teeth and claws, eyes that see in the dark. That could be now used and extorted by the heroes.

He thinks they’ve leashed you, taught you how to sit and stay and sic ‘em.

He wonders if he’d have gotten to you first, if you’d be with him and not your heroes.

Tomura doesn’t dwell on it, though. He refuses to imagine it. What would be the point? It didn’t happen.

Besides, he is certain he is capable of slowly swaying you to them still. You possess a startling amount of compassion for villains which, perhaps wouldn’t help you as a villain, but that’s fine.

(You’d have him. No one would touch you if you were at his side. You could be as stupidly compassionate as you wanted.)

You meet members of the League with him by accident, times when Toga and Twice’s meeting with him overlap with you arriving. Toga goes on endlessly about you, it seems. Dabi drops by once in the middle of the night, bloody and demanding a place to sleep because he’s tired of sleeping on the streets.

It’d been one of the more insufferable nights, perhaps one of the worst ways for Dabi to find out about you. You’d already been asleep, cocooned beneath blankets and Tomura’s body, just in one of his loose shirts.

Tomura had already been lying awake, listening to your even breathing when he’d heard the handle of the door shake roughly. He’d gotten up then, slipped into clothes, melted into the darkness by the door and waited for the intruder to try and step inside.

The lock had been picked.

He had nearly decayed Dabi by accident before realizing it was him.

A ridiculously quiet but terse argument had ensued then, before Dabi had asked, in a regular speaking voice, “Why the fuck are we whispering?”

Tomura had almost winced when he heard you stir from the bed before your small, sleepy voice had murmured into the darkness, “Tomura?”

You’d said it too soft, too sweet. It’d been for his ears only and something about Dabi hearing you, seeing you, being in this space that had been for you and for him had made Tomura suddenly livid.

He had watched Dabi’s mouth fall open in shock before you’d switched on the bedside lamp to flood the room with artificial, golden light.

Dabi’s face had been near horrific in the light, one side of it all bloody, the stitches mangled or falling out. Part of his face almost looked like it was melting, his eye squinted shut with the damage.

But he’d thrown his head back and laughed when he’d seen you, sitting up in the bed, blinking sleepily at them. Tomura hated a lot of things, but he’d hated nothing more than the sound of Dabi’s rasping laugh in that moment.

You’d narrowed your eyes when you had realized who it was.

“I had no idea you had it in you, Tomura.” Dabi had said.

“Why the fuck are you here?” Tomura had hissed instead, fighting the urge to tear into his neck, fingers twitching agitatedly.

Dabi had gestured to his face with a lazy flourish, “I need medical attention and I’m crashing on your couch.”

Tomura’s teeth had ground together, “Get. Out.”

“No, I’m sick of sleeping on the streets when you’re here playing house with your little hero bitch–”

Before Tomura could even react, though, you had found the small supply of first aid from beneath the sink in the tiny bathroom. You had come up beside them near silently and offered it up, asked, “Do you want help?”

And there it had been– that compassion of yours. Even for the likes of Dabi.

In that moment, he’d wondered how you had ever survived with it. He’d thought that you’d lose your hand if you kept extending it.

Dabi hadn’t let you touch him but you’d gotten a cool rag for him to clean up the blood, watched as he tried to patch up the wound. It was made worse by a mangled staple in his cheek, jutting out strangely.

“Does it hurt?” You’d asked but with the way you were looking at him, at his marred skin up close, Tomura could tell that you weren’t just referring to this one injury.

Does it hurt? You’d asked, like you were asking if it all hurt. You weren’t just seeing a singular part of Dabi, but a series of tragedies that was proudly presented in large, rippling scars against his skin.

“Of course it fucking hurts,” Dabi had spit out, all venom and bitterness. But you hadn’t even flinched.

Tomura had tried to kick him out again once his wound had been treated.

“It’s fine,” you’d said, resigned, tired and rubbing at your eyes.

(Later you’d shrug and tell him, I know what it’s like to not have somewhere to sleep).

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Dabi had drawled, already pulling off his heavy boots, prying the coat from his body to toss onto the floor. “Just don’t do any weird shit.”

And you’d gotten back into bed with Tomura, fit yourself against him, ducked your head down beneath his chin and pressed your hands against his sides, felt the notches of his ribs.

Sometimes he wonders if you can feel the missing one, the one you took from him, the one you’d been made out of.

It had occurred to Tomura that either you didn’t fear Dabi or you trusted him enough to know he’d never let Dabi harm you while sleeping.

Both were acceptable to him, both would aid him in converting you. And they were true, too. You shouldn’t fear Dabi, especially not with him around.

Tomura had brought his hand up then, suddenly covered your mouth with his large palm, letting all five of his fingers come down against your pretty face.

You’d furrowed your brows in confusion, not fear, which made something inside of him grow warm and hungry.

Then he’d slid his other hand down your body, between your legs, just to spite Dabi.

He’d watched as your eyes went wide in the dark, cheeks flushing beneath his hand. He could feel his smirk, smug and sharp, fitting across his teeth like a muzzle.

You’d tried to shake your head, tried to squirm away from his touch, but he’d been persistent and soon enough you were sighing against his hand, melting into the bed he pressed you into. Soon enough you were trying to hold back whimpers, all slippery and soft beneath his fingers, silently begging with your eyes.

He hadn’t denied you that night; no, you were being good, walking the steps he wanted for you. You were moldable and sweet beneath him so he’d give you what you wanted.

He watched in satisfaction as you came hard around his fingers, face scrunching up in that way he loved, fingers easing you through it. He was gentle with you then, taking his hand away from your mouth slowly, letting you nudge closer and cling to him.

(He loved when you clung to him).

You’d wanted so much affection that night and he had indulged you, letting your nose brush against his, or rubbing your cheek against his chest while his fingers wound through your hair.

You’d fallen asleep all tied up in him.

The next morning, you were gone before Dabi even woke up.

Dabi had asked, “What the fuck are you doing with her?”

“Mind your business,” Tomura had snapped, fingers already seeking out his neck again when they couldn't find you. He hated that he wanted your presence so badly now. (Hated that he missed you, but he would never say that, never even dream of it). Then he’d added,“And find someone else’s doorstep to show up on.”

Dabi had scoffed, “Whatever. Just don’t get distracted.” He’d pulled out a cigarette from his jacket still on the floor then, much to Tomura’s annoyance, and lit it with a spark of his fingers. Smoke curled into the air with his first drag. “I’m not about to watch all our efforts fall apart because you wanted to play Romeo and Juliet with some braindead little hero.”

He’d torn into the skin of his neck then. Wished he could tear into you instead.

“Violent delights and violent ends and all that shit,” Dabi had said then, his smile just a curled stitch, smoke pouring from his lips, evidently amused with himself.

But Tomura has never read that play and he doesn’t know anything about poetry in the same way he doesn’t know anything about art or beauty, just that you’re the only thing he’s bothered to compare to a painting.

***

You put Tomura into your phone as Shinta and when you’re too busy to visit him between missions and training, you text him. Though short, he is surprisingly witty over text, something that has you biting back grins and distracted, feeling like a schoolgirl as you try to hide the screen of your phone from the rest of the world.

You grow distracted with hero work, with Shouta. You pay less attention to your life at U.A. You don’t visit Shouta for lunch as often. You haven’t spent a quiet night with Shouta in weeks. You tell yourself you don’t care.

It’s better than fighting with him. It’s better than trying to beg for his love and affection.

Early tomorrow morning you’re supposed to shadow Shouta on a brief mission.

The Hero Commission is trying to train you into espionage and underground work, trying to mold you in the shape of Shouta.

But at night, when you’re alone in your bedroom, tucked away into your own apartment and not with Tomura, he calls you.

You let yourself say his name into the receiver of your phone, hushed and excited.

He doesn’t say I miss you or when will I see you again?

He says, “Touch yourself.”

And you don’t say I miss you, too, or hopefully soon.

You do as he says, let your fingers fan out over your stomach like they might be his. You listen to his breathing turn ragged over the phone. You moan softly for him.

You do what he says in the navy dark of night, bite back frustrated whines because you’ve gotten too used to his touch.

“–Wish it was you, fuck, it’s not fair,” you gasp, tilting your hips up into your fingers desperately.

You can hear the hiss of breath he takes, “Did I ruin you?” he croons into the phone lowly, his voice slithering through to you, making your thighs clench. “Can’t even touch yourself without needing me?”

You groan, high and defeated, fingers slipping against yourself. You’re aching and empty and bereft without him, “Yes, yes–”

He rambles about what he’s done to you, almost seething by the end, when he demands you tell him that you’re his, that he’s the one who made you this way. He’s the only one who can soothe you now. You need him.

He isn’t wrong, you realize, when you still aren’t satisfied after your climax. When it doesn’t feel as good as when you’re with him. You realize you hate sleeping alone now. You miss the press of his body to yours. You coo into the phone about it, lay on your stomach, arms curled around your pillow with your ear still to your phone.

It never gets overly sentimental. You don’t want to scare him, especially as you grow terrified of your own feelings. It doesn’t feel as fun anymore, you realize, only because your attraction to him has now grown serious.

Your crush has grown teeth and claws, ready to tear apart the vulnerable, fleshy parts of you.

But he talks with you until you fall asleep, phone still in hand, heart still on the line.

***

There’s a stray kitten that hangs out around Tomura’s apartment– he thinks there must be a colony of strays in the area, since it’s not the only one. But this one is scrawny, just a messy tuft of grey fur. It’d be sleek and pretty, if it wasn’t so malnourished, if it wasn’t missing clumps of fur or full of scars and scratches.

The kitten likes Tomura a great deal for some reason. It rubs itself against his legs, follows him around outside of the apartment, much to your utter delight.

You coo and fawn over it, scoop the little thing up into your arms and hold it up to Tomura’s face.

He hates it, the face you give him. The face the kitten gives him. He hates that the corner of his lips twitch upwards.

“He’s so cute,” you gush and he can hear now that the little thing is purring furiously in your hands. You wiggle the cat a little bit in front of his face and Tomura finally reaches up to stroke the back of his knuckles against the kitten’s head, if only to appease you.

Your smile is crooked– an excited curve of your lips, your eyes alight.

You’re always so expressive and he used to be livid about it, wanted to teach you a lesson in the worst way possible, but now he just wants to keep you from learning them.

He has to turn away from you at the thought, heads towards the door of the apartment building. You follow after him dutifully, coming up to nudge against his side. He’s become too comfortable with you there, knocking into his elbow.

You’re still smiling down at the kitten in your arms and he wants to look away because some part of this is starting to sting.

The kitten is excitedly looking around, green eyes all round and bright. It’s purring happily.

“Put it down, it’s not coming in with us.” Tomura tells you, his voice rough and soft.

You stop in front of the door with him. Your bottom lip pulls out into a pout. Your eyes get round like the kitten’s.

He gives you a cold stare.

You hug the kitten tighter to your body, “C’mon,” you whine, “It’s just a baby.”

“I’m not taking care of a cat.”

“I’ll take care of it!”

“No,” he responds, harsher, voice a little sharper.

Maybe, in the beginning of this little affair, you would’ve headed the warning in his tone, but now you don’t even bat an eye at him.

“Yes,” you respond indignantly.

You both glare at each other. The kitten’s purr still rumbles on.

Tomura can tell you’re not giving this one up, he can tell by the set of your jaw, the way you’re clinging to that little creature. There’s a determined flush to your face. Your eyes are bright and fiery.

All over this little stray.

“You’re a brat,” is all Tomura says and you take that as a win, because your face immediately morphs, brightens up completely. You duck past him, into the apartment building with the kitten cradled in your arms.

He heaves a deep sigh, following in after you. “I’m kicking it out when you leave.”

“Don’t be mean,” you reply, waiting at the door, and the irony is not lost on him. He comes up behind you, his chest to your back, crowding you against the door.

“I think you need to remember who you’re speaking to,” he says, his voice just a rasp against your ear and maybe at some point, it would’ve sounded threatening, but now you just lean back into his chest. His heart beats against the curve of your back.

Something soft is growing between the two of you, he can feel it. It has no place here, though, in this world. In the two of you. His ugly infatuation with you, all that anger and vitriol he had for you has melted, turned spring soft inside of him after an unforgiving winter.

He unlocks the door, he lets you in.

The kitten ends up coming and going. He opens the window to let it in and out, let’s you feed it. You call it Ryuji. It lives partially in this new little world the two of you have built.

He thinks of it like the pause screen in a video game, somewhere to return to when he’s frustrated or tired or done. Idle, soft music and the freezing of his screen. A moment away from the turmoil or struggle of the game.

But he’ll have to unpause eventually.

He can’t stay here forever, he knows it, but he just has to be sure he plays it right– he doesn’t think he’ll be able to start over this time, with you.

And he wants you there at the ending, at his side like in his dreams.

The ones where it’s all in ruins, the world nothing but his, destroyed, but he gives you his hand to have, and you take it in yours to hold.

***

The distance between you and Shouta stretches and grows until it snaps in the form of a blowout argument. Which, is mostly just you, shouting, crying furiously, and Shouta stone-faced and cool.

It had started with an offhand comment from him about how you’re not focused anymore. You’re getting sloppy. You’re distracted. And usually, you take his criticism with a stiff upper lip and a determined glare.

But you and Shouta haven’t been the same since you tried to kiss him.

You blame yourself, maybe, but part of you feels angry with him, too. Bitter. You thought, in some way, he reciprocated your feelings. He’d acted like it. And when he’d rejected you, he’d pulled away, been more careful with you.

(You wonder if this proves your point, that he was toeing a line with you then.)

And maybe your lies are starting to eat at you, too, starting to rot away on the inside of you. If you focused on them too hard and all that Shouta’s done for you, you think you’d start crying every time you looked at him.

But Tomura has also thrown all you know into question. And you’d already been critical of the life you were afforded by becoming a hero.

You look at all of Shouta’s students and you just get angry. You look at Shinsou, so determined to prove he can be a hero, that he’s good and you are livid. You look at Toga, with her villainous Quirk. She’s near Shinsou’s age and something about it just makes you ache, it makes you sick.

You look at her and see who she could’ve been as a hero– you wonder if they would’ve stuck her in espionage, with the likes of you and Shouta. You wonder if she would’ve gone to U.A. You wonder what it would’ve taken to change her fate.

Even Tomura, you look at him and in the safety and privacy of your own heart, you dare to wonder what he would’ve been like if he hadn’t been a villain.

(He could’ve been a rescue hero, you think, and he could’ve decayed debris to save people. This version of him lives in the quiet, tentative parts of you. It grows soft and underground, a seedling that has sprouted on the inside of your chest, and one day you think this little dream of yours will grow so large inside of you that it’ll breach skin and show the world it’s horror.)

It feels like a coin toss, almost, like the difference between a hero and a villain sometimes is one flip away from changing.

You don’t bother to wonder what would’ve happened if it hadn’t been Shouta that found you, but someone like Tomura. Or All For One. You know if you’d been given somewhere to sleep and a warm meal, you would’ve done what they wanted.

You wish you could say you were a noble, starving person, that there was something shining and golden inside of you. But all you were was starving.

Shouta says you’ve been underperforming lately. He says he’s considering limiting the nights you patrol until you can get it together.

The Hero Commission was supposed to come observe you to see if you’d progressed enough to begin accepting your own missions. He tells you he doesn’t think they should come any longer. It feels like a dig, too, like he’s reprimanding you somehow.

And you snap, “Well maybe I didn’t want them to observe me!”

He looks taken aback for a moment, before he asks, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know! Maybe I’m tired of being observed and used and watching all of these kids be observed and sought after and–”

“Alright,” Shouta sighs, and it makes your teeth grit because he sounds like he’s trying to parent you, “It’s one thing to be upset yourself, but I don’t see how this has anything to do with these kids.”

Your nails dig into your palms as you try to find the words to get him to understand you.

But he speaks before you can, almost patronizingly, “Clearly, you’re struggling through something, so it’s probably a good thing we’ve put this off.”

Tears well up hard and fast. It hurts to be dismissed like this. It hurts to look at him, to think that he’s a part of the ever growing issue that has been itching beneath your skin. You’re a part of it, too, but you have the sudden urge to run. To get out.

Still, you swallow down all of that turmoil and say, “I hardly know what I want now, so how do you expect children to know that they want to be a hero?”

“What is this about?” Shouta asks.

“It’s about the Hero Commission and U.A. and the entire fucking system. That’s what it’s about.” you seethe, looking up into his eyes, trying to find something there.

“It’s not just about you?” he asks, unperturbed.

“Why can’t it be both?” you respond, trying to keep your voice from going high, from going hysterical. There’s so much you want to say, so much that it’s making you sick, that it’s turning your stomach. “I’m– I’m barely older than them!” you say, because all you keep thinking about is how they’re just kids. And you were just a kid. And at one point, Tomura was just a kid.

He’s barely older than you. Closer in age to Shouta’s students than to him.

“I didn’t invent the system,” Shouta says and he sounds weary, “I just try to give my students the best opportunity at surviving being a hero. I try to teach them everything to keep them alive.”

They’re just kids! You want to shriek, kids that were chosen or forgotten or accepted or shunned.

Looking in the face of the system now feels so massive that it’s hopeless; a system that produces shiny heroes from children with their perfect and acceptable Quirks and discards the rest. Even you and Shouta, with your Quirks that aren’t as flashy, are pushed into the shadows to do the Hero Commissions business. And what business is that? You have to wonder their intentions, too, with all the money that’s pumped into it. Into all of these heroes. A system that forgets anyone who doesn’t fit into it’s perfect mold.

“But you see how it’s wrong, right? And just because you didn’t invent the system doesn’t mean you get to throw your hands up!” You say, voice raising.

Shouta levels you with a cool look. He lets loose a sigh. “What would you like me to do?”

You don’t have an answer, it’s too big of a question.

(You see the appeal suddenly, in wanting to get rid of it all, in destroying it since it’s such a mess.)

But you hate his aloofness, you hate that he doesn’t care. You hate that you feel crazy.

“I don’t know!” you shout, tears finally falling down your angry and flushed face. “I don’t know!”

“Are you done?” Shouta asks and it makes you want to scream more. You just want a reaction from him, you realize, you want something more than his impassiveness. You think of trying to shout more, to try and say something cutting or powerful or enough to make him wince.

But nothing comes to mind and you’re just stubbornly trying to keep back a sob.

So you shoulder past him, rush out of his apartment, rubbing at your cheeks and trying to keep back your hiccuping cries.

You have every intention of going to Tomura’s.

But you realize when you’ve nearly made it to his door that it might be foolish to go to someone like Tomura with tears in your eyes. What is the leader of the League of Villains going to do? You have a feeling you might just get your feelings hurt more.

So you pause, rub at your eyes again, try to dispel all the turmoil inside you. It doesn’t work, so you turn away from him, too, and you start moving.

Your feet carry you to the train station, carry you across town, to a warehouse you used to vandalize and hide in when you were young and alone.

You haven’t been here in years.

It feels strange, loping around the side of the building. The alleyways are cast in garnet light with the fading sun. It makes it look prettier than it is. You enter through the same hole in the wall that you used to when you were young; you’re bigger now, though, need to duck lower, curl yourself up to get through it.

You think of yourself scurrying around, knowing the ins and outs of this dilapidated building the way most children know their childhood home.

It’s strange, stepping back into a place you haven’t been to in years. You know, in some way, it has to have changed. It’s falling apart more, there’s larger holes in the ceiling, letting in auburn light, setting everything ablaze. There’s a lot of debris; from torn tents to discarded sleeping bags to spare junk, it’s all spread out throughout the place. Graffiti covers every corner of the walls. You used to look for a face painted in pink, it’s eyes dripping down it’s face in the back corner of a wall. When your eyes slide along all the artwork, it’s nowhere to be found now. No doubt covered up by the years, but you know it’s there, somewhere beneath all that color and paint.

There are a lot of empty bottles, glass laying around that crunches beneath your shoe.

You pick up a glass by the spout, watch as it catches in the light, murky gold and sunkissed.

You feel small again, fragile like the bottle in your hand. You stopped crying at least, but all that’s left is the aftertaste. Just the lingering frustration, the bitter aloneness that settles over you as cold as Shouta’s stare.

Your fingers squeeze around the glass, curling tight, before you suddenly hurl it at the wall.

It bursts on impact, explodes into thousands of shining, glittering pieces that spark in the sun.

It feels good, so you pick up another glass– this one’s mint green, pretty like the sea, reminds you of spring and the stems of flowers.

It breaks prettily, too, the sound ringing and sharp in your ears, your eyes trying to catch all the splinters of it. It explodes in the light. It’s cathartic, letting all your aching frustration and hurt rush out with each breaking, with each smashing.

You don’t get through many more, not before you hear footsteps behind you.

You can’t say you’re surprised to find Tomura, but you can’t say you were expecting it either. Quickly, you turn away, try to school your features. You try to rub at your eyes again, as if this will somehow dispel damp lashes and splotchy cheeks.

“Are you stalking me?” you ask, but there’s no bite to it as he comes to stand beside you.

He doesn’t answer.

You think he might be, but you can’t find it in you to care.

The sound of the distant city is just a hum between you two. Glass sparkles on the floor like stars in the fading, ruby light.

You turn to face him, don’t bother trying to look up into his face, just shove yourself into his chest. You bury your face into his hoodie, rubbing your cheek against his chest. “Creep,” you mumble, “What are you doing here?”

His hands come up, one at the back of your head, the other along your back. He has his gloves on. Not that it matters.

“I followed you from the apartment,” he admits and his voice is quiet, but it seems to echo in this open space. Then he says, “You should be more watchful.”

“Don’t start,” you grumble, letting your fingers curl in his jacket, “Been scolded enough today.”

The hand at the back of your head tugs at your hair lightly, lifting your head from its hiding place against his chest so that he can look you over carefully.

The light casts him in maroon and russet, saturating him, making the dark of him stand out sharply. It makes the silver of his hair seem peach, brands him in all the sun’s honey and whiskey glory.

His eyes are vivid, maybe the most true shade of red you’ve ever seen in your life.

He takes in your face, perhaps your bloodshot eyes, your damp lashes. You aren’t a fool; you’re certain he can tell you’ve been crying. You have the urge to squirm away, to try and hide from his gaze.

But all he asks, in a surprisingly gentle tone, is “What happened?”

You shake your head fractionally, “Nothing. Got into an argument, that’s all.”

He hums lightly, tracking your expression. You want to glance away from him, but he holds you still for a moment longer.

When you can’t take his scrutinization any longer, you ask, “Wanna break some shit with me?”

He lets you go finally, let’s you step out of his arms despite not responding. You pick up another glass, this once an icy blue that reflects light that reminds you of the color of morning skies.

You watch as it explodes against the wall, flashing like a little firework. Glass rains down onto the ground, some of it flinging up into the air or back towards you. Tomura pulls you away from it by the back of your jacket, yanks you back into his chest as glass shards fly past you.

He glares at you somewhat and you can tell he wants to scold you, but he doesn’t. You squirm out of his grasp to do it again.

Glass showers down as you break another bottle. It rains in shards of tangerine and pale yellow, bright pops of cherry in the light. It feels good, to watch it all burst apart in the sunlight, like watching little stars burst and explode at your hands. It’s so pretty, for such a violent act.

You hand a bottle to Tomura, offering him the chance to also act out. Instead, he pulls off one of his gloves– tugs it off with his teeth, the glint of sharp white against flesh pink. You watch fascinated for a moment, catch his eyes, blazing and barbed.

When he takes it with all five fingers, you watch as it first cracks in your palm, before fluttering away into dust. Into nothing.

You make a face, “That’s not as exciting as breaking them.”

He rolls his eyes, but you catch the way the corner of his lips hike up. He takes another glass, this one icy silver, caught peach in the honey light, though. He keeps a finger lifted away delicately as he lifts it up to the beams of scarlet sun that flare through the rafters.

And in that fiery patch of dusk, with the glass reflecting iridescence onto the angular plains of his face, your heart gives a violent lurch, like it’s trying to burst free from your chest.

I think I love you, you think, unbridled, and so suddenly that it feels as if the thought has slammed into you the way a body might fall from the ledge of a roof.

I think I love you, you think again, because you can’t quite believe it, as he lobs the bottle at the wall. It fractures into a thousand little beams of glass and light, like an exploding comet. You feel as fragile as that, like he’ll do the same to you. Maybe you’ll be nothing but shards by the end of this, nothing but dust slipping through his fingers.

He turns to you, no doubt to say something snarky, but you’re already taking quick steps to him. He doesn’t get the chance to speak, not when you collide with him, hard and reckless, throwing yourself up onto your toes to kiss him with a new violence.

He makes a surprised noise, soft, but catches you otherwise. His hand is already up, worming beneath your clothes to press chilled fingers into the bare skin of your upper waist. He likes the way you hiss into his mouth, and you like the way they dig roughly into you. He forces you closer, melds his mouth to yours, rough at the edges, slick and warm at the center as the kiss blossoms into slow simmering heat.

And by the end of it all, when the light has given way to violet darkness, the press of indigo shadows that stretch tall in this abandoned warehouse, there is too much glass on the floor. Everything is shattered or decayed. Your lips are stinging from sharp-toothed kisses and the desperate press of his mouth to yours. You’ve turned molten, fallen apart the way glass does.

You walk home together, hand in seeking hand.

Your eyes flush pink with your Quirk, brightening up in the dark.

You knock into his side like you’re a kid, eagerly trailing beside him. He has the hood of his sweatshirt up, hidden, as you rush into the next train back to the part of town that holds the little, distant world of his apartment.

You sit beside each other on the train, knees pressing into each other. He leans over to crowd you against the cool glass as the world streaks past you in a wash of darkness. He ducks his face to yours, his hood hiding the both of you from any onlookers as he seers his mouth to yours again.

You feel like a teenager, kissing in front of strangers, beneath the flickering light of the train car. You feel young and reckless, letting him have you like this, while the city burns like a blurry halo behind you. But you feel older, too, older and in love, like you finally know the secret of the universe, the one that every adult knows and has only learned in the burn of a kiss, in the messy squeezing of your heart.

He licks into your mouth slow, you curl your small hand into his worn hoodie. If people stare, you don’t know, don’t care.

He pulls away from you, forcing you up when your stop is announced, leaving you a little dazed and dizzy, but you eagerly follow after him. Your hands bunch into the back of his jean jacket. You stumble behind him a little, feet tangling with his as you duck beneath his arm to come to his side.

Ryuji finds the two of you on your walk home the closer you get, follows you both inside, happily chirping at your coos. But he paws at the window to be let out again a short time later, after you’ve fed him something. Tomura opens the window for the cat, but not before you catch him rubbing a knuckle against the kitten’s fuzzy cheek, brief but gentle.

You think he likes Ryuji more than he lets on. You think he loves all this more than he lets on.

Tomura takes his time with you that night, surprisingly languid for once, like you’re not on borrowed time. Like this is an entirely new planet, a version of the two of you that is not bound by pasts and future expectations. No strings puppeteering you both, no invisible hands holding you both back.

He pulls you down into his lap, to sink onto him, fill yourself with him as you please. You twine your arms around his slender neck to pull him close, eyes half lidded and pyretic pink, fiery and soft with the way your Quirk reacts to his. It always hums somewhere inside of you, brushes against his until it quiets, until he’s soothed and relaxed.

“Do you feel powerful?” he murmurs against your lips, eyes flickering up to find yours.

The question takes you by surprise for a moment, pulling away fractionally from his parted lips. And with the way your heart squirms in your chest, looking down at him like this, you want to say no, I feel terrified and new and desperate.

But he drags nails down your back, makes you gasp and roll your hips down onto him, which startles a groan out of him. The sound of it turning your stomach in the best and worst ways, making you flush, making you squirm to try and sink lower onto him. Greedy and desperate, you wiggle your hips to make his breathing come out ragged.

It makes you realize you have one of the most dangerous villains beneath you, as desperate as you are.

You roll your hips again, slow, take what you want of him. You fist your hand in his hair, tilt his head back and watch as his eyes flutter. His cheeks are flushed.

Pretty, you think faintly.

“Yeah,” you breathe, gliding your lips along his, heart a storm in your chest to have him looking up at you like this, “I do.”

His lips tilt into a knife-sharp smile, enough to gut you.

And he lets you take what you please of him that night, and the thief that you are, you take and take and take. You steal from him with deft hands and a smile that he thinks he’d destroy the world for. You take all the love that you want from him, gorge yourself on it until you feel sick.

Until you feel as if you could rot with it, carrying your love for him in the pits of you, coveting in the safe, secret parts of you, for no one else to find.

Just you and him, like this, hand in seeking hand.

***

PART III

[violetlilysunshine]

Late Night

Chris Evans x Female Reader

Summary: You meet Chris working in a bar, before he invites you to his house after closing.

WC: 3,525

Warnings: maybe a quick make out?? idk if I need to warn that, but better safe then sorry. Fluff, fluff, fluff 

A/N: I’m sort of feeling a part two, because I’ve been in such a fluffy turned smutty mood recently. Anyone down?? Lemme Know :)

Tagging the lovelies that wanted this! @maximeevansblog @saltyflowermakertaco

MASTERLIST

You’ve been working in this small bar for years now; it mainly catered to older folks, the owners having fallen in love with the 40s and 50s and themed their bar after that. You quickly fell in love with the decades as well, hearing the old music and seeing all of the older people’s faces light up, reliving their glory years. However, usually, there were a couple younger groups there to relish in the theme a bit.

You started as a waitress at 18, trying to work your way through college. Quickly, you moved up to bartender, before one slow night when you randomly decided to sing along to one of the songs that the Thursday night live band always played. They were a pretty good group, and you soon found yourself listening to the songs they played in your free time. After you sang with them, the owners decided to add you to the regular Thursday night entertainment, still bartending on other nights.

You were nearing the end of your set, just two more songs to go before you could take off the heels you had ridiculously decided to wear tonight. They were very 50s and you loved the look, but, carelessly, you hadn’t broken them in yet. You thought you would be fine, but your typical little dance during Fly Me to the Moon had suffered greatly. However, they matched your midi-navy-polka-dot dress and your pin-up style curls, so it wasn’t a total loss.

“Alright everybody, we’re getting close to that time of the night,” you hummed into the microphone, “for this next one we’re gonna slow things down a bit. To those of you I’ve been watching sit in your chairs all night, you’ve only got two more chances to ask your ladies to dance. Even if you don’t know how, ask her anyway, she'll love it.” you joked.

The band started to play Paul Anka’s Put Your Head on My Shoulder, a personal favorite of yours.

“And remember, if anyone needs a partner, I’m ready and willing,” you joked as the intro played. Quite a few times, older men who no longer had a partner took you for a spin for a song or two and you loved it.

You hummed a bit before you started singing along.

As you were singing, you watched a few of the younger guys in the back finally bring their girls out on the floor. Smiling as you watched them, you swayed back and forth.

You kept going with the song, almost at the end, glad that someone hadn’t asked you to dance, because your feet were really killing you.

You finally finished it off, earning a small applause as you twirled with the mic.

“Alright y’all, last song of the night and you know what that means as well,” you spoke to the crowd, “last call for alcohol,” you sang out.

You pointed back at the bar, and your friend who was tending tonight, before she waved at the group. A few people left the dance floor to get a drink as you continued your end of the night spiel, “fellas still sitting by themselves, last chance to take a spin on the floor. I see you still sitting there in the back! It’s a short song, I promise,” you chastised the last table you saw still sitting there.

Two couples from that table got up to dance, leaving one man sitting by himself. You felt kind of bad for turning everyone’s attention to him, but you had offered earlier to dance if anyone needed a partner, so the ball was in his court.

You signaled to the band to start up and spoke, “alright here we go,” into the mic.

It’s Been a Long, Long Time kicked off, and you instantly swayed. The band didn’t usually play this song, but after your Marvel obsession kicked in, you convinced them to add it to the set list.

You sang away, loving life, but your eyes didn’t leave the man in the back. He was obscured by shadows - probably purposefully - but you felt drawn to him already. Something about him sent tingles down your spine.

Before you knew it, the song was over. You took a small bow before turning and pointing at your band, getting the audience to applaud them individually.

“Thanks everybody, have a good night and drive safe. Hope to see you next week!” you spoke quickly and everyone filed off the dance floor to collect their things.

“Thanks, you guys, that was a good show!” you spoke to the band before you rolled up your mic cord and packed it away backstage. As soon as it was safely in its case, you took a seat on one of the saxophone cases and started rubbing your feet.

Soon, the band came back to put their instruments away and you reluctantly gave up your seat. You headed to the bar to sit with your friend while she finished cleaning up; this gave you a chance to rest your feet a little more before attempting to maneuver yourself home.

You glanced around the room quickly and everyone had cleared out except the back table. They were all standing, putting on jackets, and just beginning to file out the door. The couples went first hand-in-hand, followed by the single man. You looked back at your friend and began to make small talk about the next night, seeing as you were off, before you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“That was a great set,” the man spoke out in a low raspy voice, “I wish I had a dance partner.”

“Thank you, but if I remember correctly, I did offer to dance with anyone. Anyone included you, Chris,” you quipped back lightly, chuckling.

“Well, doll, the way you were stumbling about up there, I didn’t want to risk it,” he joked back, “and you know who I am?”

“I’m gonna head in the back to finish cleaning up and then we can go,” your friend spoke, gently tapping your forearm. You usually carpool to work because you live a few houses down from each other and it just makes sense.

“Alright, sounds good,” you answered her before turning back to Chris, “well I did just sing Steve and Peggy’s song. I wouldn’t be doing it justice if I didn’t know at least its major history. And I don’t think I was stumbling.”

“Okay, fair,” he answered, “maybe stumbling wasn’t the right word, but I can tell your feet hurt in those shoes.”

A small silence settled between the two of you as you got lost in his eyes, barely registering what he had said. His lips curled into a small smile as he gazed back. His eyes darted from yours to your lips for only the slightest second, before wandering down to your feet, which you were rolling slightly on the leg of the barstool, attempting to massage them a little. He looked back into your eyes again, his smile growing. The tension in the room rose quickly, and you began to get a little hot under his gaze. You were wondering how you ever got so lucky to have Chris freaking Evans looking at you like that.

“I’d offer to get you a drink, but you did say last call a little while ago,” he spoke slowly.

“That I did,” you answered, “maybe next time.”

“Or, I could take you somewhere else,” he offered lightly, his voice raising in pitch.

“Hmm, I don’t know if my feet are up for it,” you said softly, “and I don’t know where else we would go on a Thursday night. Everyone is probably announcing their own last call.” You were surprised by your own confidence in front of him. You had no idea how you were keeping it together, let alone flirting.

“Another option,” he suggested, “I could offer you a nightcap at my place. Or maybe coffee? A glass of wine?”

“Eager there are we?” you quipped.

“Well, what can I say, that last song did it for me,” he chuckled, “but really, it would be totally casual, no expectations.”

You thought for a moment, weighing the options. He probably wasn’t a murderer, or a kidnapper. He was probably one of the gentlest guys you could go home with, and lord knows you’ve taken a few risks with others.

“Totally casual doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Really?” he asked, “great! Do you have a car here?”

“No, we carpool,” you said, gesturing at your friend who had just walked back into the room.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“Actually I was going to head out with Chris,” you said, looking at him while you spoke.

“Oh, okay,” she said, her voice dropping slightly, “well, I’ll lock up the front and we can head out the back together then.”

“Great,” Chris answered, his eyes never leaving you.

You slipped your shoes back on and stepped down from your stool. You grabbed your purse from next to you and turned to grab your jacket, which was no longer on the back of your chair. You looked up and saw Chris holding it open for you and you slipped your arms in, your heart swooning wildly. You smiled at each other and followed your friend out the back.

You hugged her quickly, whispering “I’ll send you my location,” in her ear. After all, a girl can’t be too careful.

You followed Chris to his car around the front of the building, where he opened the door for you before jogging around to the driver’s side.

His car was nice, as to be expected, but not flashy and you enjoyed his modesty. It smelled freshly cleaned - a big plus - but also rode incredibly smoothly. You were more than content to drive around with him, listening to pop songs and belting out musicals, but before you knew it, he was pulling into his driveway.

He got out first, stepping out quickly. You waited half a second, sending your location to your friend quickly. As you were reaching for the door handle, it was being pulled from the outside. Always a gentleman, he is.

Chris flashed you a charming smile as you stepped out, swinging your purse over your shoulder.

“This way, darlin’,” he spoke lowly, shutting the car door. His hand was quick to find a home on your lower back, gently guiding you towards the front door.

Once up the stairs, he crossed in front of you, unlocking the door and slowly pushing it open. The alarm on the wall chirped, signaling the opening of the front door. Chris quickly bent down with his hands in front of his knees, preparing for the impact. Dodger came flying around the corner having heard the chirp, and slammed right into his dad’s hands before jumping onto his dad’s legs begging for pets.

“Hey bubba, how you doin’?” Chris spoke to his best friend, rubbing his ears, “this here is Y/N, be nice to her buddy, no jumping.”

Dodger quickly took notice of you and immediately tried to jump onto your legs, a greeting you weren’t necessarily against, but since Chris said no, you quickly pushed your hand down and met him on the ground. He sat at your feet, immediately accepting your presence.

“He never does that!” Chris spoke, shocked at how quickly Dodger took to you.

“What can I say? I must be magic,” you joked and shrugged at him, making him laugh.

“Well let’s move out of the doorway, yeah?” Chris asked before closing the front door behind you.

Chris moved to the side of the hallway quickly; he kicked off his shoes and encouraged you to do the same. You happily followed suit, aching to get those damn heels off again. You sighed in contentment once your bare feet hit the cool hardwood floor, throwing your head back slightly, closing your eyes, and breathing deeply.

“That bad, huh?” Chris chuckled, waiting for you at the end of the hall.

“Oh yeah, I definitely have to get used to those before I try to wear them again,” you answered back.

“Well, follow me and we’ll figure out that drink I offered.”

You set your purse on the bench next to your shoes before following him into the kitchen. He strolled around the island, resting his forearms on the island.

“Take a seat, doll,” he encouraged you, gesturing to the barstools on the other side.

Usually you wouldn’t have obliged so quickly, offering to help him make whatever, but given the state of your feet, you hopped up quickly.

“Alright, so you have a lot of options, water as always, coffee, beer - my personal favorite - tequila, a slew of other liquor, juice, soda, milk, - which would be weird but whatever - wine, take your pick,” he said smiling at you.

“Coffee sounds good to me, to be honest,” you answered quietly. You would’ve chosen beer simply because it was his favorite, but you weren’t a big fan if you’re being honest.

“Coffee it is, gorgeous,” he answered, filling the pot with water and loading in the grounds, “milk, creamer, sugar, black? What do you like?”

“Milk and sugar would be good.”

“You sure? I’ve got peppermint creamer,” he coaxed you.

“On second thought...” you chuckled, taking him up on his offer.

“Alright, doll, peppermint it is,” he laughed.

Soon the coffee was ready and as excited to try the peppermint creamer as you were, you could’ve watched him flutter around the kitchen for days. He handed you a sleek navy blue mug, taking a red one himself.

“Shall we head to the living room?”

“Whatever you want, it’s your house,” you laughed.

“Alright, follow me,” he said, leading the way, “you too, Dodge,” he called over the island. Dodger had been sitting at his feet the whole time, watching his dad.

He settled into one arm of the couch, pulling the coffee table closer to rest your mugs on. He placed his mug down and gestured for you to join him. You sat on the other end of the sofa, gently, looking over at him. He threw an arm over the back of the couch, kicked his feet out in front of him, and turned his body towards yours. Dodger watched you sit down and looked at you, almost saying “you’re in my spot,” before turning around and going over to his bed by the fireplace.

“How’re your feet doing now?” he asked you.

“They’re okay, it may take a few days to recover,” you laughed back, turning to face him as well. You held your mug in one hand, bringing the other to your foot as you swung your legs up at your side.

Chris reached over towards your feet, pulling them into his lap, “here let me,” he spoke.

You blushed lightly at the very domestic action, but who would say no to a beautiful man rubbing their feet? He massaged them gently and you let out a little groan.

“You really don’t have to do that, but you’re so good at it I don’t want you to stop,” you told him.

“Well then I won’t stop, darlin’.”

He looked at you from across the couch, making your heart swoon again. You let out the quietest moan, enjoying the work of his hands, and closed your eyes.

Chris laughed lightly, whispering something to himself under his breath. You were a little lost in the moment, so you didn’t hear him.

“Sorry, what was that?” you asked him.

“Oh, nothing, just talking to myself,” he answered. You knew that wasn’t the case, but let it rest anyway; it couldn’t have been too important.

Chris started asking you about your work and friends and family, what kind of movies you liked, and music preference of course. You asked him as well, really getting to know each other. He had stopped rubbing your feet a long time ago, but kept them in his lap, an arm thrown across them, rubbing your shins and ankles lightly. Dodger was snoring loudly across the room, and had been for quite a long time. The both of you were so lost in the conversation, that you didn’t realize how late it had gotten. You glanced out the window behind him, beginning to see the sunrise.

“Oh my goodness, what time is it?” you asked him, chuckling.

He glanced at his phone quickly, “almost 5:00,” he said with wide eyes, “I didn’t realize it had gotten so late.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said a little embarrassed, “I’ve stayed way too long, I’ll just get out of your hair.” You began to pull your legs out of his lap, but he locked them down.

“You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to,” he spoke quietly, “I’ve really enjoyed your company.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to overstay my welcome…” you trailed off.

“Positive, sweetheart. Please, stay.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” you asked him, raising an eyebrow. He nodded slightly at you. “Then I'll stay,” you said, settling back into the couch.

“Can I get you another cup?” he asked, gesturing to your mug.

“Sure,” you answered lightly, handing it to him. He got up and trailed into the kitchen. You waited half a second before following him.

Chris heard you walk into the kitchen, turning around to look at you quickly, “sorry, can I get you something else?���

“No, I’m fine,” you answered.

“Oh, well, uh… I would’ve brought your mug back to you,” he chuckled.

“Oh that’s okay, I felt weird just sitting there,” you laughed lightly.

“Oh, okay,” he chuckled back, “well, since you’re here now, can I offer you breakfast?”

You didn’t realize how hungry you’d gotten until he offered, “only if I can help,” you responded.

“Oh well, that’s a deal breaker, darlin’,” he answered, almost seductively.

“Well then no breakfast for me,” you laughed.

He was starving too, only having had a small dinner before he went to the bar last night. He didn’t know when you’d eaten last, so you must be hungry as well.

“Well, maybe there is one way, you can help,” he said in a high pitched voice.

“What can I do?” you asked quickly.

“Come here,” he said.

You walked around the island you had been leaning on, joining him between it and the cabinets on the wall. Chris extended a hand towards you. You took it quickly and allowed him to guide you closer to him. Once you were fully in front of him, he dropped your hand and grabbed both of your hips. He picked you up quickly, surprising you, before setting you on the counter.

You laughed lightly at him, “okay, now what?”

“Now, you sit there and look pretty while I make breakfast,” he chuckled out, standing between your knees, keeping a little distance between the two of you.

“Chrissssss,” you whine out at him.

“What, doll?” he asks, taking a step closer to you as you wrap your hands around his shoulders.

“I can do more than just sit here.”

“Oh, really?” he asks, taking another step towards you, now standing between your thighs, almost flush to the counter.

“Yeah, I can,” you breathe out, barely able to contain yourself now that he’s slotted between your legs.

“Nope, darlin’, this is enough help. Promise,” he says quietly.

Chris glanced down at your lips quickly before looking back into your eyes. He ran his hands up your thighs, starting at your knees, before settling onto your hips again. The temperature in the room seemed to rise at an unbelievable rate as you stared into each others’ eyes. You could feel his breath on your lips, you were sure he could feel yours as well, the smell of coffee and peppermint radiated between you. He slowly leaned in and connected your lips.

It was like time stood still. He moved one of his hands around to your lower back, pulling your body to the very edge of the counter and flush against his chest. The other hand stayed firmly on your hip, digging in just a little. You wrapped your arms around his neck even tighter as you molded your lips together. He licked your bottom lip slightly, asking for entrance, which you granted. He explored your mouth just a little bit before pulling back, breathless, and resting his forehead against yours.

“Well, that was, uh…” he spoke.

“Yeah,” you answered, breathless as well.

You held his gaze for another second before moving forward and kissing him once again. You pecked him sweetly, before mumbling against his lips.

“I’ll let you cook, as long as you let me clean up,” you laughed a little before connecting your lips again.

Chris let the kiss hang just a little longer than a peck before pulling back completely. He pecked your forehead quickly, before answering.

“No,” he said firmly, turning around and letting out a loud laugh, one you knew so well.

You laughed right back at him, watching him start to cook and shaking your head to yourself. How did you get so lucky?

[mrs-bartowski]

My dudes. My guys. My pals.

I’m about 10 seconds away from going feral.

So, I’m the kind of unfortunate chump whose brain requires continuity. Meaning, when I started thirst watching Supergirl during its mid-season-2 hiatus and came across the realization that it had crossovers with all the other arrowverse shows, my brain tasked me with watching them all. I won’t put you through a recount of this arduous feat, but it does leave me with the certain advantage of having immediate and full-contextual access to any parallels between supercorp and canon CW DCEU couples.

Normally, this is a good thing, because it’s just another crumb to obsess over. But I just finished watching Legends 6x02 and...I. AM. FUMING.

I literally don’t even know where to start, but know that if you’ve made it this far you’re in for a long ride because my entire being is in Scream mode right now and I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop typing until it passes.

OKAY. So.

Meet Sara Lance (lol jk y’all thirsty gays know who she is I mean look at this flawless human)

Next, meet her ******* Ava Sharpe (who is literally the definition of white European beauty standards-based perfection because she’s a clone from the future)

And finally, meet Gary Green. He’s...well, he’s Gary.

Sara started out on Arrow and is now the captain of the Legends. Ava was the director of the Time Bureau and Gary was an agent, and now they are also members of the Legends. Sara has been there (and been the show’s effective lead) since season 1. Ava and Gary both came in at the beginning of season 3. 

Gary is (as pictured) an absolute fool, but he is also kind of regarded as the one the Legends Must Protecc. The whole team is considered a family, and, while they are not necessarily labeled as best friends, Gary has been Ava’s longest and most loyal companion, and Sara has a way of adopting him because she’s the best equipped to keep him out of trouble.

So, why is all of this relevant to why I want to go feral? Because it sounds a bit familiar, yes? Member of the team that is somewhat a black sheep, doesn’t get included fully or all the time but often comes in with save-the day type shit (even though with Gary it’s more of a distraction than a save because he’s a mess of a man). Close friend to one of our two main heroes and, subsequently, that hero’s closest companion puts them at the top of their Protecc list. Has little faith in his relationships with the team so he is constantly going out of his way to help in whatever way he can to prove his usefulness. And so on and so forth.

Well, 6x01 marks exactly 3 years since Gary’s first appearance, and what did we find out in that episode? That Gary is an alien. And not just any alien - an alien who was sent (by the woman he was traded to) to get close to Sara because she has been labeled as one of the world’s most dangerous creatures. Not to mention, his species of alien feeds on humans (not him of course, he’s reformed, but nonetheless not a friendly species). And we find out all of this because he and his master abduct her.

Sara finds out in person while Ava and the rest of the Legends solve the mystery on their own. Now, I’ve drawn a lot of comparisons between Lena and Gary to make a point about the time frame and nature of their relationships, but let’s take a look at Sara, shall we? For starters, she’s been “dead” either literally or supposedly about...what, 15 times now? If you think that’s an exaggeration, here’s the link to her fan wiki which says she’s been presumed dead 10 times and actually dead 5. The sg writers tried to sell season 5 as “the fight for Lena’s soul” but Sara LITERALLY LOST HER SOUL when she got resurrected in the Lazarus pit. 90% of Sara’s character development has been based on her certainty that she is too close to death and evil and destruction (getting possessed by a demon, perhaps, had something to do with this?). She was an actual literal assassin and she has left civilization out of anger and pain to go back to that life once before.

She has always believed that she is too dangerous to have real love or relationships or friends. And now she has found and built and led this family through time and space and she’s done so with this goofball by her side that is endearingly attached to the love of her life. So, how does she react when she finds out Gary is an alien? Well, clearly, she goes down a dark path, right? She cries and screams and talks about betrayal because she’s had such a hard time with feeling like she only ever puts the people she loves in danger and now here she is finding out there’s been a human-eating alien in her family for three years that was tasked with observing her and keeping her in check because she is exactly that dangerous?

Yeah...try again. This is how Sara reacts:

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And then there's another scene that apparently no one even bothered to put on YouTube where you can see the pain in Sara's eyes when she asks him “why me?” You can see how hurt she is that after 3 years she’s just finding out that their friendships is based on lies and that she has trouble keeping her faith in it. But in both of these instances where are the “crocodile tears?” Where are the fearful, shaky confessions from Gary about his fear of losing the only people who have ever really loved or cared about him and desperate justifications about how he just wanted to protect them and keep them in the dark so his master didn’t come after them? Where is the outrage from Sara about how everything Gary has reassured her about over the past three years when she was scared to let the damaged-soul assassin inside of her out was a lie and he doesn’t get to tell her who or what she is again? Where is the determination from Ava to make Gary pay for not only lying for three years but for ABDUCTING THE LOVE OF HER LIFE TO HAND OVER TO A FLESH-EATING ALIEN??????

Nowhere. Those things...they’re nowhere. There’s anger. There’s pain. There’s doubt and heartbreak and fury. There’s betrayal and helplessness and desperation. But there is no scene with Sara standing on a balcony and Gary looking up at her longingly because he wants to talk to her about the secret and he knows it will change everything between them. There is no scene with Sara and Ava lamenting over what this means for Gary and the team and the world because he’s no longer the person they knew. There are no romantically-scored scenes of them looking teary-eyed at the pictures they took together or reassurances that the others’ intentions are good and trustworthy now that the truth is out in the open. There is nothing to imply that the last several years of friendship are now entirely suspect (damaged, frayed, clouded, maybe, but definitely not voided) because Gary kept this secret to protect them. And Gary isn’t made to feel obscenely guilty or shameful because his intentions were good and he only did what he felt he had to. But most of all, the world doesn’t feel like it’s going to end.

And I’m not talking about we’re now scared Gary will take his master’s side or Sara will suddenly decide that she never wants an alien to fool her or hurt her again so she’s going to make sure he doesn’t have the choice. I’m just talking about the way they address each other. There are no sobbing tears or laments over the biggest mistakes of their lives - even though it’s quite possible Gary could see this as his. There are no screaming matches over betrayal and mistrust and years of doubt and confusion. There will be no episode dedicated to going back and seeing what could have happened - what kind of danger they could have avoided from the alien(s) controlling Gary - had he told them the truth sooner because that’s the only way to save him and the world. There will be no episode where he has to single-handedly save them multiple times as some example of redemption. There will be no adamant looks and declarations about how the team knows his intentions were good and they forgive him. There won’t be any of that. Because Sara is not in love with Gary. And Ava is not in love with Gary. And Gary is not in love with either Sara or Ava. They’re just close friends. Family. Loved ones who mean a lot to each other but whose betrayal and seeds of doubt don’t bring on emotions whose force and ferocity could be acceptable for finding out the apocalypse is nigh.

I have many, many more feelings about this but right now I’m going to go write things that will make me feel better and not things that make me want to gather every writer from every CW show in a line and run down the line smacking them all in the face while the Legends writers watch and cheer. But I’m fuming. THIS is what it looks like when a years-long, heavily weighted lie is revealed between close friends/family. So, in conclusion, Supercorp endgame or die.