#and I know it’s not worse than prior years. I do. but it doesn’t FEEL like that

[hobisexually]

x

[seeingivy]

world war sibling

ryomen sukuna x f!reader

**part of my best friend's (older brother) fic

previous part linked here

--

“you know, you kind of picked the worst spot for your first.” sukuna mumbles. 

“that doesn’t help, sukuna. like in the slightest.” 

sukuna retreats his original comment as the buzzing of the tattoo gun starts again, accompanied by your death-like grip on his hand and the tears spilling out of your eyes. and he almost feels bad for his slightly snide comment – which was intended to make you laugh – as he leans forward, wiping away the wetness and sweat on your forehead, before pressing a kiss to your cheek. 

“you’re actually doing great, princess. i cried like a baby during my first.” 

“yeah. it was fucking annoying.” toji mutters. 

you laugh, earning you a smile from both toji and sukuna, as the former continues buzzing into your arm. 

toji, who you can’t help but find familiar, is sukuna’s most trusted tattoo artist. upon their first meeting, he had bent the rules for sukuna at seventeen (i.e. legally under the age for a tattoo) and since then, had been one of sukuna’s favorite artists in the area. 

and you could tell why sukuna liked him. he was quiet and serious – sukuna’s favorite type of person – but here and there, would offer some strange story about sukuna from years prior, that made the both of them smile when he recounted the memory. 

long story short, he was yet another undercover sap. you were starting to think that sukuna had a type. 

“did he really cry?” you ask. 

“that’s rich coming from him – he picked a worse spot than you did. i had to stop and give him a break before i could continue.” toji mutters. 

you bite down on your lip as you lean against sukuna’s shoulder, the stinging feeling on the inner part of your wrist making your heart race and your head pulsate, as he whispers into your ear, trying to distract you from the pain. 

“are you excited for tonight?” sukuna asks. 

“yeah.” you whisper. 

“where are you going?” he asks. 

you whimper in response, to which sukuna clicks his tongue, before asking again. 

“the bar on sixteenth. they….oh my fucking god…they have happy hour after five.” 

“figured i might as well ask you now before the four of you are drunk out of your mind.” sukuna scoffs. 

after what was a painstakingly awkward conversation between you and yuuji three weeks prior, things were slowly returning back to normal, with the smallest of steps. the two of you went back to studying together, and the week prior, you had returned to your usual weekend plans of going out with him, megumi, and kugisaki again. 

now and then he’d send you strange buzzfeed quizzes at three in the morning, you would send back pictures of cute dogs at work, and finally resumed your original plans of dinner at your parents every other week. 

yuuji and sukuna had yet to cross paths again, except for the curt greetings they’d give each other when yuuji dropped you off or sukuna came to pick you up. sukuna hadn’t gotten over the fact that yuuji had punched you and yuuji…well, he was almost too embarrassed to show his face, let alone even ask for an apology. 

yuuji was always like that, so in his head about whatever it was sukuna was thinking. and while normally, you’d encourage him to just talk it out – knowing how sukuna still felt about the entire thing meant that you had tabled trying to get them to get along for the time being. 

“that’s it.” toji states, before pushing off of his rolling chair and rummaging through the drawer at his side. 

you sit up, blinking the tears out of your eyes, as sukuna leans over your shoulder, the two of you admiring the bloody mess on the inside of your wrist, of a waterlily. 

“it’s perfect, birthday girl.” sukuna whispers. 

“you think my mom will kill me?” you ask. 

“isn’t that kind of the point?”

you laugh as sukuna helps you off the chair and walks you over to the little stand, where toji wraps the area in plastic before walking over to ring you up. and it’s almost a joke – how quickly sukuna snatches your credit card from your fingers, before offering his own. 

“i was going to use that.” you deadpan. 

“it’s on me. it’s your birthday.” 

“you know i don’t –” 

“i know you don’t care about birthdays, doll. but i’m not a piece of shit. toji, i’m paying.” 

the novelty of birthdays, parties, and celebrations seemed to wear off around the time that you turned twelve. a few embarrassing mishaps – like inviting twenty people to a bowling alley just to have only yuuji show up or not having anyone to invite at all the following year out of mortification led to an almost disdain towards the day. 

and after that, the plan was always simple. the night of, the pair of you would go out – originally for ice cream, but those quickly transitioned into sugar sweet margaritas two years ago when you turned twenty-one. and while the plan with yuuji still standing for tonight, sukuna was afforded the entire morning and afternoon. 

it was just another day. meaning you and sukuna were going to eat breakfast together – though you did think the little candle he put in your french toast was a cute touch – before heading to your tattoo appointment. he bought you a new pair of earrings and a ribbon for your hair, but only because he insisted that they reminded him of you earlier this week, and obviously had nothing to do with your birthday. 

and it was perfect – you were going to walk over to the little arts and crafts store after your tattoo appointment, so you and sukuna could make bracelets together before you had to go to the bar with yuuji. it was yet another silly trend you had seen on tiktok – picking out beads that looked like your partner's eyes – and making bracelets out of them, and sukuna was all too quick to oblige. 

sammy was supposed to stop over briefly at some point to drop off a gift and sukuna was going to tuck you into bed at the end of the night. 

you could tell that he was trying really hard to contain it, whatever it was he was feeling over the fact that it was your birthday. because knowing him, if he had his way, he’d be going the entire ten miles and buying you a plethora of gifts and dinners if he could. 

but it took a few talks for him to realize it actually made you really uncomfortable. which is the only reason he let you limit him to three gifts (a bridgerton season three mug, a new taylor swift vinyl, and another lingerie set, which he claimed was more for him than it was for you). 

and though it was really simple – two red velvet cupcakes on a random park bench and a quiet night out, but you could still feel it. the excessive amounts of kisses he was placing on your shoulder and the way he was opening the doors, that he was trying his best to go above and beyond to make you feel special. 

it was sweet. and quiet. just the way you liked it. 

--

you swing open the apartment door to your worst nightmare. 

the main room is decked out in streamers, balloons, and a pretty pink banner – all of which sukuna set up the night before when you fell asleep for your breakfast together. you thought it was a little bit over dramatic – decorating the entire place for just the two of you – but you have the slightest hunch that it was more for this. 

“did you seriously invite all of them?” you whisper, balling your hands into fists at your side as they all cheer, running over to give you excited hugs. 

instead of what you were promised – sammy stopping over briefly to bring you a gift – almost everyone you know is milling around in your apartment. yuuji, kugisaki, and megumi but also maki, gojo, sammy, and shoko. 

even megumi’s sister is here. 

sukuna mouths i had no idea as sammy walks up to your side, placing a shot in your hand. 

“drink up, birthday girl!” 

“i’m good, sam. you go ahead.” 

“room is really tense. i’d take it if i were you.” sammy mumbles, before walking off. 

yuuji walks up to your side, offering you a hug, before pulling back and placing his hands on your shoulders. 

“i tried to stop it. but sister dearest insisted.” yuuji whispers. 

“oh god, of course she did. did you tell her i would hate this?” you ask. 

“i did. and then she said, ‘who hates birthdays?’ and invited everyone anyway.” yuuji responds, perfectly mimicking sammy’s high pitched voice. 

you groan. 

“did you mention the bowling alley?” 

“i did. she responded by saying that means there’s more cake for us.” 

yuuji offers you a pinched smile as sukuna snakes his hand across your shoulder, leaning down to whisper in your ear. 

“i’m so sorry, angel. i swear i had no idea.” sukuna whispers. 

“i know. you know how sammy can be. goes a little overboard…kind of stubborn.” you respond. 

“you have another problem.” yuuji states. 

the two of you turn to your left, as yuuji lifts his hand and awkwardly scratches at the back of his neck. 

“you remember maki’s shitty sister?” yuuji asks. 

“yeah.” 

“she’s your sister’s girlfriend.” 

you feel your throat dry as you dart your head to the left – to where kugisaki and maki are swirling a glass of lemonade in their hands with geto – and to then to the right where sammy is rubbing circles into mai’s back, the two of them talking in hushed tones with gojo. 

“this city is too fucking small.” you mumble. 

“is it that bad?” sukuna asks, his eyes darting between the two of you. 

“that’s the understatement of the year. imagine me and sammy on…on like steroids.” you respond, miserably. 

“alright, well. megumi and i did at least get sammy to get a cake from chaupain, so how about you just eat it in the corner while sukuna and i do damage control? we’ll just keep them away from each other and try to get them to leave as soon as possible.” yuuji asks. 

yuuji looks past your shoulder to where sukuna is standing, waiting for a vote of approval. and given the fact that he basically feels like a fish in water at the current moment, he agrees. 

--

“let’s see the tattoo.” megumi states. 

you all but oblige, holding out your wrist for megumi and tsumiki to admire, watching as their attentive eyes note the needle work. 

“this is beautiful. why the waterlily?” tsumiki asks. 

you smile. 

“like monet’s waterlilies. it’s one of my favorite art pieces.” you respond. 

“that’s neat. it’s very pretty.” she responds, giving you a warm smile. 

“where’d you get it? yuuji has been thinking about getting one.” megumi asks. 

“downtown. there’s a tattoo parlor across from that bar that we did glee trivia at once.” 

you watch as tsumiki and megumi give each other a look, the former pulling her soft featherlike touch away from your wrist and crossing her arms over her chest. 

“who did your tattoo?” megumi asks. 

“oh. he’s just some guy sukuna’s friends with. he’s been going to him since he was like seventeen..” 

megumi clenches his jaw, before placing his hands at his side. 

“black hair, scar near his lip?” 

you pause. 

“yeah. his name is toji. do you know him or something?” you ask. 

“something like that.” megumi responds, before shuffling off towards the drinks. 

tsumiki gives you an almost apologetic smile, before leaning forward and whispering in your ear. 

“don’t take it personal. he’s our dad.” 

“your…” 

“yes, our deadbeat dad. it is rather off putting finding out that he’s had money…or you know, a job this entire time, and friends, when we’ve been trying to make ends meet forever. we always had a hunch that he was there but you know, kind of confirms it if you were there this morning.” 

you pinch your eyes shut, before placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“i’m so sorry.” you mumble. 

“you didn’t know. i’m going to check on megumi, though, if that’s okay? you know how he can be.” 

“please.” 

you drag your tired legs to the corner of the kitchen island, pouring yourself a shot, before slumping down into the chair. and your very futile efforts of getting a second to yourself are all but squashed when you find satoru at your side, sliding a slice of cake your way. 

“hi birthday girl.” 

you sigh. 

“hi satoru. thank you for coming.”

“i do suppose i should apologize for showing up. i didn’t realize you hate birthdays.” 

“i don’t hate them, it’s just…the big party thing. not really my jam. for obvious reasons. i just accidentally brought up someone’s deadbeat dad and somehow brought together the most homicidal pair of sisters in japan into my apartment.” you respond. 

satoru smiles in response, looking out to the group of them as well. 

“it’s basically world war sibling in here right now. but your boys are handling the sisters decently well. and….getting along for once.” 

you smile, looking over at sukuna and sammy on the left. 

“i know, right? it’s actually kind of cute. they keep looking over at each other every few minutes and giving each other thumbs up to confirm it’s still going good.” you mumble. 

“kind of expected. both of them are half responsible for making your worst nightmare happen on your birthday of all days, it makes sense that they’d put their shit aside for one second to make it at least a little bit better.” satoru states. 

sukuna looks over at you, shooting you a weary glance – like he’s trying to gauge how you’re feeling – which you shake off. 

“plus, at some point, they’re going to realize that it’s better for both of their interests to get along again. maybe this is when it’ll happen and then something good will come out of your birthday.” satoru adds. 

you pause, looking down to continue demolishing the frosting of the cake with the fork. 

“you’re quite hopeful.” 

“i mean, yeah. they’re brothers and they were starting to get close again and that’s part of it. but at some point, they’re going to understand that it’s going to cause a real block for both of them if they continue acting the way they do. sukuna’s your boyfriend but yuuji’s been the first person you’ve gone to your entire life. can’t exactly give one up for the other.” 

you smile. 

“you think about this an awful lot, don’t you?” 

“suguru and i talk about it in bed every night before we go to sleep. it is riveting.” satoru affirms. 

“i’m glad we could provide some entertainment for you.” you respond, giving him a smile. 

in the three seconds you look away, whatever tension that was boiling in the room seems to come to a head, when maki and mai seemed to have both reached for the last piece of cake – and both of their guard dogs, kugisaki and sammy, were ready to fight over it. 

“just split it in fucking half.” sukuna mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“that’s a great idea! i’ll do it for you guys, here.” yuuji responds, before getting four pairs of irritated eyes staring at him, as he retreats his hands. 

you sigh as you walk up to their sides, satoru on your heels, as you take the spot in between sukuna and yuuji. the two of them give you a pinched smile that barely meets their eyes. 

“i didn’t eat the slice that gojo brought me yet. you’re more than welcome to take mine.” you offer. 

“okay yeah, that’s fine. you guys can take the leftovers.” sammy responds. 

kugisaki rolls her eyes. 

“why should we take it? we reached for it first.” kugisaki mutters. 

mai turns to sammy, shaking her head. 

“it’s fine, sammy. you guys have it.” mai responds. 

“typical. trying to take the higher ground to look good, aren’t you?” maki asks. 

“well, leave it to you to make a scene at your friend’s birthday party.” mai mutters back. 

maki scoffs. 

“she’s your girlfriend’s sister. you’re just trying to do the right thing to look a certain way, like you always fucking do. it’s the same shit you do with our parents and –” maki starts. 

“okay, guys. there’s kind of a time and place for this type of thing and –” yuuji starts. 

“shut up, yuuji.” kugisaki and maki shout in unison. 

sukuna clenches his jaw.  

“okay, seriously. that’s enough. just take a beat and walk away. all four of you.” sukuna mutters, as the two of them walk off. 

sukuna’s tone is intimidating enough to get all of them to back off. and you lean back against the counter, watching as they both sulk off into their respective corners, as you rub the sides of your temples. sammy joins you at your side, taking an awkwardly long sip of her lemonade, as you sigh. 

“are you going to take yuuji and sukuna’s advice next time? i really do hate birthday parties.” you ask. 

sammy turns to her side, her eyes incredulous. 

“you can’t be serious. you’re not blaming that on me, right?” sammy asks. 

you widen your eyes. 

“what?” 

“i was just trying to do a nice thing for you. all of these people wanted to see you, for your birthday, and you were just kind of side sweeping all of them. how was i supposed to know that mai’s sister was going to be here?” 

you groan. 

“i was obviously joking, sammy. trying to lighten the mood and all.” 

“you’re the queen of passive aggressiveness. i know you weren’t. god forbid, we can’t all be like your boy toys and spend our entire life trying to read your mind since you can’t seem to say whatever is on it.” 

you roll your eyes. 

“so what if i wasn’t joking? you clearly need to hear it when all you do is just what you think is best. i wasn’t side sweeping any of them, most of them would have understood if i just wanted to spend the day the way i usually do.” 

yuuji tries to interject. 

“listen. i think we’re all feeling a lot of things right now –” 

“you don’t have to read my mind when there were two people right there telling you that i would have hated it. you just purposely chose not to listen.” you finish. 

“you’re shitty. i was just trying to be nice. and then you wonder why i never want to talk to you.” 

yuuji can tell it stings from the way your face falls. 

“sammy, come on. it’s –” yuuji starts. 

you suppose you should be thankful that no one got injured this time. because in the split second that sammy tries to shove yuuji away and tell him to butt out of it, he accidentally backs his elbow into the little rack, sending two of the mugs shattering to the floor. 

it takes one peak to realize that one of them is the one sukuna quite literally unboxed for you this morning. you didn’t even have a chance to use it. 

you turn to sukuna, who gives you what might be the most irritated look you’ve ever seen him muster, before he shuffles towards the closet for the broom. you’re sure that sammy takes some type of hint that it’s time for her to go and geto’s able to wrangle the rest of them to leave too as sukuna shuffles up the glass. 

it’s a quick exodus after that, the room so tense with the heat in the air that almost everyone was scrambling to get out to take a breath. sukuna isn’t halfway to closing the door on geto and gojo when the tears start bubbling out of your eyes, warm and hot on your cheeks. 

“oh, angel. come here.” sukuna whispers, opening up his arms as you dig your forehead into his shoulder. 

you can hear yuuji shuffling behind the two of you, boxing the last of the leftovers, as you cry into sukuna’s shoulder, making a considerably large snot and tear filled stain on your shirt. 

“i hate my birthday. this is…this is so fucking stupid, sukuna.” 

sukuna rubs circles into your back, before wrapping his hand around your cheek and wiping the mess of glitter and tears away. 

“like, i know i shouldn’t expect much but i just wanted to have a nice day. it’s so stupid that sammy’s so stubborn that she invited everyone. and i know i should have had fun but…but everything just kept going wrong.” 

sukuna can tell that you’re subconsciously reaching for your hair, pulling down on your locks and pulling out strays. because while you had left your picking at your skin habits for bad moments, you seemed to angrily pull at your head when you were tense. 

“turn around.” sukuna murmurs, as you heave a sigh and continue your rant as sukuna tasks himself with braiding your hair. 

“toji is megumi’s dad. and now i’m scared i made him feel like shit by bringing it up. and i know i didn’t do anything wrong but if someone just randomly brought up my deadbeat dad i wouldn’t feel great about it either.” 

“i’m sure he’s not mad at you, baby.” sukuna offers. 

“and fucking sammy. we were just getting along but…but she always does shit like this. i wasn’t blaming her for what happened, but i damn well could have. if literally the two people who know me the best are teling you that i wouldn’t enjoy this, why would you go ahead and do it anyways? and then on top of that, a whole fucking scene where she ended up yelling at me.” 

“do you want me to kill her?” 

“would you? she pushed yuuji and it broke our mugs.”  

sukuna finishes the end of the braid and secures it with an elastic, before placing his hands on your shoulder and swinging you back around to face him. 

“i’ll get you another one.” 

“aren’t they limited edition?” 

“i’ll bid on ebay. it’s not a big deal.” 

“sukuna.” 

“i had to bid on the first two on ebay anyways. i can literally just do it again baby, it’s not a big deal.” 

two feet away, yuuji feels like he’s intruding. and living in an alternate universe. because it’s the first time he’s seen you like this with someone else – venting so openly, accepting his affections so freely as he presses a kiss to your cheek and pulls at your wrists to stop you from picking at your skin. 

and sukuna seems like an entire stranger. brushing his fingers against your cheek so gently, the tone in his voice so uncharacteristically soft as he tries to comfort you. bidding on flowery mugs on ebay, braiding your hair to get you to stop pulling at it. 

yuuji feels guilty. maybe he really did have it all wrong. because the things that sukuna was doing were so arbitrary, but they were making all the difference at curbing the tears pouring out of your eyes.

maybe he just didn't get it.

“now mention the good things.” sukuna states. 

you glare at him. 

“there are no good things.” 

sukuna spares a glance over his shoulder to yuuji, gesturing for him to join, before looking back at you. 

“really? you can’t even think of one?”

yuuji catches his drift as he walks up to your side, slinging his arm around your shoulder. 

“you’re a smart girl. you can figure it out.” yuuji offers. 

you roll your eyes. 

“and now you two are ganging up on me. is this really the time?” 

the two of them laugh, even more delighted when you crack a smile for the first time in hours, before the two of them give each other a nod and wrap both of their arms around you. 

“still nothing good?” yuuji asks. 

“nope. you’re both crushing me to death. and you smell.” 

sukuna presses a kiss to your forehead and yuuji pinches at the side of your cheek. 

“how about now?” sukuna asks. 

“you guys are kind of annoying, you know that?” 

you pull back, placing a hand on both of their shoulders, and darting your eyes between the two of them. 

“are you guys being buddies for my birthday or are you actually making up?” 

sukuna rolls his eyes. 

“obviously the latter. we aren’t sisters.” 

“you’re fucking kidding. like the two of you are any better.” you state.  

yuuji scoffs. 

“they broke two whole fucking ceramic mug. and ruined a birthday party. sisters are a whole different ballpark.” 

“you punched me in the face and ruined a family dinner. how is that any different?” 

sukuna and yuuji both scoff, before yuuji reaches forward to pinch your cheek. 

“are you going to hold that over my head forever?” 

“basically. for both of you actually.” 

sukuna shuffles over to the fridge, tasking himself with stacking the freshly made boxes of cake in the fridge. 

“i think we’ll live.” 

--

three days later, with all the leftover heaviness from your birthday gone, yuuji takes you out for drinks on your birthday. and while sammy gave you a halfhearted apology, you swallowed it down for the tiem being and let it go. 

things were well – with yuuji and sukuna getting along and things being somewhat on the come up with sammy. though that feeling only lasts a few hours before sukuna sends you six calls, the seventh of which you finally answer when you make your way out of the bar. 

“hi sukuna. you okay?” 

you hear a sniffle on the other side of the phone. 

“how drunk are you?” he asks, his voice raspy. 

“what?” 

“can you drive or do i need to come get you guys?” 

you cover your free ear with your hand, trying to tune out the blaring music, as you press the phone against your ear harder. 

“i can drive, i barely had half of my margarita. is everything –” 

“you need to come to my mom’s house. as soon as possible. leave now.” 

“is everything fi –” 

“my dad is dead. as soon as you can, y/n.” 

--

next part linked here

an: ok my set up was done sorry for this ass chapter again the next few will be considerably better since i've been planning them out properly

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[spenciss]

no other heart *ೃ༄ gn!reader x spencer reid

in which, spencer has a jealousy streak

the day after tomorrow, is yours and spencer’s four-year anniversary. the realization makes you reminisce; prior to dating, you always knew who he was—the cute smart boy who’s a year younger than you, but was already graduating with a handful of doctorates come spring.

you think about how you both went through an awkward more-than-friends-but-not-dating phase that lasted a little over a year, but ended the day he completed his fbi training—when you forced him to celebrate with you and he confessed with a flush on his cheeks, from alcohol or pure nervousness, you’re not sure, but that night, he told you he’d like to stay by your side.

from then, it was a dream. three and three fourths of a year that you should’ve known was too good to be true.

because your four-year anniversary was tomorrow, but for the past month and a half, you and spencer have been avoiding each other as if life depended on it.

you’re not proud of it, spencer definitely isn’t either. but you’re both people who are afraid and extremely unsure of the next step you’re both meant to take.

your friends say break up, you don’t even know if his friends know you exist.

but you decide to make it tomorrow’s problem, because tonight, you’re going to dinner with your best friend.

and you’re going to enjoy it.

that was the mindset you had coming into the restaurant, obviously not knowing that spencer and his team were planning to enjoy their evening there too.

“do i look at him?” you whisper, panicking to your best friend, “am i even allowed to look at him?”

“that fact you’re asking that question is, yet again, another reason to leave him.” she says matter-of-factly. “but that girl sitting beside him is the hottest eye candy i’ve seen. ever—don’t worry, i think she’s into girls.”

“i wasn’t—”

“yes, you were jealous. don’t even.”

you can’t even argue back because the host announces your table is ready, and you both trail behind them. you manage a glance at spencer, meeting his gaze.

you manage a smile, a little wobbly and unsure, and he reciprocates with an awkward little grin with raised eyebrows.

the host seats you a few tables away from him. close enough to the point where it’s kind of awkward, but far enough that he can’t hear any conversation.

you decide to sit with your back facing him.

the next morning, you wake up to a text.

spencer<3: I have a case in New York. I’ll see you in a few days.

a mixture of relief and uneasiness pool in your stomach, but you’re glad the apartment will be empty for a while—tension won’t be so high and you’d probably be able to sleep a well-missed eight hours.

but a part of you knows you’re growing farther and farther apart, simply watching as the love of your life slips through your fingers—

you: okay. take care

you: i love you

it’s bittersweet and you swear your chest has never hurt this much, but it’s oddly freeing and you can’t find the energy to be disappointed anymore.

you spend the day alone—questionable because it’s officially been four years since you’ve been with spencer, but he’s in another state and your overtime paycheque is all too tempting.

bypassing shopping guilt has never felt so easy.

the day passes by in a blur, the usual emptiness of the passenger seat now was filled with “useless” knickknacks and things that were well overdue.

new work pants and little trinkets, a cute lamp and your favourite candle.

aimlessly, you drive around the city. going home doesn’t feel right anymore, but sleeping in a motel or at a friend’s feels even worse.

your fingers tap against the wheel, waiting for the lights to turn green. pedestrians pass by and the downtown signs flicker obnoxiously.

you miss spencer.

you always miss him.

days used to feel too short when he’s around and you wished nights would last forever.

popcorn and late night tv reruns of shitty shows you both love to criticize, strolls around the neighbourhood that always ended in a kiss under the lamppost in front of your apartment—once or twice, you’ve even had him in checkmate (he says it was foul-play, you’d say a win is a win).

you wonder what life would be like without him.

you wonder what it would be like—falling in love with somebody else.

as you open the door to your apartment, a chilling breeze gnaws at your cheeks, your eyes spotting the familiar pair of beat up converse throw askew on the floor.

chest constricting, a sigh strains from your lips as you step in, quietly closing the door.

“eventful day?” you hear. in response you nod, forcing a smile.

“you’re back way early. to what do i owe the pleasure?” you turn, bracing yourself for the image of no one other than your boyfriend of officially four years.

he grins, tense, and his eyes stay on the floor. he plays with his hands and he sighs, “i-i didn’t get on the plane.”

“you..” eyebrows raised, you set your stuff down, “what do you mean? you—you didn’t get on the plane? you were here? this whole time?”

“i’m really sorry.” he begins, hands flying in sync with his ramblings, “i-i know that doesn’t make up for anything, but i saw how that waiter from the other night was looking at you and i remembered that we haven’t had a proper conversation in at least a month, and i got worried about the state our relationship has come to and—”

“spencer, my love,” you breathe, “slow down.”

“i realized that keeping you a secret, which started from wanting to keep you safe due to my line of work, has caused more harm than good.” he summarizes, “i realized that the waiter from the restaurant has a very normal job and from his body language, i could tell he was interested in—”

“spence, you profiled a waiter?”

“i observed.” he looks down at his hands that are now situated in his lap. “i did get jealous. he’d be able to show you off without putting you on some psychopath’s hit list, although—”

he stops when he makes eye contact with you.

you’re amused, clearly. and spencer’s lips press into a thin line.

“you’re laughing at me.”

you deny his accusation with a shake of your head, despite the curl of your lips telling a different story.

“i think it’s funny that we went so long without talking to each other, only to brought together by a waiter—”

“not a waiter,” he interrupts and you quirk a brow.

“so jealously then?”

he’s silent. “jealously is powerful motivator, you know.” he stands up just to hold your hand, pulling you to sit with him, “but truly, i didn’t want to miss our anniversary. i know we haven’t talked properly—”

you shake your head, “we can talk about it all later,” you whisper, hands holding his as if he’ll disappear. “i’m so happy you’re here right now.”

spencer leans in, brushing his nose against yours before pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. “not as happy as i am.”

you kiss him, a little deeper this time to make sure that he’s really here. “and for the record,” you say, watching his lips twitch into a smile, “i’d never want to be with a waiter. i kind of have a thing for fbi agents.”

he laughs, a little bashful and his ears turn pink. “i’ll keep that in mind.”

[bejeweledreverie]

Where The Ocean Waves Met My Anxious Heart And Your Strong Embrace

wc: around 1.5k

warnings: reader almost drowning (as a flashback), mentions of fear of death, panic attack, written in 1st person, english is not my first language, ooc rafe?, fluff, not fully proofread

a/n: AAAA my first fic and i am not sure how to feel about it. truly hope it makes sense. comment if you want to be added to the taglist for future fics (ideally would love to put out one fic every week but we'll see how that goes ;-; )!! if you liked this, please comment and reblog <333

p.s. can't decide if the title fits this at all

~

I never liked him. In fact, I want to gag anytime the name ‘Rafe Cameron’ leaves someone's mouth. He had somehow (unsurprisingly) lived up to his title in the Outer Banks, the Kook Prince. An arrogant and cocky asshole was all that he was to me.

I never really cared about the whole Pogues and Kooks thing. I was friends with both, in fact Kie, Pope, John B and JJ were some of my closest friends. Just because I live in Figure Eight, doesn’t make me better than those who live on the Cut. That is what my parents always taught me, since both of them also used to be Pogues.

But I was never gonna live it down when it came to the eldest Cameron offspring. He always calls me ‘the rip-off Kook’.

Sarah and I have been best friends since forever, but I never got along with Rafe. Ever. Even when we were kids, he always annoyed me, trying and often succeeding at pissing me off or upsetting me. 

You would think that we would’ve grown out of our childish antics as time went on, but it only got worse. We could never pass each other without sending glares or saying snarky remarks.

It’s a Friday night in late June. My family and I are at Cameron's for our annual summer barbecue. 

I had left my camera there a couple days prior after a sleepover with Sarah. As always, I was tasked to document the gathering, so I went inside to look for it.

And that is why I found myself in Rafe’s room, looking for my camera, that Sarah had left there for some unknown reason to me.

I had been in there a couple times before, but I never had the chance to check it out completely.

I was surprised to find the wall behind his bed covered in photos. Was he also into photography?

My eyes drifted to the window that overlooked the front yard of Tannyhill. 

There was soft music playing, as our families were conversing, sipping on wine and enjoying the food. My need to capture this moment became unignorable. But as I turned to grab my camera from his desk, I saw Rafe standing behind me. I flinch from his presence.

“Jesus, can you not creep upon people like that?” I say.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, sweetheart,” he answers, a lazy smirk on his lips.

I roll my eyes at the nickname, turning back to the window.

“What are you doing in my room, Y/L/N?” he asks, as he moves to stand next to me.

“Came to get this,” I picked up the camera from the desk and prepared to snap the photo I was planning on taking before Rafe interrupted me.

“I find it hard to believe that you only came to take your camera, you wanted to snoop and find something to blackmail me with,” he says, jokingly accusing me with a smirk on his face.

“Oh Cameron, I have known you for over a decade, pretty sure I have enough dirt on you as it is,” I laugh slightly, as I adjust the camera settings.

“Really, because in all these years you have never used it on me.” 

“Knowledge is power, Rafael. Don’t expect me to play all of my cards out at once,” I say, zooming in a little bit on the party in the yard.

Once I’m finished taking the photos, I turn to Rafe, finding him already staring at me. I’m used to receiving glares from him, but this time his eyes held something else. An emotion I can’t describe. His gaze was intense.

Feeling a little uncomfortable, I turned to look at the photo covered wall.

“I didn’t know you were into photography,” I say, absentmindedly admiring each photo.

Rafe looks down at his shoes, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I, uh, always wanted to try it and I ended up liking it a lot.”

My eyes settle on one particular photo. It’s a photo of the ocean, which appears to be right before the storm.

I look at the date in the bottom right corner and my body freezes. 

I can feel the water filling my lungs and I can hear the storm again. The fear of death clouds my brain. 

All of a sudden I’m hiccuping for breaths and I feel my legs give out.

…

It was supposed to be a stupid dare, but my stubbornness knows no boundaries. 

When JJ jokingly challenged me to surf in the storm, I should’ve just laughed it off, but I didn’t.

Everything was going well, until the wave threw me off the board and I was pushed underwater.

The storm had gotten stronger, so did the waves, and I could barely breathe in when I came up, as another wave pushed me below the surface. Safe to say I was drowning. 

I was so scared, but I couldn’t scream out for help. My limbs were burning from trying to stay above water and slowly I gave in. 

Suddenly, I felt strong arms wrap around me and attempt to pull me out.

Then it all went black.

…

I felt Rafe’s arms wrap around me to keep me from falling as I choked out a sob. It was like I was experiencing that day all over again. I couldn’t breathe properly and I was shaking like crazy.

“Hey, Y/N, hey! Look at me. You’re safe, you’re not in the water. Just breathe.”

His proximity, my almost drowning, it was too much for me. I tried to wriggle out his grip, failing, as his arms around me only tightened.

“It’s okay, you are safe. I am here.”

I finally let myself collapse into him, sobbing into his chest. He started to rub my back soothingly, while whispering sweet nothings into my ear.

The blurry images of the waves crashing still flooded my brain.

“I thought I was gonna die,” I sobbed

His arms only tightened around me hearing that sentence.

Once I was calm enough, I pulled away slightly. Rafe was already staring at me, and once again, I couldn’t describe the emotion behind his eyes. Was it pityness? Worry? Or was it care?

No, there is no way he cares about me. We hate each other. Right?

I find myself staring back into his captivating blue eyes.

And then the puzzle pieces start falling into place.

“You saved me that day,” I state, my eyes widening with the realization.

Rafe looks away, his hold on me loosening. 

Oh my god. That’s why he knew what my panic attack was about. That’s why after the accident he didn’t talk to me for weeks. Does he actually care about me?

“Rafe, why did you never tell me?” I ask, my hand on his jaw, turning his head so he looks at me.

He sighs, before getting up and walking towards his photo covered wall. He takes off the picture of the ocean from the wall and gestures to me to sit on his bed. 

“I, uh,” he starts nervously, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want things to change between us."

I sat down in front of him, waiting for him to elaborate, nervous as to where this was going.

“Y/N, no matter what happened, you were always there to call me out on my bullshit, whether that was treating my sister poorly or bullying others. You always knew how to put me in my place and I didn’t want that to change.” 

I look at him, surprised. 

The boy who pulled on my braids in elementary school, the boy who knew which buttons to push to annoy me, that same boy was now sitting in front of me telling me that I am the only thing in his life that he can count on.

He worriedly flips the photo to the other side and hands it to me. I take it and look at the writing on the back of it.

Once I read it, it didn’t take long for our lips to meet for a gentle kiss that is filled with years of pent up emotions and feelings that we didn’t know were there.

His hands are gently cupping my face, as if he was afraid I would break.

When we break apart, a little breathless and dizzy, I once again look at the inscription of the photo and I know that I have never been so sure about something in my life before. Somehow everything that had happened over the last 10 years made perfect sense. And even the accident made sense, because without it, we wouldn’t be here right now smiling shyly at each other.

On the back of the photo, in squiggly handwriting, were written 6 words.

The day I almost lost her.

~

@winterrrnight @h34rtsformilli

[jesamnelovelace]

Many people’s negative feelings towards Terry Long lead them to wanting him to be removed completely from Donna’s history. I understand why. He was a good decade older than her, and she was freshly an adult when they began dating. He didn’t respect her career as a hero, often complaining about it despite having known beforehand what he was getting into. He took her child from her in their divorce. Etc. 

Terry was not a good partner for Donna, but I don’t believe canon should just erase him. For better or for worse, Terry played a major role in Donna’s life, and removing him would change who she has become as a character/person.

The problem with Terry’s portrayal, especially prior to his and Donna’s divorce, was that the source material presented their relationship as healthy and tried to convince the readers of that. Clearly their relationship was not actually healthy.

When the age gap is brought up in the comics, it’s never for negative reasons. Sometimes it’s just a jab at Terry for being old, but often these references are used to show how mature Donna is. Wolfman has even said that he created Terry as Donna’s love interest because she needed somebody more mature like her. For him that meant she needed to date a man ten years her senior.

Only after their separation and divorce does their relationship start to be shown a bit negatively. However, even when it is, it’s not doing anything to show that the relationship was unhealthy when they were together. The negative things brought up and referenced about Terry are just that he was the one who initiated the divorce and left Donna and that he took Robbie away from Donna.

The ideal way, in my opinion, for what writers should do with their relationship is not to look back on it in a positive way, nor do I think they should completely ignore it ever happened. It should be acknowledged as something unhealthy that Donna didn’t seen at the time since she was young and naive. Something that took time/needs to take time for her to fully grasp.

However, this doesn’t mean I want for Donna to suddenly just completely hate him. I know many people enjoy revenge fantasies, and I know there are people that use Terry for those, and if that’s how you cope with things, that’s fine. I just personally don't see that as in character for Donna, nor do I really find it compelling.

Donna’s feelings towards Terry should be complicated. It should be something she struggles with at first that she later comes to terms with. There were some comics during and after the divorce that started to do this, but, again, her negative feelings were about the divorce itself and Terry taking Robbie away and not the relationship prior to these events.

During and after the divorce, despite everything Terry has been putting Donna through since he left her, she continues to believe she still loves him and thinks he must feel the same way about her. It ties a bit in with her issues with perfectionism. What they had was the perfect family she wanted, and she can’t fathom that she’s losing it. 

She believes that despite everything he is still a good person. She has occasional moments of anger towards him, but she still feels positively about him a lot of the time. It’s heartbreaking seeing these moments.

New Titans #117

New Titans #128

Even after his death her feelings remain complicated. She grieves for him along with Robbie. After everything he put her through. It would be so easy for her to be angry at him for Robbie’s death regardless of how much at fault he is. But she doesn’t. Instead she continues to feel love for him.  He took her son from her in more ways than one, and she still loves him.

Girlfrenzy! Wonder Woman: Donna Troy

This display of complicated feelings, where she continues to love somebody she has every right to be mad at, isn’t just something she does with Terry. She’s done this with the Titans of Myth as well. They messed with her memories and manipulated her, but she still feels love for them. 

Return of Donna Troy #4

To me it’s just a lot more compelling for her to struggle with the fact that she still loves these people who she has every right to hate. Even as she comes to terms with how poorly they treated her. She loves Terry. He was an important part of her life. But he hurt her. From the start their relationship was unhealthy. 

A story arc for Donna where it finally hits her how bad things were the whole time could be so much fun if handled correctly. And this is why I would prefer this over him being removed or just having Donna suddenly switch to just full on hating him. For her character it makes a lot more sense for things to be a bit more complex than that.

[mswyrr]

THG is the only pop culture story I can think of where the heroes (Katniss and Peeta) are disabled* and their happy ending doesn't require that they be "fixed" in order to be happy. IMO, part of why there's such controversy over the ending of the books in particular is that Collins wrote the pov of Katniss as a woman who is content and loves her life and her spouse and kids, but she's still very clearly mentally ill (and arguably somewhere on the spectrum). She has coping strategies and her life is good, but she will never be "normal" and Collins doesn't let the audience think that.

The one part, where she talks about how she handles the darker days, when she's really struggling, never fails to move me:

I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years. But there are much worse games to play. (Mockingjay, 332)

It's hard to express how important that is to me. Someone doesn't have to be "normal" to lead a good life. Someone doesn't have to be "normal" to have a life worth living, to give and receive love in good ways.

And, so, when people look at the villain in the prequel and say "he's just crazy, that's why he's evil. He's just a psycho, he's nuts," it's so out of place, it's so dissonant to me -- I think that's absolutely not the kind of story Collins would tell, given her prior handling of disability.

I don't think she's suddenly turned into a Victorian writer where you can know someone is evil because they're disabled because the writer thinks disabled people are warped creatures incapable of doing anything but bringing evil into the world. And the way people assert this, as if it's the pure, wholesome, most politically advanced reading of the prequel, is just - it doesn't compute for me. I don't understand how people get there.

I studied (for years) the treatment of mentally ill people in the mid-20th Century US. It was horrific. US forced sterilization and eugenics laws actually inspired N/azi Germany's forced sterilization, eugenics, and mass murder campaigns against mentally ill and disabled people. Nice, normal people have repeatedly convinced themselves that torturing and killing disabled people is how they will "purify" their society - they've done great evil in the name of rooting out the people evil is supposedly located within biologically.

Is it so hard to believe that people with normal brains do evil? Is it truly so impossible? Even in a story where the Games are about how a lot of people, the majority of whom are neurotypical, can be brought, via media presentation and entertainment techniques, into taking pleasure in their participation in evil? It's so hard to fathom that evil can't simply be located in someone being "psycho"?

Ballad already has Dr Gaul, who is evil and clearly neurodivergent. If Snow is too then the message starts to get kind of worrying? IMO, Coriolanus is more effective as a kind of “everyman” as an 18 year old - an example of the incentive structures (rewards and punishments) and propaganda that motivate “normal” people to go along. Of course, he will later become something far worse than that, someone who takes control of this thing, who uses his intimate knowledge of it and his insight into other “normal” people to make it worse, but that’s not the part of his life we see the most of. The part the book focuses on provides what I consider a powerful depiction of how ordinary people are acculturated into corrupt societies.

It's fiction so there's all kinds of interpretations that the text can support and exploring those is good. It's a stronger text because it has ambiguities and can be interpreted more than one way. But the intensity of some of the rhetoric is an unsettling contrast to what I've thought, for over a decade, Collins' themes and pov are as a writer.

*Shame on the films for removing Peeta's physical disability, though; in the books he lost a leg during their first Games

[7-wonders]

8 - "You look like you were jealous" - Subtle Smut Sentence Starters - Morpheus/Dream.

Morpheus never worried about men flirting with the reader because he knows his lover has a preference for women. Lately, a woman in the workplace has been not only flirting but also dreaming about the reader, and that makes our emo kitty jealous. Morpheus starts looking for the reader at his workplace saying that he has important things to talk/do with her, but in fact he knows that this woman wants to ask the reader out on a date, which is why he always appears and intervenes.

You can say that this woman has all the characteristics that the reader likes in a woman. Reader would obviously be bi/pan.

I don't know if that's how it works, forgive me if something is wrong or confusing, I don't speak English. You can obviously change whatever you want. 💓💓💓💓

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the reader being jealous. Now it's Morpheus's turn, and I giggled the whole way through writing this. Enjoy!

•••

As the King of Dreams, Morpheus is privy to the dreams that each and every being with a consciousness holds dear to them. Though he is not in charge of desires (that’s his sibling’s department, and it’s one he’d like to stay far away from, thank you very much), dreams and desires often share the same space and are sometimes even the same thing.

This is how he finds out that there’s someone, a mortal, nonetheless, that is interested in you romantically.

Jealousy is not a feeling that Dream of the Endless has been overly familiar with during his long, long life. Possessiveness, yes, but for the most part, he has had no reason to be jealous (except for the Killala affair, the first, and probably only, time that he had ever been genuinely jealous). Not to sound pompous, but he is Endless. What need does he have for an emotion as petty as jealousy? In fact, if one were to ask him, he would say that he had never actually been jealous before and that if he had, it was so long ago that he did not remember what the emotion felt like.

No, he’s not familiar with jealousy, but what else would he call this…odd, simmering anger that threatens to eat him alive? After all, it had only started when he had sensed you, or rather, a version of you, in someone’s dreams, and found said version of you engaged in sexual intercourse with a dreamer. It was only after Morpheus declared the dream to be over that he went in search of the offending dreamer, only to discover that it was none other than Johanna Constantine.

As you would say, Morpheus shot himself in the foot. After all, he was the one to introduce you to Constantine when the occultist was having trouble summoning and speaking to ghosts. You just so happened to have the abilities of a psychic medium and were more than willing to help out when the situation had been explained to you. You worked well together and ended up continuing your professional partnership after the original job was finished. At the time, Morpheus had prided himself on a job well done. Now, he was wishing that he had forced her to make a costly deal with his sister if only it meant that she would stop meeting up and working with you.

It certainly doesn’t help that Constantine was a naturally flirtatious creature, calling you “gorgeous” or “love” whenever she talked to you, or teasing that she would be ready and available should you finally decide to leave Morpheus. Worse is the fact that, when it came to women, Morpheus knows that Johanna is what is referred to as “your type.”

He distinctly recalled a night spent with you and Hob Gadling, listening as you recounted the follies of prior relationships. Hob had just finished explaining speed dating in the eighties when you told him that, after years of denial, you had had the startling realization after your last relationship that you did actually have a type, with that type being “brunette girls with an attitude.” Unfortunately, that was very much Johanna.

Morpheus doesn’t understand why it is that he’s feeling so upset, so jealous, over this situation. He knows with every fiber of his anthropomorphized being that you are loyal and faithful to him and that you are just as obsessed with him as he is with you. But as Johanna’s infrequent dreams of you take on a more romantic tone, he cannot help but become a slave to jealousy.

Morpheus had to do something. He could not, he would not, lose you to anybody, but especially not a mortal, and definitely not a Constantine.

So he begins to…appear spontaneously when he knows that you and Johanna will be working together. Matthew calls it “staking his claim,” and perhaps that’s what it is. What else would he call showing you affection in front of your coworker, affection that he is not good at giving when in public, for no reason other than to remind said coworker that you are very happily taken? It’s a rather genius plan, he believes. Subtle, too. If he were to be questioned as to why he shows up at the most inopportune of times, he would simply claim that Time works differently in his realm, and therefore it is impossible to know what is considered a “good time” to see his beloved.

Morpheus is able to delude himself into thinking that this is all working perfectly until after the third time he tries this act. You’re excited to see him when he interrupts your and Johanna’s research into whether the entity she’s dealing with is a ghost or a poltergeist, and you eagerly accept the kiss he offers to you. Still, he notices the look that you and Johanna share when he asks if you might be willing to end your meeting early, and he becomes uncomfortable at the thought that you both know what this is. No, Morpheus tells himself, he’s covered his tracks extremely well.

“Well, Jo? Think we can continue this tomorrow?” you ask upon getting the hint that Morpheus would rather be anywhere but here. “We have been at it for a while now.”

She sighs in faux petulance before nodding. “Aye, could use a break, let you and Sandy get on with your marital activities.”

Morpheus glowers at the exorcist, but you just snicker under your breath and remind her, “We’re not married.”

“Yet.” Johanna glances at Morpheus and winks. “Better hurry up with that, else someone might swoop in and steal your girl.”

“Thank you for the sage advice, Constantine,” Morpheus bites out before turning to you. “Are you ready to depart?”

You nod and take his offered arm, allowing Morpheus to sweep you away to the Dreaming faster than you can even think about saying goodbye to your friend.

When you land in his chambers, you grab his arm before he can try to escape based on the pretense of needing to return to tasks that are apparently pressing, but not pressing enough that he couldn’t escape to see you for no real reason. “Wait,” you say. “Can we talk?”

“What about?” Morpheus asks, for he is not about to deny your request.

“You’ve been acting weird.” You pause. “Weirder than normal. And you only act this way when I’m working with Johanna.”

“I do not believe that has been the case.”

You grin, and he knows that you’ve figured out what he has been doing. “Morpheus. Are you…jealous?”

“That is preposterous,” he says immediately, trying to dispel the notion from your mind.

“Really? Because, to me, it sure looked like you were jealous.”

“I am no such thing!”

Instead of trying to argue with him, because there’s no point to that when you both know that he’s lying, your triumphant grin softens to something sweeter. “It’s okay to be jealous, you know. It’s a very human emotion.”

“I am not human.”

“I know. But you do carry the entire subconscious of humanity, so it makes sense that you’d feel our petty human emotions.”

“Suppose I am…jealous,” Morpheus says the word as if it pains him to do so. “That would not upset you?”

“No! If anything, I’m just curious why you’re jealous. And why it’s Johanna that you’re jealous of.” 

The fact that you have no idea why he feels this way makes Morpheus feel even worse about the jealousy that he’s experiencing because it’s obvious that, to you, he has no reason to be jealous. Morpheus so badly wishes to manufacture a crisis somewhere in the Dreaming so that he may escape having to talk about his feelings.

“I am aware of your proclivity of women that are much the same as Johanna Constantine,” he says instead. “I am also aware of the affection that she harbors for you, an affection made obvious in her dreams.”

“Johanna doesn’t have a crush on me! That’s just how she is, she flirts with everyone!” you argue.

“I can assure you that she does. I will let you see her book if you wish.” He knows that you’re not doubting him in the slightest, but he also wants you to know that just because he’s jealous does not mean that he’s making things up.

“No, if you say it’s true, then I believe you. But what do you mean, my proclivity towards women–” you mutter the last sentence, trying to figure out what Morpheus meant when suddenly you remember the exact same conversation as him. “Huh, I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

It clicks together for you now, and you grab Morpheus’s hands so that he can’t run away. “Yes, girls like Johanna have traditionally been my type. But lately, my type has changed.”

“It has?” He knows what you’re going to say, but he wants to hear you say it. If Morpheus is going to be indulging his more human emotions, then greed may as well join that list.

“My type is you, Morpheus. Not people like you, but you.”

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, leaning his forehead against yours. Morpheus straightens after a moment when fear runs through him like lightning. “You will not tell her of this, will you?”

“No, I wouldn’t talk about our private conversations to her. Plus, it’s embarrassing enough to have a crush on someone that you know is taken. I don’t want to call her out and make her feel bad about it.”

“You are wise,” Morpheus praises.

“Then might I wisely suggest that you allow me to show you just how little you have to be jealous about?” you ask, already leading him back towards the bed.

He smirks. “You may.”

His secret bout of jealousy, he’s relieved to discover, will remain safe with you.

[juminies]

in order to get to the heart

marriage of convenience, on occasion, is not so convenient.

♡ — jumin x original female character. small amounts of canon compliant jumin x reader, but mostly canon divergent (jumin is unhappily married prior to the start of the game). 1600 words. title from heartlines by florence + the machine.

They just say anything to each other these days.

“This façade drains me beyond comprehension,” Jumin confesses the minute he walks through the door. His fingers loop into the knot of his tie and pull it looser around his neck.

“So you say,” murmured half into a cushion tucked up to a woman’s chest as she types on her phone. “It’s not for our benefit though, is it?”

On some level, this is always how it was going to be for Jumin, he thinks. In a marriage stripped to its fragile bones. A sacrificial lamb for the sake of the corporation, for mutual social and financial gain.

He leans down to untie his shoes.

It would be untrue to say there weren’t veiled attempts, in the beginning, to love. When that didn’t work there were attempts to like. None successful, of course. Lately it’s becoming more difficult to believe this arrangement is better than any alternative. Between the two of them there is a lot of nothing.

The woman remains quiet—focused—but nods easily against the woven fabric she’s leaning into when Jumin asks, “Do you not get tired of coming home from work to find me occupying your space?”

He knows that in public they look good together. He knows that their careers slot together effortlessly. Despite what the media may suggest, however, they are human. Jumin included. The way he feels nothing for her does not match the way she feels nothing for him. The way she yells that he is robotic does not match the way he stoically calls her irresponsible.

They do not sleep together, or eat together, or do any of the romantic things Jumin wishes he hadn’t let himself privately indulge in the idea of. And it’s not that she’s not nice—she’s intelligent and beautiful and kind, when it suits her. Perfect on paper until she wasn’t. When she laughs with her chest Jumin can almost imagine a world where she smiles at him like she does others and it makes his heart weak. Part of him wishes, truly, that that was the case. In reality it feels like nothing.

It could be worse, he tells himself—repeats it like a mantra.

Concealed beneath it is fear. You could be like him. You could repeat his mistakes.

She throws her phone haphazardly onto the sofa beside her and looks up to where Jumin is standing in the doorway. He’s mostly backlit from the light in the hall, the lamp beside his wife barely grazing his features but lighting up hers in all the wrong ways. The orange glow casts unpleasant shadows over places she’s usually pretty. He should have the bulb changed to something less harsh.

“Not much we can do if you don’t want the press to kick up a huge fuss, sweetie,” she says.

The pet names are a jest he has learned to tune out.

“Will they not make a fuss over our divorce in three years’ time nonetheless?” Jumin asks. It’s hypothetical, of course. They will.

“Maybe we’ll have grown on each other by then.” Her tone is disinterested; feels almost mocking. Her phone chimes to let her know her driver is outside. “I’m going out. Shall I take my card or yours?”

“It makes little difference to me.” Jumin looks at his watch. It’s almost 10pm but he doesn’t ask where she’s going. A bar, perhaps.

“Could you adjust my necklace?”

She holds her hair up messily, and he does.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he tells her, then briefly wonders if she’ll meet someone tonight and sleep with them. He pictures her naked beneath a stranger. It feels like nothing.

She takes her own card and squeezes his bicep softly as she walks by him on the way out. She shuts the door more forcefully than is ever really necessary.

At some point Jumin suggests she move out of their—his—apartment and into the one directly below; just recently made vacant. He probably would have suggested it earlier had the apartment been available earlier, but their district of Seoul tends to be under high demand.

“I thought we agreed it was a bad idea to live separately,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question. They had done exactly that.

Jumin hums, tired. Tired from his trip and tired from trying and at some point, it seems, he has lost an indistinguishable part of himself to her for good.

“We did. Although I would say that that was long enough ago now for us both to have become quite aware that we do not do particularly well sharing the same space for considerable periods of time.”

“You’re gone a lot anyway. The place is big enough for us to avoid each other if needed, and I like it here.”

She exhales sharply; amused.

Jumin has no idea why until she adds, “More so when you’re not around, to be fair.” And that explains it, just about.

“Stay here when I am travelling if you must,” he tells her. Somewhere along the way his suggestion has morphed into more of an instruction.

“Fine. Don’t tell your father, though. Or mine.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

They buy it outright in her name, the cost split fifty-fifty. Jumin tells her to keep it all when she sells it later. She tells him she won’t.

They argue tonight, as usual, about who will be chauffeuring them to a company gala. They had agreed that Jumin’s driver would take them only for her to assert for the hundredth time at the last minute that she doesn’t trust him, though she has not legitimately spoken to him more than once and he has been working for Jumin’s family longer than she has been alive.

It’ll cause a stir if the two of them show up separately so they end up in her car, as usual. Jumin apologises to Driver Kim via text for requesting him when he wasn’t needed on the way there, and they arrive late.

The venue reminds Jumin of the last RFA party. His wife had not attended despite her invitation, so it is not proper grounds for conversation. However, when they are out like this they are a happy couple like the legal drabble says, so he says it anyway—if just to appear interested in her.

“I’m sure this is nicer than your friends’ charity get togethers,” she replies lightheartedly, and they are called over by her father before Jumin can retaliate.

The façade stays firm for the remainder of the event. Jumin can easily distinguish her fake laugh from her real one, and he can tell when she forgets who he is for a moment and touches him a little more tenderly than either of them really mean.

They are silent on the drive home. They are silent in the elevator, until it stops one floor below Jumin’s penthouse. “Goodnight,” he says. “Sleep well.”

“You don’t have to say that, you know,” she counters, and smiles softly as the doors slide shut between them. “Not when it’s just me.”

Elizabeth the 3rd is snoring softly when he unlocks his door, and it is the only sound he can hear. He basks in the bliss of having nobody around when he is already so mentally exhausted, and takes out his phone to see it’s just after midnight and Yoosung has opened a chat room.

He enters it, multitasking as he changes his clothes and brushes his teeth. His cat patters into the room and jumps up beside him when he perches on the edge of his bed. She smells frustratingly like perfume and something oddly like guilt threatens Jumin with a dull blade.

Wait!! says Luciel. Think someone entered the chat room.

Jumin checks. There is a name on his screen he doesn’t recognise.

Odd.

Who are you? Identify yourself.

“Jumin. It’s me,” your voice is soft and bubbly; maybe a little nervous but still pleasant on his ears. An intriguing introduction. He almost finds himself chuckling.

Jumin moves the phone from his ear and glances down at your name again, just to be certain he’s not imagining things, then focuses in on the plainness of the wall in front of him.

“I hope you realise blurting out ‘It’s me’ is not a proper way to identify yourself to the person on the other end of the line.”

He had hesitated briefly before telling you he is married. Now he has known you for five days and whatever he’s feeling is somehow, ridiculously, already far greater than any emotion he has ever felt towards his wife.

He invites her out for dinner at their usual restaurant the following evening, and she tells him if he has something to discuss with her she would rather keep it simple. As an alternative he invites her to the penthouse and opens a bottle of wine he knows she likes. When she arrives her hair is tied up experimentally and she is wearing a new shade of lipstick. She surprises him when she actually accepts his offer to pour her a glass.

“I am going to talk with my father,” Jumin says, and she knows what he means. It’s only later that he will find out she had already brought it up with hers. “For what it’s worth, however, I apologise that it ended up like this.”

“Me too,” she agrees. Jumin notices the light catch a glassiness in her eyes as she continues, “If I could have loved you, I would have.”

She stays for a few hours and it is the most sincere time they have spent together in three years.

That night, Zen has a dream.

[weewooooweew]

‼️BSD SPOILERS‼️

If Dazai Goes Back to the Port Mafia.. :(

I keep seeing things about people postulating that Dazai is gonna go back to the Port Mafia, like based off manga panels of the ADA but they exclude Dazai, and that one little deal between Fukuzawa and Mori. Und so, I was texting my favorite pookie (🩷‼️) and accidentally wrote a fic‼️‼️

I hope you all cry.

❗️warnings:❗️suicide (attempts and committing), death, Dazai, angst, uhhhhh oh yeah, implications of cutting. I think that’s all, but please tell me otherwise if I missed something 🤩

‼️BSD SPOILERS UNDER CUT‼️

In the event that Dazai goes back to the Port Mafia, I think it will be the end of Dazai Osamu.

At his prior employment in the Port Mafia, Dazai’s yearning for death was much different than it is now with him at the Armed Detective Agency. At the Port Mafia it was much more real, more desperate, more escapist; frantic running from the so called life he was leading, from all the things he was forced to go through with, from the atrocities he was made to commit at the ripe age of 14-16, the things he was ashamed of but did not see a way out of other than death. He was miserable, he had few friends, and the few he had left him or died, and he blamed himself for that. We saw how he taught, rather, abused, Akutagawa when Dazai was his mentor, and we know that his “teaching methods” are a reflection of how he was treated in the Mafia. Dazai was an executive, a top dog in the Mafia, he had status, he had influence, and yet, at what price did that come at? What was the price for a boy, barely a teenager, who can’t even legally drive, to become a top executive in the Port Mafia, an underground crime organization who certainly doesn’t care about him beyond his base use and application to the Mafia as a whole. He was suicidal in every sense of the word, he hated himself, he hated what he did, he hated who he worked for, he hated his life (if you could call it a life) and he hated how despite his very real attempts, he can’t seem to die.

And now, at the Armed Detective Agency, it’s different. He no longer legitimately wants to kill himself. Yes, he still makes attempts, but none of them are actual attempts for the sake of actually dying, no, more now just for amusement, to see if he can, he’d never let it actually happen to himself. At the ADA, he feels loved, useful, wanted, and not just for what he can provide to the organization, but for who he is! He helps people now, he’s proud of what he does! He’s proud of himself! He doesn’t hate himself anymore, or at the very least, as much!

Can you imagine what would happen if he was made to go back? All the progress that was made there, imagine the processes it would take for the PM to undo that, to make him their loyal bitch boy again.

The ADA and the PM had just won, defeated the Decay of Angels, they’d just gone through all that and then, Dazai has to go back to the PM. Of course he’d never make that choice on his own, no, he did it so Yosano wouldn’t have to return (due to the deal that Fukuzawa had to make with Mori due in the fight.) So Dazai goes back and it takes all of a week or two, just a few mafia missions for Dazai to start slipping again. His attempts get a little too real again. His bandages become more than just fashion again. His eyes get duller again. His face gets sallow and sunken again. It’ll be a good month before he picks up a gun again, another before he uses it, but he will use it. And he’ll hate it. He’ll hate himself. He’ll hate what he’s doing. He’ll hate who he’s working for. It might be worse this time. It might be worse because now he’s reliving his early teen years, all that overwhelming trauma, floods back with ever face he sees, ever scream he hears, ever hall he walks, ever door knob his scarred fingers brush against. It’ll be worse now because he’s fighting against the people who love him for who he is not what he can do. It’ll be worse this time because now he’s going against those who picked him up when he was broken, those who brought him back, those who are his friends. It’ll be worse this time because it’s oh so easy to break that which had already been broken.

And yet, it could be slightly better. I could be better because of Chuuya. Chuuya will see Dazai break, Chuuya will see how this is hurting him, see how Dazai is slipping and falling and not bothering to plead for help. Chuuya will nonetheless help him the best he can. Chuuya does have morals, virtues, and more importantly, he does care for Dazai, his friend. Chuuya might not notice his attempts getting more serious, because they’re the same attempts that Chuuya saw before with Dazai at the PM, Chuuya never saw Dazai’s “attempts” at the ADA, he doesn’t fully grasp just how much better Dazai had gotten, and consequently just how bad Dazai is becoming again. But Chuuya does realize that something’s wrong, something more than before. And while he’s not that good at comforting, he’ll do his best.

Though his best might not be enough when he walks through the door of Dazai’s apartment and finds that he has to crane his neck much higher than normal to see Dazai. Has to guide his eyes all the way up to the support beam over the sofa. To see the cloth belt of Dazai’s trench coat tied around the wood beam, Chuuya’s friend swinging softly in front of him,

a foreign look of unbothered peace on Dazai’s face at last.

[textfromthelookout]

just read ur entire essay about vegeta and like.. goddamn you just gave me a whole new perspective on that funky little man. i love the way it was written and organized

ALSO ALSO i read this bit and am begging u to expand on this concept it sounds so interesting /gen

Oh you would, would you. I am delighted to oblige.

So. Super Saiyan. A transformation available to Saiyans past certain power thresholds that, while more or less freely accessible after first awakening to it, needs a trigger to become accessible in the first place. Over the course of Z in its many adaptations, we see the first awakenings of Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, and Gohan onscreen. Goten, Trunks, and Future Gohan are also Super Saiyans, but we don’t know for sure how that came about. Goten and Trunks in particular are why I say that Super Saiyan (more specifically, the first time you access Super Saiyan) can be read as a trauma response, because there’s no real evidence this is the case on their parts. You can make an argument for them, but in general I choose to believe they’re exceptions to this take, so I won’t be discussing them.

Oh and as for Cabba, Caulifla, and Kale…… they’re literally from an alternate universe. Super Saiyan just has different rules there. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Getting back on track. Goku’s the obvious place to start, so let’s look at him first. In the entirety of Dragon Ball (that I’ve seen), not counting the comedic needle bit in that one episode of GT, Goku has only ever been seen crying three times. Once was his reunion with Grandpa Gohan in early Dragon Ball. Once was in the anime’s version of the Tournament of Power, after Roshi’s near-death incident.

Once was at the beginning of King Piccolo, when he finds Krillin dead. King Piccolo saga is a little infamous for the sudden tonal whiplash—yeah, Tien breaks Yamcha’s leg in the tournament just prior, but they make up about it and it’s not as dire as someone dying. What’s really striking to me about it is Goku’s reaction. He’s more upset than we’ve ever seen him. And he loses worse than we ever see him lose because of it. Sure, in the end everything is put right, but.

But, the thing about trauma is that it makes time go weird. Fast forward about ten years. It’s suddenly happening again. His best friend is dead. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. He doesn’t know that Porunga can revive people who have already died once. As far as Goku knows, Krillin’s gone for good this time. And he watched it happen and watched Freeza laugh about it.

And he reacts essentially the same way. Only this time, he’s orders of magnitude stronger than he was when he was 15, and he has the experience and the wherewithal to control himself somewhat better. Emphasis on somewhat, because it’s very clear that he’s worried about going completely off the deep end in the grips of this power. And he’s right to be! I’m willing to bet money that in Gohan’s whole life, Goku has never pulled the ‘I’m your father, don’t talk back to me’ card on him, and that’s one of the smallest ways this power changes him. When he’s fighting Freeza, he’s a lot more like Vegeta, down to the way he smirks. He’s condescending. He’s brutal. I’ve seen comments to the effect of ‘Freeza’s not fighting Goku anymore—now, Freeza’s fighting Kakarot’ and that’s truly what it feels like.

I could go on, but the particulars of the Namek fight aren’t the important part. The important part is that Goku recognizes how badly that whole thing fucked him up and stays on Yardrat for a year explicitly to get a handle on Super Saiyan before returning home. He knows that if he loses control like that again, there’s a very real possibility he’ll end up hurting someone he cares about, or worse, becoming someone he really doesn’t want to be. (Call it a reach, it definitely is one, but I like to believe Goku picked up Instant Transmission while he was there so he’ll never be too late or too far away to help ever again.)

Vegeta’s case is less… visible? So, much of this is going to be purely my extrapolation. If you take him at his word, Vegeta triggered Super Saiyan with the sheer amount of hatred he felt toward himself for his inadequacy and like. Hello. That’s already a giveaway. I don’t believe he’s outright lying, but I also believe he’s simplifying matters a little. Or a lot. Per My Last Long-Winded Essay, he only gets that far because he leaves Earth entirely for areas uninhabited, which is good for him in some respects and bad for him in others.

The sweet irony of it is that it was Vegeta’s own efforts that locked him out of Super Saiyan. He tried to brute-force his way into it singlemindedly, in the belief that he was simply not strong enough, but Super Saiyan’s trigger is raw, overwhelming emotion. It can be one very clear emotion, or several different ones mixed up, but it’s emotion. It doesn’t answer to logic by its very nature, and frankly, neither does trauma. So Vegeta’s removed all the distractions to his training, yes, but in doing so he’s also removed all the distractions from everything else. Without anybody else around, he doesn’t have anything to get himself out of his own head, so now he’s got a whole universe of space for two and a half decades’ worth of repressed shit to come raging out. Funny how the minute he lets himself feel actual emotions other than the ones he wants everyone to see, the transformation explicitly tied to and powered by emotion rears its head, huh.

Vegeta makes several really dumb decisions once he gets back on Earth, in sharp contrast to the way he handles himself on Namek before he’s face-to-face with Freeza. On Namek, he’s careful to fly under the radar whenever he can, which is why I love the fit he launches into when he realizes Gohan played him, because that’s his control slipping. He’s opportunistic and sneaky and it’s clear he’s doing his damnedest to get what he wants without having to fight people who can kill him. He doesn’t hear the Ginyu Force is coming and rush off to challenge them, he’s like ‘oh shit’ and immediately fucks off elsewhere. I can only make sense of the way he acts during the androids/Cell as a symptom of his need to prove himself.

And make no mistake—it is a need, not a want. The power’s meaningless without people to witness and acknowledge it, the same way the authority of royalty is. His chosen course of action, though, is sort of like painting over rotten wood, if that makes any sense. Letting himself get high off the power, pretending that everything went exactly the way it should have gone from the start, refusing to acknowledge all of his Issues more than passingly. Furthermore, his victory must be complete and unquestionable: that’s why he lets Cell take Android 18. He can’t just… not lose, he has to win. Anything less is anathema to him. You see, he hasn’t yet figured out that he can survive without it.

Okay sorry that got a little in the weeds but I hope you get what I was driving at there. Vegeta’s a mess and talking about him makes me Unstable. Let’s move on.

Of the main four Saiyans, I think Future Trunks’ awakening is the simplest to understand: his trigger is that moment of pure, crushing grief when he finds Gohan dead in the rain. And it’s no wonder. Aside from Gohan and his mother, who does Trunks even talk to in that timeline? We never see him with friends, not until Super. Trunks’ ‘You were everything to me’ in the dub version of the special might be only debatably canon but it’s hardly an exaggeration. Friend. Teacher. Comrade. Brother. Perhaps even a father figure, in some ways. Certainly the only other one of his kind—half-human, half-alien from a long-dead warrior race. There was literally nobody else in the world who could come close to understanding him to the degree that Gohan could have. Gohan dies and Trunks is effectively all alone, the terminarch of one species left to shoulder the fate of another.

It’s a staggering loss for anybody, let alone for a boy of 12 or 13.

Speaking of. Gohan. I think Gohan’s a strange case—not powered by grief or anger, but something different. In the moments before he unlocks Super Saiyan, he’s thinking ‘I have to do it’ before flashing abruptly to all the different times where he was ‘too weak or too scared’ to fight. I personally believe that it’s less determination or ‘the power coming in response to a need’, as Goku puts it, that tips him over the edge. Fear, I think—while not being the whole reason, there’s surely some self-directed anger or disappointment involved—is probably the biggest factor. That’s Gohan’s whole thing—he’s scared of fighting, and to some degree of his own power. If I laid out all the specific examples we’d be here for another thousand words, so I’ll just say that he’s been Through It. We all know this.

This sort of has a continuation in the iconic Super Saiyan 2 transformation against Cell. It’s all on him and it’s not until Cell actually kills someone in front of Gohan that it really twigs that it’s do or die for him. And as much as he’s angry at Cell, the realization that Cell means business, that he really will kill them all? It scares him. Fight or flight takes over. The only real difference is that he chooses fight. The change in how Gohan handles Cell is what really convinces me that emotionally he’s going through something similar to Goku and Vegeta—because it’s almost to the letter exactly what happens with Goku against Freeza. The cruelty, the condescension. I’d argue Gohan leans into the mean demeanor, subconsciously or not, to keep from feeling the fear. And it costs him. But the Gohan discussion is a whole other discussion.

As for Future Gohan, I’m putting a disclaimer here now that none of what I’m about to say is really provable—just really really interesting to think about.

Future Gohan’s life is maybe the worst-case scenario. Like the future timeline sucks specifically for Gohan because he doesn’t like to fight and he has to anyway because what other choice does he have? Let everyone on Earth die without at least trying? He couldn’t, not in good conscience. And it’s not like he’ll have a normal life so long as the androids are around anyway. So in the middle of grieving basically everybody he’s ever known and felt affection for (sans his mother and grandfather, it’s more implied that he’s estranged from them, or at least intentionally distancing himself from them to keep them out of harm’s way), he's also making himself channel anger he hates feeling so he has a shot of even surviving these killers that only exist because of something his father did at least ten years ago. This shouldn’t be his fight, and yet.

Here’s my personal theory. Gohan goes into that final fight with the androids fully intending to die. Not just expecting to, but hoping to. He knows that if he was only barely scraping through those fights with both arms, there’s no way in hell he’ll kill them both when he only has one. He’s not an idiot, but you know what he is? Exhausted. Twelve years of this, being the only resistance to this threat and failing each and every time. He knows what will unlock Super Saiyan for Trunks. He knows there’s someone to carry on the torch and lift the burden. And it’s cruel and selfish of him to put all of that on Trunks and throw himself to the wolves, but it was cruel that he had to carry that all by himself for so long.

He’s fucking tired.

Anyways. That’s my TEDtalk on Super Saiyan. If you read it all the way to the end you’re a real one. Thanks for this ask, you two!

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hello, I seem to have found myself with an issue at work. My wife’s a demon. Literally. Her family hails from a realm of chaos but we met when she moved here for work. I talk about her fairly often so I had assumed all my coworkers were aware of her genus.

However, on Friday a couple of colleagues I don’t know so well pulled me aside to “discuss how I speak about my wife”. Apparently when I’ve been referring to my wife a demon they had been assuming I’m nothing more than a wife-hating misogynist. I unfortunately understand where they’re coming from; a lot of men my age do to speak poorly of their wives, but I adore mine! She’s the best thing that ever happened to me and when I call her a demon I say it with nothing but complete respect for her genus and her culture.

When they confronted me I panicked. All I could do was mutter some vague promise about doing better, then I scrambled to my car before they could say another word.

Since then I haven’t stopped thinking about what happened. Do people think I’ve been complaining about my wife for the last 20 years and have always been afraid to speak up? Or worse, do some of my acquaintances even support with that kind of behaviour?

In addition, should I speak to my colleagues about their assumptions about my wife’s genus? I’m rather uncomfortable that they heard “demon” and assumed I meant it both metaphorically and in a derogative manner. They’re generally nice people who were trying to call out what they perceived to be poor behaviour on my part. I don’t want to put them off intervening in future, but that doesn’t change their mistake now. I just don’t know what to do.

[Inspired by this post https://www.tumblr.com/acecorvid/744120113970790400]

Oh dear, reader. It sounds like you and your colleagues have got yourselves into a bit of an unnecessary muddle here. Fortunately, it's nothing a little clear communication can't help.

First of all, I absolutely agree that there is something problematic in their quickness to hear negativity and criticism in terminology relating to infernal species.

Based on the way you've spoken about your relationship here, it seems unlikely that you've been using this language while also speaking about your wife in a derogatory, dismissive way.

By failing to see these context clues and simply assuming you couldn't possibly be talking about an actual demon, your colleagues have shown their own sapio-centric bias.

At the same time, though, it's a good sign that they're willing to speak up against casual misogyny – even if their enthusiasm is, in this particular case, misplaced. You can use this good intention as a way to navigate the conversation itself.

Instead of telling them all the ways they're wrong, start off by acknowledging their efforts to push back against the patriarchy. Use this as a way to segue into the actual issue, letting them know that their willingness to speak up to you makes you feel able to correct their own misapprehension.

You don't need to belabour the point. However, I do think it's worth explicitly noting that it was a particularly unfortunate mistake to make, given how it feeds into sapio-centric culture in general and anti-infernal prejudice specifically.

Of course, this doesn't address your concerns about how you've been perceived by your friends and coworkers prior to this incident. Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done about people's past misapprehensions. At the same time, I wonder how realistic your concerns are.

You've known some of these people for 20 years. You speak about your wife often, and are supportive and enthusiastic about her culture. Presumably at some point you've mentioned engaging with her cultural practices, celebrating certain holidays and rituals, visiting family on other planes, and so on.

If anyone who's known you as long as all that still hasn't picked up on this, that's really on them.

As for worrying that you may have acquaintances who think you agree with their misogynistic views, the answer there is simple: do your actions otherwise indicate that you might be a person who would support such ideas?

If someone says or does something misogynistic in your presence, do you have the integrity to speak up about it? Are you involved in supporting equality and diversity in your workplace? Are you someone your friends and acquaintances could come to for support in the face of discrimination?

Most importantly, as the example with your colleagues demonstrates, are you a person who can hear criticism and make an effort to unlearn your own prejudices and preconceptions?

If you can answer yes to those questions, you have nothing to fear. You are already doing what you can do push back against structures of inequality and prejudice, and are in little danger of being mistaken for a bigot. And if not, you have some next steps to take on that journey.

[Clickable link to the original post]

[n0tah1pster]

Salt N Pepper

A Trikey fanfic from my ao3! People seem to like it so I thought I'd post it here too.

Salt N Pepper

Summary: Michael is having a hard time accepting his graying hair. Trevor seems to like it.

Word Count: 1,054

Warnings: None

Life wasn’t as bad as Michael thought it would be. He expected to be presumed dead for the rest of his life and die an early death, whether it be from drinking or just plain boredom from being cooped up in the house all day. It was nice having a tennis court and a pool but god, do they get boring fast. TV wasn’t much better. Stupid cartoons and drama-ridden reality shows do wonders if you want to burn off some brain cells.

Movies. Movies were where it was at. Old movies, new movies, stupid movies. They were all fun. Except for Sharknado. What the hell were they thinking? The point is, Michael loved movies and it was an honor to be able to work with the one and only Solomon Richards. Unfortunately, the movie director passed away a few years prior. Not so unfortunately, he passed down Richards Majestic to Michael.

The former bank robber sighed as he got out of bed, swinging his legs over the side and standing up before stretching his arms over his head. Amanda wasn’t next to him, which almost felt normal now since their divorce. She wasn’t too hard on him, thankfully. She promised she wouldn’t take the house… If he bought her a house for herself. He agreed. His bones cracked and ached. He felt old. He glanced over at the alarm clock on the side of his bed that read 6:34pm’. Guess his nap took longer than expected. The date was right under the time, and the numbers stuck out to him on the dimly lit screen; ‘2024’. He was old.

“Jesus,” Michael mumbled to himself before making his way to the bathroom. The light flicked on and the ex-criminal looked into the mirror. The wrinkles weren’t as bad as he thought they’d be at his age. 55. Fuckin’ A. His face didn’t show that much age, but his hair? He might as well be in a retirement home. His beard, which he’d grown out a little bit per request of Trevor, had small streaks of gray in his dark, black locks. His hair was worse with gray on his sideburns and slowly moving up towards the top, taking over the black like some sort of plague. Michael ran a hand through his hair and let out another sigh. The older he got the faster the days seemed to go by. He spent the last nine years pretending to be dead, and for what? A family that doesn’t even talk to him much anymore? He’d never done anything he wanted to do. Michael had always wanted to go on a nice vacation or travel the world or maybe just get a new boat, he really missed his boat-

DING!

Michael snapped out of his inner crippling monologue and glanced over at his phone. A text from Trevor.

Trevor: hey. want 2 go out 2 eat? im hngry. ur paying $$.

The former bank robber fought to not roll his eyes. Trevor never paid anymore. Not since they first started seeing each other. Who would’ve thought they’d end up together. Michael swore it’d end only if one of them killed the other. Who knew they just needed to kiss? He picked his phone up and texted back.

Michael: Sure. Why don’t you come over and I’ll order in.

Trevor: ok, b there soon.

Might as well start getting ready.

★★★☆☆

“So what’s been goin’ on with you?” Trevor asked with a mouthful of alfredo pasta. The two (Michael) had ordered some pasta from a nearby Italian restaurant. Doordash is amazing. They were sitting on the couch with a movie playing in the background; ‘Pulp Fiction’, per Michael's request.

Michael looked up from his own food and shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I-”

“You got this aura or whatever. You look depressed as fuck. Talk to me before I beat it outta you.”

Michael’s eyebrows furrowed. “Well, aren't you supportive? I really feel safe talking to you.” He said sarcastically. Trevor just responded with a half-assed grunt and began eating again. After a few minutes, Michael decided to just say it.

“I feel old.”

Trevor snorted. “You are old.”

“I know, but it’s different. I feel…” He searched for the word in his head for a moment. “I feel unsatisfied.”

“With?”

“Life, Trevor.”

The taller man raised an eyebrow and set his fork down. “What, you’re mad you’re aging? Life goes on, buddy. You can’t stop time, trust me. I’ve watched Ron try.”

“Why would he-? Nevermind.” Michael sighed. “I feel like I haven’t done enough with my life. Plus, look at me! I’m graying, Trevor. Graying.”

Trevor stared at the other man for a moment. “Why is that a bad thing?”

“Because it looks-” He paused. “Unnatractive!”

“Oh, fuck you, lots of hot people have gray hair! Like… George Clooney!”

“He is not hot.”

“Tell that to all women over the age of 40.” Trevor scoffed. Michael shook his head. It went silent between the two again before Trevor broke the silence again.

“I like your gray hair.”

Michael took a sip of his drink before answering. “You do?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’s that?”

The taller man looked down at his pasta and began poking it with his fork. “It’s nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yeah.”

“Trevor, I’m gonna need you to elaborate-”

“It’s comforting.” He finally spit out. “It’s nice.”

Michael thought about it for a few moments. How could gray hair be comforting? It’s hair.

“Why do you say that?”

Trevor leaned back against the couch and let out an annoyed sigh. “I dunno, Mikey. Maybe it’s because you were dead for nine years.”

“You don’t need to remind me.”

“Well, I feel like I should. The point is, I like seeing you gray. It’s nice. It’s… a nice reminder that you’re alive. I never thought I’d be able to see you, you know, get older. You know how death is. I thought you were gone. Forever. Being able to see you keep living is nice. Does that sound grim?”

Michael had fully stopped eating and was leaning back against the couch now, watching Trevor talk with a soft gaze. He smiled softly and put a hand over Trevor’s own.

“No. It doesn't… Thanks, Trev.”

“Yeah, fuck you.”

“Whatever you want, T.”

[whenrainhitsmyskin]

Gold Glitter Turns to ash

pairing: Bakugo Katsuki/Reader.

summary: In the dead of night your longtime friend Bakugo shows up at your front door. Body and heart battered and bruised, he knows you are the only remedy to ease his mind and soul.

4k+ words.

warnings: must be 18+ to read and interact, fem bodied reader, no pronouns used, mentions of blood and injuries, smut, manhandling, oral fem receiving, hand jobs, explicit sexual content, porn with plot, very vanilla, mention of death.

   - canon verse, characters are aged up to mid-twenties.

a/n: First longer one shot, took a few days to finish it but here it is! I think this is a pretty good starting point and I’m looking forward to improving on my writing. This will probably be edited further at some point, don’t know when though. Enjoy !

There’s a bang at your door, you are startled at the sound of it considering you were asleep moments prior; you check your phone, it reads 2:27 am. You begin making your way from your bedroom to the front door of your apartment. The banging starts again. “Jeez ok I’m coming!”, you yell at whoever has interrupted your sleep.

As soon as you unlock the door and swing it open you see Bakugo. He’s in his hero costume which has burns seared throughout it and a nasty gash on his ribs. “Bakugo..” you whisper, taking in his disheveled appearance, “The hell happened to you?”

He isn’t looking you in the eyes, but rather spacing out somewhere on the floor, the only response you get is a shake of his head and a deep frown on his lips. “C’mere” you say, you lead him from the hallway with a hand on his back, you bring him to the bathroom that’s adjoined to your bedroom and guide him to sit on the countertop.

You take off his heavy gauntlets that are looking worse for wear, then take off his mask that was pushed to the top of his head. You jester to the shirt of his costume and ask, “Can I?”, with a slight lift of his arms you receive your answer and begin pulling his top off.

His honey smooth skin is revealed to your eyes. There are freckles on his shoulders that make him seem so much more human than he lets others see. So much more human than when you met him on the first day of school at UA eight years ago. He bleeds and feels and has freckles on his shoulders.

You take a closer look at the wound along his ribs, it’s a nasty gash but it doesn’t appear to be deep enough to the point that it would require stitches. You lower yourself to the vanity cabinet and pull out a box filled with what you need to get him patched up. You start with taking a cloth and running it under warm water. You gently press it to his side. You spare a glance to his face; he is seemingly looking at nothing and everything at once. His usual scowl is replaced with disgust and repulsion. You want to ask what happened, but at the same time you don’t want to pry at this moment.

You remove the cloth then dry the area and begin to soak a strip of gauze with saline solution to make sure the cut doesn’t get infected. You press it to his skin and you can feel him physically tense, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You say slowly, but at this point you can’t be sure what you are apologizing for, his current physical discomfort or all the things you do not know.

You then bandage up the wound. “Do you need anything else?” You ask him, his eyes finally meet yours and a beat passes, then two.

“I wanna stay.” He states- he means it as a plea-although it will never be that to your ears. To him it means so much more than to stay for the night, he wants to stay with you forever, but you are the only one who cannot see it.

“I might have some extra clothes for you to wear, just stay here and I’ll bring them in.” You go to your closet and pull out a t-shirt with your favorite band on it that Denki got for your birthday that’s about four sizes to big, and a pair of Kirishima's sweatpants that he left at your place in case he needed to sleep off the alcohol after one of your groups notorious game nights.

You let out a deep breath before making your way back to the bathroom. He’s still sitting where you left him. Staring at a crack in the tile floor of your bathroom.

“These will probably fit.” You place them on his lap and head out to the kitchen to give him the privacy to change and to get him some water and pain meds. As soon as you lay them all out you hear his footsteps coming towards you.

He’s looking at what you placed on the counter, “Take these.” You beg, but to his ears they are only a command. You know he hates when others try to take care of him, you're confused as to how you were able to do anything for him at all.

He takes the medicine and finishes the glass of water. “Do you need anything else?”, he only replies with a whisper that sounds sort of like your name, but your mind is filled with so much confusion and anxiety it’s hard to make it out.

You tilt your head as you look him in the eyes, a silent question for him to be more specific. “I’wanna go to bed.” Is all he give you, “Okay..” you reply.

You lead him back to your room and lift the covers for him, he gets under and adjusts accordingly to get comfortable. You begin making your way to the couch where you plan on spending your night but Bakugos voice cuts through, “Where are you going?”

“I’ll sleep on the couch, don’t worry.” You voice, “No don’t, stay here…please?” He asks. Your eyes widen, you had no idea the word please was even a part of his vocabulary. This must be a dream.

But he has freckles on his shoulders and he’s human. It’s only human to say please when you want something so desperately. So, you say, “okay.”

You round to the other side of the bed and try to put a safe amount of distance between the two of you so you don’t appear to be too eager to get in bed with the man you have been in love with for so many years. You roll on your side and you’re now face to face. You can hardly make out his figure through the darkness of the room.

“Do you…do you wanna talk about it?” You hold out an olive branch. He purses his lips as he has an internal war going through his mind. “I…” He takes a moment to collect his thoughts. He shuts his eyes and lets out a deep sigh. You can tell the exhaustion is getting to him. “I couldn’t save someone.”

Your eyes start to water, and he opens his eyes again, they are a reflection of yours. “I’m sorry.” He reaches for your hand with his, you feel the rough calluses of his palm and they’re a little bit sweaty, but you don’t mind. He lets out a soft grunt in response.

Your eyes are feeling heavier, and your body so badly wants to fall victim to sleep but you don’t want to let go of his hand, you don't want to shorten this moment, you want it to last.

He says your name, it sounds so much nicer coming from his lips-which he purses- “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” you reply. You turn and face the wall and allow yourself to succumb to sleep.

You wake up to the sunrise peeking through the curtains and the chill from an open window, you suppose you must have forgotten to shut it before going to sleep last night. You sit up and notice Bakugo is gone. There’s not a singular trace to prove he has ever existed with you in this vicinity. That thought feels worse than it should.

You stand up and open the curtain to the window and lean on the sill. It’s a Wednesday, your one day off from your hero duties for the week. From your perch up here, you see a group of kids probably going to the school a few blocks down from you and a couple of men dressed in business casual clothing heading towards the train station for their regular commute to work.

You don’t know how long you’ve been staring at what’s below you but the sound of running water coming from your bathroom halts it all to a stop. The tap shuts off and out comes Bakugo, still dressed in the clothing you gave him early this morning, the same clothing he slept with in your bed last night.

It’s a staring game. Neither are moving or talking, just watching carefully, seeing who will play the next move. It’s Bakugo, “Move over tremors.” Hearing the nickname he coined you from your school days never fails to bring back a wave of nostalgia across your mind.

You think about your shared days at UA that you will be forever grateful for, thankful that your trauma from the attacks on your class is shared with others even though it goes unspoken.

You shift over enough for him to slot his way by the window next to you. The space isn’t wide enough, and his broad shoulder brushes your own as he leans over next to you.

Moments of serenity pass by, before either of you speak up again. “Thank you..” he breaks the silence with a whisper. “For what?” You ask, your heart and mind want to pinpoint exactly what he means. “For taking care of me, for being with me.”

In your peripherals you can tell he is staring at you; you blame gravity for pulling your own eyes towards him. He’s looking you down and up and you would kill to know what’s going through his mind, “What are you thinking?”

“You’re too good.” He says, you swear last night you only did the bare minimum. Who wouldn’t help one of their friends (unrequited lover) in a time of great need?

“In what ways?” You ask him. “For me.” He says and with that he looks away and back onto the street. You stand up straight and turn your whole body towards him. “Bakugo.” A dare.

His body language follows yours and you both are now face to face completely. You study his facial expressions. You’ve gotten quite good at it throughout the years, but it’s safe to say you usually never get this close. His expression is a mixture of resentment and disappointment. You want it to go away, you want him at peace.

He cups both of your cheeks. The plush of your flesh grounds him. Your hand reaches for the bottom of his borrowed shirt.

He leans in and kisses you. It’s less of a kiss and more of pressing his lips lightly to yours, testing the unknown between the both of you. You’re afraid you might die of shock and the evidence of that must be plastered on your face because he says, “I’m sorry…” an unnecessary apology from his end, he lets out a deep sigh and begins pulling his hands away, “I should have asked I’m sorry.”

You pull on his shirt with one hand, hold the back of his neck with the other and move slightly on the fronts of your feet to make up for your difference in height and kiss him this time. It’s short and sweet and this time his face has a look of surprise, “Don’t apologize for something I’ve been wanting for years.”

The truth from both of you comes out. This time you kiss each other. It’s not one sided like the others before, now that there’s an understanding that you are both okay and that what is unfolding right now is also okay. Both of your hearts are swelling in your chests, and you swear you haven’t felt this much serotonin since you were a kid.

You guide him backwards and he sits on the bed up against the headboard. You straddle his lap and move up to make yourself comfortable and that’s when you discover the semi he was probably not expecting you to figure out so quickly. He pulls away breathless.

“Shit, shit I didn’t-didn’t mean too,” his face contorts “M’sorry.”

“Bakugo stop apologizing it’s okay, I’m okay, we are okay.” Your fingers play with his hair at the base of his skull in an attempt to soothe his nerves. “Katsuki.” He says, you give him a confused look, “I’wan you to call me Katsuki.”

“Katsuki,” you let out, he nods, you smile, “Call me y/n.”

He says your name and it’s the sweetest sound that your ears have ever heard. The softest melody even though his voice is deep and rough but that’s just a few of the many things that have drawn you to him.

You press forward and your lips are on his again. His hands are a heavy weight on your waist, someone’s touch has never made you feel so treasured and safe until this moment. Your weight shifts back again, and you make an experimental roll of your hips on his hard-on.

He gives your waist a little squeeze and that’s your cue to do it again and repeat. The light pressure on your clit feels good and you continue, his hips buck up and he lets out a soft moan onto your lips, your bodies now move in unison.

It’s getting too hot so you stop your movements and pull away. You take off your top and reveal your bareness to his ogling eyes. They burn your skin as he traces your figure with them. “You’re so pretty, y/n”

“So are you, Katsuki.” He leans forward and takes off his top as well. The freckles are still on his shoulders, where they have always existed. Your hands move across the plains of his abdomen and chest. All made of thick hard muscle, they move to his arms, you can tell he spends a lot of time on them, so he can use the full extent and power of his quirk without receiving too much damage. He just watches you enjoy yourself, his happiness comes in the form of your own.

“You can touch me too, Suki.” The little nickname pulls at his heart strings “I want you too.” And with that his hands make their way up the curve of your waist and your ribs, he gives you a little peck to your cheek and another to your lips and his hands finally reach your breasts. His touch is fanning the little flames of arousal that you have had for him since high school. You didn’t think it was possible to be more attracted to him than you were back then.

He cups the undersides and feels the plushness of them. “You’re so soft.” You kiss him again, you’re both feeling each other and getting quiet pleasures as your hips continue their ministrations.

He suddenly flips you on your back without ever breaking the dance of your lips moving across each other, he bites on your bottom lip and grinds down into you and you let out a little moan. You pull away red and embarrassed, how are you this worked up over a little kissing?

“That was cute.” He says with a smirk. “Yeah?” You asked, a genuine question made if your insecurities. “I’wanna see how many more of those I can get outta ya.”

He starts an assault of kisses, licks and nips down the span of your neck and continues down to your collarbones, chest and when he finally reaches your breasts, he tests the waters by licking your left nipple and toying with your right with his fingers.

You let out a series of breathless whines and whimpers as he continues to suck and nibble your breast. He switches and continues the other, working you up until you can hardly take it anymore, he finally relents.

He kisses down your sternum, stomach until he reaches the waistline of your shorts, “Can I take these off?” You give him a little nod and in return he raises a demanding brow, “Use your words y/n. I need…I don’t wanna overstep anything. I need you to tell me what’s okay and what’s not..alright?”

“Yeah, yeah you can take them off.” You say with a smile. He pulls your sleep shorts over your hips, the tops of your thighs and now they are completely off. He’s practically salivating at the sight of you.

Your hair is messed up and sprawled out on the pillow behind your head, pupils wide, lips bruised by his own and now there’s only one article of clothing standing in the way of seeing you in your entirety. The thought of that alone makes him impossibly harder.

He begins kissing the inside of your thighs, he sucks a spot that starts to feel tender and then kisses the waistline of your panties, “Wanna taste you.”

Your eyes widen and you can feel your heart rate pick up slightly, “Oh.” Is all you manage to respond with. Now it’s his turn to freak out, “Shit shit shit I’m sorry, I thought, thought you’ve done this before.”

“Oh, oh my god yeah I-I have it’s just…” you pause. He asks, “Just what..?”

“Nobody’s ever gone down on me before.” You hide your reddened face with your hands “Sorry, didn’t mean to kill the mood.” You let out a sigh of frustration.

“No no none of that, hey.” He pulls your hands away from your face and looks you in the eyes as he says, “Those other guys don’t know what their doin, but I do, if you’ll let me.” You take a moment to think over his words.

“Yeah, yeah ok.” He looks at your face searching for any signs of doubt and determines there isn’t any there.

He kisses your lips, slowly and sensually. He moves to your neck and collarbones leaving little love bites in their wake, between the valley of your breasts and continues down your stomach until he reaches the mound in between your legs.

“Can I take these off?” He asks, looking you in the eyes, “Yeah you can.” He grabs at the waistband of your panties and pulls them down your legs and tosses them into the pile where the rest of your clothing lies.

He’s scared his heart is going to give out from how fast it’s beating cause my god are you a sight to behold. He never imagined he would get so lucky, here with you in this moment that he will forever treasure close to his heart.

“Does everything about you have to be perfect?” He says with exasperation, with his thumb he starts to make light circles on your clit and kisses the inside of your thigh.

For now it’s enough to hold over the aching between your legs as you let out breathy whimpers. That is until he replaces his thumb with his tongue, the foreign sensation causing you to let you a high pitch moan.

“Fuck Katsuik, feels so good.” Your hips are attempting to buck up to find more friction, but his heavy hand is holding you down. He experimentally licks down into your pussy, and he pushes his tongue through. The act has you seeing stars in your eyes and then his two fingers replace his tongue, and it turns into constellations.

“God you're so wet for me princess.” His fingers continue pumping in and out of you and his tongue begins drawing circles on your clit. Your moans never cease to an end as the coil in your lower abdomen threatens to snap. “C’mon I know you wanna cum I can feel it.”

He continues talking through your pleasure causing your orgasm to finally break through. It has your thighs trembling around his head and hips stuttering. He slows down and finally pulls away, “There you go baby, such a good girl.”

He sucks his fingers clean of your essence and you swear you have never seen something so erotic in your entire life. You’re gaping at him in awe and he thinks its the cutest fucking expression he has ever seen on your face.

You pull him down to kiss you, you can taste yourself on his lips and it makes the moment so much hotter. You know you want him in his entirety right now. You pull away, “Katsuki, I want you.”

“You got me princess, I'm right here.” He gives you a sweet peck to your lips, “Yeah I just, fuck I want you inside me so bad, fuck me Katsuki, need you.”

“Fuck, really?” He can’t believe you want him how he wants you. In all the years he has been pining after you with no progress. “Yeah.” You say sweetly. There’s a confession at the tip of his tongue but he’s unable to let it spill out as the self doubt creeps in. What if you don’t reciprocate his love for you and you are only attracted to him physically?

Although he doubts himself, he will still take whatever you give, he will have you in whatever way you want him to. He would rather have a piece of you than lose you entirely.

“You have condoms?” He asks, you shake your head and his stomach drops, “It’s okay though, I’m on the pill, if that's okay with you of course?”

Relief washes over him, “Yeah, yeah that's good.” He gets up off the bed and strips off his sweatpants and briefs in one go, as you sit up and lean back on your hands. It's like a little show as you ogle at him, knowing what's about to come next.

He joins you on the bed and man handles you to straddle his thighs, “Want you to set the pace.”

He sees you look down at his dick as your eyes widen in surprise. You take it in your hand and give it a few languid pumps. It’s long and veiny and thick towards the tip which is leaking out onto your hand.

“Fuck…” He moans as he squeezes his eyes shut. You stop your movements, and he replaces your hand with his as you hover over him.

He feels for your entrance and slightly pushes in and with that you lower yourself down. You both curse in unison. It’s a wide stretch, but not too much to where it’s painful.

You start moving your hips up and down and after a few moments it starts to feel pleasurable. The room is filled with soft moans and the light slapping of skin upon skin. One of Bakugos hands leaves your hip in favor of giving your ass a loving squeeze.

“Fuck that’s it princess.” He smirks, “Doin so well for me, fuck you look so good.”

“Katsuki you feel-oh fuck-so good, so so good!” You cry out, you can feel yourself reaching the edge of your orgasm, but he flips you around and hikes one of your legs up onto his shoulders. He keeps the pace that you set in the previous position, working for you to cum before he does, you only deserve the best.

“Fuck you’re so pretty y/n, God look at you.” The praise leaves his mouth and before you can return it back, he kisses you again. It's a mix of tongue and clashing of teeth. Bakugo feels his orgasm catching up to him, so he reaches one hand down and begins drawing circles on your clit. You pull away from his kiss.

“Katsuki, fuck Im gonna cum.” You moan, “C’mon baby, you can do it just cum f’me.”

The sound of his voice pushes you over. You see a flash of white, your thighs are shaking around him and your breath hitches, your orgasm brings him to his own.

Everything slows down, it feels as though the world has halted its turn on its axis, just for the two of you. You bask in the glow of his post orgasmic face, at peace and looking at you with admiration. He kisses your lips softly and slowly, he pulls away and says your name.

“Yeah?” You ask and give him a peck, “I'm in love with you, and fuck I have been for so long now.” He visibly winces, scared that his feelings for you are not returned. Scared that you just wanted him for today and nothing more.

“Katsuki, I’m in love with you.” You smile up at him and see a proud smug ass face plastered onto him.

visit my: masterlist

[eddywoww]

Ok a fic idea I’ve been stewing on for a while but am never actually going to write so I’m just gonna word vomit it here:

Eddie & Robbin bond over queer culture/ how hard it is being queer in Hawkins. Steve keeps trying to invite himself when they watch Rocky Horror or go to a gay club in Indianapolis. Robbin and Eddie think this is Steve just jealous that they’re hanging out without him so they keep saying “…no offense but this is really just a thing for gay people, it’s not for you cuz ~everything else~ is for you and this ~one thing~ is for us“. And Steve looks a little embarrassed and eventually stops asking, and they think Steve is finally getting some ally points™️.

But THEN a few months later they go to the gar bar again and Steve is already there, and at first they’re like “ugh I thought Steve understood how important gay safe spaces are to us” but then looking at his body language and where his eyes land… it doesn’t seem like he’s just observing? He starts chatting with the bartender who he definitely seems familiar with, and then he starts talking with a guy who approaches him and yeah, Steve is definitely not just observing. Steve and the guy start making out and Eddie and Robbin’s jaws are on the fucking floor at this point. The guy whispers something in Steve’s ear and leaves for the bathroom, Steve following a minute later.

Cue Eddie and Robbin having the most hushed freak-out session in the middle of the bar where they realize Steve’s attempts to join them might not have been Straight Steve™️ trying to butt his way into queer spaces, but Steve trying to figure out his own sexuality. And while Eddie and Robbin had each other the whole time, Steve had to figure out this shit all by himself. & it’s even worse for Eddie (who has had a low key crush on King Steve ever since high school) because he realizes he possibly could have had the opportunity to be Steve’s first for a lot of things, and instead he’s doing who-knows-what with some stranger (who. isn’t. Eddie.) in a seedy bathroom bar (never mind that’s very similar to how Eddie figured everything out himself a few years prior). But then he feels shit about even feeling angry/jealous in the first place because of how exclusionary they’ve been to Steve. So Robbin is panicking, Eddie is seething but trying super hard not to be, and suddenly Steve walks out of the bathroom, with a few more hickies than he came in with and looking, for lack of a better word, well fucked.

And then Steve looks to his right and they all make eye contact.

We love figuring yourself out 🥰 I think it sounds like a very funny cute idea !!!!

[sequinsmile-x]

umm requests for touching 10, 16, 24, 52 and make it slutty for me xo

of course bestie!!

The prompts are:

Touching 10/16/24/52: spooning at night / massaging them / whispering in their ear, lips touching the skin / gripping thigh

This...got away from me. Massively. And I am not sorry.

(This might actually be the smuttiest thing I have ever written so I am a little anxious about it!)

-x-

Precarious

She wondered if this was what madness felt like.

Words: 4k

Warnings: Smut, 18+

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

She missed him.

It felt ridiculous really. She worked with him. Lived with him. Slept next to him. But she missed him. The want and need for her husband thrumming under her skin in a way she could no longer ignore. 

It had been over two months since they’d been together. A quick fuck in the shower before they left for work that morning, taking some much-needed time between the two of them on a rare occasion when the kids were all still asleep. If she closed her eyes she could still feel the way he’d held her close, his wet skin slipping against hers as they tried to keep quiet. If she’d known it would have been their last time for a while, their longest dry spell since they’d together including after she’d had their two youngest children, she would have tried harder to convince him to stay in the shower for another round that morning. 

His phone had distracted him, the ringing from their bedroom drawing his attention back towards work and the case that would end up with her dislocating her shoulder. Aaron had never been one to follow medical advice for himself, but if it was for her or the kids he followed it to the letter. Meaning, much to her irritation, when the doctor explained that ‘strenuous activity’ included sex she knew he’d take it seriously. 

Emily had hoped that when her doctor gave her the all-clear they’d be good to go, but then Violet caught the flu at school. The five-year-old had been miserable, sleeping in between her parents for days, snuggled up into her mother’s side as she fought off the fever she inevitably passed on to both of her brothers. 

Now everyone was better and back to sleeping in their own rooms, Emily was starting to feel frustrated. No longer distracted by the pain in her shoulder that had been worse than she’d admitted to Aaron, or her sick children, all she could think about was how much she really, really needed to have sex with her husband. 

“Jack is distracting the hotchkins with his video game,” Aaron says as he walks into their bedroom, already undoing his tie as he walks towards their closet to change out of his work clothes, the very same thing she’d come in here to do only a few minutes earlier. She smiles at the use of the nickname Penelope had given their younger children as soon as she’d met Violet for the first time. 

“Pen would be delighted to know you call them that when she isn’t around,” she says pulling her sweatpants over her hips before she sits on the edge of the bed. 

Aaron chuckles, “Please don’t tell her, it will only encourage her to do it more.” 

“Your secret is safe with me,” she says, smiling up at him as he continues to change. She doesn’t try to hide the fact she’s watching him, and can’t suppress her groan when he takes off his shirt, quickly replacing it with a t-shirt. He turns to look at her, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Are you ok, sweetheart?” 

She briefly considers telling him, but she knows they won’t really have time. That both of them being upstairs would only lead to one thing - one of their children yelling for them. 

“I’m ok,” she replies, forcing a smile she knows he sees through, “It’s just been a long day.” 

He stares at her for a second before he walks over to the bed, sitting behind her on the mattress. He places his hand on her shoulder, the one she’d injured only a couple of months prior, and feels the tension in her whole body.

“Is your shoulder bothering you?” He asks, starting to massage her shoulder, and moving along the top of her back, his thumbs finding knots in the base of her neck. 

She barely suppresses a groan, her head dipping forward subconsciously to give him more access to her skin. 

“No, not my shoulder,” she breathes out, shivering as his familiar touch makes goose pimples spread across her body. 

Aaron doesn’t miss the tightness in her voice, or how her body gets impossibly tense beneath his palms. 

“Em-”

“Aaron, I swear to god you’ve got to stop touching me,” she snaps, every nerve hanging on by a thread, ready to snap if his hands so much as drifted any further down. She feels his hands fall away from her, and she sighs, guilt pooling in her belly at the hurt on his face, calming the fire of arousal that had started to build, “Fuck,” she mutters under her breath, reaching out for his hand and linking their fingers together, “I’m sorry. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just…a little on edge.” 

He squeezes her hand in his and shakes his head, a silent promise that her apology was unnecessary. “Anything I can help with?” 

She chuckles dryly, “Absolutely. If we ever find the goddamn time.” 

One thing they’d both always loved about their relationship was how much they understood each other, how much went unsaid. She sees the moment the penny drops, his eyes widening slightly as he fails to hide a smirk from her. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah,” she replies, “I miss you. That’s all.” 

He smiles at her, and leans forward to kiss her, his lips firm against hers, “I miss you too.” 

She gets lost in it. Lets herself get caught up in the wave of his affection, in him. She can taste the decaf coffee they’d shared on the drive home from work on his tongue as it sweeps past her lips, and she’s only brought back to reality when she feels a groan vibrate through her chest. 

“Aaron,” she mutters, her protests lost for a second as he chases her lips, “Honey, the kids are just downstairs. It’s almost dinner time.” 

He pulls back, his eyes dark with lust, and she realises in that moment he’s wanted this just as much as she has. He’d always been better at hiding it, something he attributed to having to pretend he wasn’t attracted to her since the moment they met. 

“I’d say,” he replies, leaning in to press his lips to the collum of her throat, “we have maybe 10 minutes,” he moves his kisses up to her jaw, “I can do a lot with 10 minutes.” 

She moans, turning her head to capture his lips before he can kiss her cheek, her response in how fiercely she kisses him. How tightly she wraps her hands into his hair. He pins her to the bed, his familiar weight over her enough to make her almost lose her mind by itself. He grasps at her skin, his hand working it's way up inside her t-shirt, palming at her breast, muffling words about how perfect she is against her lips, before he moves back downwards, aware that time was of the essence even when he was drunk on her. 

His hand slips below the waistband of her sweatpants, his warm skin scorching against hers. He’s barely pushing past her underwear, his fingers grazing her clit, when they are torn abruptly from the haze they’d fallen into. 

“Mommy!” 

They pull back from each other so quickly they bang their heads into each other, both groaning in pain as they sit up, his hand leaving her sweatpants just in time before their 5-year-old daughter bursts into the room, fury all over her face. 

“What’s wrong, Vi?” Emily asks, thinking it is nothing short of a miracle that she isn’t breathless. 

“Benny took my controller and he won’t give it back.” 

Emily sighs, standing up and walking over to her daughter, “Benny is 3, honey. He doesn’t always understand what sharing is.” 

Violet pouts, grumbling under her breath as she often did when it came to her younger brother Benjamin. 

“It’s not fair.” 

“I know, sweet girl,” Emily says, picking her up and heaving her onto her hip, “But he’s not doing it to be mean.” 

Violet sighs but nods, “I’m hungry.” 

Emily suppresses a smile at the fickle nature of a 5-year-old, how her previous upset was almost already forgotten. 

“Me too,” she looks over at her husband, not missing how the bastard subtly wipes his hand on his sweatpants as he stands up, “Daddy was just about to start on dinner.” 

“We’re not going out?” Violet asks, and Emily shakes her head, turning to leave the room so she could head downstairs to find out what her sons were up to.

“No, baby,” she mutters, “No one will be eating out tonight.” ___

If anything, the interrupted moment in their bedroom the night before makes her even more frustrated. They’d never got round to finishing off what they’d started, the night disappearing quickly as it always did into bedtime routines and the promise of ‘just one more’ story. 

It wasn’t even like work helped because he was there. Looking far too sexy and serious in his suit as he sat at his desk. She’d never wished that her desk wasn’t facing his office before, but she finds herself just staring at him through the slats of the blinds, distracted by memories of how he’d fucked her, more than once, on the desk he was currently doing paperwork on. 

She briefly thinks about going up to try and convince him that they should revisit their old ways again, but she knows he was better at resisting her at work ever since Dave had walked in on them in the supply closet. She growls to herself and grabs her mug off her desk, welcoming the brief distraction from her husband as she walks to the kitchen to get a coffee. 

She reaches for the jug of decaf, knowing full well the last thing she needed was for there to be as much caffeine in her system as there was lust, when Derek approaches her, a sparkle in his eyes that she has no time for. 

“You ok, Em? You seem a little on edge.” 

“I’m fine,” she replies, ripping the top off of two packets of Splenda with more force than necessary. 

He hums, watching her carefully, and she’s never been so frustrated to be surrounded by profilers all the time. 

“Sure. That’s exactly how a fine person would say that.” 

She sighs, knowing her irritation is unreasonable, and she stirs her coffee with force, “Just leave it please, Derek.” 

“You not getting any or something? You haven’t been this wound up since before you and Hotch got together,” he comments, and she hates that she has a momentary reaction and that he sees it. “Oh my god-”

“Derek, I swear-”

“Is that what the problem is, you aren’t getting laid? Bossman holding out on you?” 

She clenches her teeth, finally stopping stirring her coffee and she looks at him, “It has been…a little while. Between my shoulder injury, the kids getting sick and just…having a family.” 

He leans against the counter, still smirking at her, but his eyes are softer, not so much of his previous teasing on display.

“He hides it better than you, but he’s frustrated too.” 

She frowns, tilting her head slightly as she looks at him, “What do you mean?” 

“Let’s just say he’s been sparring a lot more than usual down in the gym the last couple of months. And he’s even grumpier than usual.” 

“He’s not grumpy,” she says, always ready to defend her husband. 

“Yes. He is. And so are you,” Derek says, his mischief returning, “So, and I speak on behalf of the entire BAU when I say this, please make sure you do something about it,” he shivers slightly, his nose scrunching up, “It’s almost worse than when the two of you were pretending you weren’t in love with each other.” 

She rolls her eyes and walks away with her coffee without further comment. She spends the rest of the day struggling to do paperwork and avoiding her friend’s amused gaze.

___

Emily stays behind after everyone else, including Aaron, leaves. 

She claims it’s to finish her paperwork. Which was partially true, since she’d spent most of the day unable to focus, but she also just needs some space. 

She gets caught in traffic and goes home via a drive-thru, and by the time she parks up on the driveway, she knows the kids will be ready for bedtime. 

She’s confused when she walks through the door and finds it’s silent, a rare commodity in their home. She’s about to call out, to find where her family is, when Aaron rounds the corner, his finger to his lips as he silently shushes her. 

“Where are our children?” She asks quietly, letting him help her out of her coat, his fingers trailing down her arms, “You didn’t sell them did you?” 

He rolls his eyes at her, “No,” he replies, holding her steady as she takes her shoes off, “Violet and Benny are both asleep, and Jack is at a sleepover with his friends.” 

She nods, remembering the evening her eldest had been looking forward to for weeks, “He’s going to be so tired when he gets back tomorrow. I can’t believe you got them to sleep.” 

“I may have bribed them with a visit to the zoo tomorrow.” He says, shrugging and she shakes her head at him, but melts into him as he wraps his arms around her, his hand on her back, his fingers grazing the belt line of her pants. He leans in to kiss her, pulling back when he tastes salt on her lips, “Did you eat?” 

She bites her lip to stop herself from smiling, “I may have come home via Mcdonald's.” 

He shakes his head lovingly at her, his usual chastisement that she should eat healthier nowhere to be found.

“Good,” he says instead, kissing her again before he turns her, following her closely as he walks them to the stairs with his hands on her hips, “It will save us some time.” 

He doesn’t stop touching her the entire journey to their bedroom, his hands on her hips and his lips attached to her neck. As soon as they are in their room, the door gently closed behind them so they don’t wake up the kids, she turns in his arms, kissing him fiercely as she lets herself get led to the bed, the back of her legs hitting it. 

The tiny bit of control he has left snaps as she whimpers, and he reaches for the buttons of her shirt. Before he can consider undoing them slowly, teasing her like he had spent the evening planning to, she pushes his hands away, tearing her own shirt apart, the button scattering across the floor. 

“Keen, are we?” He chuckles against her lips, pushing the now ruined shirt down her arms, letting it fall to the floor. 

“Shut up and take your fucking clothes off,” she replies, already taking off her bra and reaching for the fastenings on her pants. He does as he’s asked, taking little care with his clothes for once, his desperation for her overriding any concerns about how everything would be creased. 

She sits on the edge of the bed when she’s naked, and he smiles down at her, his body thrumming with want, and he leans down to kiss her, encouraging her further up the bed until they reach the pillows. He wastes no time in pushing her thighs apart, a sense of pride he knows she’d kill him for if he voiced it spreading through his chest when he sees how wet she already is. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, smiling up at her, shifting up to kiss her cheek, feeling the heat of her skin against him, “I’ve barely touched you.”

“Aaron, I swear to go-” She’s cut off as he swipes his finger over her clit, drawing sharp circles around her in a way that takes her breath away. “Fuck.” 

He builds her up almost giving her no time to breathe, and if it was any other situation, if desperation for him wasn’t flowing through her veins, she would be embarrassed at how quickly she comes. 

“So beautiful,” he mutters, kissing her neck, his fingers never stopping their small movements over her clit, not letting her come all the way back down, “So beautiful and all mine,” he says, kissing down her body, smiling as she twitches against him. 

He presses two fingers into her and she can’t do anything other than whimper, her fingers tightening in his hair as he settles between her legs, his shoulders pushing her thighs further apartment. He moves his fingers in and out of her, always pressing in just the right places, slowing her back up as if she’d ever fully recovered from her orgasm just minutes before. 

He places his other hand on her stomach, firmly holding her in place as she tries to roll her hips.  She struggled to look at his hands sometimes at work. Couldn’t look at his fingers wrapped around a gun, the Glock always looking like a toy in his hands, without thinking about how easily he could take her apart. 

Aaron kisses the inside of her thigh, sucking a mark near the apex of them, a token for her carry for days after this. He smiles as he feels her trembling, one hand buried in his hair and the other grasping the comforter below her, and he shifts just enough to lick through her, his tongue against her clit working in tandem with his fingers, increasing the pace in which he moves them in and out of her. 

She feels it start to build inside of her, warmth sparking in her stomach, a fire spreading throughout her entire body, “Fuck, Aaron, baby, I’m going to-”

“Do it,” he mutters, barely pulling away from her so she can hear him, “come.”

She wouldn’t have been able to stop it if she’d wanted to, her entire body tensing, her thighs tight around his head as she does as he’s told her. It takes a few seconds for her vision to clear, and when it does he’s laying next to her, a smirk on his face. 

“You look far too pleased with yourself,” she says, pulling him in for a kiss, tasting herself on his lips. 

“I’m not done yet,” he replies, kissing her once more before he encourages her to lay on her side. He moulds his body behind hers, every part of her pressed up against a part of him. He grabs her thigh and lifts it, pulling it back to lay over his, and he groans as he notches against her, feeling the slick wetness he’d left between her thighs. “Shit, Em.” 

“Please,” she mutters, sure that this was what madness must feel like, and she breathes out relief as he pushes forward, entering her slowly. 

She groans at the sensation, the position making the usual stretch of him feel bigger than usual, as if he could push her to her limit. 

“You feel so fucking good, sweetheart,” he says, his face buried into her shoulder, “Like you were made for me.” He starts to thrust, sure if he didn’t move he’d embarrass himself like he was a teenager having his first fumble with his girlfriend. 

Emily gasps, reaching back for him, her hand grasping for something, anything to hold onto. She ends up tangling her fingers in his hair, and turns to look at him, ignoring the pull in her neck as she kisses him, wanting as much of him as she can get. 

He grips her thigh tighter, enough that he’s sure there will be bruises from his fingertips tattooed across her skin the morning. A secret between the two of them beneath her clothes, evidence that she was his. He grunts as he starts to thrust harder, and she moans, pulling away from the kiss as she turns her head back, pushing her face partially into the pillow in an attempt to stay quiet. He reaches round and presses his finger against her clit, smiling into her neck as he rubs small circles against her and she barely conceals a whine. 

“You’ve got to be quiet, sweetheart,” he whispers, his lips against her ear. His breath skips across her skin as his hand reaches for her breast, pinching her nipple, another assault on her senses that pushes her closer to the edge, “If they wake up we’ll have to stop.” 

She whines again, lifting her hand to her mouth to cover it, sure if they had to stop she would go mad. 

“Aaron,” she mumbles, her words muffled against her skin, “so close.” 

He presses his forehead against the top of her head, suppressing his own groan as she gets impossibly tighter around him, both of them on the precipice. 

“You’re fucking perfect,” he says, speeding up the circles he was drawing around her clit, “Let go, Em,” he whispers, his rhythm starting to falter as she comes around him, his name a whine against her palm. The way she clenches around him is all he needs to join her, coming deep inside of her as he smothers a growl in her neck. 

They lay there for a moment, both trying to catch their breath, before she laughs, disentangling herself from him enough to turn to look at him, lamenting as he slips out of her. She kisses him, her hand on his cheek as she holds him in place, her forehead against his when she pulls back. 

“That was…” she chuckles again, “Well, I’d say if that's what it’s like if we wait so long we should do it again. But I think I’d go insane.” 

“Me too,” he replies, kissing her, pulling her impossibly closer, “I think it would drive the rest of the team crazy as well.” 

She smiles, but it fades, turning into confusion, “What do you mean?” 

“Derek said something to me today,” he says, smoothing her hair out of her face before he kisses her once more, standing to go get into the shower before they settled into bed. 

“He said something to me too,” she replies, her body still buzzing in a way she’s unable to feel embarrassed, she stretches, her body aching in delicious ways as she follows him to the bathroom, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was trying to win a bet…” she drifts off, her eyes meeting her husband’s as it clicks in her head, “Oh that fucker.” 

___

It doesn’t escape her how pleased with himself Derek looks on Monday. A smirk he doesn’t even try to cover on his face as all of the team looks at her and Aaron when they arrive, the rest of them rolling their eyes. 

She catches him outside Penelope’s office, counting a pile of bills in his hand. 

“I think I’ll take that thank you,” she says, snatching it from him, quickly counting through his winnings. 

“Hey, that’s mine.” 

She raises an eyebrow at him and hands him back half the money, pocketing the rest of it herself. “I think you’ll find Aaron and I did the work.” 

He grimaces slightly, “Gross, Princess,” he says, scrunching up his nose, “And only because I encouraged you.” 

She laughs, “Please, it’s like you don’t know me at all. I was, at most, a day away from mounting Aaron somewhere. Even if it would have counted as public indecency.” 

He shakes his head, “It is Monday morning, Em.” 

“What?” She says, smiling widely, finding joy in how scandalised he seems, “You don’t want to talk about my sex life anymore? You were more than happy to on Friday.” He shakes his head again and starts to walk away. “Thanks for the money, Morgan. I think I might put it towards some lingerie.” 

He doesn’t look back, and she laughs, turning to find her husband standing only a few paces away from her. He smiles and winks at her before turning away and heading back to his office. 

It was going to be a good day. 

-x-

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[tomorrowusa]

I suspect that the vegetative MAGA crowd is showing the effects of Long COVID on their memories. They have forgotten that Trump's horribly botched response to the pandemic triggered a recession and caused unemployment to spike. Let's not even get into the death toll for 2020.

Sore LOSER Trump left office on 20 January 2021. The 12 months prior to that consisted of one disaster after another.

Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman looked at "Trump-stalgia".

The Peculiar Persistence of Trump-stalgia

Soaring deaths aside, four years ago more than 20 million Americans were unemployed; Trump left office with the worst job record of any president since Herbert Hoover. Also, the country was in the grip of a violent crime wave, with murders soaring. Today, by contrast, we’ve just experienced the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 percent since the 1960s, and the violent crime wave — Trump didn’t cause it, but it did happen on his watch — has been rapidly receding. [ ... ] One common explanation of Trump-stalgia is that many people give the former president a mulligan for 2020, attributing all the bad things that happened in his final year to the Covid pandemic (and ignoring the extent to which Trump’s botched response to the pandemic added to the death toll). That is, when they say “four years ago” they actually mean “before the pandemic.” That surely explains part of what’s going on. But there are also problems with this story. If Trump gets a pass for the economic and social damage inflicted by the pandemic, why shouldn’t Biden get a similar pass for problems that manifested on his watch but surely reflected delayed effects of Covid disruptions? For example, ripple effects of the pandemic clearly explain a lot of the inflation surge of 2021-22. How do we know this? Because prices rose almost everywhere. Different nations measure inflation somewhat differently, but if you look at the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices, which is available for a number of countries, you find that cumulative inflation since the beginning of the pandemic has been almost eerily similar in the United States and in Europe. Also, Trump boosters aren’t consistent about sending 2020 down the memory hole. Trump claimed that he presided over gasoline prices of less than $2 a gallon, but this was true only for a couple of months in 2020 — a period when global oil prices were low because the pandemic had the world economy flat on its back.

Trump can't get away from his pandemic catastrophe. Telling Americans to drink bleach, take ineffective malaria pills, and stick ultraviolet lights up their butts certifies him as a two-bit quack. And it took him 50 days after the first COVID-19 case appeared in the US before he declared an emergency. Remember his infamous January 22nd comments on CNBC?

It wasn't "just fine".

As for now, feelings haven't caught up with the facts.

Trump-stalgia is undoubtedly a powerful force. Biden helped lead us through a time of turmoil — much of which happened even before he took office — to a pretty good place, with very low unemployment, fairly low inflation and falling crime. But many Americans seem unaware of the good news; for example, the drop in crime doesn’t appear to have broken through to public consciousness at all. And there seems to be a romanticized vision of what things were like under Biden’s predecessor, which somehow omits the terrible things that happened in 2020. So are you better off than you were four years ago? For most Americans, the answer is clearly yes. But for reasons that still remain unclear, many seem disinclined to believe it.

Good news is seldom reported. And when it does occur these days, you absolutely won't hear it on Fox News.

One thing that's certainly worse now is the situation regarding reproductive freedom. Roe v. Wade got overturned by the US Supreme Court in 2022. Though if Hillary Clinton had made those three appointments to SCOTUS instead of Donald Trump, Roe v. Wade would have been upheld by a 7 to 2 vote instead of being tossed.

Remind people (repeatedly!) of who appointed the SCOTUS justices who made abortion nearly impossible in many states. In an age of short attention spans and low information voters, don't assume that everybody knows. Trump bragged about killing Roe v. Wade – his influence lives on through his awful appointments to the federal courts.

Most Americans probably couldn't pass those simplistic civics tests given to wannabe new citizens. Patiently explains how the system works – or is supposed to.

Even when times are good, people will still find stuff to complain about. As the late author Randall Jarrell wrote: "The people who live in a Golden Age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks."

Though this may not exactly be a "golden age", it beats avoidable pandemic dystopia, a coup attempt, and dreadful appointments to the federal courts. And it's certainly superior to having Trump back as a sleazy dictator on day one.